Hallmark "Mystery 101"
Fans were devastated when Hallmark quietly announced that “Mystery 101” was canceled. The announcement came via a response from the official Hallmark Movies & Mysteries Facebook account. Now screenwriter John Christian Plummer has opened up on the Hallmark Mysteries & More podcast about exactly how the cliffhanger from the seventh movie was going to be wrapped up, including a surprise ending for the eighth film.
He Revealed the Resolution to the Seventh Movie’s Cliffhanger
In an interview with the Hallmark Mysteries & More podcast, writer John Christian Plummer shared details about the screenplay he had written for the eighth “Mystery 101” movie that was never filmed. Hallmark Mysteries & More is co-hosted by Eric Rutin and Sydney Rowland.
First, Plummer shared that he only got the call about the cancelation a couple of days before it was shared on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries’ Facebook account.
“To be clear, I never wrote episode eight, I just pitched it,” Plummer clarified. “I pitched what I thought would be the idea for it. So that’s all I have to share with you.”
The cliffhanger ending for the last movie — which showed Amy engaged to someone else — was going to be a dream that played a big role in the next movie’s storyline.
“We open with that final scene from ‘Deadly History,'” he explained. “…As Travis looks at Amy and the thunder claps and she looks back at him, we’re on her and she’s looking at him and we hear his voice saying, ‘Amy, Amy!’ and she wakes up with a start. She’s fallen asleep at her desk in her office. It’s night, Travis is beside her, she’s disoriented…”
Plummer says that Travis tells Amy he had waited for her and she didn’t pick up when he called. Then she tells Travis about having a crazy dream where her fiance was murdered and Travis was the one investigating the murder.
“And Travis says, ‘So it wasn’t me who was dead?’ And she shakes her head,” Plummer explained. “And he smiles and he says, ‘Good, then I’m not gonna worry, because you’re engaged to me.’ And they kiss and then we see the title card, ‘Mystery 101: Killing Dreams.'”
Plummer went on to share that in the new movie, Amy had dreamed that she was engaged to Sam Jameson, her highschool sweetheart. In “real life,” she had turned down his proposal when they were in college, feeling like he was growing too obsessed with her at the time. Later that day, Graham shocks Amy with the news that Sam had been murdered.
Plummer explained that the movie would reveal that Sam was a genius who had multiple mental breakdowns after he and Amy broke up. After learning he’d been killed, Amy decided to go to Seattle and help with the investigation because she was so upset about what happened.
In the end, Amy and Travis would discover that Sam had faked his own death and taken on a new identity after he learned that Amy was engaged. He had been stalking Amy in disguise the whole time and had even drugged and hypnotized her to plant doubt in her mind about Travis. In fact, it was because of him that she had the dream that opened the movie. The final scene would have been Amy and Travis getting married.
Plummer Said He’s Working on a New Mystery Film with Hallmark
Plummer also confirmed that he’s working on a new mystery project called “Mystery Island” that is close to production and will be filmed in Panama.
In an interview with TV Shows Ace, Plummer revealed that this movie will also be a Hallmark mystery.
He told the Hallmark Mysteries & More podcast that this movie will appeal to “Mystery 101” fans.
“If you like ‘Mystery 101,’ I really think you’ll like ‘Mystery Island…'” he shared. “It’s so deeply inspired by Agatha Christie… There’s an island where people go to on vacation…to play murder games on the island. Someone gets pretend murdered and they pay a lot of money to play detective and figure out whodunnit… It’s really fun. We have great lead characters, the female lead is a psychiatrist… and a really wonderful detective character… At the heart it really gets at these questions about the human condition.”
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