"How could I have known that a simple choice would lead to disaster?"
Hello everyone!
We're continuing with our Murder, She Baked mystery series on this blog, since, you know, we're still missing three out of the five movie line-up that Hallmark Movies & Mysteries rolled out about five years ago.
Aren't I on top of things?!?
I do have one or two more recent movies that I'd like to watch and review from them, but for the time being I'm sticking to this because, well, I like finishing one thing first and then moving on to the next one.
Besides, we have yet to see just who Hannah Swenson ends up with!
Not that it's the most important bit of the series, but, it kinda is. Why else would you watch anything from Hallmark to begin with?
And since the weather has turned sufficiently cool over here, I'd say it's pretty safe to go with Murder, She Baked: A Peach Cobbler Mystery.
You'll find links to the previous two movies down at the bottom of the page, but of course I'm also going to give you a very brief run-down as well.
Hannah owns a bakery in Eden Lake and has recently been doing some sleuthing when murder came to her home town, so there's no reason to expect things will be any different in this one either; she's also still bouncing back and forth between her two suitors, Norman the dentist and Mike the detective, and she's no closer to actually making a decision yet.
As for the rest, read on!
Eden Lake is all abuzz because a second bakery just opened up across the street from Hannah's and it looks like they're practically handing things out for free (in some random buy one, get two or three free scheme), which makes Hannah immediately suspicious, but she's also slightly annoyed that Mike is seen going into the other bakery.
There are a few loyalists of course, like her mom, her sister, Norman, and the mayor, but of course it doesn't all end there, oh no.
With Valentine's Day just around the corner, it turns into a peach cobbler competition between Melanie, the new bakery owner, and Hannah, who obviously has a reputation to keep, no matter how sweet and welcoming she is.
It turns out that HER peach cobbler is better, but equally everyone who tasted Melanie's say there's something there they can't put their finger on, and Hannah does some sleuthing, discovering that Melanie's are actually all store-bought, since she can't even really bake.
This becomes a point of contention at the rehearsal dinner for the wedding of the mayor's daughter where a pregnant Andrea lets it get the best of her and throws the fact Melanie can't bake into her face while she's trying to be hissy towards Hannah.
In the end though, Melanie admits defeat when she asks Hannah for help with the cobblers, and Hannah agrees because, well, she's nice like that obviously! She almost misses the wedding because of it, too, but she's disappointed later when Mike doesn't show for the reception so she just dances with Norman who's actually there.
And where's Mike, you ask?
Well, working, where else? And it's just one of the many galling things that annoy me about Hannah in this episode as a detective like Mike can't actually call his own shots like Norman can, who owns his own dentist office.
But moving on.
Hannah sees lights in Melanie's bakery and goes to check on her, arriving almost at the same time as Mike does, but she has the honour of finding poor Melanie shot to death.
For some inexplicable reason it's apparently unheard of to have another baker's prints in a bakery not their own, so Hannah becomes a prime suspect in Melanie's murder, and it also turns out that Melanie and Mike dated for a very brief period in college before he met his wife, which adds another layer as Melanie was therefore one of his oldest friends, though Vanessa, her identical twin sister and the money behind the shop explains Melanie had these wild ideas of getting back together with him, too.
Not that it was going to work, says Vanessa, because everyone and their mother can see Mike is head over heels for Hannah, to which Hannah reacts with complete surprise.
Girl, WE ALL SEE IT, OKAY. Wake up!
But things take a turn for the worst before they get better because the gun used in the murder is found in Hannah's bakery so she's placed under arrest, but of course she's going to be working to clear her name, right? Right.
This also worries Mike because he knows just how she can be, and he tries (in vain) to dissuade her from it, so he can do his job in peace (which apparently she doesn't trust him to do because actual detectives have nothing on amateur sleuths, don't you know). Still, he finds time to gently flirt with her and fix her car heater for her which had been broken for a while now, so that's plus points in his favour, while Norman gets plus points for being a neat wingman when Hannah and he do some sleuthing on their own.
He also takes this chance to actually ask her out for Valentine's Day, but, you know.
Sleuthing before pleasure.
It turns out the murderer COULD have been going for Vanessa rather than Melanie, as the twins, when borrowing each other's clothes and wearing similar hairstyles, were indistinguishable. To that end, Hannah discovers that Vanessa's deceased husband was originally supposed to marry the owner of the gun that killed Melanie.
Investigating further (while also buying some top-notch kitchen equipment off Vanessa at minimal price), Hannah gets the shock of her life when she finds a photo of Vanessa with the man she and her sister know as Douglas, their mom's boyfriend - but it turns out his name's Robert!
Heading to his townhouse to confront him - with Andrea charged to keep their mom occupied so she doesn't do so herself and wallop the man over the head with her designer handbag in total rage - Hannah comes face to face with an incredibly bizarre situation.
Vanessa has Robert at gun-point, spitting mad that he killed her sister, but he explains that he only did it because he was gunning for Vanessa, so he could be free of the con life and actually marry Hannah's mom, whom he genuinely loves. Vanessa's more than ready to shoot him, but Hannah manages to cut his zip tie to free his hands so that he has a fighting chance.
Then SHE fights Vanessa herself, fearing the person knocking at the front door is her mother, when it's actually Mike and Bill and, hearing the report of the gun, they break the door down to get inside just in time.
With Hannah having recorded the conversation and confession between the two con artists, Robert gets his own when her mom smacks him in the face with a convenient, nearby shovel.
The murder investigation now concluded, Mike gets his own chance to ask Hannah out, and here comes the scene I'm the most angry with. These movies have so far been entertaining and the romance is nicely done, but somehow, someone writing this thought it would make sense for Hannah to get DISAPPOINTED (or maybe even slightly annoyed or something) with Mike when he asks her out, because, and I'm not joking, he apparently doesn't put enough emphasis on it being Valentine's.
Instead, the man has the AUDACITY to say he doesn't care what day is it per the calendar, he just wants to be with her.
Can you believe the nerve of the man?!
In all seriousness though, Hannah actually does turn him down and ends up spending Valentine's with her mom and sister (and her cat), which is where we leave them.
And I can go back to my rant.
Maybe it's because this is an American (or Canadian) production, and I'm European. Valentine's Day isn't exactly a big deal for us, outside of flowers and chocolate, it's something very Americanized that was brought our way and some people celebrate it, while others don't. But COME ON!
You can't tell me that a woman wouldn't be all starry-eyed when a man tells her he wants to be with her no matter the day of the year!
That's literally everything any woman wants to hear, that she's important ALL YEAR not just the one blasted day, that he wants HER not THE CALENDAR DAY, but apparently that's all wrong in this movie and Mike should have made it especially clear that he's asking her out BECAUSE it's Valentine's Day. Not because he likes her in general or because he'd have asked her out any other day or anything.
UGH.
That made me so mad, I had to break off from finishing the series right in that moment. I needed a breather from the sheer stupidity of that script writing. I have no issue with the rest of the episode - it actually made a lot of sense with the mix-up of the twins and how cute Mike was fixing the car heater etc - but even though the supporting cast remains enchanting, the ending was a hell of a lot less so with that particular scene.
Plus, by movie three out of five, you'd think Hannah would at least be able to start making a decision about a guy, right, seeing as months have already passed. No such luck.
That should change, however, so tune in next week for another one of these (in which I promise less ranting!).
xx
*images and video not mine
No comments:
Post a Comment