43 – Wolf in the Fold

Grade: B

Summary

An exotic dancer is murdered on a Argelius 2, a planet which should be peaceful. Scotty is the main suspect, since he was found holding a knife standing next to her. Things get worse for Mr. Scott when a female lieutenant from the Enterprise is also found dead.

Commentary

This is one of the best episodes in Season 2, and definitely worth a look. One of the best parts of this episode is all of the guest stars in it. They all give excellent performances, and especially the one who plays the serial killer, at the end of the episode.

I like how creepy this episode is, and yet it still manages to have some good humor and a very good mystery all wrapped up into one episode.

Of Note

If you’re paying close attention, you can solve this mystery only about 10 minutes into the episode. But it’s a bit of a spoiler, so if you don’t want to know, stop reading here.

OK, for the rest of you, here’s how you solve it. After Mr. Scott is found standing over the body of the dead Enterprise officer, Mr. Hengist comes into the house with the two suspicious men he found. As he starts to interrogate them, Captain Kirk says that a member of his crew has just been killed. A moment later, Mr. Hengist mentions the “dead girl”, even though nobody said it was a woman who had been killed. The killer would have known the gender of the victim, of course. Since nobody told Mr. Hengist who died, how would he know?

I think that was a goof, and not a deliberate point of dialogue from the writer. What I think is most likely is that the part of the scene in which Mr. Hengist is told who was killed was probably cut from the final print of the episode. The editors didn’t realize that the new cut of the episode basically reveals the killer only 1/4 of the way into the story.