Episode 27: Get Out of Here, You Adulterer!

TONIGHT ON MURDER, SHE WROTE, we're gettin' soapy.

Anyone alive in the '80s knows that we were an American culture obsessed with bitchy women in shoulder pads duking it out and saying nasty things to each other in the world of soap operas.  We meet a cast of actors who either want job security or want to be off the series, and no one is getting what they want.  Villainous writer Joyce Holleran (THE Jessica Walter) is making massive changes to the series OUR SECRET LIVES, and TV characters are getting killed off left and right by an in-universe masked and cloaked assassin, The Avenger.  When Joyce herself falls apparent victim to the mysterious figure, the question is, who was in the disguise?  

Perhaps it was the actress Nita (Alice Krige) who donned the visage for the show, or is that all a distraction from one of her more ambitious co-stars, afraid of Joyce's pen?  The possibilities include longtime legend of the show Julian Tenley (Lloyd Nolan), series sex object Todd Worthy (Nicholas Hammond), the lascivious lead Bibi Hartman (our patron saint, Tricia O'Neil), the recently ousted Martin Grattop (Robert Lipton), or maybe it's the show's detective Herbert Upton (Paul Burke).

Since Nita is Jessica Fletcher's niece, you know she needs to get involved; our intrepid murder mystery author and busybody (Angela Lansbury) storms the set to determine if someone may be responsible. On the call sheet, it's our director Gordon LaMonica (Terry Kiser), assistant staff writer Carol Needom (Mackenzie Phillips), and Joyce's very own boy-toy husband Larry (William Atherton).  Robert Walden is our Watson of the week, Lt. Antonelli, and Lurene Tuttle is a delightful 2-scene wonder as Nita's grandmother, all while Jessica explores the secrets to be revealed via teleprompter; it's MURDER IN THE AFTERNOON.