Episode 39: Animalistic Stabfest

TONIGHT ON MURDER, SHE WROTE, we head to Alabama for a cozy mystery full of nooses, hobo fires, multiple stab wounds, pointy bullets, vigilantism, racial bias, and infidelity. It's a doozy this week as Viktor and Petra deconstruct one of the least "fun" episodes of the season, but it's not without merit and satisfying performances from multiple guest stars, particularly from Pat Corley and Dorian Harewood. When Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) joins a friend (Craig Stevens) to "happenstance" visit an old flame, it quickly becomes apparent that more is going on in this small town than expected. The flame's son (Brian Lane Green) is an aspiring musician with a bully who ends up dead. Naturally, he's the main suspect, and when the sheriff (Harewood) fails to immediately publicly execute him, the townspeople get awful mad. Jessica finds herself in the middle of trying to prove who really committed the murder, how, and where... because none of what the grisly scene provides makes sense.  Find out with us what slurs and inferences CBS deemed appropriate in 1986 as we roll out this POWDER KEG; also featuring Jackie Earle Haley, Larry Wilcox, and Stuart Whitman.