Whodunnit -- Welcome To Rue Manor

Remember the old movies where guests are invited to a mysterious mansion and one by one they're killed off? That's kind of the premise of this show. Only the person who figures out who the killer is gets $250,000 as a prize.

The mansion is called Rue Manor, which I think is a play on the infamous story, Murders in the Rue Morgue. Rue Manor sports it's own morgue in the basement. It also sports Giles the butler who is the host of this little murder mystery party.

13 guests arrive but all they know is they're there to compete in a game to win $250,000. They introduce themselves to each other, but some decide not to be honest about what they do for a living.

As the guests chat amongst themselves, Giles comes down the stairs to introduce himself. He tells them the name of the house and that the reason they are there will soon become self evident. One of the guests, Sherri, lets her glass of champagne slip from her fingers and drop to the floor. It's a mishap she will soon pay for with her life.

All the guests go to their separate rooms until they hear a blood curdling scream echo through the house. They all run to see what has happened and see Sherri lying on the rug in the main room. The fish tank has smashed and she's soaking wet and a live wire is making her body jump.

Giles arrives to announce that their job is to figure out who killed Sherri because one of the people in the room with them is the killer. He also reads a note from the killer referring to them as mortals. It term mortals is actually a clue to another clue the players will discover later in the game.

Giles tells the contestant they can examine only one of three areas and to guess correctly, because if you can't figure out his crimes, you'll be the next to be killed. The choces are: the scene of the crime, the morgue or the last place the person was before she/he was killed.

The guests form varioius cliques to work together, but even in these cliques they don't trust each other.

The scene of the crime shows a smashed fish tank, a lamp with the cord cut off and used to electrocute the victim and a large puddle of blood where her head rested. Generally you don't bleed when you're electrocuted. So just how did Sherri die?

The people who examine the body in the morgue figure that out. At first, they think there's a bone sticking out of her neck, but it's actually a musket bullet from an old musket gun. The only problem is how could a gun shot have been fired to kill Sherri when no one heard a gun being fired?

In Sherri's bedroom the group find that Sherri's door was pried open and a message was written on the mirror from the steam as she was taking a shower asking her to meet them at the fish tank because they had some info for her.

Dontae tells the other players the victim was shot with a musket bullet, which ticks off Ulysses who doesn't like Dontae sharing what they learned from examining the body, so he makes everyone think Dontae is making it up, since they didn't hear a gun being fired. And no one seems to want anything to do with Adrianna. She tries talking to a couple of the groups that have been formed and they make it crystal clear she isn't wanted.

Giles arrives with another note from the killer with a riddle that if they can figure it out will give them another clue to how the crime was committed. All the guests get a key. A number is printed on the front of the key and two crowns on the back. It's directing them to a verse in the bible. 2 Kings 13:17 and there the verse says mortals. From there the one who figured it out realized the next clue is leading them to a window with a pane missing from it. Across from the window is a trunk that their key fits in and instde the trunk is a crowbar and slingshot.

I'm proud to say I actually figured out how the crime was committed from those two clues. The killer pried open the door with the crowbar and used the slingshot to fire the musket ball into Sherri's neck. However, I have no idea who the killer might be.

With what clues the guests have gathered they all have to go in one at a time and tell the killer how they think the crime was done and who they think the killer is. Dontae, Adrianna, Dana, Geno and Kam were the ones the guests named as the culprit. Of course, the ones that didn't know about the crowbar and slingshot are at a severe disadvantage in figuring out how Sherri was killed.

At dinner Giles arrived and gave each guest an envelope. Inside they either got a spared or scared card. The ones that got a scared card were possibly the next victims to be killed. Only two people got the scared card and it was Don and Dontae. One of them would be the next to die.

The guest retired for the night, as Dontae was praying it would be Don who got killed. Sometime after four in the morning the fire alarm suddenly started ringing in the manor and everyone evacuated the house, with the exception of Don and Dontae. Don came out unharmed, but insside the house Dontae's body was on fire as he ran down the stairs and jumped in the pool. But by the time he made it to the pool it was too late, as he burnt lifeless corpse floated in the water.

This was one of the two shows I was really looking forward to seeing. The other is Under The Dome, which I want to see how the series stacks up against the book. I really don't know how this show is doing it, but the people that are killed, really looked like they were killed. I know it's not real and they're not really dead, but they sure look like they're dead.

This show reminds me of a show that was on decades ago with Robert Stack as the host before he became the host of Unsolved Mysteries. They had a story about someone being killed and they gave you a chance to figure out who the killer was before the killer was revealed at the end of the show. If you love putting together the mysteries on shows like Lost and Pretty Little Liars. I really think you'll enjoy this show.