Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 17.
I kind of had a feeling that Elsbeth Season 2 would see a major status quo shift when Kaya Blanke (Carra Patterson) was promoted to Detective, and no longer acting as Elsbeth’s (Carrie Preston) de facto police escort/chaperone, but wow was I not prepared for what that would look like in practice. While it was fun for Elsbeth to mostly strike out on her own in Season 2, Episode 17, “Four Body Problem,” I have to say I did miss seeing her as the comic foil to the straight man that is the police force. It was stranger still to see her playing the straight man to the mystery of the week. The result is an episode that felt like it was lacking some of the Elsbeth sparkle I’ve come to love so much, not that it didn’t have its moments.
Death Is Everywhere in ‘Elsbeth’ Season 2 Episode 17
The episode opens at the Arthur Green and Sons Funeral Home, where Arthur Green (David Alan Grier) is consulting with a couple arranging the funeral of an elderly loved one. By the sounds of things, what started as a small family business has grown over the years into one of the most prestigious facilities for laying someone to rest, allegedly serving actors and former presidents’ families. The clients ask if Arthur’s father is still with the family business, but he explains that he’s since retired. Raymond Green (Charles Turner), aka Pop Pop, gets a visit from his nephew Russell (Joshua Echibiri), who is more than a little excited, explaining that his YouTube page is about to explode. Some of this potential explosion rides on Pop Pop, as Russell asks him if he remembers the funeral of N.D. Longacre, a mystery writer whose funeral was handled by Arthur Green and Sons. He explains that a lot of people online believe that Longacre’s death was a hoax — and goes so far as to suggest she was responsible for writing Get Out — and asks Pop Pop to confirm that the funeral was a sham. After a moment, Pop Pop seemingly confirms Russell’s suspicions: Longacre is not in her coffin.
Arthur, however, doesn’t want to hear it. He reminds Russell that Pop Pop has dementia and probably doesn’t know what he’s confirming, but Russell doesn’t want to hear it. The statement was confirmation enough, as far as he’s concerned, and anything Arthur says is just a deliberate attempt to obscure the truth, including him outright telling Russell that Longacre is dead, and he was there for her funeral. Arthur tells him that pursuing this line will ruin the family business, and reminds him that even her family doesn’t care for this line of inquiry. To Russell, this just means that all involved should be happy to have her body exhumed if only to confirm that she’s really dead — if they all believe she’s dead and buried, then I don’t see the point, but I digress — and turns to leave, but Arthur calls him back, and promises to tell him the truth of what really happened. He says that they can’t discuss it at the funeral home, however, and need to do so at the graveyard as the truth needs to be seen to be believed. Arthur lets Russell wrap his phone in tinfoil to create a homemade Faraday cage, and the two head out.
At the graveyard, Arthur hands Russell a shovel just as his nephew lights up a hand-rolled cigarette, and tells him they need to dig. Russell points out that the ground is frozen and wonders if this is even possible. Arthur assures him the shovels are special, and I suppose he wasn’t lying because they do serve their purpose: namely, Arthur is able to knock out his nephew with a blow to the back of the head. He then drags him into an empty coffin he had in the back of the hearse, and turns off Russell’s phone before throwing it in with him. Just as Arthur gets the lid closed, we realize that Russell isn’t dead yet, as bangs are heard on the coffin lid, which is nothing short of horrifying. Slowly suffocating in a coffin is a hell of a way to go. Between this and the slow, torturous hot tub drowning we had last week, does it not seem like Elsbeth is taking a darker turn these days?
Arthur drives the coffin over to a crematorium while listening to a report of a private plane crash in Rhode Island that killed 5. Seeing that the place is closed, he calls a 24/7 crematorium instead, asking for a quick turnaround, private cremation, which they agree to, so he returns to his office to fudge the necessary paperwork, when his assistant arrives to tell him that three of the deceased from the plane crash — a senator, his girlfriend, and a college friend — are en route to the funeral home. Plans for cremation are on hold, at least for now, as the funeral home goes into overdrive preparing for the three new arrivals, so Arthur shoves Russell’s casket into cold storage until he can deal with him properly.
Elsbeth Works With a Conspiracy Theorist in Season 2 Episode 17
Meanwhile, at the precinct, Barb (Jenn Harris), a friend of Russell’s, is trying to get someone to investigate her friend’s disappearance. They clearly know each other through conspiracy theorist circles, as she maintains Russell was disappeared by the government. Lt. Connor (Daniel K. Isaac) asks if she has any identifying information, like a birthdate or address, and when she tells him she doesn’t, asks how she even knows he’s missing. She explains that they meet for breakfast every Wednesday, but when he didn’t show up that day, she checked his last few locations on their shared location app and saw he went from a retirement home to the funeral home to the cemetery, before vanishing. So much for the tin foil Faraday cage if she was able to see all that. Overhearing this, Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) pops in to ask why they shared locations if Barb didn’t even have basic info on Russell, and she explains that the two met online in “alternative thinking” spaces, and only just met in real life this year, and they shared locations to keep tabs on each other should something happen.
