This episode ends without a confrontation between Jessica and the murderer. Instead the confession comes from her father, played by Van Johnson, who simply says she's home and describes her mental illness that led her to commit the crime. There's even a flashback sequence depicting the crime where the murderer is shown only from the waist down, making it likely that a stand-in for Betsy Russell, who plays the character, was doing the enacting of the murder.
There's got to a be a backstory to this. Did Betsy, (an old crush of mine from her 80's films), walk off the set? Did she become ill? Her promising career took a bit of a nosedive right around this point, although her marriage two years later might have caused her to put it on the back-burner.
The final scene would have had a lot more to it if she had appeared in it. it would have been a major acting opportunity for her, playing an unbalanced murderer, forced to confess. The ending to this episode wasn't so much confusing as it was limp, because of the lack of the confrontation with the murderer.
Something happened here and I wonder what.
(I would love to have put this on a MESSAGE BOARD so there could be a discussion about it.)
There's got to a be a backstory to this. Did Betsy, (an old crush of mine from her 80's films), walk off the set? Did she become ill? Her promising career took a bit of a nosedive right around this point, although her marriage two years later might have caused her to put it on the back-burner.
The final scene would have had a lot more to it if she had appeared in it. it would have been a major acting opportunity for her, playing an unbalanced murderer, forced to confess. The ending to this episode wasn't so much confusing as it was limp, because of the lack of the confrontation with the murderer.
Something happened here and I wonder what.
(I would love to have put this on a MESSAGE BOARD so there could be a discussion about it.)