My Life is Murder is an Australian and New Zealand murder mystery dramedy television series featuring fearless and unapologetic Alexa Crowe, played by Lucy Lawless whose unique skills and insights allow her to unravel the truth behind the most baffling of crimes. She is accompanied by her assistant Madison Feliciano (Ebony Vagulans).
Tropes:
- Accidental Murder:
- In "Another Bloody Podcast", a fight between brothers turned deadly when a punch caused one of the participants to fall and hit his head on a paving stone. However, it was a Time-Delayed Death and circumstances conspired to make it look like a hate crime.
- In "All That Glitters", the killer only intended to set up an accident that would injure the victim and force them to pull out of the show. However, they did not foresee the 'accident' causing water to leak into the stage lights, resulting in a High-Voltage Death.
- In "Location, Location, Location", the killer startled the victim at the top of a flight of stairs, causing him to stumble and fall to his death. Foul play wouldn't have even been suspected had the killer not moved the body to hide how they'd got into the house.
- Actor Allusion:
- In "To Dye For" the hair stylist asks Alexa, "have you ever thought about going dark and wearing a blunt fringe?" a reference to the iconic look of Lawless in Xena: Warrior Princess
- Another Xena reference appears in "En Pointe", when Harry notes that Alexa looks confident with a bow and says she must have done archery before. Alexa replies 'not for decades!'.
- In "Thirteen O'clock", a toymaker suggests that Alexa would make a wonderful action figure. Naturally, her likeness has already been captured in action figure form as Xena.
- Bill Bailey appears as the bumbling, eccentric Enzo Pavone, an Ambiguously Jewish Englishman with an Italian name - not unlike his role in Black Books as Manny Bianco, a bumbling, eccentric Englishman with an Italian name who was originally written as a Jewish man called Emmanuel.
- Agent Mulder: Madison is the believer of the team - in religious prophecy as well as the supernatural - and more than once thinks ghosts are involved in a case.
- Always Late: Alexa infuriates Kieran and Harry by constantly arriving late to their meetings. One episodes reveals that Harry always arrives early, which his own friends find just as annoying.
- Ambiguously Bi: As well as her friendly/flirty relationship with Madison, "The One That Got Away" shows Alexa receive a massage and a date invite from a female admirer, which she shows every sign of being into.
- Ball Cannon: In "Tough Love", a tennis pro is killed with one of these; the killer adds a billiard ball to the tennis balls, which hits the back of his neck and causes an aneurysm.
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Alexa disarms an attacker by knocking a weapon out of his hand with a popping champagne cork. She was aiming for his head, but she's still happy with it.
- Bottle Episode: "The Top Two Inches" is set almost entirely within one pub, during the course of a single evening.
- Boulder Bludgeon: In "Lividity in Lycra", the killer swaps the Victim of the Week's water bottle with an identical one spiked with monkshood. However, they miscalculate the dose and it is not enough to kill their target, and they forced to finish the job by hitting him on the head with a rock.
- Clock Tampering: In "Wild Life", following a "Eureka!" Moment when the power going out in her apartment causes the oven clock to reset to 0:00, Alexa realises that the killer created an alibi by resetting all of the clocks in his house (including his wife's phone) ahead by twenty minutes to make it appear that a crucial phone call happened later than it actually did.
- Coffin Contraband: In "Remains to be Seen", the killer needs to dispose of the Victim of the Week's personal belongings to make it look like he skipped town, so they pack them into the oversized casket of someone due to be cremated the next day.
- Cop/Criminal Family: Alexa's father was a con man, while she became a cop. In season two her brother is also revealed to be in jail for being a con man.
- Corpse Temperature Tampering: In "Can't Stand the Heat", the murder occurs in a commercial kitchen. The killer turns off the ventilation and turns all of the industrial ovens on full to keep the room hot and the body warm, and goes off to establish an alibi for the rest of the night. She makes sure she is the one to 'discover' the body, so she can turn off the ovens and ventilate the kitchen before calling the police.
- Couldn't Find a Pen: In "Sleep No More", Alexa spends much of the case obsessing over a the fact the Victim of the Week had a deep fresh cut on his finger, but there was no blood at the crime scene. She eventually works out that he had deliberately cut his finger on a meat hook after he was Locked in a Freezer and wrote his killer's name on the wall only for the person who found his body to clean it off.
- Cramming the Coffin: In "Remains to be Seen", a husband and wife had arranged to be buried in the same grave. When the wife dies several months after the husband, the grave is reopened to allow her interment, but the gravediggers discover the Body of the Week atop the husband's coffin.
- Creepy Doll: "Thirteen O'clock" features a line of eerie-looking always-online talking dolls that, because Generative A.I. Is a Crapshoot, start saying weird stuff to the kids who own them (suggested to be things any other doll has heard - including those in the house where the murder took place).