Elsbeth feels it’s worth looking into Russell’s disappearance, but Captain Wagner (Wendell Pierce) is less inclined. He tells Elsbeth she’s free to go searching for Russell, but adds that he won’t assign her a detective for the case, as he feels it’s a waste of time. She does, however, still need an officer to go with her, and Wagner assigns her Officer Chandler (Ethan Slater), a new hire looking for a chance to do something a little more challenging. Wagner cautions Elsbeth that Chandler can be annoying, and it turns out that what he means is the man is a chatterbox. Not inherently a bad thing, speaking for chatterboxes everywhere, except when in the middle of an investigation, especially at a funeral home. At least Chandler takes Elsbeth’s advice and shifts to observing instead as Arthur arrives to speak with them, looking nervous. He confirms that Russell did stop by briefly the night before to update him on Pop Pop’s health and then left shortly after, and didn’t say where he was going.
Elsbeth tells him they know he went as far as the cemetery, but Arthur tells her he doesn’t know why, adding that the family gave up on Russell when he got entrenched in the world of conspiracy theories, and that he’s become a disappointment since it became clear he wouldn’t be carrying on the family business. He then excuses himself to get back to planning the three simultaneous funerals that came in the night before, which Elsbeth correctly guesses are related to the plane crash. She asks him why he referred to the funerals as “short notice” as most funerals would be short notice, and when he tells her he was away from his phone the night before, she pushes back, saying he’d just told her he was working late the previous night. He tries to hustle Elsbeth out of the funeral home, but Chandler stops them both to show Elsbeth a video uploaded to Russell’s account, telling his followers that if they’re watching that, then he’s probably dead.
At the precinct, Elsbeth tells Wagner that the tech team found the video was filmed months ago, and was set to upload to Russell’s account automatically if he failed to log into his computer in the morning. Elsbeth adds that a casual scroll through Russell’s social media points to him being a very paranoid person in general, hence why he’d even set up that automatic upload. Wagner asks Elsbeth for her take, and she says that Arthur probably knows more about it than he’s letting on. Wagner reminds her the Green’s are pillars of the community, but still won’t assign Elsbeth a detective when she says she’d like to dig into it more. He agrees to put out a missing person bulletin, and set up a tip line instead. The one staffing the tip line? Detective Kaya Blanke (Carra Patterson), who learns that she was put on tip line duty by Detective Fleming (Daniel Oreskes), as part of the rookie detective rite of passage. Bark arrives then, telling Elsbeth she knows what happened to Russell.
Her evidence, it turns out, is a little less concrete than Elsbeth would like, as Barb tries to claim that Russell’s use of “DEF” in his last social media post — short for “definitely” — is actually a code phrase to indicate he was taken by the FBI. While Elsbeth doesn’t put much stock in that, she does see another post further down promising to expose the truth behind N.D. Longacre’s “supposed” death, and Barb explains that the author is still alive, and that Russell was going to expose it. This is enough reason for Barb to believe that Russell is currently in FBI custody. Elsbeth promises she’ll do all she can to check and asks Wagner to call a friend at the FBI to see if they know anything. Wagner’s friend says he doesn’t, but agrees to keep an eye out. While he and Elsbeth don’t think anything will come of this line of inquiry, they get a visit within the hour from two FBI agents. They tell Elsbeth they don’t know where Russell is, but offer to file a report and add it to the file they keep on him if he’s been bothering her. Elsbeth is surprised they keep tabs on him at all, and while they don’t give her too much information, they do indirectly confirm that they don’t know where he is at the moment.
The Victim’s Body Gets Shuffled Around the Funeral Home in ‘Elsbeth’ Season 2 Episode 17
At the funeral home, Arthur finally gets Russell out of cold storage and tries to sneak the casket down the hall, when his assistant approaches him again for another update, saying that the senator’s friend’s frat bros are waiting to meet with Arthur to discuss arrangements, as is the family of Miss Dell, the senator’s girlfriend. Arthur agrees to see both groups as soon as he’s done moving the “extra” casket, and also tells his assistant to direct the bodies of the flight crew to a different funeral home, as they fall outside of the typical clientele. He’s finally stopped by the shomer from the senator’s family’s shul, asking to be shown to the body, which his assistant also agrees to do, leaving Arthur alone with the casket at last.
