every episode of Moonlighting (1985-1989) RANKED

[beetlejuice]

s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail

a man is at the airport when he gets news that the plane he was supposed to be on has crashed. he hits the atm and finds out his cards have been cancelled. he gets home to his apartment and learns there has been construction going on for the last month while he was away. before he even talks to anyone, he sees a priest and reveals that he’s a spy the whole time. he feels he’s been burned, and asks his contact, this priest, for extraction.

meanwhile madelyn is trying to cut costs at the office but david is moving in expensive pianos and talking about flying in a pool table by helicopter, they’re on completely different pages. david explains that he’s spending because they’re about to bring in tons of money taking jobs as debt collectors. madelyn is unsure about the moral and practical implications but they have no clients so she comes along for the first collection job.

when the two of them show up to this spy’s apartment saying they’re from “the agency”, he sends them up. but he’s attacked by a man in a suit lurking inside his bedroom! when they enter through an unlocked door, they find the man recently murdered and propped up in a chair. they leave and come back with a homocide detective, and the killer answers the door claiming to be the dead man. he’s british and confident, so the detective believes him over our heroes.

they come back that night to find the apartment torn apart like gene hackman’s at the end of The Conversation. david chances into finding a crucial piece of spy material, and suddenly some agents of some country are after them. madelyn wants to go directly to the fbi, but david shows her a gun he bought and says he wants to solve the case.

they find themselves in a car chase (these fuckers never wear seatbelts, even in a high-speed car chase through los angeles). the bmw handles like a dream. in the end, a cia man catches up with them, decodes the letter to say the next assassination will be of a chinese man with a mole on his nose. they go to a fancy gala to find him, find him right as an assassin walks up, and diffuse the situation with an impromptu pie fight. the episode ends with a room full of diplomats in tuxedos throwing pies at each other.

Summary

s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murde
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral

[beetlejuice]

s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?

cold open is bruce willis and cybil shepherd as david and madelyn welcoming back the audience to a new season of moonlighting. they address the camera and the producers behind the camera.

the action starts with a gangster in a suit waiting in his car in a shady alley while an absolute BANGER plays.

Fluid Pulse

it’s a police sting and he drives/shoots his way out. absolutely badass. i love this song.

then we see a scene of an investment presentation to a sparsely-attended audience in a hotel or something. he’s a white guy and he’s awkwardly rapping about how he lost a lot of weight taking these pills he’s selling and now he drives a porsche. leaving after what was evidently a big failure, he gets into his piece of shit car (not a porsche) and it won’t start. he pops the hood and sees the suitcase of cash the gangster stashed while he was fleeing earlier. he abandons the car and walks away with the money. this guy is david’s brother, and he annoys the shit out of david. he doesn’t want to go to dinner with him, so he drags madelyn along.

the two of them start sniping at each other when the brother gets a phone call. it’s a gruff-voiced gangster telling him he wants his money back. they go to a different restaraunt, and madelyn is falling for him. next thing you know they’re slow dancing. david is looking on from the shadows and he hates it, but he doesn’t let on to either of them. he asks his brother for a 37k loan, which he hands over to madelyn so she can pay off the irs and keep her fabulous mansion. he lies about where it came from and swore his brother to secrecy about it.

david is angry and conflicted about the situation so he starts to trash the office bathroom. while in a stall, he’s accosted by the gangster mistaking him for his brother. he demands the money back and gives david a swirlie in the toilet while totally dominating him physically. this gangster is tough as nails.

david’s brother (named richard) is wearing the two-tone rolex datejust david wore in season 1. david is wearing some kind of gold dial with black ceramic band (movado?)

david confronts richard about the money and richard tells him everything. he found the money, brought it home, counted it, spread it out on the kitchen floor, rolled around on it, and bought a garage door opener (he doesn’t own a house, it was an aspirational purchase). he also reveals he only has $1100 left of the 100k so he can’t give it back or go to the cops at this point.

first thing the gang does is go to “the mall” to return things richard bought in the last few days. it’s like over 30k worth of stuff, all at the mall. the mall has it all.

the gangster follows them to the mall and threatens them with a gun. when the gangster tries to take them to a second location, david throws a coatrack on him and they run through the mall over campy music. the gangster catches up with them and is leading them to the movie theater to hand off the 30k they have on them when david leans over a railing, shouts “attention shoppers!” and throws the cash off the mezzanine into the crowd of crazed capitalistic shoppers below.

the gangster is despondent and gives up. at the end of the episode david gives madelyn 7500 cash claiming it was the reward for turning in the gangster.

