THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY - THE CAHILLS & THE MACYS

'COLUMBO'
"MIND OVER MAYHEM"

Dr. Marshall Cahilll: "You know, Steve and Janet are still in Hawaii. Maybe we can spend a little time with them. We both need some time off. What do you say?"

I say - Who are Steve and Janet?

I'm thinking the Cahills had more than one child.  And I think their other offspring was a son, and an older one at that - already married and moved away from his father's dominating influence.  (I believe Steve was his son and not that Janet was his daughter.  I realize it's standard practice to name the man first in a couple [Personal O'Bservation: there's no reason for this to be], but I think Dr. Cahill did it out of his life-long focus on his son.  Otherwise he might have said "Janet and Steve".

Since we never see Steve and Janet in the episode, we don't know what they looked like.  And this being a theory of relateeveety, we could do some dream-casting.

At the time of the episode, he would have been too young to play Neil Cahill's older brother, but Steve Cahill should have looked like Miguel Ferrer, the son of the episode's guest star Jose Ferrer.  (Miguel was my age and I know I’m younger than Robert Walker Jr. who played Neil)  Aside from the O'Bvious reason why, you can buy into the claim that he looks like Marshall Cahill.

And that brings me around to my long-standing theory of "relateeveety" about Marshall and Neil Cahill.

Simply put: Neil is not Marshall's biological offspring.

Look at the two of them!  Mrs. Cahill had to be a goddess to counter the genetic contribution from her husband.

I don't think Neil - at the time of the episode - knew that Marshall was the father who raised him but without contributing the genetic material.  Marshall probably suspected as much, but I don't think he ever got the chance to confront his wife about the topic.  

This being 'Columbo', I suppose there's always the possibility that he did confront her; that it became a violent argument of accusations; and eventually in a heightened moment of rage, he could have struck her and killed her.  Genius that he was, Dr. Cahill probably staged her death to look like the result of a car accident or something similar and got away with it... that time.  (But only because Lt. Columbo was assigned to the case.)

(It's happened before in the series - with Abigail Mitchell's niece, Dr. Eric Mason's wife, Nora Chandler's husband come to mind.)

Nevertheless, Cahill loved his son, even with his failings in life, and would do anything to protect Neil.  And he did, by committing murder (again?)  See the episode if you don’t know about that already.  I’m not going to ruin it!

Mrs. Cahill was dead, probably long dead, by the time of the episode, and unlike the case of Nora Chandler's husband Al Cunningham, there were no pictures seen that could have been of her.  I'm just making the supposition that she was a beautiful woman, but I'm not sure if her DNA share in Neil could compete against Marshall's for dominance.

But if she had an affair with another man, it would be someone of less severe physiognomy.  And I do have a suspect and you'll be the first to know....

I think it was with Harry Macy, her brother-in-law.

Harry Macy was a con man who had been married to Marshall Cahill's sister.  Seeing Harry's interactions with his son, Dr. Garrett Macy ('Crossing Jordan' - "From Harry, With Love And Squalor"), it's not hard to see him as the type of man who could have stepped out on his wife with another woman.  And as I'm convinced that Mrs. Cahill was indeed a mesmerizingly beautiful woman, I could see how a shady character like Harry Macy might have found a way to woo her into an extra-marital affair.

And the reason why I think Harry Macy was the brother-in-law of Marshall Cahill?  His son Garrett Macy was played by Miguel Ferrer.

As a televisiological curator, I have made some outlandish claims to fill in the blanks about Toobworld.  But even I have limits.  In this case, I don’t think it likely that while Harry was schtupping Marshall’s wife, Marshall was doing the same with Harry’s missus.  (In the Toobworld timeline, it would be about thirty years before the wife-swapping lifestyle came into its own.)

So instead, I think Harry Macy had been married to Marshall Cahill’s sister.  She would share many key DNA similarities to her brother, so it would not be surprising when she gave birth to a son who had a somewhat physical resemblance to Marshall.

That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.

BCnU!