Back at the precinct, Barb doesn’t believe the FBI’s claims that they don’t know where Russell is, citing the file as evidence enough that they have him. Blanke arrives with a witness who might have some information about what happened to Russell, and tells Barb to stick around and hear him out. The witness, Jay, says that he saw Russell get abducted by a spaceship — which he describes as silver with green lights — and he knows it was a spaceship because Russell just floated up into it. Elsbeth asks why he was at the cemetary at all, and Jay says he went there to smoke weed, do shrooms and commune with the spirit of N.D. Longacre. Blanke admits she missed the fact that he was on shrooms, but this is no deterrent for Barb, who just tells Jay what he thought was a spaceship was actually a military drone. Elsbeth realizes it’s neither, and pulls up an image of the Arthur Green and Sons hearse, a silver car with green lights on the side, and Jay confirms that’s the vehicle he saw the night before.
At the cemetery, Elsbeth and Barb visit Longacre’s grave, where Barb lays out how she believes Longacre faked her own death in order to return later. While she does that, Elsbeth looks for evidence, and finds Russell’s handrolled cigarette, which Barb confirms is his. They also find tire tracks in the mud, alongside smaller tracks that could point to a gurney. Elsbeth speculates that a funeral director looking to dispose of a body would either bury or burn it, and since the ground is frozen, the second option is more likely. She takes this theory to Wagner, and says that because their usual cremation center was closed all week, and because Chandler confirmed Arthur didn’t go anywhere else, she believes Russell’s body is still in the home somewhere. Wagner still can’t believe Arthur would kill his nephew at all, but Elsbeth speculates there’s a connection to the Longacre conspiracy. The whole thing is sitting poorly with Wagner now that Barb has posted a picture of herself and Elsbeth on social media claiming to be working with the NYPD, but Elsbeth tells him that despite this, she still thinks there’s something to it. They don’t have enough evidence for a search warrant, but Elsbeth wouldn’t need a warrant if she was just poking around the public show room.
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At the funeral home, Miss Dell’s sister Juniper (Kate Easton), consults with Arthur for the most environmentally friendly way to lay her sister to rest. He assures her that they’re able to ensure an ecologically-sound burial, but of course, this comes at an astronomical cost, which Arthur does his best to upsell Juniper. Elsbeth and Chandler arrive soon after, passing a paparazzo outside hoping for pictures of the senator’s famous friends. She tells Chandler to start looking through coffins, and she does the same before coming across Juniper in desperate need of a hug as she’s overwhelmed with her options. She’s worried because she knows whatever coffin she picks will last forever — I guess she opted out of the $200K+ option — and the family has already decided against cremation. Elsbeth comforts her, they wander across the hall where she sees another coffin, the one we know Russell was stored in. She tries to pop it open but is caught by Arthur, who tells her that model has a key to open it. She tells him why they’re there, saying a witness saw Russell in an Arthur Green and Sons hearse, and they have reason to believe he’s being stored in a casket.
She adds that she believes there’s a connection between his disappearance and the N.D. Longacre conspiracy, as if it were revealed to be true it would severely impact the family business, since they handled the funeral in the first place. Arthur is about to leave, when Elsbeth asks if she can see inside the casket, pointing out that if he’s not hiding anything then she shouldn’t need a warrant. I feel like that’s not how that works, but Arthur relents and opens it. Sure enough it’s empty, but Elsbeth notices there’s dirt by the foot of the coffin. Arthur gets just threatening enough, trying to get Elsbeth to climb into the coffin, and its enough to scare her off entirely. She and Chandler are about to leave when she sees one of the employees vacuuming the hearse as Arthur asked for it to be detailed. She pokes around in the very back and finds another piece of evidence: a small clump of tin foil. Back inside, Arthur goes to check on Russell’s body, but to his surprise finds he’s not in the freezer he thought he left him in.
Elsbeth Discovers a Corpse Mix-Up in Season 2 Episode 17
Barb is disappointed that Elsbeth’s search didn’t result in them finding Russell, but tells Elsbeth that at the very least she’ll pick up where Russell left off in proving that Longacre’s death is a hoax, or at the very least that the funeral home is hiding something regarding her death. Barb thinks Arthur should just exhume the body to prove that they’re not hiding anything, which is a wild conclusion to make, but in telling her that can’t be done without the consent of the family, Elsbeth realizes she can just talk to the family about the rumors. She reaches out to Barb’s sister, who tells her that their cousin started the rumor by saying that the coffin felt light, and because of the ensuing flurry of rumors, she regrets opting for a closed casket. She tells Elsbeth that though Raymond was the funeral director, Arthur is the one who talked her into the closed casket, in order to prevent people selling pictures of the body. The explanation doesn’t track for Elsbeth, though, as she points out Arthur Green and Sons has a no phone policy, and they’ve had other celebrity funerals there with no photos leaked. The reason he’d want a closed casket, she guesses, is to cover up a mistake.
