Crime must be taking a vacation in the Cove this week, because Our Heroine is in Seattle giving lectures to uni students and hanging out with Peter Graves Dr Edmund Gerard. Somewhat strangely she rocks up at Seattle airport with a Chinese baby that she hands over to some nuns first, which I”m sure had an amazing MacGyver-like back story, but I guess we’ll never know. Job done, Jess and Edmund pay a quick visit to Edmund’s office to arrange for his secretary/adorer to find Jess a secretary while she’s in Seattle. JB works hard for the money.
Later than night, Jess gets a knock on her door. Someone has come to apply for the secretarial position…
Captain Susspants, or David Tolliver as he is apparently known, offers to show JB his ‘skills’ which amazingly isn’t code, although he does tell Jess that he is fast and accurate…
Jess is convinced by his dazzling array of skills and tells him to come at 10am. (Also not code, at least I hope. Despite his shorthand technique, HE’S A CREEPY WEIRDO, I JUST KNOW IT).
The next day, Jess gives the first of her university lectures, which naturally go off with a bang.
Flushed with her own success, Jess goes home to find Captain Susspants curled up on the couch reading a book. He decides that it’s a special occasion, and that they should go out for dinner. JB politely declines, saying that she couldn’t handle pizza and beer, or whatever students eat (to which I say, bullshit. I have a feeling JB could out drink EVERYONE IN THE WORLD). Captain Susspants says he’d rather eat at some ritzy French restaurant. “Can you afford that?” Asks our heroine.
“No, but you can.” Says Captain Susspants.
CHEEKY MONKEY. For reasons I can’t quite fathom, Jess finds this freeloading sleazebucket charming, and so they go off to Chateau Foux de Fafa, or whatever French restaurants were called in 1984. Captain Susspants puts the moves on our gal, but she’s far too classy a dame to get fooled by his grubby ways. (At least, I hope so. I refer you to the second photo in this post).
Back at the hotel, any shenanigans the Captain might have been planning are FORTUITOUSLY THWARTED by the arrival of one of Seattle’s finest, who wants Susspants to go down to the precinct for questioning over the recent death of a lady named Alison Brevard. Afterwards, he tells Jess that there’s nothing to worry about, she was just some old duck he knew. Jess accepts this, but also notices that the police do a really crap tail of them all the way home.
The next day Jess decides to get some answers, and pays the detective a visit. He warns her off Tolliver/Susspants, saying that he was Alison Brevard’s toy boy and that he was bad news.
I KNEW IT! Jess is still convinced he’s innocent though, until she goes back to her hotel AND FINDS HIM RIGHT AT HOME IN HER ROOM. Despite his protestations that his intentions are entirely honourable (cough BULLSHIT cough), Jess tells him that there isn’t any work today, and probably not tomorrow. Captain Susspants flounces from the room, and we all breathe a sigh of relief.
Not for long though. Jess goes to visit her pal Edmund, and they are accosted by Captain Susspants, who begs them to give him a second chance. Edmund doesn’t want a bar of it, but Jess relents and tells him that there will be plenty of typing for him to do tomorrow.
Later than night, Jess gets a mysterious phone call from a blonde in a cafe, who can prove that Captain Susspants didn’t kill the old duck. Jess insists that she’s not going to meet her, but let’s face it, she’s not turning down a chance to hang out in an abandoned warehouse down by the docks is she?
Wearing her special clandestine meeting trench coat, Jess heads down to the docks to meet this mystery blonde, but alas someone beats her to it. The blonde has been stabbed in the back. Seattle 50 arrive, and they are convinced that David Susspants Toliver is guilty, despite surveillance showing he hadn’t left his apartment. They get him down to the precinct, where he once again proclaims his innocence, saying that the Lila-the-blonde and he were seeing each other off and on, despite the fact that her husband was crazy jealous. Jess decides to pay Mr Crazy Jealous a visit, and finds him on the set of the rejected music video of Physical by Olivia Newton John.
Jess interrogates him old skool, and he accuses Our Heroine of asking lots of questions, to which she replies “I’m nosey.” THAT’S OUR GIRL. He informs Jess that his recently deceased wife had a whole lot of lovin going on with people who weren’t him, but weren’t Susspants Tolliver either.He then points out Jess is late for her lecture, and legs it back to campus.
Today’s lecture, Jess decides, is how to stage the murder of a blonde girl and make it look like someone else did it. Far from getting her students to solve the crime for her, she’s got her eye on the English professor down the front, who had a bit of a thing going with Lady MacBlonde. In the end, his alibi seems to checkout and she goes home to relax after a hard day’s sleuthing.
Or not. Captain Von Susspants has been and left her a note to say that Professor Lowry wants to meet her at his office, so she goes back to the campus to meet him. All seems well enough as she goes up the stairs to his office, until she is engaged in a VICIOUS SHADOW PUPPET FIGHT TO THE DEATH:
Our girl comes tumbling down the stairs (her mace came tumbling after). Just as she blacks out, she realises David Susspants Tolliver is standing over her. He apologises to her, and says that he’d heard about her efforts in the lecture and got worried, so he came to see if she was okay. Maybe I was wrong about Susspants? Nah…
In the hospital, Jess’s pal Ed arrives with the detective, and accuses Susspants of being the culprit. Lila-the-blonde, Ed reveals, was not with Susspants the night of Alison Brevard’s death, she was with Ed! SCANDAL!
