Fun to watch, with good acting all around and Falk at his bumbling, annoying-yet-endearing best. But the ending was more than I could swallow (no pun intended, if you've seen the episode). Columbo stages a fake burial, supposedly with the assistance of some fellow officers, but apparently also with the connivance of a priest (unless it was a cop in disguise) and a local cemetery, replete with a coffin and flowers. Even assuming he could've pulled that off, he would have no way of knowing if the suspect would take the bait and show up. It could've all been for naught. The ending could've been much simpler, more plausible, and IMO more effective, for that very reason. It seems like another later episode in which the writers tried too hard to come up with something different.
