The Most Crucial Game
| Columbo (season 2) | |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 8 |
| Release | |
| Original network | NBC |
| Original release | September 17, 1972 – March 25, 1973 |
| Season chronology | |
This is a list of episodes from the second season of Columbo.
The season originally aired Sundays at 8:30-10:00 pm (EST) as part of The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie.
The season was released on DVD by Universal Home Video.
Alex Benedict (John Cassavetes), the married conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, murders his mistress, Jennifer Welles (Anjanette Comer), after she insists on going public with their affair, and tries to make it look like a suicide. Columbo searches for clues to place Benedict at the murder scene.
Final clue/twist: During the murder, Benedict loses his signature jacket-flower. After he conducts a concert, he realizes the loss and goes back to the now police-crowded crime scene. He recovers the flower, but a TV news team recorded him entering the house without it and leaving with it. Thus Columbo claims he can prove that Benedict must have been there the night of the murder, which the latter had repeatedly denied.
Jarvis Goodland (Ray Milland) and his nephew, Tony (Bradford Dillman), stage Tony's kidnapping in order to break into his trust fund, but Jarvis shoots and kills Tony once the ransom is paid, and a careful swapping of guns with Tony's philandering wife casts suspicion in her direction. Gloria, Tony's mistress, is played by Arlene Martel.
Final clue/twist: After Columbo remembers that Goodland once fired a gun at a burglar but only managed to hit a flowerpot, Columbo searches for that old bullet which turns out to be identical with the bullet that Tony was killed with, proving Goodland had to have killed his nephew.
Paul Hanlon (Robert Culp), the general manager of the Los Angeles Rockets football team, wants to create a sports empire, but Eric Wagner (), who inherited the team, lacks ambition. Hanlon sneaks out of the stadium during the national anthem by disguising himself as an ice cream truck driver. He drives to a pay phone near Wagner's home, knowing Wagner's phones have been bugged, during which Hanlon makes it appear he's in his private box at the stadium by holding a radio to the receiver. He then drives to Wagner's house, kills him in his swimming pool and tries to make it look like a diving accident. Complicating matters is Eve Babcock (Valerie Harper), ostensibly a secretary but actually a call girl and an operative placed in Eric's home by a private detective (Val Avery) who was, in turn, hired by Eric's attorney, Walter Cannell (Dean Jagger).
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