Just One More Thing: The Conspirators

Notes and screenshots for The Conspirators: Originally broadcast on May 13, 1978, starring Clive Revill as a guy in two TV movies at once, LQ Jones as the world's greatest RV salesman and, of course, Peter Falk as Columbo.

"An Irish poet and writer who's also an undercover Irish Republican Army agent murders an arms dealer in Los Angeles who has turned traitorous. Lieutenant Columbo investigates."

-IMDB Summary

"The final episode produced for Columbo‘s original run, “The Conspirators” has Irish poet Joe Devlin (Clive Revill) brokering an arms deal to send an RV-load (literally!) of machine guns to the IRA. When he shoots the dealer over a perceived betrayal, he not only has to cover up the crime, but also figure how to get his hands on those guns. Columbo is in a race against time, drinking pints and shots and slinging limericks, to prove Devlin did it and prevent the weapons from leaving Los Angeles. Steven Goss (Columbo Interiors, Robophono) joins Jon and RJ to talk about an odd end to the original series."

-RJ's episode summary

Listen to the original podcast episode here:

Episode 49: So the Jail He Broke Outta He’s in Again with our guest Steven Goss.

The Conspirators

Season 7, Episode #5

Director: Leo Penn

Writers: Pat Robison, Howard Berk

We are torn, all of us, on this episode. I still maintain that there’s no forgiving the pacing and the structure. However you choose to look at it, the episode avoided highs and lows like the plague, choosing to cruise through the middle in an even line. Not a lot of shocks and thrills in The Conspirators, as it were. 

But oh, Revill and Falk. These two work together absolutely beautifully, to the degree where inorganic dialogue (”And that’ll be the end of the world”) and a wan murder plot (has any Columbo killer ever been caught quicker and on flimsier evidence) paled in comparison to their chemistry. That Columbo was only added to the script as an afterthought (or, more accurately, that The Conspirators was preprended as finished product) underlines the genuine shame of this episode – we could’ve had MORE Devlin and Columbo.

The padding in this episode was … just weird. You can’t fault them the sequences with L.Q.Jones and his RVs full of guns, as that was merely colorful, even if it was drawn out a tetch. The bookstore and the banjo murdering, that’s another matter altogether. 

And, of course, this was the last episode of Columbo filmed before the show went on its decade-long hiatus. It was ultimately broadcast penultimately, with “Make Me A Perfect Murder” actually closing the series’ original run.  

Next episode: Columbo Goes to the Guillotine