One of the greatest characters to ever grace our television screens was J.B. Fletcher aka Jessica Fletcher, heroine, mystery writer and murder-solving genius of Murder She Wrote.
We have made no secret of our rabid love of Murder She Wrote and its main character, widowed amateur Sherlock Holmes Jessica Fletcher. Fletcher is portrayed by England's Betty White, the always perfect Angela Lansbury. (I pray to every GOD under the sun that I will be reincarnated as Jessica Fletcher and/or Lansbury in another life someday.) But Isaac Royffe isn't content to just stock his closet with silk blouses adorned with giant bows and pearl broaches like some sad bloggers who shall remain nameless. He put together this nearly 60 minute (!!!) cut of all of Our Lady of the Accidentally Stumbled Upon Dead Body's epiphanies. Those are the moments when she realizes the solution to the murder she just randomly happens to be in close proximity to.
Royffe shared his motivation for diving into the MSW fandom with me, a fellow MSW diehard fan:
Back in college MSW was on like 4 hours a day bundled with the Golden Girls on cable. I had already made a successful drinking game based on the Golden Girls, and realized if I could get into this MSW show that's on after we could continue drinking for another hour every time we imbibed.
So I started to study it, and was amazed at the premise: Mystery writer is coincidentally around 300 separate murders in the span of 12 years, and solves them all. Its so different than any other mystery show where the lead is a detective, cop, or lawyer. She really has no business being near a murder, or getting involved, and that's my favorite part.
In case you are wondering or in dire need of a Murder She Wrote drinking game, here are Royffe's rules:
Murder She Wrote Drinking Game
(Drink Whenever)
- Someone is murdered
- Someone says "murder"
- Someone compliments her books
- Jessica is snoopy
- Police are inept
- Epiphanies
- She is wearing a killer broach
- Any shoulder pads
- She befriends a simpleton
- Anyone looks / does something shady
- Really good acting
- Really bad acting
- Blue screen driving
Its pretty aggressive, and as you can see "Epiphanies" was one of the rules.
This was about 10 year ago, but the idea of doing something with her amazing epiphanies stuck with me. Then finally during a break from work I decided to indulge myself and see what I could make. Eight months later we have whatever this is.
For me the big allure of MSW is Jessica Fletcher as a role model. She is pretty much flawless in everything she does. Both in her sense of justice, and keen fashion sense. After watching 246 episodes and 4 movies she almost never makes a wrong decision, unless its involving that the one spy guy who she is hot for and always gets her into trouble.
LANSBURY ***FLAWLESS. For real. Also, amen and PREACH re: Fletcher's "keen fashion sense." You can try and fail at "normcore" all you want; JB Fletcher had it down before you even got up, mmmkay?
Watch this whole video and you'll be pretty much like this gif.
Murder She Wrote - The Many Epiphanies Of Jessica Fletcher by Isaac Royffe from Isaac Royffe on Vimeo.
DISCUSSION
I maintain JB Fletcher is actually the greatest serial killer in history, who operated for over a decade and got hundreds of people to take the fall during her murder spree.