In the Big Apple again Fletcherfans, where the good residents have issued the Fletcher-signal.

I mean they might possibly get murdered less, but the world would be far less interesting.

This time it’s the doorman Richie who is in need. He’s worried about one of the other residents, Alice Morgan, who hasn’t left her apartment in five years and now refuses to open her door.

Never one to let a Fletchsignal go unanswered, Jess accompanies Richie upstairs, where she eventually gets Alice to let her into her apartment.

I’ll think of something for this, leave it with me.

Alice is having a bit of a time – she’s started having dreams about the night her mother was murdered, and it’s all gone a bit wrong now that the person she dreamt killed her mother has turned up on TV spruiking his architectural amazingness.

Turns out he was in the Death on the Nile episode of Poirot I watched the other week too. Adjust your social medias accordingly.

Alice flips out, saying that in her dream Jordan Barnett (see above) kills her mother and then someone turns into an owl or something. Fortunately for everyone Alice’s doctor, Ellen Holden (aka Margot Kidder, aka Lois Lane) arrives and quickly boots JB out of the apartment.

Over at Jordan Barnett’s Emporium of Wonderment, Jordan is congratulating himself on another job well done when his assistant Laura shows him the list of enquiries the TV station got after his appearance on their show. He sees Alice’s name and rushes out. While he waits for his valet to collect his car, a dude named Ben harasses him about how Jordan stole his ideas for something but Jordan just puts his foot down and leaves in a cloud of dust. Meanwhile, at Dr Holden’s clinic, Ellen is stopped at the door by Alice’s brother Peter (aka the boss lady’s nephew), who demands she convince Alice to agree to sell the family brownstone.

Jessica, who can’t let a situation go unsnooped for the better of mankind, goes to see her friend Lieutenant Artie Gelber (aka Stan Szbornak from the Golden Girls). Artie is happy to let her go through his files, but she doesn’t find much – Alice’s mother was murdered five years ago, three months after her husband left her, and Jordan Barnett hadn’t been in New York for five years.

That night, Alice gets a knock at the door.

Well, that’s not half terrifying.

Alice calls down to Richie who summons the Avengers Jessica and Alice’s neighbour Henry. As the elevator doors open Jordan legs it. Richie chases him while Jessica tells Alice it’s all alright now, she can open the door. Dr Holden is summoned, and she pumps a whole lot of drugs into Alice before throwing Henry and JB out, insisting that Alice needs to be left alone, she’s just too fragile.

Jess and Artie pop round Jordan’s office the next day to see what’s up. Jordan insists he went there because the name matched someone he used to date, but it wasn’t the person he thought it was and so he legged it when she freaked out and a horde of angry neighbours descended upon him. Fair enough, says Artie, and leaves him to a pissed off Laura, who has been fielding messages from Dr Holden.

Jess invites Alice’s brother Peter (actually her stepbrother, but whatever) around to find out why his father bailed, but more specifically whether Jordan Barnett had anything to do with Alice or Peter or Alice’s mother. Peter isn’t giving out info for free though – he wants JB to convince Alice to sell the house, and Dr Holden hasn’t come through. Jessica says she’ll see what she can do, and Peter tells her that he thinks his father was going to hire Jordan to renovate the house.

Speaking of, Jordan is busy working late with Dr Holden, who is insisting that Laura gets her marching orders, or Alice might start to believe that her dreams are real. Later, when he’s waiting for a cab, someone helpfully comes up and stabs in the chest, leading to one of the most energetic death scenes of this whole show. Trust me, it’s pretty great.

Artie Gelber rolls down to investigate and spots a necklace on the ground. He orders his sidekick Detective Grady (if ever there was an oxymoron) to pick it up and take it to forensics, Gelber’s back is killing him. Later, they interview Ben the guy who yelled at Jordan, who swears he didn’t kill him he was just pissed that Jordan screwed him when he left town suddenly five years ago.

Over brunch, Artie and JB discuss the situation. Jess has a theory – Jordan found Alice’s mothers body back in the day, and that he was killed because he worked out who the actual killer was. Meanwhile, Peter bashes on Alice’s door, demanding she sign the papers to sell the house so they can get back to being the brother and sister they always were. Alice tells them they were never really brother and sister and begs him to go away. Henry pops his head out as Peter leaves and goes to check on Alice. They have a lovely awkward cup of tea and listen to Chopin before Henry shuffles out backwards. (Watch this episode, there’s some awesome weird stuff going on and I like it).

Down at the precinct, Artie gets a call that his daughter is going into labour and tells Grady the case is his, and not to screw it up.

 

 

I think we’ve all heard that before.

Jess stops by Alice and Peter’s old house to summon a ghost or do a seance or some such business. She finds a paperweight with an owl on it, thereby solving the mysterious case of the owl. (#TheOwlsAreNotWhatTheySeem #TwinPeaks #TeachMeHowToDougie). Peter appears and asks her what she’s doing there, she tells him she just wanted to see the place, Alice gave her a key. She says Alice told her Peter was away at school the night her mother died and he says he was. He also says he has no idea where his father is or why he left, but thanks JB for going in to bat for him with Alice.

#LadyOlennaForever

Jessica arrives home at her apartment building to discover that Detective Grady has taken it upon himself to arrest Alice for the murder of Jordan Barnett, because agoraphobia shmagoraphobia.

Grady by name, Grady by nature.

Grady apologises for bollocksing up the investigation but does point out that the locket they found at the murder scene belonged to Alice. Both Jessica and Artie wonder who had access to Alice’s apartment who might have taken the locket. Henry excuses himself and goes back to his apartment.

Later that night, Alice knocks on JB’s door. Ironically, getting arrested has shown her she has nothing to fear in the big bad world, and she’d like Jessica to accompany her to the old brownstone to confront her memories. When they arrive, Alice talks JB through her mother’s murder but freaks out at the thought of the hawk that I thought was owl, whatever I’m not a doctor.

Jessica thinks she knows who killed Alice’s mother, and it wasn’t Jordan Barnett, but a squeaky floorboard upstairs tells JB they need to get back to Alice’s apartment.

Because, you guys…

It was only a matter of time…

He killed them! He killed them all! Because Barnett had an affair with Alice’s mother, and there was no one left to defend his father’s honour except Peter. Oh, it wasn’t a paperweight, it was a bike helmet and that’s what Alice saw. Ohhhhhh I’m really not good at this.

But it’s okay you guys. Peter got arrested, Dr Holden got suspended for being a crap psychiatrist and Henry and Alice are taking JB to the philharmonic or a Metallica gig I forget which. Whatever, the sun’s out.

Later gang!