Over breakfast the next day, Ed tells Jess that David had bribed Lila to cover for him the night of Alison Brevard’s death. SUSSPANTS BY NAME, SUSSPANTS BY NATURE. Meanwhile, Ed and Lila had been making whoopie at a little inn out-of-town, and the night Alison Brevard died, that’s where they were headed. Ed remembers a car trying to run them off the road, but Lila just figured it was a drunk driver. With this new information, Jess pays Professor Lowry another visit, but realises it wasn’t his car running people off the road. On the way out she runs into the detective, who has some news – Susspants Tolliver is off the hook for the murder of Alison Brevard. Turns out, a burglar did it. Jess is too distracted to take this news in though – she’s still trying to solve the murder of Lila-the-blonde.
Jess goes back to her hotel to mull things over, and is infuriated to discover that Susspants Tolliver is in residence in her room again. She accuses him of being the lying cheating scumbag that he is (FINALLY!), which he of course denies. He swears he didn’t push her down the stairs at the campus – a person rang to say that Lowry wanted to meet JB.
And with that little snippet of information, JB solves the case and goes to pay the killer a visit.
Case closed. After all that, it would seem Captain Susspants was perfectly innocent. He intercepts Jess at the airport and makes one final play – he’s smitten with our JB, he doesn’t want anybody else. Jess gives him a polite but firm brush-off. She just hasn’t made up her mind about him.
Freeze-frame on Captain Susspants’s face:
Will we see more of Captain Susspants Tolliver in the future? I sincerely hope so. Stay tuned.
S01E08 – We’re Off to Kill The Wizard « Murder, She Blogged
Jun 14, 2012 @ 12:55:13
kellbrigan
Oct 18, 2014 @ 14:13:12
5:50 is the International Fountain at the Seattle Center. http://goo.gl/maps/Ccu84
kellbrigan
Oct 18, 2014 @ 14:27:21
14:39 Sacred Circle Gallery http://seattletimes.com/html/theaterarts/2003738497_visart08.html (Yeah, I lived in Seattle for about four years in the early 90s.)
S05E19 – Double Exposure | Murder, She Blogged
Jun 07, 2015 @ 12:04:39
Mat81
May 18, 2016 @ 07:06:41
I’d always been waiting for the inevitable day that Jessica would wake up, walk downstairs, sip her morning coffee, finally sit down to type her new novel…and there’s David Susspants Toliver pressed against her front window with a big (creepy) smile on his face. Sadly, it was never to be.
(That said, as a long time fan, this blog tickles me, and I’ve been enjoying reading each entry right after I re-watch the same episode. This blog is my new favorite thing.)
Claudette H-M
Jan 18, 2019 @ 13:14:28
I can’t tell you how much I enjoy reading this blog!
;o)
Thanks for the smiles!
Cat Lover
Mar 08, 2020 @ 16:49:46
I got creeper vibes from the Tolliver guy, esp. in that freeze-frame image above.
Caoimhe
May 17, 2020 @ 20:22:00
I love your blog! I have been having a Murder She Wrote themed lockdown and have been reading your episodes after I watch each of them! Thank you so much they are brilliant! That end freeze-frame of Tolliver is stuck in my brain now, so creepy! I kinda wish he had turned up again in Cabot Cove but it’s safe to say he probably was out American Psycho-ing somewhere else!
Susan Stroh
Jul 17, 2020 @ 09:27:30
Murder She Wrote, Lovers and Other Killers incorrect usage of ‘temple’ in the TV show when lecturing students. Mrs. Fletcher referred to the frontal skull (center of the forehead) as the temple, of which there two – one on the left side and one on the right. (Season 1, Episode 7)
Dee Cell
Aug 26, 2020 @ 15:05:58
WHO! pushed Jessica down the stairs and WHY! Why didn’t Jessica follow up on that?
And…No…Susspants still looked suspicious to me, in the end @ the airport.
Amanda
Jul 03, 2023 @ 21:31:47
Amelia tells her that she did it. She said she wasn’t trying to kill her, just hoping to convince JB that it was David so she would stop pursuing the case.
Monty
Sep 09, 2020 @ 06:47:24
Omg, I missed that a burglar had killed the old lady. Thank you for this synopsis. The reference to Olivia Newton John made my day.
Rosemary
Mar 17, 2021 @ 11:09:41
Who is the actor who played David Tolliver? Your write him did no service to me or the actor.
Olivia DCafango
Dec 01, 2022 @ 12:25:26
I always wondered if they were alluding that he was Ted Bundy except targeting older women. With the episode being set in Seattle. Still convinced it was David Tolliver who’s guilty! That last shot of him in the episode has me convinced! Haha!