And so we head back to the Cove one last time, Fletcherfans and it’s to see a dude called Johnny hanging out with a girl called Sherri (being played by Andrea from Walking Dead) and a baby called Baby probably while Anthony Michael Hall stabs a tree in rage. As Johnny leaves he and Anthony Michael Hall Les Franklin have a fight which only ends when Sherri’s father Tom Sampson comes home.

Speaking of coming home, the next morning JB returns to House Fletcher after some time away restoring world peace or some such thing when she discovers a random woman watering her houseplants. Instead of freaking out and calling the cops which I frankly would have done, JB wants to know who and why she’s in her house. As it happens, it’s Amy Hazlitt, Seth’s niece who is back in town and apparently engaged to Johnny from the first scene, who is also apparently JB’s landscape gardener and has just arrived to take Amy for a ride on his motorbike.

This is the last thing anyone wants to deal with when they’ve just gotten back from averting World War 3 which I assume is what’s happening.

Cut to one of the seventy cafes in Cabot Cove, where we find Les Franklin with his sidekicks Stu Yates and someone named Roger Yates’s Junior Son (?) and his sidepiece Mickie kicking back and harassing the waitress who it turns out is the chick from Cold Case, mind blown.

To be fair I saw precisely 0 episodes of Cold Case, but I did not recognise her at all

Les decides to pick up where he left off and wants Johnny to tell Amy about Sherri. Johnny suggests Les tell everyone in the cafe and then the fighting starts again. This fight is broken up by Mort and Deputy Andy who order the gang out and for Johnny to stay away from Les, which I’m pretty sure he’s all about.  Later Johnny tells Amy not to worry about it, Sherri is history from before Amy moved back to Cabot Cove.

This might be the flu tablets talking but all this drama is exhausting.

Seth and Jess stroll down the promenade talking about young love when Jess gets dragged into another conflict,  this time about plants. Stu Yates’s father Roger is outraged that Johnny stole his garden, and he thinks it’s only fair that Jessica is warned as it could happen to her. Rogers lawyer, Jeremy Woods, explains that Roger hired Johnny to landscape his garden but baulked at the price at the end so Johnny repossessed some plants.

My face, every time I log onto Twitter.

Later that night, Seth and Amy sample some of Jessica’s finest cuisine including her homemade horseradish.

The relationship between Seth and Jess has been one of my favourite things in the last seven years.

Johnny, Seth points out, is 47 minutes late for the finest meal Seth’s had since the last time Jessica came home from New York. Amy says it’s not like Johnny to be late. A short time later the phone rings and it’s Mort with bad news – Johnny was killed when he lost control of his motorbike.

The next day Sherri’s father Tom Sampson pulls the wreckage of Johnny’s bike up while Deputy Andy warns the new Deputy Olsen to get the paperwork done quickly, the Sheriff can be a bit of a bear about these things.

“I know.” Says Deputy Olsen. “He reminds me of my father.”

It’s like the last day of school but on TV.

It seems like a clear cut accident, the gang just aren’t sure where Johnny lost control of his bike. Tom says Sherri was up all night crying and Seth says Amy isn’t taking it at all well, she’s being irrational. I mean…her fiance just died?

Amy is in fact down at the Sheriff’s office berating Mort for not giving her the full story. She thinks Les killed Johnny but Mort explains that Les was in town playing cards at the time of Johnny’s crash. Amy doesn’t care – Les killed Johnny and she’s going to prove it.

Down at the cafe Stu and Roger Yates’s Junior Son are chilling over some tasty treats when Amy storms in demanding to know who Sherri is and if she’s the reason Johnny and Les fought the day before. Stu decides to respond by being a creep, Doreen tries to call the Sheriff but Roger Yates’s Junior Son steps in and tells her to mind her own business. It’s only when Les and Mickie arrive that Amy manages to get out of Stu’s grip and rushes out of the cafe. Mickie follows her and admits she’s not a fan of the bros either but what can you do. Amy wants to know who Sherri is and Mickie lets slip her surname before rushing off in tears.

