Handsome young Ben Conan is playing cards with Peter Talbot who puts the old into cuckold.  Ben wins again, as usual.  Peter’s wife Lisa reminds him that Ben has beaten him at cards, billiards, and golf — and that Peter still owes him $50.  Ben says Peter can pay off the debt by watching as Ben plows Lisa like the North 40.  No, wait, that’s a short film I saw earlier tonight two and a half times.  Peter chugs some booze — inexplicably a penalty for losing — and passes out.

Lisa asks Ben how a man could change so much in just 2 years, “He seemed so strong, so capable.”  To be fair, Peter is now 23 years older than his wife.  When they married he was . . . oh yeah.

Lisa tells Ben, “You are kind, steady, dependable.  Just the way a man should be.”  Then they kiss.  In some of the most boring exposition in this series, Ben tells Lisa that he never married because managing his silver mine keeps him busy, and Lisa tells him she inherited a business from her father which Peter is running into the ground (which might be OK if it were a mine).  

In the building’s lobby, Ben is stopped by a man who knows him as Ben Conan aka Fred Sheldon aka Terry Lord.  Let me pause here for a shout-out, and not just to wake myself up.  The man is Private Investigator Alvin Moss, played by Russell Collins.  

Collins might be the greatest actor of all time.  When I see Jack Nicholson in a movie, come on, he’s never not Jack Nicholson.^[2] De Niro is such a drooling imbecile, it is impossible to take him seriously.  But every time I see Russell Collins, I never know what to expect.  We’ve seen him play a prisoner, a bum, a used car lot owner, a bitter old geezer, a nice old guy, and now a confident — and for a change — well-groomed, energetic, smiling PI.  The only constant is that his characters are old; but he was born in 1897 and didn’t start showing up on TV until he was 50.   Whaddaya gonna do?  Only 5 people had more appearances on AHP and two of them were named Hitchcock.  

Moss says Fred Sheldon is wanted for bigamy in Miami.  He “bleeds widows, blackmails married dames.”   Moss says some of them take sleeping pills, or watch this episode.  He tells “Ben” his client is paying him a cool $40/day to keep an eye on him.  So I guess the emphasis is on Investigator, not Private.

Despite being adults, they take the car out for a make-out session which seems to be on the planet Vulcan.  Ben breaks the mood when he says he needs $10,000 to meet the payroll at his silver mine which is no gold mine.  They decide to fly to Phoenix together.  Ben says he is going to pay Peter a visit tomorrow.  

Peter is drunk when Ben shows up.  Ben suggests that Peter just married Lisa for her money.  Peter says he must be joking (when actually he is foreshadowing).  He accuses Ben of being a conman.  Ben knocks him out with a single punch to the kisser.  He then undresses Peter and drags him into the bathtub.  He turns on the water and drowns the limp Peter unconscious Peter.  There is a little episode-padding as he dawdles around and spends more time in that bathroom than I would if it were Charlize Theron in the tub.

Finally he emerges, but leaves the water running.  Why?  There was already enough water to drown Peter.  Ah, you say, if Peter had a heart attack as Ben wants the police to believe, then the tub would have to be full because Peter could not turn off the faucet after his heart attack — so Ben is just allowing the tub to fill.  But wait, why then does Ben close the bathroom doors and bedroom doors if he is just going to go back in and turn off the water?  Ah, you say, he is going to leave the water running until it overflows and his downstairs neighbor calls the cops.  Really?  Unnecessarily ruining the carpet, causing thousands of dollars of structural damage, and pissing off his neighbors?  Ah, you say . . . shut up, I say.  I’ve had enough of you.  And BTW, what sumptuous Taj Mahal spotlighted in Architectural Architectual Architectural Digest has giant double doors like these on the shitter?

Seriously, these are the bathroom doors.

Blah blah blog . . . Moss drops by.  Ben says Peter is not here.  Moss asks how he got in . . . 3 seconds after he himself just entered the same unlocked door.  Then he asks about the running water.  He accuses Ben of killing Peter.  Ben says it was a heart attack — after all, Lisa said he had a bum ticker.  Moss says Peter was perfectly healthy and also very wealthy aside from Lisa’s dough.  

Ben takes a swing at Moss, but Moss conks him on the noggin with his pistol.  Moss says he is going to call his client — Lisa.  This is supposed to be the zinger.  Yes it is a twist, but I’m not sure why it matters.  Ben is already busted and will go to jail.  Ah, you say — starting your “Ah” shit again — but he just learned Lisa betrayed him!  Hello, McFly, Ben was a con-man!  He was just using her! ^[4]

This was a rare AHP exercise in tedium.  The leads were not very interesting, the story was very simple, the backgrounds of the ocean and desert were laughable, and the twist was underwhelming.  But, hey, that Russell Collins was great! ^[1]

Other Stuff:

• [1]  Great, but maybe not good enough for a picture.  This is the guy.  He shows up one more time in season 7, which I should get to in about 2035.
• [2]  I just inexplicably watched him in Something’s Got to Give.  OK, it was not in his peak-Jack heyday, and the picture didn’t sweep the Oscars (although, who would know?). ^[3] But, wow, what an embarrassing performance.
• [3]  Tomorrow I will include a link that the Oscars tonight achieved another record low viewership.
• [4]  There’s an out here, but I’m in a bitchy mood.
• Title Analysis:  Fail.  I assume this is a play on checkmate.  The coined word does not have a good ring to it.  Besides, this was a simple — to the point of tedium — story.  It did not require a lot of strategery.
• Sadly, Gia Scala (Lisa) died at 38 years old.
• As always, thorough coverage of the episode and source material can be found at bare*bones e-zine.