Just One More Thing: Grand Deceptions

Notes and screenshots for Grand Deceptions: Originally broadcast on May 1, 1989, starring a couple guys you'd recognize from guest appearances on M*A*S*H and Night Court, four guys credited only as "Military Man," and, of course, Peter Falk as Columbo.

"The head of a private paramilitary organization who's been embezzling funds from the institute murders a colleague who's been investigating him while devising a watertight alibi. Lieutenant Columbo's task is to dismantle the alibi."

-IMDB Summary

"It’s like the old saying: Sometimes, it’s not enough to stab a guy; you also have to blow him up. At least, that seems to be the thought in “Grand Deceptions,” a confusing late Columbo set at a military think tank which also trains mercenaries on the side. Oh, and illegally runs arms. When he’s not busy shaking yarrow sticks, Frank Brailey, the think tank’s head, diverts millions of dollars from the foundation in the off hours he’s not busy cheating with the wife of his boss, an esteemed retired general. When one of Brailey’s subordinates catches wind of his many, many irons in the fire, that’s when the stab/blowup twofer happens. Call in Lt. Columbo who observes the chain of evidence one moment, while straight-up stealing documents the next. All in all, its a weird mix that never quite gets there and the panel is left wondering exactly who the heck this was for and what it was trying to say. Guests Jennifer Wright (Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them) and Daniel Kibblesmith (Late Show with Stephen Colbert) return for this, the 50th show."

-RJ's episode summary

Listen to the original podcast episode here:

Episode 50: A Private Place, for Romantic Meetings with our guests Jennifer Wright and Daniel Kibblesmith.

Grand Deceptions

Season 8, Episode #4

Director: Sam Wanamaker

Writer: Sy Salkowitz

This is a really hard one to address in any substantive manner. It’s a baffling episode, a concatenation of some of the least Columbo-like moments that the show has provided so far, with a few exceptions (Underworld, most notably, although All In The Game is a close second). Nonetheless, it’s still adhering to the Columbo formula sufficiently so that it feels like continuity has been maintained.

We covered most of the more absurd and outstanding moments of the episode on the podcast, and it’s difficult to think of anything we failed to discuss but would otherwise shed any sort of light on what was going on here.

I prefer to think of this one as Columbo crashing into a long-running primetime soap opera -- one of those things where everyone had been around so long that the plots were wearing thin and all the players were in permanent scowl mode. And then, Columbo crashed into it so hard that it ended up pushing the soap opera into some show about a weird guy with a Civil War fetish. And then it ended up in Ultimate Beastmaster. There, I’ve summarized it, I just leave it to you to unpack the confusing metaphor ...

Above, a tribute to the overacting supporting characters of this episode: The General’s butler (I dunno who played him), Tanzer (Michael McManus), and Marcia (Lynn Clark). And, lest you think I consider overacting to be a bad thing, let me reassure you that I loved all of these performances. Marcia was a particularly engaging f--kup of a human being. (Grand Deceptions)

Next episode: Murder: A Self Portrait