Down by the docks, Roger and Stu Yates confront Jeremy Woods about how Roger’s plants that he didn’t pay for are now in Jessica’s garden. Jeremy tries to explain that Roger has no grounds but Roger is determined to get justice. Jeremy warns Stu that his father is unwell but Stu says he’s fine, and he’s right.

Back at home, Tom asks Sherri where she and the baby were the previous night, and Sherri tells him she took the baby for a walk after Johnny left. Meanwhile, Jess and Amy examine the crime scene. Amy is convinced it wasn’t an accident and JB can’t help but agree, but apart from some weird marks on a telegraph pole, there’s nothing to see. She borrows Amy’s cellphone to call Jeremy to get him to ask his friend at the phone company how recently the pole had been installed and how it was transported.  Jeremy’s on the case and will see JB at the cafe in an hour – except as he hangs up his phone the car craps out so presumably, he’s going to be a while.

JB shows Seth her new garden but it’s been completely destroyed, presumably by Roger Yates. Down at the cafe a while later Jeremy wanders in and orders a coffee from Doreen, who’s in the middle of making a new pot. When she comes back from the kitchen JB is just walking in – and points out that Jeremy is now dead, with a knife sticking out of his back.

Mort has no time for any of this. He has no time for Doreen’s excuse that she didn’t see Jeremy was dead because JB walked, he has no time for Amy insisting that Jeremy’s death and Johnny’s death were linked and he has no time for Deputy Olsen’s news that Roger Yates has gone off the deep end down at the waterfront.  Meanwhile, Amy goes to see Sherri and then freaks out when she decides that Johnny was the baby daddy.

Down at the waterfront, Roger is demonstrably having a mental breakdown while everyone stands around and watches because it was the 90s and we didn’t do mental illness back then. Les watches on and peels and orange while Stu tries to convince Andy not to arrest his father and tells Les he’s getting no help from Stu now on.

Such drama.

Amy reports back to JB on discovering that Johnny was previously with Sherri, but JB thinks it’s odd that Sherri was jealous Johnny was marrying Amy. Not angry, jealous. Mort calls JB to report that Johnny’s motorbike was working correctly at the time of the crash, leading him to suspect it was an accident, and that Jeremy called Tom Sampson and his friend at the phone company on the day of his death. JB gets the phone company man’s number, she’d like a word.

Down at the sheriff’s office, Stu makes a plea to bust his Dad out of jail, but Seth says he’s in the hospital for observation for another week. Andy pops in with the knife that killed Jeremy, and Stu recognises it as Les’s. He also tells the Sheriff that Les is obsessed with Sherri and is about to do something stupid.

Cut to Les breaking into Sherri’s house and demanding to see the baby.

Cut to JB getting a phone call from Jeremy’s friend at the phone company, while Amy points out the cable for her lamp is broken.

Cut back to Les begging to see the baby BECAUSE YOU GUYS HE’S THE FATHER SERIOUSLY WHAT DRAMA. Les bars the door so JB does some hostage negotiation while Amy calls the Sheriff. There’s noise and commotion and Sherri’s father arrives home in the middle of it all fbut it all comes it well in the end.

Except not really. There’s that double murder to resolve. And Amy isn’t the only one surprised to learn that Les is the baby daddy.

Well that was a grim twist

It would appear that Tom Sampson thought Johnny was the baby daddy and was furious he was marrying Amy so he killed him, and then Jeremy when he found out about it.

But let’s not dwell on that unexpected grimness. Let us instead remember that If It’s Thursday in Cabot Cove, It Must Be Beverley. And that time someone put barbitals in Mrs Fletcher’s Chowder. And Deputy Floyd. And the ladies down at the beauty parlour. And Amos Tupper. And Harry Pierce. And Mort thinking Cabot Cove would be a quiet change after the NYPD. And Seth when Jess bought him his train for Christmas.

So long, Cabot Cove. It’s been a pleasure.

Onward!