The Greenhouse Jungle story
Jarvis Goodland and his nephew, Tony, stage Tony's kidnapping in order to break into his trust fund and use his half to hold on to his wife, to whom he wishes to remain married, despite her expensive tastes and separate social and romantic life. Jarvis, disgusted at the notion, shoots and kills Tony, whom he has always despised, once the ransom is paid, and a careful swapping of guns with Tony's wife casts suspicion in her direction. Final clue/twist: After Columbo remembers that Jarvis Goodland had years earlier fired a gun at a burglar but only managed to hit a flowerpot, Columbo searches the greenhouse with a metal detector for the old slug. It turns out to be identical to the bullet with which Tony was murdered, proving Goodland killed his nephew, and that the gun evidence against Tony's wife was part of a frame-up. This episode marks the first appearance of Bob Dishy as Columbo's newly assigned and totally unwanted neophyte partner, Sergeant Frederick Wilson, full of the latest techniques from Berkeley. He appears again in Now You See Him... (Season 5, Episode 5). It is also the first episode in which the main crime is committed after Columbo's initial appearance. Directed by: Boris Sagal. Story by: Jonathan Latimer.
16 total · 4 choice · 8 major · 4 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| greed for riches | choice | Jarvis shot his nephew dead in cold blood to get the nephew's trust fund money, in the form of a ransom, to help fund his costly orchid hobby. |
| how to murder someone and get away with it | choice | Orchid enthusiast Jarvis Goodland together with his nephew staged a kidnapping in order to gain access to said nephew's lavish trust fund. But Jarvis double crossed and murdered his nephew, making it look like the kidnapping had been botched, to in order to purloin the whole of the booty for himself. He evidently would have gotten away with it had it not been for the ever-pesky Lt. Columbo. |
| parricide | choice | Orchid enthusiast Jarvis Goodland murdered his adult nephew to gain access to a trust fund in the nephew's name and made it look like a ransom kidnapping gone wrong. |
| theft | choice | Orchid enthusiast Jarvis Goodland together with his nephew staged a kidnapping in order to gain access to said nephew's lavish trust fund. But Jarvis double crossed and murdered his nephew, making it look like the kidnapping had been botched, to in order to purloin the whole of the booty for himself. |
| appearances can be deceiving | major | Witnesses and villains alike are caught off guard by Lieutenant Columbo's bumbling façade, which invariably proves to conceal a laser-focused mind. |
| betrayal | major | Jarvis betrayed his co-conspirator and nephew, Tony, by shooting him dead after they'd together collected the ransom for a kidnapping of Tony. |
| gardening | major | After using his wife's wilted African violet as an excuse to serially pester Jarvis in his tropical greenhouse, Columbo finally confronted this most callous villain in the very same titular hothouse and presented evidence of murder chancely concealed in the garden dirt. |
| husband and wife | major | Tony loved his wife, Cathy, in spite of her philandering ways. |
| law enforcement | major | The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Was Tony Goodland killed by his kidnappers or was there something more sinister afoot? |
| ransom kidnapping | major | Jarvis and Tony staged Tony's kidnapping with a view toward collecting on a hefty ransom from Tony's trust fund. Jarvis, however, shot Tony dead and took the entire ransom for himself. |