Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Elsbeth Season 3 Episode 3.It seems oddly appropriate that the humor of last week’s “Doll Day Afternoon” is followed up by an episode centered around grief. “Good Grief,” that is, and the episode, yet another strong showing in Elsbeth‘s third season, opens on Black Veil, a show-within-a-show in the vein of The Bachelor (and serves as a whip-smart parody). As the show’s host explains, 28 widowers competed for the affections of grief influencer Raquel Drabowski (Julia Fox), whose firefighter husband Johnny (Adam Budron) died in a helicopter crash in Puerto Rico. Now it’s down to two: a man whose wife was killed on their honeymoon in an alligator attack, and Daniel, whose wife died driving while texting him that her cancer was finally in remission (literally, tears). Who “gets to lift the black veil?” Neither. A sobbing Raquel sobs, “I’m so sorry… I still love Johnny.”
The scene cuts to the room where Raquel and her agent Sydney (Jason Butler Harner) sit watching the program. Sydney is impressed by Raquel’s savvy, admiring her for having found a way to continue her brand, now more lucrative than ever. Raquel only sighs, quietly saying, “It’s all great, but it’s not going to bring my Johnny back.” It may not, but something did, with Raquel returning to her apartment to find Johnny, alive and well. As he explains, he was thrown from the copter, landing safely but unable to remember anything until he saw her face on TV. Now she can “be his wifey again.” That clearly doesn’t sit well with Raquel, who asks if he’s told anyone else he’s back. He hasn’t, so she suggests they go on the Staten Island Ferry, where they first met. But while he goes to grab coffee, Raquel places sandbags in a suitcase, and when he comes back, she slyly attaches the case to his pants and throws him overboard, exclaiming coldly, “I’m nobody’s wifey.”
Johnny’s Phone Call to Mom Is Problematic in ‘Elsbeth’s “Good Grief”
Raquel, a widow now for the second time – same husband – returns to making content for her followers, but is interrupted by a phone call from her mother-in-law Marie (Cathy Moriarty), telling her that she got a voicemail… from Johnny. Well, that’s problematic. And now Marie is at the police station, telling Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) and company about it. As Marie tells her tale, Raquel arrives, and chalks up the voicemail to yet another prank phone call from someone pretending to be Johnny. And in one of the many clever digs at social influencers, Raquel pulls out her selfie stick, films herself pleading with the public to stop tormenting them with fake phone calls, stops recording, and moves to a spot where the NYPD logo can be seen behind her and rerecords the same speech, with the logo “adding some weight.”
After Raquel and Marie leave, the phone number is traced back to a truck driver who picked up a hitchhiker by the name of Don in Delaware, who regales him with tales of Puerto Rico, surfing, and tending bar at a resort while pounding back beers. The trucker let Don use his cell phone, but is it Don, or did the trucker mishear Johnny? The beer cans are still in his truck, however, and, as they tell Marie and Raquel, the DNA is a match. Raquel can only feign surprise, while a gleeful Marie exclaims, “My Johnny is alive!” Johnny most decidedly is not, with the scene cutting to his cold, dead face being zipped over in a body bag. Elsbeth, feeling like a third wheel with Detective Fleming (Daniel Oreskes) and Officer Hackett (Lindsay Mendez) hitting it off fabulously, goes off on her own to look for witnesses. Who does she find instead? Kaya (Carra Patterson).
Proof Is No Help Whatsoever in ‘Elsbeth’s “Good Grief”
Yes, it’s Kaya, technically, but she’s undercover as Denise Jackson, working on an operation uncovering corruption on the docks. She can’t talk there, but they do make covert plans to meet at the bar, giving the friends time to catch up. There’s small talk – Elsbeth talks about how “frozen yogurt makes me sad now” – before talk turns to Angus (Ioan Gruffudd) and, long story short, their sweet romance is over. But she did bring Kaya back a Loch Ness Monster plushie, which she mentioned in the premiere, tying up a small loose end (the writers are just lights out this season). But as far as Raquel is concerned, Kaya has nothing, with the waterfront not covered by cameras.
Still, Elsbeth is more convinced than ever that Raquel is behind it, but without cameras on the waterfront or on the ferry, and no passenger list, there’s no proof that Raquel was on board with Johnny at all. But Fleming and Hackett have been working on a project together, a handmade map that details what information they were able to dig up on Johnny’s whereabouts over the last 18 months. They narrowed it down to a resort in Puerto Rico, and the manager there knows him well. Very, very well, as do about 50 other women, some of them married. That makes a lot of enemies, but he made it out alive, on a tourist boat headed to Florida.