Summary

s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murde
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral

[beetlejuice]

s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask

the detective agency is dead for business, no clients, david is semi-organizing a boxing match between a couple of the employees to help morale. a disfigured woman comes in offering $5k to track down the man who threw acid in her face years earlier. he’s already been in and out of prison and she swears she doesn’t want to kill him.

they find the guy and he’s super sad, he regrets it and his life is ruined. david and madelyn tell the disfigured woman his location anyway and the next day he’s been killed. they track down the disfigured woman to find out it was a nondisfigured man crossdressing. for some reason, david crossdresses as the same disfigured woman to get a hotel key and confront the guy.

turns out the guy is the actual disfigured woman’s husband and his plan was to frame his wife for the killing because he wanted the dude dead and figured no jury would convict the disfigured woman for her revenge.

Summary

s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask

[beetlejuice]

s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks

madelyn talks to an old friend while he’s on standing on the ledge of a highrise building. he’s going to kill himself because he lost his money, and madelyn tells him how the same thing happened to her, and he tells her he knows where their dirty accountant is. he’s running a casino in south america.

madelyn and david immediately fly there to confront him. he’s not sorry and he WON’T give back the money. the casino is extremely successful and classy, and the accountant offers madelyn comps for food and gambling and leaves.

madelyn is furious and starts spending and gambling, but her and david win 20k. they take the 20k and challenge the dirty accountant to a dirty game of HEADS-UP 5-CARD STUD POKER. and they’re not just playing for the 20k in chips, madelyn has to put up her LA mansion for a total buyin of 100 thousand dollars. i choose to believe this 1985 valuation of a fabulous mansion in LA is historically factual.

in the poker game, the shady accountant who swindled madelyn already and he’s shameless about it, he recommends his friend deal the game for them. the friend displays exceptional card-handling skills. david and madelyn quickly agree, and proceed to play the game, both of them together and talking out strategy between themselves, out loud.

first (and only) hand:

hero has X 2 Q
villain has X K 9

david raises a bet of 10k another 5k
villain calls

i guess the next round goes check check, but it’s off-screen

river comes and villain shoves all in 84k

hero has X 2 Q 8 5
villain has X K 9 10 10

david pleads with madelyn to fold for like 5 minutes

“a hundred grand” - villain

“just say fold, maddy” - david

she carefully stares at all the money in the pot, and at both the hands there on the table. then, relieved, says, “okay i’ve got to fold, i’m going to fold” and goes into an extended monologue about how much she loathes the villain. the two of them walk out with their dignity, only having lost 16k of the 20k they won earlier.

the villain and his bodyguards/employees start mulling around the table when madelyn runs back into the room, looks at her downcard (for the first time? lol), sees it’s a queen, giving her a pair of queens against the guy showing pair tens and a k. she angrily asks villain what he had, villain flips over a deuce for a pair of tens. madelyn seethes and david pokes his head into the room through a doorway to say “whoops!”

in the end of the episode we find madelyn burning telegrams from david, who she left in south america with no money. after pleading from the secretary agnes, madelyn agrees to send the money, but $10 less than he needs. so vengeful.

Summary

s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks
s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask

[econophile]

I started watching the pilot with minimal prior knowledge. The setup is utterly ridiculous

Also WTF Bruce Willis had hair?

