The Situation:
The group has split up into pairs and has begun searching the house. During this search Col. Mustard separates from Ms. Scarlett and kills the stranded motorist. The secret passage is also revealed. Outside the house we see a cop inspect the Stranded Motorists car. Back inside the house, Yvette has shot open the door that had been trapping Mustard/Scarlett in with the dead body. Col. Mustard begins to verbally accompany Yvette for nearly killing him. The chandelier rope finally breaks from having been shot and the chandelier crashes to the ground, scaring the group. As the group deals with the crash and discusses how the weapon cabinet could have been opened, the doorbell rings. the cop has arrived to check if the Stranded Motorist had been by.
The Murder:
This murder gets padded out quite a bit. I assume thats so the movie could actually be movie length instead of a special edition episode of Mr. Bean. Mr. Green, at his mysterious best, opens the door as he has nothing to hide, then immediately slams the door. Then when the other guests try to deny the motorist was there, Green informs him that he was in fact there. Wadsworth then sends him off to the library where he is locked in. He seems to recognize Yvette. The group then decides to clean up the broken glass (odd) when the phone rings and the cop answers (odder) and reveals that it was J. Edgar Hoover on the phone (oddest). While Wadsworth handles the Hoover call, Mr. Green shows the cop around and the rest of the group stages the drunken party with the corpses of previous victims. The open-minded cop seems satisfied with the ruse and again asks to use the phone. He is again locked in the library.
The group then decides to finish the search despite the cops presence. The pairs return to their previous floors. The kitchen passage is discovered. The power is then cut and 3 people get killed, including our dear cop. In the darkness, the cop suffers essentially the same fate as the Stranded Motorist. The door unlocks and slowly opens, a gloved hand holding a pipe approaches and clubs the Policeman to death. Oddly enough, the cop was also actually calling someone and telling them how scared he was and was about to tell them where he was when he was killed. After two other killings, the lights return and the group surveys the carnage.
We know from both the A and C ending that Mrs. Scarlett killed the Policeman during the power outage caused by Ms. White. The reasoning makes sense in that Scarlett killed the Policeman for informing on her brothel activities. The footage in the movie generally supports the explanation given although not much of it is shown with the lights out. I do question some of the logistics though. Ms. Scarlett was already on the main level with Col. Mustard and we saw from their footage that they had already searched everything and were re-searching some rooms, after they discovered the kitchen passage. We don't see how Scarlett separated from Mustard but we do know that at the same time that Scarlett was killing the Policeman, both Ms. White and Wadsworth were coming down the stairs to kill victims 6 and 7 while Yvette was coming down two levels from the attic. Essentially there were 3 murders taking place at once, on the same floor, involving 6 people, with Col. Mustard wandering around. Two of those people had to return to the top floor as well before the lights were thrown back on. That's a lot of people in a small space to not bump into each other at all.
Once again though we have to return to the motivations and plans of the characters. The behavior of the policeman makes no sense. He was called to the house by Wadsworth for some reason. Perhaps he was given the cover story of investigating the found car on the road belonging to the stranded motorist. I originally thought that maybe the Policeman was the most realistic of the victims as he recognized Yvette and was suspicious of what was going on in the house. This would make sense if he was invited by Wadsworth but found the situation was different than he expected. I don't think that's the case though as the cop really starts investigating whats going on in the house. He should know for certain that something is going on with the criminal conspiracy that he is a part of. He should be trying to leave or get in contact with Wadsworth. Instead, he's searching rooms, threatening to be let out and answering the phone when it rings. He even investigated the Stranded Motorists car outside the house. Just like the stranded motorist, he spent his last moments on earth calling some stranger to express his misgivings about what was going on. No, his actions only make sense in the context of him being a real off duty police officer investigating an abandoned car. Any sensible person, especially with police training, would realize something was off when the door opened and he saw his boss, one of his boss's prostitutes and the person he was informing on his boss to all together. You don't question whether you know the prostitute and ignore the main players.
Also, Wadsworth has no plan whatsoever here. Wadsworth allows the members of the gathering to be scattered randomly around the house at the direction of Col. Mustard. This makes it infinitely more difficult for each new victim to be killed. Scarlett is on the first floor and ready to deal with the cop but, as we will see in our discussion of the next 2 victims, Ms. White, Yvette, Prof. Plum and Wadsworth are all completely out of position. Had the drawing of straws gone differently then Ms. Scarlett could easily have been in the attic or paired with someone more intellectually resilient than Col. Mustard. Had either of those things happened, Scarlett probably doesn't get near the cop. It also depended entirely on the rogue actions of Ms. White settling a personal vendetta that the limited opportunity presented itself. During this sequence, Wadsworth is a bystander whose bad planning ultimately get him involved in the final action, probably against his desires.
Conclusion:
Through a very narrow looking glass the Scarlett killing of the Off-Duty Policeman is fine. The power went out, she was close to the victim and she took her chance to take him out. All well and good. The scene as a whole though, beginning with the Policeman's arrival and ending with the discovery of the Singing Telegram Girl, is pure nonsense. We shall see more why in the next two parts.
Up Next:
Murder #6, technically happened before murder #5 but not from a storytelling perspective.
Up Later:
The phone call from J. Edgar Hoover and the interruption from the beatnik have to be addressed but only after the main mystery has been unraveled.
Recap:
Wadsworth: 0 murders
Peacock: 1 murder
Green: 0 murders
White: 0 murders
Mustard: 1 murders
Scarlett: 1 murders
Plum: 1 murder
Mr. Boddy: dead
The Cook: dead
Yvette: dead but awaiting discovery
Stranded Motorist: dead
Off Duty Cop: dead
Singing Telegram Girl: about to ring her last doorbell
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