Jessica Fletcher, my hero.

When I was little we used to climb up on my parent's bed and watch Murder, She Wrote on Sunday nights. My dad was already asleep by then (which was and still is weird since it was 8:00) but my mom and I were really into it. I guess it's kind of strange that I was allowed to watch people get shot, hit in the head with wrenches, burned alive, stabbed, pushed off balconies, poisoned, and have their brakes cut when I was 5, but I think it's probably what's made me so well-rounded and mature for my age (stop thinking what you're thinking right now).

Jessica Fletcher is my hero. She embodies everything that I want to be in life. She is the eternal optimist, has an undying need to help others, and puts the needs of her friends before her own. If she was a real person, I would intern for her or something. That said, developing any kind of relationship with her is a certain invitation to be thrown into a brutal murder mystery, whether I'd be the victim or the innocent but questionable suspect with the odds stacked against me. So maybe I would have done some kind of telecommuting internship. Or we could have conference called or something. They didn't have that in 1987 but Jessica and I would have figured something out (and it would have been none of your business).

Jessica generously lends her time in an effort to get to the bottom of who victimized this woman with self-tanner.

At the beginning of every episode, Jessica is usually dealing with some kind of work-related issue, like travelling somewhere to research a new book, or fucking with her broken typewriter because she's got a deadline to submit her draft in New York City. She's a busy lady and I give her credit for choosing a slower, quieter life in Cabot Cove, as opposed to moving to Manhattan (where she actually taught for a whole season [the murders and storylines in this season, in case you were wondering, were totally sub-par]). She is modest and confident, a star in her field, and well-respected in her community, where she shops locally, gets around town on bicycle (she was green before green was popular) and singlehandedly solves more murders per year than all of the detectives in most major police departments do combined.

 

Sometimes you have to break and enter to get to the bottom of things. Jessica isn't just above the law, she IS the law.

Every episode of Murder, She Wrote presents a challenge for Jessica. Sometimes, a friend she hasn't heard from in a long time is murdered. Then there are cases where her second cousin gets accused of murder, or there's a witch at the Cabot Cove church who pushes someone off the steeple.  These things happen, people. This is real life. Jessica speaks my language and I can relate to her hardships. 

Her true heroism comes at the end of every episode where, despite all of these terrible things happening around her, she triumphs. Jessica uses her stealthy investigation skills to get to the bottom of the mystery and figure out who the real culprit is, stumping the criminal and stymieing the village Sheriff, Mort, who I have no respect for whatsoever. Your hard-earned taxpayer dollars are paying for this guy to fumble around town like a douche all day and take backseat to a retired 60-something mystery writer who has no business being on a crime scene. At least Jessica represents the people of Cabot Cove in the House of Representatives, and can do something about this.

The woman in the background knows she's going to die in 5 minutes and does NOT look happy about it.

Jessica ends each episode with a smile, putting the brutality and injustice of the last 45 minutes behind her, while embracing her inner-strength, steadfast resolve for righting wrongs, and sometimes Tom Selleck.

I don't know why Jessica and Magnum teamed up on this episode. It was terrible. You can tell from this picture that Jessica is so over it.

There are few people in my life that I would give a kidney for. If I ever get slashed, killed in a ritual voodoo ceremony, blown up on a boat, or electrocuted with a hairdryer in a bathtub, I hope that you barge onto the scene uninvited and show those good-for-nothing Bumblefuck PD officers who's boss. You may be fictional, but you are real to me, now and forever.

I raise my glass this evening to you, Jessica Fletcher, my hero.

 

Jessica raising her glass back at me. Jealous, much?