[beetlejuice]

s2e4 The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice

ep starts out with orson welles speaking to the camera, but conspicuously looking off to the side reading cue cards. he explains that this is a very special episode and that in 12 minutes it’ll change to black-and-white and it’s on purpose and very innovative.

madelyn and david are having an ongoing argument about which one of them is sexist. david insists he’s a satirist and his sexist comments are meant to expose sexism in society, and that madelyn is an actual sexist in her heart. she’s outraged by the suggestion, leaves work early and takes an angry nap. this is where the extended dream sequence starts, in black-and-white.

it’s the late 40s and madelyn is a nightclub singer with a full brass orchestra behind her and she’s married to the oboe player or something. david shows up late to rehearsal, he’s the new trumpet player and he’s OS (overtly sexual). the husband is completely clueless to david’s amorous intentions.

his 1940s seduction of medelyn would probably be considered sexual assault in 2023. but we don’t have to rationalize that away because we find out he’s a bad guy one scene later when he murders the husband with his own oboe. madelyn is in on it. she doesn’t love doing it but she lets it happen. david and the crew rig it to make it look like he jumped off the rafters onto the stage during the performance.

the cops investigate and one night they come over with david, who explains he gave her up. they arrest madelyn while david walks free and the dream ends. so sexist.

sexist, but also prophetic. madelyn’s subconscious solved the case they were working on before she took and half day to listen to music and nap. she calls david to tell him the man is the killer in the case they’re working on (which also proves that men are more sexist and she was correct in her argument). but by the time she calls it’s late and david is sleeping. he falls back asleep after the call and it triggers a dream for him.

his dream is the same story but from the man’s perspective, and of course he’s a perfect gentleman and madelyn is the aggressive schemer. david can’t decide what instrument he’s playing in his dream. he switches between all of them in his narrative of their first song.

the husband is a jerk in this version, and madelyn tracks david down at his home to bang him when he was playing the trumpet forlornly out of an apartment window. she’s constantly nagging him about murdering her husband in between hot sweaty sex sessions. but he consistently refuses to commit murder; he’s a very sensitive soul.

madelyn tricks david into thinking she was being abused, and he regretfully murders the husband at her direct coaxing. he’s arrested and given the electric chair. the last thing he sees is madelyn gleefully flipping the switch as he screams “nooooo!!”

the next day the two of them see each other at the office and they both deny thinking about the murder case at all.

Summary

s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks
s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s2e4 The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask

[econophile]

A couple more thoughts

I’m pretty sure the set for the first scene of episode 3 was also used in an episode of Columbo (and probably 20 other productions from that era that needed some kind of military testing facility)

Comparing Cybill Shepherd to Ben Stiller’s wife doesn’t really do her justice. She’s a legit dime, but a from a time when a dime was worth a dollar.

The theme song is awesome.

Al Jarreau ~ Moonlighting

[Devil]

@econophile

I’m pretty sure the set for the first scene of episode 3 was also used in an episode of Columbo

Goes to the Guillotine? Also featured mind reading.

[econophile]

That’s the one I was thinking of

[beetlejuice]

s2e5 My Fair David

maddy is sick of david’s childishness, so she makes him a bet he can’t behave like an adult. david fails this test multiple times in multiple ways as they handle a serious kidnapping case.

in the end, maddy realizes the business works better when david is a clown. their client fake kidnapped her son after her son fake kidnapped himself, david grabs her gun at the right moment bingo bango case solved.

Summary

s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks
s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s2e4 The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e5 My Fair David
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask

[beetlejuice]

s2e6 Knowing Her

magnum pi’s one-who-got-away is also david addison’s: 1980s bombshell dana delaney. david is totally wrecked seeing her in the office. they were living together years ago and she suddenly left him, moving all her furniture out of their apartment while he was away at work and ghosting him. she went on to marry a rich man, and now she’s got problems because she’s trying to divorce him and he’s so rich he’s fucking with her in dangerous ways, so she’s looking for a private detective.

i like that dana delaney is typecast as the LA girl who is too hot for any main character, and it’s true, she is. she’s queen of the 80s dana delaney.

anyway david and her meet up in a parking lot at night to smoke cigarettes and talk because they’re teenagers. dana says hey that’s my husband’s car i’ma go talk to him, no don’t come with me, just me i’m going alone you stay back. and suspiciously she shoots the husband in “self defense” but it seemed pretty fishy to me right away, there didn’t seem to be any movement from inside the car at any point.

