Good day! If you’re looking to celebrate the life and legacy of Christopher Columbus, go somewhere else. Around here, we spend the second Monday in October commemorating the accomplishments of a vastly superior individual, Lieutenant Columbo. Happy Columbo’s Day, everyone!
Today we’re looking at the very last episode of Columbo ever produced, “Columbo Likes the Nightlife,” which aired on ABC on January 30, 2003. If you like this, check out the writeups from from 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 too.
A little background: Columbo originally ran in the 1970s as part of the NBC Mystery Movie, a “wheel series” in which the show rotated with Dennis Weaver’s McCloud and Susan Saint James’s McMillan and Wife every three weeks, with each series airing a two-hour TV movie in the time slot. Eleven years after the demise of the concept, ABC brought the concept back in 1989, pairing a new Columbo series with two other new series. The ABC Mystery Movie only lasted two seasons, but ABC continued to produce Columbo as a series of specials about once a year throughout the 1990s (often collectively referred to as “Columbo season 10,” somewhat misleadingly). The last of these specials was “Columbo Likes the Nightlife,” which aired nearly two years after the last special and gave us the last time Peter Falk would don the shabby raincoat of TV’s greatest detective. Falk passed away in 2011, and it’s difficult to imagine anyone else taking up the Columbo mantle in his wake, so for now this is the last Columbo episode ever produced.
During Columbo’s heyday in the 1970s the show would typically feature a well-known celebrity like Leonard Nimoy, Johnny Cash, or Dick Van Dyke as the killer. The 80s and 90s episodes would sometimes feature lesser lights, but “Columbo Likes the Nightlife” is perhaps unique in its spotlight of a future star: Matthew Rhys was still about 10 years away from his breakout role as deeply embedded Soviet spy Philip Jennings in FX’s The Americans. Keep an eye out for a couple of other future stars in small roles, too. On to the show:
We open on two guys, Justin Price (Matthew Rhys) and Tony Galper (Carmine Giovinazzo), in an under-construction nightclub called Bait. Justin, an entertainment impresario and the owner of the club, wants to open soon, but doesn’t have access to enough cash. “Then you’ll be very happy to know it’s all been arranged,” says Tony, who assures Justin he’ll have the money in 36 hours. You guys, I think the Mafia might be involved in this somehow.
Tony, who is visiting LA from New York, leaves the club and swings by the home of his ex-wife Vanessa Farrow (Jennifer Sky), a minor TV actress, to berate her about things and generally be a dick to her. Tony is furious to see a framed photo of Vanessa with his business partner Justin, and they scuffle briefly until Tony trips/is shoved and falls into a glass coffee table, killing him. Uh oh.
In a panic, Vanessa summons Justin, who rifles the dead man’s pockets and finds a keycard from the Orpheus Hotel and a key from White Star Cars. Vanessa hasn’t called the police because she’s afraid “those people will kill me.” Justin isn’t any more ecstatic about getting the police involved because it will look very bad for him when Tony’s money lands in his bank account in 36 hours. The lovebirds agree that for the next three days they’re going to make it look like Tony is still hanging around town, which makes me way too excited for some kind of Weekend at Bernie’s scenario that, ultimately, does not happen.
Cut to 36 hours later. Justin calls Vanessa and tells her the money has come through and “it’s time for Tony to check out.” Justin goes to Tony’s room at the Orpheus and spends some time making it look lived-in. Affecting a hilarious wiseguy accent, he calls the front desk as Tony and checks out of the room, saying he’ll leave the key on the table. Next, he drives to the car place in Tony’s rented Mercedes, drops the car keys off in the drop box, and hops into Vanessa’s waiting SUV. Everything’s coming up Milhouse until Vanessa gets a call at home later from a raspy-voiced guy: “Did you really think you were going to get away with it?” Freaking out again, Vanessa calls Justin. As she explains what happens, he freezes when he receives an email from the same guy.
The guy is a blackmailer, he has pictures of the damning scene somehow, and he wants money to turn them over. Justin has no confidence that the blackmailer will be done with them after they pay up, and convinces Vanessa that they’ll have no peace with this guy walking around, if you know what I mean.
