Just One More Thing

Next time, it’ll be Season Five’s “Now You See Him,” with Jack Cassidy doing his slimy best as a murderous magician. Yes, it is a do-over, for obvious reasons. Joining us will be Leigh Beadon (techdirt.com). It’s available on Netflix Instant and DVD.

“The Most Crucial Game” has ace Columbo foe Robert Culp as the frustrated manager of a sports team empire. When he sees a chance to kill the heir to the family business, he dresses as an ice cream man and puts the party animal on ice. But, not for any real motive that we can actually determine. The episode has a lot of things going for it- beautiful direction, great performances, nice individual scenes, a good score, but the parts just don’t quite come together. Author Glen Erik Hamilton (Past Crimes, Hard Cold Winter) is on the program to pick out just why it all doesn’t seem to add up.

It’s a Robert Culp! In this season two episode, he’s the day-to-day manager of a sports empire owned by dissolute heir Dean Stockwell. For hazy reasons, Culp kills the guy and, well, the episode just looks awful pretty, okay? Author Glen Erik Hamilton (Past Crimes, Hard Cold Winter) joins Jon and RJ to break it all down.

In “A Matter of Honor,” Ricardo Montalban plays Luis Montoya, a legendary matador and one of Mexico’s national heroes. When, retirement, he freezes up when trying to save a young man from being gored, he cannot let the potential humiliation stand, opting to instead murder the trusted assistant who witnessed the incident. Wouldn’t you know it, though- Lt. Columbo just happens to be visiting Mexico that very day and is unofficially roped into the investigation by the local police. Laura Coleman is on the program to talk about the episode, bullfighting, the amazing career of Emilio Fernandez and oh, so much more.

When you’re one of Mexico’s national heroes, it just doesn’t do to have someone going about who has witnessed your act of true cowardice. That’s just the problem revered matador Ricardo Montalban faces in season five’s “A Matter of Honor,” and he finds no way out except murder. Laura Coleman (farrahda5hy.tumblr.com) joins Jon and RJ to discuss. The episode is available on Netflix Instant and DVD.

When a best selling author tries to leave Riley Greenleaf’s (played by Jack Cassidy) publishing company, the smooth, smarmy operator sees no choice but to have the writer killed, then blow up the creep he hired to do the deed. “Publish or Perish” is the last Jack Cassidy Columbo episode we’ll be covering, and it’s a doozy. Mickey Spillane! Bomb-making books! Bad interior design! Chili with catsup! Alan Fudge! The Valley! Leonard Pierce (leonardpierce.com) returns to the podcast to give it all a good look-over.

Our next episode is a Jack Cassidy one! He plays a sleazy publisher who hires a bomb freak to murder Mickey Spillane (really) and then kills the killer. It’s a darn good one, and Leonard Pierce comes back to the podcast to talk all about it. If you’d like to check it beforehand, it’s on DVD and Netflix Instant.

Four our forty-first show, we look at the series’ last, “Columbo Likes the Nightlife.” In it, we find Columbo bumping up against a world of Mafia sons, rave promoters, sleazy tabloid reporters and pastiches of late 90s-early 2000s indie murder films. Here’s the crazy thing- this final attempt to bring Columbo into the 21st century? It kind of works! Zack Handlen (The AV Club) returns to the show to talk about how something that could have gone off the rails actually holds together pretty well.

For our forty-first show, we invite Zack Handlen (The AV Club) back to talk about Columbo’s last one, “Columbo Likes the Nightlife.” This 2003 final bow has Crystal Method songs, actors from future hits Lost and The Sopranos, and Matthew Rhys (The Americans) as the killer! The episode is available on DVD.

What do you do when you’re the host of a wildly popular crime show and a rival finds evidence of your past career in “party films”? Well, if you’re George Hamilton in “Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health,” you kill the guy with spiked cigarettes and hope no one notices. Well, Lt. Columbo notices. Aaron Bleyaert (Conan, How to Lose Weight in Four Easy Steps), our very own foul-mouthed Charles Grodin, returns to the podcast to gloat over how utterly not-good this episode is. Honestly, though, we do start get to some awfully good points about 25 minutes in. We swear.