Quillsville Cold Case (Queen of the Willis)

The Quillsville Cold Case episodes are a series of two-hour long episodes in the animated series Queen of the Willis. These episodes typically revolve around Seargant Detective Lilly Rush (voiced by Kathryn Morris) and a member of the Willis family in a setting not familiar to the show's normal location in Quillsville, Indiana. The first, titled "After Albert", aired as the fifth season finale on April 22, 2011. The episodes are known for featuring flashbacks and elaborate musical numbers, similar to Cold Case. They first (Quillsville Cold Case: Albert Willis) follows the events of the first episode.

The Quillsville Cold Case episodes contain several signature elements, including a Cold Case opening sequence, custom musical cues and musical numbers, and parodies of Cold Case. Many of the episodes are popular among television critics, and have been nominated for several awards.

Premise

Like many episodes of Queen of the Willis, Quillsville Cold Case is set in the fictionalised Quillsville, Indiana, and follows Sergeant Detective Lilly Rush (voiced by Kathryn Morris), a former homicide detective with the Quillsville Metropolitan Police Department, who specializes in "cold cases", or investigations which are no longer being actively pursued by the department. In "Quillsville Cold Case: Albert Willis," then-detective Rush moved to Quillsville from Philadelphia, initially partnered with Officer Tiffani Donovan (voiced by Alexandra Moffitt) and then with Officer Jarrett Dailey (voice of Frank Davidson). They work under Captain Brad Hunter (voiced by Ava Zinn) and are assisted by other detectives/officers.

Usually, each episode would focus on a single investigation. All cases involved crimes committed in Quillsville, although investigations occasionally required travel outside the city or Indiana. Cases were also spread out over much of the previous century, with some as recent as a year or two old and others dating back to the 1930s. Generally, an investigation would begin when the police received a new lead, or "new direction", on a case. This might be the discovery of a body, a new lead such as an alibi witness not found in the original investigation, new evidence pointing to the innocence of the accused, or a critical piece of evidence such as a murder weapon. In some cases, the lack of a body meant that it was originally unclear if a crime had even occurred, with people instead believing that the victim had merely left town.

Over the course of the episode, the detectives would interview witnesses associated with the crime and piece together the story of what led the victims to their death or overall injuries. These interviews were accompanied by flashback sequences to the time of the crime which dramatized the testimony. Witness testimony, even from people who would later be revealed as the suspect, was almost never false. At most the guilty party would lie by omission, leaving out critical details, or stopping their narrative before they implicated themselves. The witness testimony was also generally presented in chronological order so that it formed a cohesive linear story for the audience.

As in Queen of the Willis, Quillsville Cold Case episodes distinguishes "double casting" in which the characters and witnesses would flash back and forth in the scene representing them as they looked at the time of the crime and in the present day. This was done with different actors as children, much younger selves, and before one's gender transition if the year in question was well in the past. Ava Willis (voiced by Ava Zinn), for example, had flashbacks to herself as a child and teenager (voiced by Frank Davidson) in "Quillsville Cold Case: Albert Willis" and "Something About Loose Frankie", and as a young transwoman (voiced by Ava Zinn) in the former. Sometimes the twist in the story is that the prime suspect is the most obvious suspect [In "Something About Loose Frankie" the suspect is exactly the same person thrown in jail for it in the first place.]

At the end of the episode, when the suspect/s were exposed and confronted the confession would be in a flashback scene depicting the crime. The scene would show the details with exceptions having to do with the utter heinousness of the underlying motive of the crime such as rape or sexual assault. The police would be shown arresting the killer and walking them into custody. The killer and other characters in the story would be seen as flashing back to their younger selves and as now. The spirit of the victim would be seen either by Lilly, one of the other detectives or a loved one of the victim. This would be accompanied by the playing of a song meant to symbolize the period in which the crime took place.

Through the flashbacks, the show examined many issues related to 20th century history, including: racism, homophobia, sexism, abortion, and police brutality. All of the cases are based on real life experiences events or victims, akin to the "ripped from the headlines" style from shows like Law & Order.

Episodes

See also: List of Queen of the Willis episodes

External links

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