That night, Justin is hosting a rave at a warehouse, and the joint is jumping. Justin can’t enjoy the ambience, though, because he has to head out back to meet with the blackmailer, Linwood Coben (Douglas Roberts), who turns out to be an old acquaintance of Justin’s. The pictures are very real, and Linwood wants $250,000 for them. Justin says he’ll be at the blackmailer’s office in two hours with the money. “Bring one of your girls like you used to,” Linwood says. “I’ll show her a good time.” Nice.
Vanessa stays in the car as Justin visits Linwood’s run-down office with a bag of fake money. As Linwood discovers the deception, Justin (eventually) strangles him. Unusually for this show, it is a messy, ugly murder that does not go as planned, with Linwood managing to overpower Justin for several seconds before Justin finally subdues him.
Justin receives a page (in 2003? Seriously?) with the message “EMERGENCY – FRONT DOOR,” but doesn’t seem to react with any great alacrity. After locating the original photos, he notices that Linwood has scribbled directions on his daily calendar, and rips the page out. Next, he sits down at Linwood’s computer to delete the incriminating email and write a fake suicide note blaming Linwood’s gambling problems. As he puts the finishing touches on the note, he is surprised to see Linwood struggle to his feet, not dead at all. Thinking fast, Justin shoves him through an open window, only for Linwood to get hung up on the cord Justin used to strangle him, which has snagged on the radiator. After a few seconds, the radiator comes loose and follows Linwood out the window, with both crashing loudly to the ground next to Vanessa’s car. The perfect crime!
Columbo time! The officer on scene (Julius Carry) downloads to the silver-haired detective, getting flustered as he loudly sniffs the corpse several times and examines a weird glowing green spot on the tire of the dead man’s car. You’d think the force would be used to Columbo’s antics by now. Linwood was a freelance reporter for the tabloids (i.e., a paparazzo), and the cops suppose he hung himself out the window deliberately, citing the suicide note on the computer. In Linwood’s filthy bathroom, Columbo discovers a bottle of mouthwash—the source of the odor he detected—and reaches into the toilet to pull out a cut toenail. Euurghh. Columbo reasons that a man who is about to kill himself would not cut his toenails and use mouthwash immediately beforehand—it looks more like he was getting ready to see a woman.
Columbo also notices that Linwood’s desk calendar is missing the page for yesterday’s date, and uses a pencil to reveal what was written on the missing page. “I thought that only worked on TV,” says the prints guy (Jamison Yang), impressed. Prints guy reveals that there is only one set of prints on the computer keyboard, probably belonging to the victim—except for the E and I keys, which have no detectable prints at all. Columbo observes that there are more e’s and i’s in the suicide note than any other letters. If someone were wearing gloves, Columbo asks, is it possible that they would wipe away any prints on the keys they hit most frequently? Prints guy says it is. “This ain't no suicide,” Columbo says thoughtfully, “but there's some guy out there that wants me to think it is. And that's the dude I'm going to be looking for.”
Field trip time. Columbo drives his shitty car to the address indicated by the recovered directions from the calendar. Unsurprisingly to the audience, it turns out to be Justin’s rave warehouse, where Linwood and Justin met before the murder. The only people left at the warehouse in the middle of the morning are a few girls dancing in silence, presumably high on molly. He borrows a glow stick—it’s green, just like the spot on the car tire—from one of the girls and leaves, spotting a card for Justin’s grand opening on his way out.
Columbo visits the still-unfinished club later and meets Justin, asking why Linwood would have been at Justin’s rave last night. Justin doesn’t deny knowing Linwood, and—begging Columbo’s discretion—explains their relationship: the parties Justin organizes frequently attract celebrities, and when one of those celebrities did something embarrassing Justin would tip off Linwood, who would take a few snaps and sell the negatives back to the celebrity, kicking back some money to Justin. Justin also says that Linwood had drinking and gambling problems, and volunteers that this wasn’t the first time he’d tried to kill himself.
Columbo later stops by the offices of one of the tabloids Linwood worked for to meet with an editor. Linwood had no shortage of enemies, she says—in fact, he recently received threats related to a story he was working on. Finally, he visits a paramedic who had responded to a medical emergency—some dumb teenager collapsed from dehydration—at Justin’s rave the night of Linwood’s death. The paramedic had had Justin’s doorman (Jorge Garcia, about a year away from breaking into the public consciousness as Hugo on Lost) page him about the emergency, but it took Justin 15 minutes to respond, an unexpectedly long period given that Justin was supposedly inside the warehouse the whole time. (In reality, of course, Justin was busy at the murder scene, and the “EMERGENCY – FRONT DOOR” page had come not from Vanessa, but from the doorman.)