david is blinded by love but he knows how many gunshots he heard that night. and when a homocide detective tells maddy the dead man had 2 bullet holes in him, she and him solve the case. confronted, dana delaney flees her husband’s funeral and david and maddy chase her in a hearse. they catch her in the end, but in that all-black funeral outfit and tear-smudged mascara she remains undefeated queen of the 1980s

Summary

s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks
s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s2e6 Knowing Her
s2e4 The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e5 My Fair David
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask

[kerowo]

I tried watching these again and it was just too much, I couldn’t do it, you’re stronger than I am to 80’s pacing, writing, and acting…

[beetlejuice]

s2e7 Somewhere Under the Rainbow

a beautiful irish woman is the new client and she’s claiming to be a leprechaun and she’s hiring the detective agency to protect her pot of gold. david and maddy don’t believe her, of course, and debate whether to scam a lunatic out of a couple bucks protecting a pot of gold that doesn’t exist. but little do either of them know we just saw the leprechaun woman kill a guy with a shotgun using a magical spell in the cold open.

david’s walking her home at night and doesn’t believe a word of her story and eventually calls it off, he feels bad taking money from a person this crazy. but suddenly he’s accosted by an irishman with a club and he gets his 6th concussion (but it’s 1987 so he just takes a little nap and he’s all good)

post-concussion, david maddy and the leprechaun go to dig up her pot of gold, and they’re amazed to actually find it buried under a bridge, which she explains as like a steel rainbow.

the leprechaun decides it’s not safe in the usa for leprechauns so they go to the airport, where they’re accosted by an irishman who demands the gold. he explains his dad and her dad were bank robbers and her dad got away so he deserves all the gold (??). she feels relieved that she doesn’t have the burden of gold guardianship anymore and runs onto her plane. but not before slipping a storage locker key to david. they check the locker on the way out and there’s a pot of gold in there.

and the episode ends. i guess they have gold now.

Summary

s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks
s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s2e6 Knowing Her
s2e4 The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s2e7 Somewhere Under the Rainbow
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e5 My Fair David
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask

[beetlejuice]

s2e8 Portrait of Maddie

an obsessed fan (a “stan”, as we’d call him today) of maddie from her pro modeling years paints a portrait of maddie and is killed, very possibly a suicide by gunshot immediately after he finishes it. he has a massive collage of maddie in his art studio. cops bring maddie in and she’s like “i never even heard of this guy”. ends up buying the painting.

she becomes obsessed with the painting, and when the painter’s brother visits her, she gives it to him. kinda to get rid of it because it’s creeping her out how enthralled she’s become with it, but also because it had a note like it was for the brother. anyway that guy ends up dead that night, again right next to the painting. murder police tells maddie not to leave town because it’s all very suspicious and spooky. the detective gives maddie the painting to take home which is weird.

well maddy comes home with david (purely business, they’re not fucking) and a man with a gun accosts them about the painting, he’s looking for treasure and apparently the painting is the key to the treasure. the 3 of them end up at the artist’s studio to figure out what the treasure is and where it is. maddie doesn’t figure it out until the guy tied both of them up and left.

when they escape they find the treasure, very cleverly hidden, they’re ambushed by the murder detective, who declares his intentions to steal the treasure and murder both of them. david finds a lucky opportunity to disarm him and maddie finds some paint and they fight him with paint until he becomes trapped by a large shelf of paint.

