Let me begin with stating that, despite spoilers comments, I will not perpetrate the major crime of revealing the culprit.
From the content of this movie, it is safe to assume Hallmark is planning to make Nora and Nikki a returning couple in a series of productions that I do wish successful.
There is a lot of potential with the characters, whom I have really enjoyed. Besides the fact that I like Rhiannon Fish, Hunter King was a welcome addition. The interaction of the sisters, one serious, methodical and tenacious, the other free-spirited, ebullient and creative, makes it more than enough for a good show and captivates the audience.
The problem is the crime canvas, psychologically lame and fraught with an inexcusable flaw.
That characters involved would show emotions and behaviors stretched to the limit of credibility, it almost a given. The intent is to create drama and sway a confused audience from the suspect. Only really intelligent and insightful scriptwriters can achieve this goal with subtlety.
Here, the victim, Bolton, is presented as very capable, even too artful. Yet, he totally mishandles the case of a young baseball player, There is no apparent explanation for this, if not the need to create two irate suspects of his murder, father and son. What's more, the end shows Bolton to conveniently turn his back to his murderer, leaving his safe wide open, with his gun in plain view. Not very smart for a smart guy. So, the culprit, whose motive I shall not reveal, fuming with rage, stuns him with a blow on the back of the head, kills him with his gun, and rationally creates the scene of a suicide, including typing a brief "suicide" note. A murder staged as such, could only be carried on successfully with cold planning and premeditation. It is hard to believe that an enraged person, filled with conflicting emotions, could perform it well.
Yet, these flaws become irrelevant, compared to the next one, that renders the plot absurd. The murderer STUNS the victim with a HARD BLOW on his head. Yet, nobody, including the medical examiner, notices the head injury, which would have made it highly unlikely to rate the death as SUICIDE. Hence, the entire story of the sisters investigations is built on an impossibility and, retrospectively, makes no sense. Unless you assume the event was handled by La-la-land Police and the most careless, inept medical examiner, ever.
Thus said, I do hope Nora and Nikki come back to us, with a more intelligent script.
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