Loveday Writing

This season premiere was all about hair, gossip, and betrayal…and of course, murder.

The episode kicks off with Alexa meeting up with Harry and getting the case of the week – Lulu Vandervorn, a rich, socialite divorcee found dead on a nudist beach. She was dressed to go to a perfume launch party. The coroner ruled her cause of death as dry drowning via champagne and there were several hours of life before she died unaccounted for. What sucks Alexa into working on this case is the fact that Lulu left her entire fortune to her cat, Cruz, who is being looked after by Lulu’s friend and PR guru, Bridget Sandler.

Alexa finds out from Bridget that Lulu took her in after her husband left her, and that if Cruz dies, Lulu’s house and inheritance will be donated to her favourite animal charity. When looking at a photo of Lulu and Bridget, she discovers that Lulu had her hair colour retouched the day that she died. This leads Alexa to look into the salon Lulu regularly attended, Beaumont.

The hair salon is owned by Laurence Beaumont, who tells Alexa that Lulu was his friend and client for over 20 years. When Alexa snoops around the salon, she finds bottles of champagne in a bar fridge, the same brand that was used to kill Lulu. She also meets a young and upcoming stylist, Jett, as she’s almost caught in the act of snooping around by him.

When Madison manages to snoop around the salon’s computer files whilst posing as an IT technician, she meets Jett, who asks her to pose as a hair model for him. After she goes through the salon’s video files, she discovers that some of the stories being told on camera have been published online on a gossip website, Delphine Digs.

After Madison and Alexa break into Bridget’s house to snoop around some more, they discover that Lulu’s stuff has been quickly packed into boxes and placed downstairs. When Alexa looks at video footage on Lulu’s laptop, she eventually discovers that Bridget is Delphine Digs – she’s given gossip from the salon, she publishes it on the Delphine Digs website and makes a profit by being the PR guru who saves the day for those she publishes the gossip about.

Later, when Madison visits Jett to pose as his hair model, she snoops around and discovers that despite Jett being broke, he went on a recent shopping spree and was clearly planning to leave Beaumont and start his own salon. Alexa discovers this on her own, when she discovers that Jett had coffee with Lulu on the day she died, and that they leased a nearby retail space together to make it into his salon.

Alexa eventually figures out that Laurence Beaumont killed Lulu after he discovered that she and Jett were leaving him and going into business together. He offered to do Lulu’s hair and used the opportunity of her being in the chair to kill her, and used one of his other employees, Trinity’s car, to dump the body at the nudist beach.

The episode ends with Madison and Alexa going to the nudist beach, with Alexa notifying Madison (and the audience) that Bridget is investing in Jett’s business. Alexa then strips off and goes into the water, only for Madison to cheekily take her clothes with her as she walks away.

Overall, this was a well-written and enjoyable episode, but I wouldn’t say it was a spectacular case to start the season with.