“In This Town, You’re Not Going to Find that Many Cases of Intentional Death.”
Hallmark has said recently that they are committing to mysteries. One sign of that is the rebranding of one of their channels to Hallmark Mystery instead of Hallmark Mystery and Movies. And, while they aren’t giving us too many second movies in franchises, they are starting plenty of new franchises. The latest is the Family Practice Mysteries, which kicked off with Coming Home.
Rachel Hunt (Amanda Schull) has left the army and, along with her teenage twins, moved back in with her father in her home town where she is working as a doctor. One of her new clients is Ross Alexander (Greg Kean), a man who is incredibly healthy. So that’s why Rachel is surprised when she finds his dead body. The coroner is certain that it was a death from natural causes, but Rachel thinks something else was going on. Detective Jack Quinn (Brendan Penny) is willing to listen, but he needs evidence. Will Rachel figure out what happened?
Being the first movie in the franchise, there is a lot of ground to cover. It does a fairly good job of introducing us to the characters a little at a time so as not to slow down the mystery. It’s easy to guess at some of the backstory, but I appreciate that they gave it to us without dragging things out too much and without doing a massive exposition dump.
Having said that, I did have to wonder about Rachel’s medical practice. Did she have a partner? Did she take over from someone? Not that it really mattered. After all, she was out solving the mystery more than she was in the office.
The mystery is enjoyable. I spotted the guilty party before Rachel figured it out, but I didn’t have all the pieces to be sure I was right. I enjoyed the twists as she worked to uncover the truth. She did cross the line a few times and made some pretty stupid mistakes near the end, however.
With a couple of sub-plots, there was enough to keep us engaged. No, the sub-plots weren’t terribly original, but I did care about the outcomes of them.
What I really enjoyed are the characters that I’m sure would be regulars if we got another one of these movies. Rachel and her family are great. I really enjoyed their relationship. And the obvious romance between Rachel and Jack was cute. A couple of their lines made me laugh out loud as I was watching.
Unfortunately, this movies does have a dose of low budget cheese associated with it. But if you are watching a Hallmark movie, you’d know to expect that. I’ve certainly watched and enjoyed worse on the channel over the years.
If you enjoy Hallmark’s mysteries, you’ll enjoy Coming Home. I hope we get to visit the characters in the Family Practice Mysteries again soon.
I'll need to explore Hallmark's Mystery channel! I'm so glad they're committing to mysteries. I used to watch them all but it seemed like all the series ended and I didn't keep up with newer ones. I need to get back to it. This looks like a good one.
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