Spoilers

“Remembering Rosemary“

Picket Fences had a classic Halloween episode as they jumped int0 the history of Rome, Wisconsin and reopened a case from the past.

The case of Rosemary Bauer was unknown to all of us, but the writers did a magnificent job of making it important to the audience by placing several of our key characters at the heart of the original case.

It was believed that the beautiful Rosemary Bauer had jumped out of her window and committed suicide when she had found her husband having an affair with the maid. The maid, Karina Shaw, sunk into a mental breakdown, never to speak again… that is, until the most recent Halloween in Rome when, during the playing of “Ragtime Gal” Karina said the word, “murder.”

That was enough to get Maxine’s investigatory juices flowing and she tried to get the case reopened. The Mayor and Jimmy, who were new to their posts when the suicide happened, were insistent that it was a suicide. Rosemary had been Jill’s patient and the suicide shook Jill’s confidence.

With Maxine, Kenny and Carter leading the way, Jimmy started to wonder if he had rushed to judgement back 10 years prior to get the town past the suicide.

With an ending straight out of Psycho, Leo Bauer, the husband, was revealed to have killed Rosemary in a fit of rage when he found her in bed with Karina, and Leo had dug up the body of Rosemary and was keeping it in his house, dressing her in her wedding gown.

A very engaging and intriguing mystery and a solid pay off. Leo’s insanity did kind of come out of nowhere, but grief had truly crippled him.

The episode was also fun when they went to Carter’s Halloween party and we saw Douglas Wambaugh dressed as Dracula singing songs and Judge Bone dressed as a Martian (a throwback to actor Ray Walston’s past in My Favorite Martian).

This episode saw they debut of Howard Buss, who would become a major character over the life of the series.