A well-respected woman of Rome commits suicide . A simple and familiar tale. But there are twists and turns aplenty: who actually gets her money? Where did the gun come from? Why is her sister obsessed with snakes? Is Max developing a crush on the grief-stricken widower? This is a well-plotted episode, as most of the mystery episodes of this show are, but the solution is a tad more obvious than usual, I’d say, which isn’t to say that it didn’t have me guessing for a while. The episode really falls apart, however, with the whole “Max falls in love with the widower/suspect” plot. That was very out of character, in my opinion, and it just got more and more so as the episode rolled on and she kept making really stupid decisions. The eye-rolling eventually graduated to exasperated sighs as the episode went on, but the pleasures of the episode’s mystery provided a solid enough balance. 3 stars.
tl;dr – Max is very out of character here in an exasperating, poorly written fashion, but the mysteries surrounding a wealthy woman’s suicide are intriguing and well executed. 3 stars.