Summary

s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks
s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s2e6 Knowing Her
s2e4 The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s2e8 Portrait of Maddie
s2e7 Somewhere Under the Rainbow
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e5 My Fair David
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask

[beetlejuice]

s2e9 Atlas Belched

david is in a bar drinking in the middle of the day and he comes upon a pathetic man in a suit getting drunk because he lost his boss’ rolodex. a rolodex is an ancient capitalist artifact that i would never have had any use for because the information catalogued in a rolodex, contact information, has always just been a part of my phone. but i already understood the concept of the device through my exposure to media, in the same way that i understand chariot racing or world war 2.

david is an expert investigator and tracks down the location of the valuable and irreplaceable item: the city dump. the client is ready to give up as soon as he sees the place, but david’s can-do attitude wins him over. we next see them proudly marching into the office covered in dirt and carrying the rolodex and a garbage bag of note cards. it’s night time. david starts looking through the cards and is amazed at the quality of the contacts. he calls the pope and then the president and the president tells him a hilarious joke, and explains he can’t retell the joke because it’s classified.

david is thrilled with this incredible find. and before going home he stops by maddy’s place to tell her the great news, that he just put the detective agency on the map as a major investigative force. she tells him she just sold the agency, and the next morning he tells maddy he’s quitting to start his own agency.

he struts into the bigshot rolodex owner’s office presenting himself as the man who found his rolodex and if he wants to hire that quality of investigator full time, he’s here for it. the bigshot tells him he just found out his rolodex is gone, and there’s a ransom note demanding $50k or the rolodex will be destroyed. the bigshot reasons david and the extortionist are working together and calls security to have him detained and arrested. david runs through the office fighting like 6 security guards, just fighting them off not beating them up. as he’s getting away, the bigshot screams that he hates him.

david and maddy meet the extortionist in a warehouse and talk him into giving it up and going back to his shitty job with maybe a little better working conditions. he agrees.

Summary

s2e9 Atlas Belched
s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks
s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s2e6 Knowing Her
s2e4 The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s2e8 Portrait of Maddie
s2e7 Somewhere Under the Rainbow
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e5 My Fair David
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask

[beetlejuice]

s2e10 Twas the Episode Before Christmas

ep starts out with a man being murdered by 2 thugs in front of his christmas tree while his wife and infant child are in the apartment. wife escapes with the baby. one of the killers is detective munch and he’s a sadistic murdering gangster. this is all happening in agnes the secretary’s apartment building btw and she almost gets killed while doing laundry in very eccentric christmas-themed pajamas. 2024 would adore these pajamas, it’s too bad no young people would ever venture this deep into a show with this kind of pacing and acting and writing and overall production quality

uncle phil from fresh prince shows up as a doj suit and they’re investigating the apparent suicide of the murdered guy and the sudden disappearance of the wife and baby. agnes found the baby left in her unlocked apartment when she finished laundry btw, she brought it into work instead of dropping it off at a fire station or something i guess because she’s bighearted and lonely. david is like hey agnes is gonna give the baby more love than an institution, that’s no place to spend christmas. maddy advocates strongly for handing over the baby to the authorities but when she sees the two of them together in front of the christmas tree, her heart melts, and the audience almost forgets the horrific christmas murder we witnessed

detective munch and his accomplice (coldblooded psychopathic murderers) capture agnes and the baby. they have guns. they’re demanding the wife be brought to them. it’s pretty clear munch and company are going to murder everybody.

david climbs down the chimney in a santa suit and fights the gangsters with a big red bag of presents. david maddy and agnes all throw toys at the still-armed gangsters, like teddy bears and paper airplanes while ducking behind a couch. when they run out of toys, uncle phil and some other doj police burst into the room with guns (they’re wearing full santa outfits as well). the gansters surrender, never firing a shot, even though they’re caught dead to rights on like a million years worth of crimes.

the episode ends with david, maddy and agnes walking off of the set as the camera pans to show the television studio they’re in and all the workers, they’re singing a christmas carol while fake snow falls everywhere. it is a full christmas carol, like 3 minutes long. after they finish, david and maddy turn to the camera, say “merry christmas everybody” and wave. everyone waves, david kisses maddy on the lips and hugs her. end of the episode what the fuck

Summary

s2e9 Atlas Belched
s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks
s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s2e6 Knowing Her
s2e4 The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s2e8 Portrait of Maddie
s2e7 Somewhere Under the Rainbow
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e5 My Fair David
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask
s2e10 Twas the Episode Before Christmas

