Jess is staying at the fancy Parkside Hotel in Santa Monica, California, courtesy of her publisher. She is having a lunch meeting with a publicist in the hotel dining room, who is trying to convince her that publicizing her "solved cases" would be better than publicizing her upcoming novel. A hotel staff member, Gloria, overhears this and later visits Jessica in her room with a request: to prove that her husband Sam who has just gotten out of jail after serving 30 years for a murder he didn't commit was innocent. Sam seems to have given up on life, so Gloria's hoping Jessica can help figure out what really happened, and thus help them live out the rest of their years in happiness.
An offbeat and a fairly good episode. It's quite ambitious with its flashback - taken from a 1949 film- and adds some substance to the proceedings. It's a serious episode, well-acted, though a little confusing with its twists, but that's more my fault with my brain not keeping up!