"Murder She Wrote" Was Actually All About Real Estate
Jessica Fletcher may have been investigating murders, but the show explored the anxieties of modern development.
Murder She Wrote is a balm for our present times: Between 1984 and 1996, audiences followed the fictitious Jessica "J.B." Fletcher (played by the incredible Angela Lansbury)—a widowed former English teacher turned renowned mystery-thriller writer—as she traverses the U.S., solving murders for her friends. It’s a silly premise: Everywhere she went, no matter how banal the errand, someone ended up dead and only she could find the culprit. Even when she was back home in Cabot Cove, Maine, population 3,500, more than 60 residents were murdered during the show’s 12 years. As a child watching these episodes this all added up to goofballish and thrilling tall tales, but as an adult I now see what feels like fiction rooted in reality: The story of Cabot Cove is about a town fighting neighborhood change. From rezoning to high-rise hotels, the tales in J.B.’s hometown start to echo current-day urbanism—and they speak surprisingly clearly about what happens when people resist such change at all costs.
Unlike the long-running Law and Order series, Murder She Wrote’s stories are not directly based on any "real" events. Cabot Cove is as fictional as Fletcher herself. Filmed primarily in Mendocino, California, the show imagines a town populated by a cast of quintessential "small town" characters: seafarers who look a little drunk, a curmudgeonly doctor operating out of his foyer, a loyal but bumbling sheriff, a gossipy hairdresser. Interpersonal conflicts abound, antics (murder) ensue.
Cabot Cove’s landscape expands and contracts depending on the episode; new businesses introduced for a murder locale or historic mansion that led to an inheritance conflict mean that viewers don’t get a particular geographical map of the town. However, we do know that it is located on the sea: Fletcher, who refuses to drive a car, bikes through the town to the wharf where fishermen are unloading their catches. She enjoys the scenic overlook where cliffs meet the sea. It's here, at the scenic overlook, that grounds two NIMBY fights in season two.
In season two, episode two, "Joshua Peabody Died Here…Possibly," Cabot Cove residents are seen protesting the construction of a new high-rise hotel on the cliffside. "Tradition YES, hotel NO," read their signs. Fights break out just as construction crews unearth a skeleton, suspected to be a mythical disappeared Revolutionary War soldier named Joshua Peabody. Construction pauses while a historic review must be conducted; but residents are still on their toes, claiming that the developer (a noted shady tycoon) "snuck" the project through the zoning board while two members were away. The developer is later murdered, and while one protestor is suspected, Fletcher has another idea: The zealous news reporter, a visitor to Cabot Cove who dedicated her career to investigating the developer for his shoddy construction. She confesses that the dirtbag developer’s lack of safety precautions caused her brother’s death years before. Revenge, pure and simple, and the hotel project moves no further.
Episode 10 isn’t about tourism but housing. New developers are in town after a local landmark, a lighthouse, burns down on another seaside site; the developer gets the planning commission to approve 400 new condos instead. Simultaneously, a reporter arrives from New York researching quintessential New England towns for a new book that he claims, "will put Cabot Cove on the map" while it is undergoing a social upheaval: Someone in town is mailing letters to everyone that contain damaging rumors. There’s a suicide! And someone dies in a bathtub! It’s a lot, really, but the central premise is about who, actually, burned down the lighthouse that made way for new construction. No spoilers, but let’s just say the condos are never built, and Cabot Cove remains "off the map" after the reporter sees that, indeed, small towns aren’t as heavenly as one might imagine.
One could guess that when your town sees a murder every few weeks it might deter gentrification, but no such luck. It all comes to a head in season six, episode 11: Cabot Cove finds itself in the midst of a consequential mayoral election, during a time when wealthy Bostonians have overtapped the vacation home market in nearby towns and set their eyes on Cabot Cove’s historic residences. Joke’s on them—everyone here is living under the constant threat of mysterious deaths—but nonetheless townies are getting pressured to sell their homes to anonymous vacationers. The two mayoral candidates—the incumbent doofus and a sketchy introvert—are battling over whether or not the town needs new development that would cater to wealthy outsiders. Though there are (no surprise) more murders, what fascinates me as a viewer binging the show is how much woe would have been saved if Cabot Cove had simply built the condos and hotel in season two.
The themes of evil development and righteous NIMBYs echo across Murder She Wrote. Even outside of Cabot Cove, several episodes each season feature the developer-as-scammer trope, where embezzlement, shady deals, and rivalries serve as a backdrop for murder. But elderly residents receiving cryptic phone calls urging them to sell their longtime homes reeks eerily of today’s "we buy ugly houses"—a harbinger of real-life housing scarcity and predatory real estate practices. So while Lansbury’s gentle detective skills and her town’s kooky characters send us back to "simpler times," we’re also reminded of what happens when we’d literally be willing to die to keep our cities the same.
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Images Courtesy of the Everett Collection
