Watched: 02/14/2025
Format: Hallmark
Viewing: First
Director: Peter Benson/ David Winning
Job: Puzzle Maker and Police Investigation Meddler
new skill: complete knowledge of plant scientific names/ riddle show participant
Man: Brennan Elliot
Job of Man: Detective
Goes to/ Returns to: Remains in NYC
Event: canceled puzzle contest w/ a computer, taping of a game show
Food: Italian cooking made by supporting characters/ some diner food
I guess I should mention, Jamie was digging these movies a bit. Her reason, and I agree, is that they're not structured like a Christmas film or romcom, and the two leads bounce off each other very well. It's a refreshing change.
Anyway - we went ahead and knocked these two out. You're welcome.
I will note - the audio was pretty bad in these two movies. I can't say what happened, but there were garbled lines, the echo of shooting on location mixed with ADR. Wind. It was all over the place.
With two years since our last movies, we have some new supporting cast, and we're given some lines about what happened to the former colleagues.
Crossword Mysteries: Terminal Descent (2021) sees Chabert showing up at a company that has develop an AI, and she's to take part in a PR bit where she'll solve crosswords in a sort of Deep Blue-like contest with the AI. But, whoops, the elevator plummets 30 floors and kills the CEO. We'll ignore how elevators work and the non-digital safety devices that kind of can't be removed - but okay! It's a TV movie.
The CEO is played by staple Lochlyn Munro, who is in like 20 things a year, and so I was expecting to not be unalived in the first minute of the movie, but here we are.
I was concerned this movie was about to go MI: Dead Reckoning with a deadly AI on the loose, but - more sensibly than Tom's movie, it was a whodunit about who wanted to own an AI that had been optimized for espionage, somewhat by accident.
Brennan Elliot is paired with a new partner and they let her have lines and stuff. It's wild.
Chabert cracks the case open because she's a know-it-all who bothers the guy watering the plants and is shocked that he doesn't know the scientific name of the plant he's watering. She also invades a biker bar that in this universe is not a white nationalist club moving hard drugs that would end someone snooping around.
Riddle Me Dead (2021) is weirdly close to a movie that actually tries to advance the characters while also having a fairly decent murder mystery. It also wraps up the Crossword Mysteries movie series, which I get. As these two films came out in 2021, my guess is that any thought to do more with these movies or characters got abandoned during COVID, and, spoilers - our heroes share a single dry kiss, at long last. So where would they go from there? In Hallmark land, romance ends at a light peck.
But, is this the one thing in western media that ended at the right time?
Chabert's puzzle-meister has been asked to give video clues on a popular gameshow where guests answer riddles. In this universe, this show is wildly popular - like Jeopardy - and has manic fans, including her aunt. But while Chabert is there for a taping, the asshole of a host is murdered.
There are suspects aplenty, and when your victim is a jerk, plenty of motive.
As part of all this, we find out that the guy who got Chabert involved is a former fiancée who is trying to get a second chance with Chabert. As our detective figures this out, it feels uncomfortably like real tension in a Hallmark movie. And her aunt, who has been getting chummy with Elliot's cop-dad, feels a pang of guilt about moving on years after her husband's death.
The possible suspects get questioned, impropriety in the gameshow is uncovered, and lights fall from grids.
As things unfold, Chabert is torn between Man and Former Man, and (spoilers) Former Man was maybe up to no good despite Chabert proclaiming his innocence.
And, thus, my beef with the closing scene of the series. Chabert had a lot to clear up/ apologize for, and instead Dt. Man came to her and kind of apologized? Movie, this should have been a slam dunk. Just have her declare her feelings and apologize. And, weirdly I suspect it was framed this way because they didn't want to have to build a set for his apartment for her to visit instead of reusing the pre-existing set.
Still, Chabert looks fetch in a white sweater, and it's fine.
Thus ends our tour of the 5-movie Crossword Mysteries series that was nowhere as goofy as I thought it was going to be - which is what happens when you think it will be 5 movies about crossword puzzles tied to murder. Instead, it's just about a particularly smart lady who has an insane amount of trivia packed away and sees the patterns that help her make puzzles - not to mention a spirit for meddling in murder cases. I've seen worse.
Both leads understand the assignment, even if sometimes you can tell they're just doing what they can to get the shot - these last two were shot during COVID, I'd guess, and sometimes you can feel it in how the movies are staged. There's certainly times where you can even tell they're just trying to get through a scene, which would probably account for the audio issues.
All that said, I was kind of wondering what these movies would have been like if they had time and money to lean in a bit more. And I know it's odd to say "I was looking for more character stuff" in a mystery movie of the week on Hallmark, but here we are. And maybe I feel that way because the last movie actually started to dip in there. Plus, at 84 minutes a pop, the 5th movie was me *starting* at Lord of the Rings territory with these people at 5.6 hours and in for almost an hour and a half more.
Maybe this is just me expressing my general dissatisfaction with episodic television. I don't know. But it felt like we we tilting from "this is fine" to "this might be okay", and then it ended. Like, solving a mystery per week is fine, Columbo, but I think character advancement + mystery of the week is why I like shows like Poker Face.
Alas, that's it. We will never know if Chauncey and Aunt Candace find another adult extension course to take together.
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