Speaking of Arthur Green, the man is in over his head with former frat bros crawling all over his funeral home, Juniper Dell still worrying over the environmental implications of her sister’s burial, and the constant shuffle of caskets around the funeral home that he can’t exactly be popping open to check for Russell’s whereabouts. This is like the world’s most morbid shell game. He finally finds Russell’s body being wheeled away by a temp, who mistook Russell for the pilot from the private plane. He catches her in time and manages to shake her off by promising to deal with the mix-up himself.
Blanke goes to visit Mrs. Henderson, a frequent caller of the police tip line, who had earlier claimed that Russell was in her house as early as the week before. She checks all the locks, and Mrs. Henderson tells Blanke she’s the only cop who bothered checking on her. She tells Blanke that Russell is taking advantage of her, and stealing food and cash out of her house because she’s there alone. Blanke is skeptical until they both hear clattering in the house, and she realizes that maybe there is something to the complaints. She heads to the kitchen, gun drawn, and while it’s definitely not Russell, whatever she sees makes her lower her weapon.
Elsbeth, meanwhile, goes to visit Raymond to ask about Russell’s visit, and specifically whether he mentioned N.D. Longacre. He tells Elsbeth about the plans to exhume the body, and worries this means he won’t get into heaven. After telling Elsbeth that the only one who would understand his Polly, his late St. Bernard, he says that during Longacre’s funeral, he warned Arthur not to let anyone open the coffin, and this, it seems, has something to do with why he’s not getting into heaven. As for Arthur, he’s got Juniper to worry about, and her ongoing concerns about which coffin to put her in. After hearing her observe that one of the coffins is big enough for two people, he tells her that he shouldn’t have encouraged her to go for a burial, and she should instead stick to her original plan and cremate her sister instead. While initially she seems unsure, Arthur steamrolls over her and she agrees in the end.
Elsbeth returns to the funeral home to find her paparazzo friend packing up to leave, explaining that the Dell’s opted to cremate instead, so there’s no funeral to take pictures of. He tells her the hearse just went to the cremation facility, and Elsbeth rushes off in hot pursuit. Arthur tries to throw her out, but Juniper insists that she be allowed to stay, as a friend. Elsbeth asks what made her change her mind as cremation is bad for the environment, but Juniper explains that she researched it, and it seemed the more ecological option of the two. Elsbeth can’t let her hunch go and presses Juniper on the details of the casket, and the environmental friendliness of the various components. While Juniper assures her everything checks out, enough doubt sets in about the quality of the pillow that Juniper orders Arthur to open the casket, and inside they find her sister side by side with Russell.
As Arthur is being led away by the police, Elsbeth asks him why he didn’t want to exhume Longacre, and while she gathers it had something to do with his father, Arthur refuses to say anything more. She tells him that the body will be exhumed regardless, and that they’ll eventually get their answers. It turns out that Raymond accidentally cremated Longacre instead of his dog Polly, and put the dog’s ashes in the casket, before cremating Longacre and putting those ashes in Polly’s urn. Barb is disappointed to learn that Longacre is, in fact, dead after all, but at least she has closure on the death of her friend. At the precinct, Blanke tells Fleming that Mrs. Henderson won’t be calling anymore, as all her problems stemmed from an old doggy door that was letting in all sorts of pests, and because she solved that particular mystery, Blanke graduates herself off tip line duty. Meanwhile, Elsbeth stops by to see Wagner before she leaves, and he apologizes for coming down so hard on her about working with Barb, admitting that he just worried, given how much of an unconventional thinker she is, that he would lose her to the conspiracy theorists. I think he’s also forgetting she’s a lawyer with a love of solid fact, but at least this is all behind them now.
Elsbeth leaves Wagner to take a call, which turns out to be from Captain Kershaw (Jen Collela), who just realized that in reopening the Mertons case, Wagner is investigating a sitting judge, namely one Judge Crawford (Michael Emerson), for murder. She warns him that he’s got trouble and danger coming his way. While we obviously can’t know how or when Crawford will strike, the fact that the Season 2 finale will see nine former guest stars returning, all of whom play murderers who were only caught because of Elsbeth, seems to suggest that Crawford might have a way to use Elsbeth’s track record against her.
Elsbeth
Elsbeth flies relatively solo in Season 2 Episode 17 as the series adjusts to its new normal.
- Release Date
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February 29, 2024
- Network
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CBS
- Love getting the chance to see Elsbeth fly solo and see how far she can get with minimal police backing.
- The brief Crawford mention is not without its sense of foreboding as the finale is only 3 episodes away.
- I knew we were going to see less of Blanke once she got her promotion, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.