Columbo pays a visit to another of Justin’s teeth-rattling warehouse raves. Politely declining a young woman’s offer to dance, he finds Justin and starts getting down to brass tacks about Linwood’s death maybe being not a suicide at all. If you were there the whole night, Columbo asks, why did you take so long to respond to the doorman’s page? “Last night, my [pager] batteries were dead,” Justin explains. “Just one more thing,” Peter Falk says for the last time in his legendary career: “What was your morning like?” Because when Columbo visited Justin at his club that morning his batteries were working fine. “That’s very clever, Lieutenant,” Justin answers condescendingly. He says he changed the batteries immediately after the incident. Seemingly satisfied, the detective gives his goodnight and heads out.
Next morning, the great man shambles up to the front door of one Sean Jarvis (Sean Finnegan), who had left an intemperate message on Linwood Coben’s answering machine. Jarvis was mad because Linwood promised him tree hunnerd bucks to let him hang out in Jarvis’s backyard for a couple of hours, but never paid him. As it turns out, Jarvis lives next door to Vanessa, and climbing a particular tree in his backyard would afford someone a pretty good view of her property. Columbo pays Vanessa a visit to ask her if she knows anything about Linwood, who as a paparazzo might be interested in even a D-list celebrity like her. She has nothing of importance to impart, and Columbo takes his leave, but not before noticing some telltale indentations in her carpet, as if furniture had been recently moved. Dropping back in at Linwood’s office, the detective pulls Vanessa’s folder from Linwood’s files and finds records of her divorce as well as an empty folder labeled “6/22 – STORY PHOTOS”—two days before Linwood’s death. Why would Linwood have labeled a folder but put nothing in it—especially considering that that was the day he spent up Jarvis’s tree?
Back at the club. Justin is getting fish tanks installed in the floor, in keeping with the name Bait. Columbo wants to know if Vanessa Farrow was the person Linwood took a picture of on the night of his death. Justin denies it. Columbo thanks him kindly and leaves, while Justin begins to lose his shit. Vanessa meets Justin in a diner to share her concerns about how close Columbo is getting. Justin assures her that they’ve covered their tracks and everything is under control.
Columbo stops by the precinct to ask about the threats against Linwood, but his train of thought is directed in a different direction when he overhears two uniforms talking about a missing person named Tony Galper. On his way out the door he is buttonholed by a delivery man with a package for him to sign for. It’s a Hawaiian shirt from Justin, presumably so Columbo will fit in better the next time he drops by the club. Ha. Columbo revisits Linwood’s office and double checks those divorce papers. Yep—the husband’s name was Tony Galper, the missing man. Checking Linwood’s other files, he finds a folder for Tony with a handwritten note that Tony’s father is Mafia boss Joe “Joey G” Gienelli. Curiouser and curiouser! He finds photos of Vanessa and Tony from June 13 and June 20, but still nothing from June 22.
Columbo meets back up with the cop from the crime scene, who tells him the threats against Linwood were real—someone threw a brick through the window of his car with a note wrapped around it telling him to stay away from a story he was working on, signed by someone calling himself “G.” Hmm.
Columbo goes to the store where Justin bought the Hawaiian shirt and happens to run into Vanessa. She asks if he’s following her, but he insists he’s just trying to exchange the shirt for one that’s the proper size. Come to think of it, though, it’s a good thing he ran into her, because he has a few more questions to ask… about Vanessa’s missing ex-husband Tony. Columbo shows her the note from Linwood’s car and tells her that “G.” is Tony’s father Joey Gienelli, the crime boss. It would seem to be an open and shut case of the Mob rubbing Linwood out, but Tony going missing complicates things. Just one more question, Ms. Farrow: Where were you on the night of Linwood’s death? She was home alone, she says, and no, she has no witnesses to that effect.
