Murder in a Small Town – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

The Suspect

Episode 1 of Murder in a Small Town begins with an argument, followed by a man struck down in his office, left in a pool of his own blood. This old man is Carlyle Burke and it’s his murder we’ll be following during this hour-long premiere.

In this quaint little town, we meet Karl Alberg, who arrives to see Cassandra. She’s quick to squash the prospects of romance, and Karl is actually ok with it, deciding they should just do lunch.

Karl is actually the new chief of police in town but he omitted this from his dating profile on purpose. There’s some exposition thrown out, with Karl deducing that Cassandra has a habit of self-sabotaging. And that, they toast to. Cassandra admits she got close to marrying at one point but nothing ever really materialized.

At the station, Corporal Yen arrives. She’s good at her job, she’s humble and from Philly. It doesn’t take long for the Corporal to show up at the crime scene, where Karl arrives soon after. The victim is, as mentioned previously, Carlyle Burke, and it looks like one single blow took him out. There’s no forced entry and it doesn’t appear as if there’s anything missing.

Karl has an inquisitive mind and takes a look around the rest of the house for clues. It turns out Mr George Wilcox is the one who found Carlyle. He opened the door and he dropped his books. He wasn’t thinking clearly at the time, seems to have shouted something and then phoned 911.

They knew each other but Wilcox is quite sketchy over his answers and does appear to be holding back.

That night, Karl speaks to his daughter, Steph, on the phone. He’s contemplating getting himself a sailboat and of course, the conversation turns to our “love interest in the future”, Cassandra.

Cassandra is beloved in town and Wilcox speaks to her the next day at the library. She’s beaming and it seems to stem from her lunch with Karl.

As Karl does some digging, he soon learns that Wilcox’s statement does not match that given by other eyewitnesses in the area. Not only that but he was also Carlyle’s best man at his wedding so they very much were close after all. It would appear that something valuable was stolen from the house, at least according to Karl as he looks at the meticulousness of the mantlepiece.

Karl returns to George Wilcox with this new information, and brings up how he knows Carlyle was his brother-in-law. Wilcox opens up how he never trusted Carlisle after Audrey (his sister’s) death. But how does this play into the murder? Well, that night Wilcox heads down to the dock and rows a boat out into the middle of the lake. It turns out he’s destroying evidence.

While this is going on, Karl and Cassandra continue to get along, which eventually leads to a montage and the pair hooking up. That sexual tension lasted all of 30 minutes, which is very disappointing!

Now, this actually has an added bonus of Karl realizing what he missed originally over at Wilcox’s when he gets a couple of cans out the fridge. He believes (correctly) that Wilcox has thrown out the murder weapon (which happens to be metal trench art antiques on the windowsill) into the lake, and threatens to bring in a team to get bring it back. It doesn’t dissuade Wilcox, although he does seem a tiny bit rattled to begin with, but Karl now has the bit between his teeth.

In the morning, Karl tells the Corporal that he believes Wilcox is their murderer and the weapon will be out in the water somewhere. The motive stems from something regarding his sister and after the weapon malarkey (which is confirmed by Carlyle’s maid), he’s more convinced than ever.

As for George Wilcox, he’s given up and tells Cassandra that hes going away. He doesn’t want to be buried near Carlyle and he’s “done something terrible”. He also won’t spend his last days behind bars. Cass is shocked and immediately races outside to catch her breath and compose herself.

She doesn’t tell Karl though, skirting over the truth to protect her friend. As for Karl, he picks up Wilcox and lays out the truth after finding a box full of letters. The final nail in the coffin is that Carlyle died on the anniversary of Audrey’s death. That’s not a coincidence. And when Carlyle started badmouthing Audrey that afternoon, Wilcox lost control, grabbed one of the trench art antiques and bashed him upside the head.

Wilcox doesn’t deny it but points out how there are extra circumstances here, including how Carlyle was abusive and lashed out at Audrey constantly. Karl immediately takes his concerns to Cassandra, in a rather heated exchange, but she convinces him not to press charges. And that’s precisely what Karl does.

Karl shows up and bids George goodbye too, deciding to overlook the fact he’s a murderer in order to romance Cassandra. He hands over a brown bag which holds Audrey’s letters, with another on top written from Audrey to Carlyle. Karl, of course, ignores this.

So with the murder wrapped up, Karl turns his attention back to Cassandra, where they intend to make a good go of it together. But first, Cassandra wants to see Karl’s kittens. And to be fair, after an hour of this show, I’d quite like to see those kittens as well. Instead, we fade to black.

The Episode Review

I saw a comment earlier saying that this show feels like a hallmark TV show and honestly, that’s a pretty damn good description. And that’s not a compliment either. Add in a dash of knock-off Virgin River vibes for good measure, Fox’s new procedural is an absolute drag.

It’s a clunky, exposition-heavy, slow-paced and straight-shooting procedural that lacks anything creative to help it stand out from the masses. We’ve already seen Cassandra and Karl hook up, so the tension from their will they/won’t they romance has already been confirmed, the mystery this week involves 1 suspect and very little deviation.

These weird little interludes where we catch up with Cass and Karl gossiping about their romances doesn’t help, and it’s matched by a god-awful musical score. Honestly, it feels like a generic 1980’s soundtrack was thrown into this.

There’s very little that stands out here and if this is one of the pilots greenlit by Fox this year, there must have been a string of absolutely atrocious dramas in there to pick from.

Hopefully this will improve in the weeks ahead but if this is a sign of things to come? We’re in for a very long slog.