- Death by Falling Over: The death in "Another Bloody Podcast" turns out to a case of Accidental Murder caused by this. During a family quarrel, the killer threw a punch that caused the Victim of the Week to fall and hit his head on a paving stone. However, the victim got up and the killer left thinking he was fine, only for him to suffer a Time-Delayed Death shortly after from a bleed on the brain.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: In "Breaking Bread", Alexa asks Reuben about his previous bread suppliers in a conversation that sounds exactly like a couple talking about previous partners.
- Drives Like Crazy: Alexa lost her licence after retiring from the police because she always drives like she's in a high-speed chase.
- Edible Bludgeon: In "Can't Stand the Heat", the killer smashes the Victim of the Week's head in with a frozen chicken in the kitchen of a cooking school. They then arrange the body to make it look like he slipped in spilt oil and hit his head on the metal bench. They put the chicken back in the freezer and it is cooked and cut up during the next day's lesson.
- Fair Cop: Alexa was this in flashbacks when she was a police officer, but then she retired and became a baker and part-time detective.
- Famous-Named Foreigner: "It Takes Two" features an Argentinean exile named Eva Borges - as in Argentinean First Lady Eva Perón and Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges. It turns out to be a false name, taken when she fled to avoid prosecution for human rights violations.
- Fashion Show: The episode "Killer Fashion" in season three is about a young model's death backstage at a fashion show. Alexa goes undercover as a model agent and Madison as a new model.
- Fleeting Passionate Hobbies: After moving to New Zealand, Madison throws herself into a series of hobbies to help meet locals, including brewing beer, writing slam poetry and making jewellery.
- Food Porn: With Alexa being a baker and most of the other regulars being amateur (Madison) or professional (George, Reuben) chefs, they spend a lot of the time in the kitchen and we get many loving shots of the meals they prepare.
- Fun with Foreign Languages: Alexa learned German to access German baking equipment suppliers, and has fun switching between German and English, adopting a German accent and going undercover as a German tourist.
- Gamer Chick: Alexa, Madison and Beth are all gamers. Madison and Beth met in Stardew Valley, and Madison plays competitively in her off hours. She even blows her cover in one episode by geeking out over the game a suspect developed. (She later beats him at it. While they're handcuffed together.)
- GPS Evidence: In "Feet of Clay", Alexa identifies the killer, and then is able to provide the evidence the police need because of the dirt and leaf litter trapped in the killer's shoes that could only have been picked up at the murder scene.
- Head-Tiltingly Kinky: In "Fake Empire", Alexa and Madison are looking at photos the Victim of the Week took of himself and his mistress. Madison cocks his head to one side, then asks:Madison: How does he get his leg in that position?
Alexa: Not a leg. - High-Voltage Death: In "All That Glitters", the Victim of the Week is a Drag Queen who dies in a seeming accident after faulty stage lights electrify the stage. However, Detective Harry Henare is not convinced and asks Alexa to investigate.
- Hollywood Hacking: Madison is a hacker turned police analyst, and accesses information through a mix of surveillance and hacking-flavoured technobabble.
- I Have This Friend: Alexa's doctor assumes this is happening in "Feet of Clay" when she asks about cancer treatment. He starts to tell her about the dangers of using the internet for self-diagnosis. When she says it is not for her, he says "Oh, a 'friend'?" in a skeptical tone. However, she is actually asking because it is relevant to the case she is investigating.
- In Medias Res: The penultimate episode of season 2 starts with Alexa hanging over a precipice literally holding on for her life. Then the show flashes back to one week to explain How We Got Here.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Gen-Z data analyst Madison seeks out Gen-X retired detective Alexa to mentor her. They end up becoming besties and sharing a house in Auckland. Madison's friend Beth manages to win Alexa over too - not least by making her a packed lunch, leading to Alexa calling her "my Gen-Z grandma".
- Insistent Terminology: Milos, the pastry chef in "Breaking Bread", does not make custard tarts. He makes Portuguese tarts with puff pastry and cinnamon!
- It's Personal: Several cases are personal to one of the regular cast:
- "Old School" revolves around the suspicious death of Alexa's favourite teacher at her old school.
- "Wild Life" involves clearing the name of a former juvenile delinquent Harry has been mentoring.
- Alexa's brother Will, doing community service as a gardener after being released from prison, becomes a suspect in "The Village".
- In "Killer Fashion", Harry brings in Alexa to investigate the death of a model working alongside his sister Hinewai.
- "One Man's Poison" lets Reuben have a turn at having personal stakes when the chef who taught him his trade is suspected of a fatal poisoning.
- "The Widows Club" becomes deeply personal when one of the suspects turned out to be the dangerous driver who hit and killed Alexa's husband.