Elsbeth, Hackett, and Fleming show up at Raquel’s, and tell Sydney and Raquel about how Johnny managed to evade dying in the helicopter crash: he was never on it. With everyone assuming he was, he hid out at the resort, surfed, tended the bar, and “kept company with women.” That last statement hits Raquel hard, who angrily exclaims that he would never have betrayed her like that. But when confronted with the fact that there is proof and witnesses, Raquel, for the first time, shows some real emotion, genuinely hurt by Johnny’s infidelity. The moment is fleeting after Elsbeth asks where she was when Johnny died, with Raquel smugly providing her content footage that was being recorded at her home at the time. After leaving, Elsbeth ruminates on how Raquel might love her followers more than any guy, and it’s not as far-fetched as it may seem.
Raquel Gets Busted by TikTok in ‘Elsbeth’s “Good Grief”
It’s a motive, perhaps, but there’s still no proof, until “Denise Jackson” calls Elsbeth, wanting to meet back at the bar. Kaya does have photos of Raquel on the ferry, confirming Elsbeth’s suspicions, but she can’t actually use the photos as they’re taken by secret surveillance cameras. Their conversation is interrupted by a man who comes in, one who recognizes “Denise” and asks her what she’s doing there. She leaves with the man, leaving Elsbeth with proof but no way to use it. So it’s back to the station, where they try to figure out how to break her alibi. Hackett proposes that Raquel may be using an app called LiveClock, which schedules prerecorded content to be released as live feeds at prescribed times.
It’s a viable theory, especially for an internet personality. With that, and the revelation of a violent history between Raquel and Johnny, Elsbeth confronts Raquel, who plays dumb when asked about the app. Elsbeth thinks she has her “gotcha” when the TikTok video shows Raquel welcoming two followers to the chat, even though they weren’t logged on at the time. But Raquel “just assumed” that the two faithful followers were there. Elsbeth tries to play the “I know you were on that ferry” card, but Raquel counters with the fact that if there was proof, she’d already be under arrest. Gotcha, denied. So it’s back to the drawing board, with Elsbeth scouring Raquel’s TikTok videos for clues. While she’s looking, Hackett comes in, making a casual observation about the shrine to Johnny in one. Her comment hits the light switch for Elsbeth: she has her “gotcha.”
The scene cuts to Behind the Black Veil, where Raquel, now a betrayal influencer, is being interviewed. But during a break in filming, Elsbeth and her cohorts come in, and Elsbeth, ever the dramatist, tells “the story of an ambitious young woman” before chiding Raquel for gaining millions of followers by exploiting the death of her husband — not once but twice now — simply to get likes. And when Johnny came back, jeopardizing what she had built, she lured him to the ferry and threw him in the water. Elsbeth concedes it was a good plan but, alas, he had to go and call his mother. Furthermore, Elsbeth has the proof that Raquel was so certain she didn’t have: TikTok videos from before Johnny’s death, with his worn and outdated harness on the shrine, compared to videos after, with a brand-new harness. Where’s the old harness and carabiner? They were clipped to Johnny’s pants, sending Johnny to the depths of the Hudson.
Raquel is arrested, Marie lands a gig on the Golden Years season of Black Veil, and Elsbeth is back at the station in her office. Captain Wagner (Wendell Pierce) comes in, hoping to catch Fleming and Hackett to congratulate all three on a job well done. Elsbeth sarcastically, or as sarcastic as she can be, asserts that it’s “5:03, so they’re probably together drinking box wine and crocheting.” Ouch. But Wagner turns that frown upside down with a lovely gift, a burner phone with which to call Kaya, one time only. She calls, but her glee turns to worry as she hears, “The number you have reached is not in service. Please check the number and dial again.”
- Release Date
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February 29, 2024
- Directors
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Nancy Hower, Robert King, Lionel Coleman, Rob Hardy, Robin Givens, Ron Underwood, Rosemary Rodriguez, Aisha Tyler, Bille Woodruff, James Whitmore Jr., Joe Menendez, Kevin Rodney Sullivan, Lily Mariye, Nick Gomez, Peter Sollett, Sam Hoffman, Tyne Rafaeli, Darren Grant, Fong-Yee Yap, Mary Lou Belli
- Writers
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Jonathan Tolins, Erica Shelton Kodish, Bryan Goluboff, Sarah Beckett, Michelle King
- The writing remains consistently good this season, with clever digs at social influencing and ‘The Bachelor’, and peppering Easter eggs throughout the episode.
- The return of Carra Patterson and the quick rekindling of that joyful dynamic, however brief.
- Julia Fox does an excellent job with Raquel, walking a fine line between parody and depth.
- The dream of a future for Angus and Elsbeth ? Angsbeth ? is over. Sigh.
- Johnny. The walking surfer dude stereotype pales in comparison to the rest of the episode’s cast, and clearly too dense to realize that he just had to take his pants off before hitting the river floor.
