Murder She Wrote Recaps: S3E1: Death Stalks the Big Top, Part 1

We start the episode by meeting yet another Fletcher niece: a pre-Friends Courteney Cox. When she anonymously receives a silver leprechaun in the mail, she takes it as incontrovertible proof that her grandfather Neil (Jessica's late husband's brother) must have actually faked his death in that boat explosion so many years ago.

Jessica tracks Neil to a traveling circus, but when she's stonewalled by the tight-knit carny community, she must resort to a classic Fletcher ruse. Disguised in a plaid muumuu and heart-shaped sunglasses, she befriends a baby elephant and baby chimpanzee and infiltrates the circus just in time to see Neil being carted away for allegedly murdering a stagehand that had unsuccessfully hit on all the women of the circus the previous night.

TO BE CONTINUED...!

Murder She Wrote Recaps: S2E6: Reflections of the Mind

When a rich guy drives his sports car off a cliff just minutes after chugging his “traditional pre-travel cocktail,” the local sheriff suspects either foul play or mechanical failure caused his death. Not, you know, drunk driving. Later, a ghost takes credit for the murder. Things then get very Scooby Doo when Jessica Fletcher uses an elaborate scheme to reveal the murderous apparition as a frustrated rock star-turned-gardener.

Murder She Wrote Recaps: S1E14: My Johnny Lies Over the Ocean

On a cruise ship, Jessica Fletcher draws a killer out of hiding with a extended fake drunk routine in which she acts less like an inebriated old woman and more like Yoda from The Empire Strikes Back.

Murder She Wrote Recaps: S1E12: Broadway Malady

Jessica braves the dangerous streets of New York City and becomes embroiled in a murder investigation surrounding a musical production on Broadway. Her down-home Cabot Cove sensibilities clash with an exhaustingly dramatic family of actors and writers, but they're able to work together to stage a scene (on set, no less!) to ensnare the killer––one of the show's very first examples of a Classic Fletcher Ruse.