Columbo Goes to College: An Ingenious Murder Mystery
One could surmise that the patchiness of the previous episodes led the show’s creative team back to the drawing board in a bid to rediscover some of the old magic. The result was "Columbo Goes to College," an ambitious and audacious murder mystery. This article delves into the intricate plot of this episode, dissecting the crime, examining the Columbo formula at play, and ultimately assessing the episode's strengths and weaknesses.
The Crime
In "Columbo Goes to College," two privileged frat boys, Justin Rowe and Cooper ‘Coop’ Redman, find themselves in a predicament. Their criminology lecturer, Professor Rusk, discovers they stole a copy of an impending test paper, threatening their academic futures. Justin faces the loss of his Harvard Law School aspirations, while Coop risks being cut off financially by his parents after a series of misdeeds. Driven to desperation, they hatch a plan to eliminate the Rusk menace.
The episode reveals that Rusk is having an affair with the college basketball coach’s wife, June Clarke, and is working on a tell-all expose of crime and corruption, which has led to death threats. Justin and Coop break into the apartment of campus security guard, Joe Doyle, and steal his handgun.
During Rusk’s criminology class, Lieutenant Columbo of the LAPD appears as a guest speaker. Rusk excuses himself for a dinner appointment cooked up by Justin and Coop. While the boys watch something hidden below the lecture theatre desk, Rusk walks to his car in the faculty car park. As Rusk reaches to open his car, a shot rings out, killing the professor. Justin and Coop exchange fist bumps, seemingly confirming their guilt.
Columbo is instantly troubled by the details. Where was the Professor going during the lecture? What is the pill found in his shirt pocket? A search reveals cholesterol tablets, suggesting Rusk was heading out for a dining appointment. The CCTV footage shows the assassination but no one leaving the car park. How did the killer get away?
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Columbo learns that Rusk was a difficult man who "fooled around" with other women. He also learns that Justin's surname is Rowe. The investigation reveals Rusk's affair with June Clarke. Columbo confronts June, who lies about seeing Rusk recently. Justin and Coop fall into the error of being too helpful to Columbo, insisting on being kept up to speed on the case developments. Columbo confirms that no airline tickets were found in Rusk’s briefcase.
Mrs. Rusk admits to knowing about the affair and that her husband had told her about the break-up. Neither she nor June Clarke knew why Rusk had a plane ticket to Phoenix in his briefcase. Columbo suggests that someone Rusk was meeting with in Phoenix may have wanted to silence him permanently. Justin sets up a meeting between his father, Jordan, and Columbo to promote the idea that shadowy agents may have slain Rusk.
Rowe Senior dismisses Columbo’s investigation, opining that it was clearly a mob hit. Justin and Coop are pleased to hear the browbeating being dished out to Columbo. Columbo learns that Rowe was dining in San Francisco on the night of Rusk’s death. Columbo's suspicions about Rowe Junior pick up pace when he learns that Justin was responsible for saving the CCTV footage of Rusk being killed but hadn’t saved the footage from a second camera.
The Rowe men inform Columbo that Rusk had been threatened by the mob, making Dominic a likely suspect. Columbo is interrupted by a news broadcast about the Rusk killing. Footage of the killing was picked up by a guy using an illegal satellite dish. This means that someone deliberately broadcast the killing, and it was filmed from within the car park.
Columbo suggests that he’s bought into the idea of Dominic’s guilt. Coop reports to Justin that he’s discovered Dominic’s car at his favourite bar. The cops are called in, and a .45 automatic is found in the car, and Dominic is taken into custody. Columbo recreates the killing of Professor Rusk. In the lecture room, Columbo explains the importance of luck in solving the crime.
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Columbo leads the class down to the garage and demonstrates how Cooper produced a miniature TV set from his bag in the lecture hall showing Rusk arriving at his car, and how Justin triggered the remote door locker to fire the lethal shot. A gun could be concealed in the car’s engine and rigged up to fire through the car door locking mechanism. The killers are right here in the garage.
A detective pulls into the car lot in the same car Justin and Coop believed was Doyle’s. The police have the murder weapon and it was found in Doyle’s car. Columbo reveals that the only people that Columbo had given the description and licence plate of the car to was Justin and Coop. Only they could have planted the murder weapon in the car.
The Columbo Formula
Each episode of Columbo has its own unique environment and often features a piece of new technology, sometimes central to the plot, sometimes just as an added detail. Over 69 episodes, the established formula was sometimes pushed and pulled, tested and stretched - sometimes with excellent results, sometimes with mixed results and sometimes with horrendous results. But the real reason to watch an episode of Columbo is to see the man himself go through his paces.
In this episode, Columbo is a guest lecturer at a university. Two pieces of his advice stood out: “don’t talk too much,” and, “you gotta be lucky.” Both go beyond advice for being a successful detective, and apply to many walks of life.
Part of the appeal of the character is showing him as a Fish Out of Water and if this occurs we’ll provide the details. We’ll tell you about each Cigar he is seen smoking, and when he uses the Just one more thing ploy. And lastly, if This Old Man is heard at any point, you’ll know about it.
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Strengths and Weaknesses
The best episodes of Columbo are superb, but the worst are pretty dreadful. "Columbo Goes to College" has several strengths. It embraces the age while retaining an authentic air through a setting that a high proportion of viewers could relate to. Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman are clever young men, but their life achievements are a result of the privilege of having wealthy parents rather than hard graft and application of intelligence. Their latest attempt to bypass the work required to be successful and cheat on a test has backfired on them, and their criminology lecturer, Prof. Rusk, is going to “flunk” them or throw them out of college altogether. While they are enjoying Columbo’s lecture (so the Lieutenant is their alibi!), Professor Rusk is heading for a meeting with Justin’s father that is entirely a work of fiction on the part of Justin.
Employing a method used in several classic era episodes, including Murder Under Glass, How To Dial a Murder and The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case, College makes it abundantly clear who the killers are without showing exactly how they did it. Variations on the usual Columbo format are rarely successful, but this one works brilliantly. The details of the crime itself are quite easy to figure out, with the very obvious clue of the remote control car with a camera mounted on it, which we see right at the start of the episode, but that does little to diminish the impact of the episode’s climax. This is a story of intelligence and experience triumphing over the arrogance of youth. Perhaps more importantly, it also represents a triumph over the arrogance of wealth and power.
A key ingredient in the success of the episode is how tightly reined in the Columbo character is. The comeback episodes have too often seen Falk’s portrayal of the Lieutenant veer towards pastiche and nonsensical broad comedy. Pretty much his only duff moment is when the detective theatrically scratches his head after the TV exec explains to him how the Rusk murder was broadcast. Elsewhere, though, the tone and balance of the episode are spot on. There are plenty of laughs to be had in Columbo Goes to College.
There are also some weaknesses. Not for the first time, a Columbo episode sacrifices one of its key elements: showing us exactly how the crime is done, while it is being committed. This leads to another omission, by and large: Columbo noticing lots of little inconsistencies and piecing together clues to form a case. Instead, the murderers are incredibly clever at distraction tactics, sending Columbo off on a couple of trails of very compelling red herrings, concerning Rusk’s extramarital affair and his criminology book that earned him many dangerous enemies. It’s those elements that largely fill the running time for this one.
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