- "Bad Chemistry" is another Harry episode - this time, one of the suspects turns out to be his estranged wife from a marriage of convenience.
- Killer Outfit: The murderer in "Killer Fashion" uses a poisoned garment to kill.
- Large Ham: Lucy Lawless is clearly having a lot of fun playing Alexa. She practically dances when she finds a promising clue or catches a suspect out on a lie.
- Locked in a Freezer: In "Sleep No More", the Victim of the Week is drugged with sleeping pills and then locked in a walk-in freezer with a broken handle that means it cannot be opened from the inside.
- Locked Room Mystery: The second episode of the series Alexa has to solve how a man was shot and killed, in a locked hotel room.
- Make It Look Like an Accident:
- In "Can't Stand the Heat", the killer smashes the Victim of the Week's head in with a frozen chicken in the kitchen of a cooking school. They then arrange the body to make it look like he slipped in spilled oil and hit his head on the metal bench.
- In "Feet of Clay", the murderer shoves the Victim of the Week out into the street where they are hit by a car. This was actually a piece of improvisation on the killer's part, as their original plan involved a bus but it had been delayed by traffic. The killer lucked out and the car was being driven by a drunk driver who took the blame.
- Manchurian Agent: In "Call of the Wild", a psychiatrist discovers that one of his patients is super-susceptible to hypnotism. He programs her to shoot anyone she sees wearing purple (knowing that his intended victim jogs at the same time every day, wearing the same outfit) on hearing a particular musical Trigger Phrase. He then programs that Trigger Phrase into her phone as the ringtone for the number he will call her from.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: Madison is one of ten siblings and claims to have hundreds of cousins. While living in New Zealand, she sometimes bonds with Pasifika characters with similarly massive families.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In the penultimate episode of season one, Alexa is able to prove that a clairvoyant named Chloe learned details of the crime from the murderer and not through psychic talent. However, the same psychic is able to later tell Alexa a secret about a watch she got for her husband as a gift, which she started wearing after his passing; specifically, the inscription on the back reading "All My Love, Alexa". The show suggests that this may or may not be supernatural, and even Alexa cannot figure out how Chloe would know about the inscription.
- Medication Tampering: In "Mirror Mirror", the murderer laces the lidocaine cream being used on the Victim of the Week's chest for a minor cosmetic procedure with barbiturates. This knocks the victim out several hours later and the killer force feeds her more barbiturates and then injects her with a fatal dose of botulinum toxin to make it look like a case of self-medication gone wrong.
- Mistaken for Gay: Alexa asks a friend for cooking tips so she can impress a female chef. She fails to mention that the chef is a suspect, not a date. He's surprised but encouraging; she's oblivious to the misunderstanding.
- Murder by Mistake: In "Old School", the murderer laid a trap for the deputy headmistress. However, the headmistress, who usually left precisely at 4:30 every day, stayed late because she was filling for the history teacher and wound up taking the bait instead.
- Obviously Evil: One suspect in "En Pointe" wears a cloak, walks with a cane, has a Beard of Evil, and travels under a false name - that of the villain from Swan Lake. Subverted when he turns out to be a harmless - if eccentric - ballet producer who, at the time of the murder, was engaged in an all-night karaoke extravaganza.
- Omniglot: Alexa speaks English, some Māori, German, Italian, and a little Arabic - and that's just the ones we've seen so far.
- Once per Episode: Alexa meets her police contact at a picturesque Melbourne or Auckland landmark. He complains that she's late, and he tries to entice her to investigate the Mystery of the Week. The title of the show then appears in the landscape nearby (on a signboard, written on the street, etc.).
- Pet Heir: In "To Dye For" the Victim of the Week leaves all her money to her cat "Cruz".
- Phony Psychic: In "Fake Empire", when Kieran presents Alexa with another unsolved murder—a nurse stabbed in the back a week after proposing to his girlfriend—Alexa declines until Kieran mentions the involvement of clairvoyant Chloe Angel, who knows details about the case not released to the public. Ever the skeptic, Alexa is determined find the killer and prove that Chloe is a phony. She does.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Alexa and Madison see a giant Executive Ball Clicker.Alexa: That's the second-biggest Newton's cradle I've ever seen.
Madison: Where was the biggest?
Alexa: Get Smart!
Madison: I am smart! - Private Detective: Alexa is an ex-cop turned private detective (and part-time baker).
- Recruiting the Criminal: Madison was a teenage hacker who was caught accessing classified climate data and offered a job as a police data analyst as an alternative to facing charges.
- Scenery Porn: Not for nothing is the show called "Lucy Lawless's love letter to Auckland." It takes any opportunity it gets to inform the audience that Auckland is a beautiful city.
- Secret Underground Passage: In "Location, Location, Location," the invisible killer had access to the house by a series of underground passages between houses from when the main house used to be a brothel.