[beetlejuice]

s2e11 The Bride of Tupperman

a wealthy white man enlists the detective agency to find a missing person who isn’t missing technically because he’s never met her. he’s looking for a wife and has a criteria all set for who he’s looking for. in describing himself, he says he reads playboy, but he said it in a way where it seemed like he expected you to respect that about him. he also says he’s 39 but he looks like a 50-year-old in 2024. but he’s very rich so he’s basically 25

david and maddy both take different strategies at finding the perfect woman for this guy. david goes to a bar and starts chatting up women as he usually does, but then springs the headshot of this stranger on them and has a 0% success rate with that. next he tries a local modeling agency but is literally thrown out of there. desperate and drunk, we see david at a strip club and the stripper is handing back the headshot with her stiletto heel. the guy isn’t ugly at all, he’s like a normal man, this is getting absurd. maddy puts out ads in the newspaper and gets basically all wackos who answer ads in the newspaper.

david ultimately finds this woman who is like an 80s diva. literally everything she’s wearing and her hair is something i’ve never seen in my life. they tried it in the 80s and they never brought it back. but she’s presented as the ultimo hottie. david warns the male officeworkers to put on sunglasses before she walks into the room, that’s how 80s hot she is. maddy lands on a more cerebral but mousy-looking woman, obviously

mr tupperware chooses the hottie with the shitty personality and david gloats about it. maddy is furious with all men now, and david’s needling her. the two of them drive to visit the homely woman who sounded shattered over the phone. they get to her house to find out she cleared all her furniture that morning with no notice and told her landlord she was getting married. david can’t believe mr tupperman would change his mind at all, let alone so quickly.

they go to tupperman’s penthouse, tupperman’s gone and the clerk says mrs tupperman was a statuesque redhead and they left to vacation in connecticuit. david and maddy fly there for some reason. no cell phones so they can’t call. when they get there, mrs tupperman’s funeral is happening, and it’s the model david set him up with.

turns out tupperman faked being married for years to get tax breaks and then for insurance fraud. insurance wouldn’t pay up without a body, so he married and killed this hot 80s chick with the bad personality. while he’s doing it tho, the homely woman shows up at his door and they fall in love instantly. the two of them plan to live out their lives together but david and maddy chase them through a hospital with cartoonish antics and they catch em, so that’s the end.

Summary

s2e9 Atlas Belched
s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks
s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s2e6 Knowing Her
s2e4 The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s2e8 Portrait of Maddie
s2e7 Somewhere Under the Rainbow
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e5 My Fair David
s2e11 The Bride of Tupperman
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask
s2e10 Twas the Episode Before Christmas

[beetlejuice]

s2e12 North By North Dipesto

agnes dipesto, the secretary and at this point my second favorite character behind david, is depressed because of all the regularness in her life. maddy notices this and invites her to come to a detective convention. they do a full 80s makeover montage in maddy’s walk-in closet, ending with agnes dressed up as a traditionally glamorous 80s woman. which is a shame because her normal look is great, her normal look is what 2024 craves, not this phony bs.

as soon as she walks in to the convention hall, it’s like a high school prom, there’s light music and men and women are dancing in formalwear. within 1 minute a strange man (who we saw escaping rough men in suits in the cold open) grabs her and asks her to dance with him. they dance, he slips her what appears to be his phone number, and they have a passionate kiss as he realizes the heat is still on him, and flees the building through another exit using the pda as a distraction. btw back in the 80s if two strangers started kissing in public, a crowd would form around them, and they would cheer. this is what they took from us.

the escaping man tracks down agnes to the detective agency the next morning, and invites her out to a bowling alley for a fancy sit-down dinner. an official bowling alley announcement said there’s a phone call for agnes. she leaves the table to answer the phone at the front desk (lmao people did this) and there was nobody there. she gets back to the table to find the escaping man stabbed in the chest, only able to croak out the words, “don’t scream” as he reveals the wound. she runs to the front desk to report the murder, and when they come back the body is gone, she looks like a lunatic who got ghosted, and the bowling alley manager throws her out.

