I knew Columbo was going to be ADHD but I did not realise he was going to be SO. ADHD.
I see people who truly believe that because he clearly thrives on being underestimated and because, to that end, he often pretends to be his opponents' intellectual inferior, and often chatters his way round to the point so they'll let their guard down that means the whole thing is an act. and no. No. No. Not only does nobody live like that, it is quite clear his symptoms idiosyncrasies manifest all the time and do frequently cause him problems because he cannot turn them on and off at will. He does ADHD things with colleagues. He does ADHD things with non-suspect witnesses. He does ADHD things alone. There's a bit in one ep where he's waiting for a snooty receptionist to call up data from a fancy new computer system and it is very slow (and it is very boring and the scene clearly was put in for padding and I feel you, Columbo) and yes a neurotypical person would be irritated too, but Columbo is clearly nearly dying because not only is he having to stand there and do nothing with no stimulation for seven minutes but also he knows there is a faster way to do it and they won't let him do the thing faster and it doesn't have to be like this and this isn't even necessary but they're making him stand there in living agony anyway and yeah, if you really want to torture an ADHD with usually well-controlled hyperactivity, stick them in an unexpected waiting pen, allow them to deduce an efficient way out, and then give them no power to enact that.
That bit a the end of one ep where he's just nailed a killer and he starts to put his coat on, and then slumps down to sit on a desk, dejected, with the coat hanging off one shoulder. I've done that. Well, found myself putting chairs away after a class trailing a half-on coat because I couldn't put my arm through sleeve 2 before my brain jumped tracks.
The calling people up in the middle of the night because a detail of the case "bothered" him so he couldn't sleep and he forgot that wasn't an everyone thing.
The car. Just: the car. (My mum has never been diagnosed as anything and actually passes as very neurotypical in most of life but you should see her car. Or you shouldn't. It once had stuff growing out of it and she decided she liked it.)
But above all this. This bit right here:
Lt. Columbo: Mrs. Peck? Mrs. Peck, I made a very poor introduction of myself to you. I know that. I'm a stranger in your house that you love and I'm here to do something that's not very pleasant so I don't expect you to like me. But I have feelings too, Mrs. Peck. Now I'm sorry about being untidy. That's something that I can't control. That's a fault of mine that I, I, I don't know, I just can't correct that. I've tried many years. I'm just very untidy, that's my nature. But I've never been un-, I've never been rude to you, Mrs. Peck. And, and if you keep on treating me like an enemy just because I'm here trying to find who killed the man you worked for for 33 years, well, then, well then I think you're a very unfair person.
So context, Columbo has just wandered into this fancy, extremely clean house where a man's just been murdered and promptly dropped cigar ash on the polished floor to the extreme distress of the victim's live-in housekeeper. Which is understandable! She's going through probably the worst moment of her life, and Columbo's soiling something that's precious to her -- something she's likely going to lose anyway. Right from the start, it's obvious Columbo not only has no motive to pretend to be "shambolic" etc where this woman was concerned, he has every motive to turn it off if he only could -- but he can't. And it clearly upsets him from the very first instance, both because he feels immediate empathy for what she's going through and hates making it worse, and also because this is making it harder to solve the case. It's And also because it's hitting a clear insecurity. "I think she hates me, I really feel that", he remarks plaintively, almost out of nowhere, (RSD sucks, but remember it passes, Columbo!) And worse, it keeps happening. He keeps apologising. And then does something else. And she goes off again -- and though her pain is obviously still real every time, she also gets meaner and more aggressive and more belittling. She calls him names. She stops him examining evidence: dude, if this was an act he would not let it jeopardise his work. If it's a disability: that's what they do.
This is not a guy who puts on a mask. This is a guy who's unlocked god-tier levels of not masking. This is a guy who figured out how to stand there and let people see exactly who he is and weaponise their inevitable failure to get it.
Columbo has done what the lucky among us do: he'd found a place where his liabilities become [enough of the time] a strength. He'd managed to turn his curse into a superpower. And yet, here it is betraying him all over again. Right in the place where it's supposed to not do that.
I don't just hear ADHD pain in that speech, I hear ADHD trauma. The years of straining to contain all your messy edges and not only failing but having no one believe that you tried at all. The years of begging teachers and parents to please at least believe you're trying with everything you've got to deliver what they want, so that maybe they'll find a crumb of mercy and stop hurting you so much. And I love that even though this has got to be the longest non-gotcha speech and definitely the most emotional and vulnerable speech I've seen from Columbo so far, it speed-runs a whole lifetime's journey from self-hatred to self-acceptance to pride to defiance. I've seen (uh, and been) a lot of middle-aged ADHD people who heal as they finally come out of decades of reflexive self-flagellation and it sloooooowly occurs to them that even if everything they've been told about themselves were true, maybe some of the people doing the telling had a flaw or ten worth looking at. Maybe the fact that despite our best efforts we objectively did inconvenience people sometimes didn't mean we deserved to be those people's permanent punching bags.
(TBF I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Mrs Peck and her intense need for tidiness wasn't some flavour of ND too: sometimes real needs really do conflict! And it's nice that though she probably hurts the hero more than any murderer manages to do the pair do sort of, imperfectly, figure it out, and the writing doesn't lose compassion for either one of them.)
Anyway I'm headcanoning Columbo's wife as autistic. They bonded via hyperfixating on cowboy films.
excellent post. might i add a columbo ADHD fancam