“Murder, She Wrote” was actually all about real estate

Murder is her hobby is a balm for our present: Between 1984 and 1996, viewers followed the fictional Jessica “JB” Fletcher (played by the incredible Angela Lansbury) – a widowed former English teacher turned famous crime writer – as she traveled the United States to solve murders for her friends. The premise is silly: Wherever she went, no matter how mundane the assignment, someone always ended up dead and only she could find the culprit. Even when she was at home in Cabot Cove, Maine, population 3,500, more than 60 residents were murdered during the show's 12 years. As a child watching these episodes, it all made for silly and thrilling tall tales, but as an adult, I now see what feels like fiction rooted in reality: The story of Cabot Cove is about a town fighting change in its neighborhood. From rezoning to high-rise hotels, the stories from JB's hometown reflect modern urban planning – and they speak surprisingly clearly about what happens when people resist such changes at all costs.

In contrast to the long-standing law and order Series, Murder is her hobbyThe stories of are not directly based on any “real” events. Cabot Cove is as fictional as Fletcher himself. The series was mostly filmed in Mendocino, California, and features a town populated by a cast of typical “small town” characters: sailors who look a little drunk, a grumpy doctor who operates from his foyer, a loyal but clumsy sheriff, a gossipy barber. Interpersonal conflict is omnipresent, and antics (murder) are the result.

The landscape of Cabot Cove expands and shrinks depending on the episode; new businesses introduced for a murder scene or a historic mansion that led to an inheritance conflict mean that viewers are not given a specific geographical map of the town. We do know, however, that it is by the sea: Fletcher, who refuses to drive, rides her bike through town to the wharf where the fishermen unload their catches. She enjoys the vantage point where the cliffs meet the sea. It is here, at the vantage point, that two NIMBY battles take place in season two.

In season two, episode two, “Joshua Peabody Died Here… Possibly,” residents of Cabot Cove are seen protesting the construction of a new high-rise hotel on the cliff. “Tradition YES, Hotel NO,” their signs read. Fights break out when construction crews dig up a skeleton believed to be that of a mythical missing Revolutionary War soldier named Joshua Peabody. Construction is halted while a historical review must be conducted; but residents are still on guard, claiming the developer (a well-known shady tycoon) “smuggled the project through the Building Department” when two members were absent. The developer is later murdered, and while one protester is suspected, Fletcher has another idea: the eager news reporter, a visitor to Cabot Cove who has dedicated her career to investigating the developer for his shoddy construction. She admits that the dirty developer's lack of safety precautions caused her brother's death years ago. It was pure revenge, and the hotel project is not moving forward.

Episode 10 isn't about tourism, it's about housing. New developers are in town after a town landmark, a lighthouse, burns down on another coastal property. The developer gets the Planning Commission to approve 400 new condos instead. At the same time, a reporter arrives from New York, researching typical New England towns for a new book that he claims will “put Cabot Cove on the map” as it undergoes a social upheaval: Someone in town is sending out letters to everyone containing damaging rumors. There's a suicide! And someone dies in a bathtub! It's a lot, really, but the central premise is who actually burned down the lighthouse to make way for new construction. No spoilers, but let's just say the condos never get built and Cabot Cove remains “off the map” after the reporter sees that small towns are actually not as heavenly as people make them out to be.

You'd think that if a town had a murder every few weeks, it might prevent gentrification, but that's not the case. It all comes to a head in Season 6, Episode 11: Cabot Cove is in the midst of a major mayoral election, at a time when wealthy Bostonians have flooded the vacation home market in surrounding towns and have their eyes on Cabot Cove's historic residences. The joke is on them—everyone here lives under the constant threat of mysterious deaths—but still, townspeople are pressured to sell their homes to anonymous vacationers. The two mayoral candidates—the incumbent jerk and a shady loner—argue over whether the town needs a new development that appeals to wealthy outsiders. Although there are (unsurprisingly) more murders, as a viewer watching the series in one go, I'm fascinated by how much suffering could have been avoided if Cabot Cove had simply built the condos and hotel in Season 2.

The themes of evil development and righteous NIMBYs resonate Murder is her hobby. Even outside of Cabot Cove, multiple episodes per season portray the developer-as-con artist stereotype, in which embezzlement, shady dealings and rivalries serve as a backdrop for murder. But elderly residents receiving cryptic phone calls urging them to sell their longtime homes reeks eerily of today's “we're buying ugly houses” — a harbinger of real-life housing shortages and predatory real estate practices. While Lansbury's gentle detective skills and her town's wacky characters take us back to “simpler times,” we're also reminded of what happens if we were literally willing to die to keep our towns as they are.

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