- Ship Tease: Alexa, Madison, Harry and Reuben form a network of casual flirtation. Madison suspects Alexa and Harry have hooked up at one point, but Alexa never confirms whether this was the case.
- Something Else Also Rises: After Alexa flirts with her, a massage therapist is seen framed through the decorative waterfall of her salon, which is absolutely gushing.
- Stealth Pun: Miranda Lee in "Old School" is a particularly tough teacher, so her students call her Spike. She confiscated a student's drug crop, but reveals she kept some for herself when she offers Alexa a marijuana cigarette. In other words, it's a Spike Lee joint.
- Stealthy Cephalopod: "Catfish" features Waru, a highly intelligent aquarium octopus who is suspected of sneaking out of his tank and stealing both other sea creatures and the staff's belongings. He's innocent of the former, but he did steal a key clue from the real culprit.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The show moved from Australia to New Zealand between seasons one and two. So Detective Inspector Kieran Hussey, Alexa's friend in the police department who brings her the cases of the week, is replaced by Detective Harry Henare, who becomes her friend and gets her the cases of the week. Alexa's friend George who owns a cafe (and buys her bread), stayed in Australia, and Alexa now has her friend Rueben who owns a cafe (and buys her bread).
- Downplayed with Captain Thunderbolt, Alexa's adorable grey cat in season one is replaced by "Chowder" in season two, an orange and white cat but they fulfil the same function.
- When Ebony Vagulans was unavailable, Madison's friend Beth stood in as Alexa's kooky young assistant. Madison still featured via video calls, and the two characters shared the screen for several episodes once Ebony was able to return to set.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: In "Lividity in Lycra", the killer swaps the Victim of the Week's water bottle with an identical one spiked with monkshood. However, they miscalculate the dose and it is not enough to kill their target, and they forced to finish the job by hitting him on the head with a rock.
- The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Alexa believes a suspect faked an alibi with a recording of her own voice, so she has Madison try to escape from a locked room. The two keep talking through the ceiling, but, when Madison returns, she finds she's talking to a recording on Alexa's phone.
- Time-Delayed Death: The Victim of the Week in "Another Bloody Podcast" dies after being punched and falling and hitting his head on a paving stone. He stood up again and the killer left, assuming he was fine, only for him to expire shortly afterwards from a bleed on the brain.
- That Came Out Wrong: When Madison looks up a specific illness for Alexa:Madison: I have the disease you're looking for... that did not sound right.
Alexa: Give it to me! ...that did not sound right either. - The Password Is Always "Swordfish": In "To Dye For" Alexa is trying to get into a laptop of a woman who loves her cat. The eventual password? The name of the cat!
- Police Are Useless: Every week Alexa's old friend from the police department gives her a big crime case file and says something to the effect of "None of us have a clue where to start with this one. Can we pay you to solve it for us instead?". In Season 2, after she moves to New Zealand, the friend is replaced by a different local cop who does the same thing.
- The Prima Donna: Former supermodel "Faith Cooper" is the main suspect in the episode "Killer Fashion." Her self-centeredness is part of the cause for the episode's murder.
- Television Geography: The use of Melbourne and Auckland landmarks for establishing scenes does occasionally create geographical hiccups - like when Alexa invites Kieran to "casually saunter" from Southbank to George's restaurant in Port Melbourne, a walk that would take at least half an hour and cross a major highway.
- Trigger Phrase: In "Call of the Wild", a psychiatrist hypnotizes a patient into being his Manchurian Agent. He trigger phrase is a particular piece of music he programs into her phone as the ringtone for the number he will call her from when he knows she is in sight of the intended target.
- Wacky Cravings: In "Another Bloody Podcast", a pregnant woman sends her husband out for a Mars Bar and a jar of anchovies.
- Who's on First?: "Bride to Be" features a suspect named Cat. Whenever Alexa and Madison refer to her while discussing the case at home, Chowder looks up like he thinks he's being called.
- Worthless Treasure Twist: The killer in "Location, Location, Location" accidentally killed the victim while searching an old house for a hidden cache of money. The treasure was real, but it was never in the house - it was concealed inside a gift the owner had given the killer. Both the search and the killing were for nothing, and the killer was caught before they knew they had the money all along.
- Writing Indentation Clue: In "Sleep No More", Alexa uses a crayon to bring out the indentation on the top sheet of pad. While the sheet reveals what appears to be a confession, the fact that is on the top sheet means that it could not have been written weeks ago on the night of the murder as claimed.
- Your Other Left: In "All That Glitters", Alexa is investigating the suspicious death of a Drag Queen. She gets Madison to run through the dance routine the victim had been rehearsing when they died, and tells her:Now you need to turn to your left. (Beat) Your other left.