Spoilers

“Portrait of Maddie”

One of the best Moonlighting episodes from the first part of season two is Portrait of Maddie. An episode that was expertly written, especially with the dialogue for Bruce Willis.

I know the show always has great dialogue for the character of David Addison, but this episode’s dialogue was especially sharp and witty. I found myself laughing out loud several times at the cleverness of the writing.

The painting was amazing too, by the way.

A painter who had never met Maddi, painted a portrait of her looking into a vanity mirror and then he killed himself. When Maddie was question by the police about this fact, she became obsessed with the painting and about the mysterious painter that appeared to be obsessed with the former model.

I will state that there were some questionable moments with the police in this episode. Maddie kept being able to take the painting home with her despite it clearly being evidence in this case. I can excuse these silly oversights since the detective in the case, played by Dan Lauria of the Wonder Years fame was involved in the case on the villainous side.

The final conflict with Lauria does turn a little sillier than I liked, with a lot of paint involved, but it is minor and does not distract from such a solid episode.

It was funny, because in the opening credits, I saw Paul Rudd listed as a guest star. I did not remember Paul Rudd, aka Ant Man in the MCU, being on Moonlighting. In fact, he was not. It was another Paul Rudd who died in 2010, an actor who had several guest appearances on other TV shows such as Knots Landing, Hart to Hart and Murder, She Wrote.

This episode included a couple of examples of one of the techniques that I loved from this series. It was when the show would break the 4th wall. These examples were beautifully weaved into the dialogue, not causing any real issue with the show. Here David told Maddie to be careful what she says or they will move them to cable. Ha Ha. Love that.

Portrait of Maddie is right near the top of my current list of Moonlighting episodes, just behind “The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice.”