the pursuers of the escaped man start pursuing agnes and she asks a nice man at the bowling alley to walk her back to his apartment. he thinks he’s about to get laid but as she’s pushing a cabinet against the door he figures it out. he’s a nice enough quirky funny guy, they’d be a great match which is why it was so disappointing when he sneaks up behind her and injects her with sodium pentathol (tv truth serum). he interrogates her while she’s lying on the couch. he’s a spy and maybe it’s the drugs but agnes seems fine with the whole situation. she grabs him and kisses him after he carried her into a taxi.

agnes doesn’t get one block before she’s kidnapped by other (meaner) spies. these are probably the bad guys. the main bad guy spy details all the spy shit that has happened and their evil plans as agnes protests she doesn’t know anything. the bad guy is yelling in her face and she starts crying. she asks to go to the bathroom and they let her and give her privacy. well, there’s a giant open window in that bathroom, and agnes flees through a laundry factory.

she’s trapped in a sack of laundry on a conveyor and is about to be boiled alive when the good guy spy who didn’t molest her shows up at the last minute to fist-fight the bad guys and unplug the machine before she’s boiled. she gives him the thing they were looking for, a code to recover classified documents of a military nature (no longer a big deal but in the 80s stealing these was a big deal for some reason)

Summary

s2e12 North By North Dipesto
s2e9 Atlas Belched
s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks
s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s2e6 Knowing Her
s2e4 The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s2e8 Portrait of Maddie
s2e7 Somewhere Under the Rainbow
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e5 My Fair David
s2e11 The Bride of Tupperman
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask
s2e10 Twas the Episode Before Christmas

[beetlejuice]

s2e13 In God We Strongly Suspect

cold open is david and maddy introducing themselves as dave and maddy and they speak directly to the camera, informing the audience that this episode will be presented entirely in 3D and they mailed everyone 3D glasses but the post office fucked it up (implication: reagan), so the episode will not be 3D.

an escape artist dies on stage while failing to escape a water tank. his wife hires the agency to guard his body in the mortuary the night before his burial. david and maddy both stay the night. they ensure the body is in the casket when they get there, but when they leave in the morning, they discover that the body has disappeared.

turned out the escape artist wasn’t dead, he just paid off the coroner with stolen jewels. but then the coroner killed him for real for the rest of the jewels, and david and maddy catch him

Summary

s2e12 North By North Dipesto
s2e9 Atlas Belched
s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks
s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s2e6 Knowing Her
s2e4 The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s2e8 Portrait of Maddie
s2e7 Somewhere Under the Rainbow
s2e13 In God We Strongly Suspect
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e5 My Fair David
s2e11 The Bride of Tupperman
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask
s2e10 Twas the Episode Before Christmas

[beetlejuice]

s2e14 Every Daughter’s Father is a Virgin

cold open is david and maddy reading fan mail to the camera. they answer questions about when they’re finally gonna hook up, and say definitely not this week cause they’ve already read the script, but keep the letters coming. in the 80s, viewers would write letters and mail them to tv studios instead of just tweeting, which i think we can all agree is much more elegant

this one was all about maddy finding out her father was cheating on her mom with some other old lady. very little detective stuff in this one. david finds out the dad is cheating and after that it was all maddy closeups. she forgives him in the end and the dad swears it’ll never happen again, and while that’s simply not believable, she accepts it and the episode ends

Summary

s2e12 North By North Dipesto
s2e9 Atlas Belched
s2e3 Money Talks – Maddie Walks
s2e1 Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
s2e6 Knowing Her
s2e4 The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice
s1e6 The Murder’s in the Mail
s1e3 Read the Mind – See the Movie
s1e1 Pilot
s1e4 The Next Murder You Hear
s1e5 Next Stop Murder
s2e8 Portrait of Maddie
s2e7 Somewhere Under the Rainbow
s2e13 In God We Strongly Suspect
s1e2 Gunfight at the So-So Corral
s2e5 My Fair David
s2e11 The Bride of Tupperman
s2e2 The Lady in the Iron Mask
s2e10 Twas the Episode Before Christmas
s2e14 Every Daughter’s Father is a Virgin