At the precinct, Columbo is talking to the officer (Patrick Cupo) in charge of investigating Tony’s disappearance, who says he went missing three days ago, on the 24th. Not the 22nd? Nope—they have him checking out of his hotel room and returning his rental car on the 24th. Columbo notices there’s no signature on the rental car paperwork, and visits the car place to learn about the drop box. At the hotel, he learns you can also check out without visiting the front desk. Um, both of those things were pretty common long before 2003, I think. Columbo needs to get out more. Point is, Tony—or someone else—could have performed both of those tasks without anyone seeing him. Columbo talks to the maid (Karen Maruyama), who says that the room was messy every day that Tony was registered there. At this point, Columbo is pretty invested in the idea that Tony went missing before the 24th, so this perplexes him, until the maid drops one crucial detail: Tony was in the habit of missing the bowl when taking a piss, and she had to clean up urine on every day of his nine-day stay, except the 24th—the day he checked out. Interesting.
Driving away, Columbo is flagged down by Freddie (Steven R. Schirripa, who was busy playing Bobby Bacala on The Sopranos at the time), who is just in from New York and ostensibly needs directions. In reality, he’s there to deliver a message from his associates back east. They were keeping a close eye on one of Tony’s big-money investments, so they are concerned about his disappearance, and are very interested in the outcome of Columbo’s investigation. Does Freddie remember the name of this investment? “I don’t, I’m sorry,” Freddie replies. “There were fish, though. Something about fish.” Could it be the Bait nightclub? “That’s the one.” Freddie’s associates froze all his pending deals when he went missing, with his investment in Bait—which went through the morning of his disappearance—being the last transaction to complete. So that’s one more link between Justin, Vanessa, Linwood, and Tony.
Columbo pops his head in at the club on the day of the big opening to pester Justin about his missing investor. He shows Justin a picture of Tony from Linwood’s files, and informs him that Linwood was working on a story about Tony because of his connection to the Gienelli crime family. He recaps his conversation with Freddie about Tony’s business dealings. Thing is, these Mafia guys are interested in his investigation, but Columbo thinks they’d really rather take matters into their own hands. Now acting thoroughly annoyed, Justin wants to know what reason he could possibly have to do away with his enthusiastic business partner. Columbo turns to leave, burbling happily about the tanks in the dance floor, now stocked with koi.
Back at Vanessa’s place with a few more questions about his two increasingly connected investigations—the murder of Linwood and the disappearance of Tony. He’s having a hard time finding the tie between the two cases, he says. “I have a suspect in the Coben murder that I'm reasonably certain about. But I'm having a devil of a time tying that suspect to the suspect that I'm circling in your husband's—excuse me, your ex-husband's disappearance.” And who is that? “Well, that's you, Miss Farrow.” As Vanessa shits a brick, Columbo produces a call record from Justin’s pager, showing that he received a lot of calls from Vanessa’s phone number, including a number made on the morning after Linwood’s death.
After the detective leaves, Vanessa calls Justin from a pay phone and demands to see him immediately. He protests that he’s just about to open the club, so she goes there to confront him, pushing her way past doorman Jorge Garcia as Columbo’s Peugeot is seen driving by in the background. Pulling Justin into a back room, Vanessa tells him about the call records, which freaks Justin out. They yell at each other for a bit until the music suddenly stops. It’s Columbo’s doing, of course, and Justin flies into a rage at his interference with Justin’s big opening night. He tries to have Columbo thrown out until the detective produces a warrant. As everyone watches bemusedly, Columbo points to the three koi tanks in the floor: the two on either side each hold 14 fish, but the middle tank holds only nine. As it happens, one of Columbo’s many nephews works at the San Diego Zoo, and told him about the regulations that specify the minimum amount of water you have to have in a tank for a given amount of fish. Grabbing a long pole to use as a sounding rod, Columbo determines that the two outside tanks are both about four feet deep, but the one in the middle is only two feet deep.
As a tech guy runs some kind of equipment over the middle tank, Columbo lays out the case: Vanessa knew that if the Mafia found out that Tony was dead and she was involved, they’d kill her. And if Justin knew Tony was dead, he’d have to help Vanessa cover it up until the investment money came through. Columbo has the tech guy route the signal from his equipment—a ground penetrating radar device—to the big TV screens hanging over the dance floor. As the signal improves, it becomes clear what we’re looking at: the body of Tony Galper buried underneath the middle fish tank, sleeping with the fishes.
And so Lieutenant Columbo takes his final bow and steps into history. “Columbo Likes the Nightlife” is available to paid subscribers on Peacock, the streaming service from NBC, and don’t forget to catch this episode on the Columbo Podcast. See you next year!
