Episode Guide

Season 5

Episode 61- Perfetc


The Case

Brock Ash tries to hire Blue Moon to prove he committed the perfect crime (that has never been solved) before he dies. David wants to take the case, Maddie doesn't want to glorify criminals. Maddie only agrees to take the case when David promises they'll turn over all the evidence to the police and not try to use it to glorify Blue Moon.
They go to the musuem where Brock Ash stole the Egyptian funeral masks from and visit the security guard on duty that night. They finally get some evidence that Ash stole the masks. David calls a news conference against Maddie's wishes. David plans on using the Brock Ash case to make himself (and I suppose Blue Moon) famous. Unfortunately Brock Ash finds out that he is not terminally ill after all and does not want to go to jail. He leaves David and the news conference is a disaster.
Later, David finds Brock Ash and chases him out onto a window ledge. Brock is not able to hold on and falls to his death. Maddie and David then return to the scene of the "perfect" crime to find out that Brock Ash has been blamed for more than he actually stole.

What's Really Going on Chris?

Maddie comes to work to find the employees engaged in a spitball fight. She assumes that David instigated this office faux pas, but it turns out he is at a bowling tournament and the employees were acting badly of their own free will. Maddie punishes them with 30 minutes of quiet time with their heads down on their desks.
While Maddie and Dave investigate the case, Maddie tells David that she thinks he wants to become famous and is using this case to achieve that end. He denies it and says that it is cheap talk coming from her, "whose face has been on more magazine covers that the Ayatollah." She continues by telling him that his problem is that he can't tell the difference between surface and substance, that he doesn't know how to lay a foundation for anything beyond tomorrow. She claims that she's seen his M.O. a thousand times, "in the office, in the field, and in a relationship." Maddie claims that this is why she didn't expend the effort, although he probably thinks he is the one who didn't expend the effort. David exclaims, "that's why it didn't work." Maddie complains that it doesn't matter what they're talking about, the conversation always turns into a postmortem on their relationship and that they've talked it to death. David adds, "we still do." Maddie suggests, " let's stop" and David agrees.
At the end of the episode, David is commissioned to put a 12 foot pile of underwear in the Louve museum in Paris (I won't tell you why, you'll have to watch the episode!) He negotiates for 2 round trip tickets and asks Maddie to go to Paris with him, she agrees.

Chris's Obsessive Analysis

This is another episode that shows that Maddie has "dethawed" a bit from her ice princess past. She deals with the office spitball fight in a David-like way, and then has no problem with David's bowling tournament (and banquet) during work hours. However, this episode gives us the least hope pf them getting back together. They both seem tired of the constant rehashing of (and blaming each other for) what went wrong between them.
The exchange in the car that Maddie and David had about David not being able to tell the difference between surface and substance always bothered me. I can't believe that Maddie says to David that she has never seen him lay a foundation for anything past tomorrow. What about the business he has helped her build for the past 5 years? She never, ever gives him credit for that. Why don't the writers ever let him defend himself? I always felt that Maddie saying that the reason that their relationship didn't work was true, both of them were not willing to invest (although it seemed David invested more than she did)....but what I hated was when David said "that's why it didn't work, we've talked it to death." I never understood why the writers would have him say that, it is certainly not true. In fact I always felt part of their problem after losing the baby, was the fact that they didn't discuss how they felt, but really only pick on each other. This was the last episode before Annie shows up. I think now that this exchange was to prepare us for that storyline. If that was truly it's purpose, it didn't do a very good job preparing me. Prior to this, there was only one reference (that I can remember) that made it seem "over" and that was in "Plastic Fantastic Lovers" when David tells Maddie "Don't give yourself too much credit, remember you were involved with old Dave-a-rooni for about a minute." All the other scenes that were about their relationship to this point seemed to me either to return to their playful flirting or ambiguous. I wish we had heard something about their trip to Paris!! I mean it's Paris, in the spring, what could be more romantic than that?

Memorable Moments

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