Stream It Or Skip It?
The third season of Elsbeth is making a splash right away by casting Stephen Colbert as a guest in its season premiere, playing a role he knows well: A late-night talk show host. But the first episode of the new season is also notable because Amy Sedaris and Andy Richter are also guest stars, and because one of the regulars from the first two seasons, Carra Patterson, isn’t there.
ELSBETH SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A page takes a group of tourists through the offices of a late-night show called Way Late With Scotty Bristol.
The Gist: Scotty Bristol (Stephen Colbert) has hosted his late night show for a long time, and he’s not well-loved by his staff. Executive producer and head writer Laurel Hammond-Muntz (Amy Sedaris) brushes past the tourists to tell the writers room that Scotty rejected all their ideas. They hear him send their sketch scripts through a loud industrial shredder, nicknamed “Mickey II,” which has googly eyes pasted on it.
Who is “Mickey I”? It’s Scotty’s sidekick on the show, Mickey Muntz (Andy Richter), who is also Laurel’s husband. The three of them have a long history together, having been in an improv group together in Seattle decades ago. There was always some resentment that Laurel went with Mickey instead of Scotty, and Scotty takes it out on Mickey by insulting him on air every night. It’s gotten so stressful for Mickey that he’s having heart issues and needs to take time off. When Scotty denies the time off, Laurel decides to take matters into her own hands.
Earlier that night, Scotty and Laurel meet Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston), who is there to support her wellness retreat friend who is there promoting a book. She came straight from the airport, having been in Scotland visiting with Angus (Ioan Gruffudd), and she’s so jetlagged that she falls asleep at random times. She finally gets home to her son Teddy (Ben Levi Ross) and dog when Capt. Wagner (Wendell Pierce) calls her back to the studio to examine the scene of Scotty’s death.
While it seems to be an “unfortunate shredder accident,” Elsbeth thinks otherwise. With Kaya (Carra Patterson) doing her undercover work, Elsbeth is paired with patrol officer and aspiring comedian Grace Hackett (Lindsay Mendez). As it becomes obvious that Scotty was murdered, the detective on the case, Bobby Smullen (Danny Mastrogiorgio), thinks that Mickey did it, given that he was working up the courage to come back and confront Scotty when he found the body. But Elsbeth zooms in on Laurel, ingratiating herself to the head writer by asking to learn the basics of improv.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Elsbeth is in the “howcatchem” style of murder mystery, made famous by Columbo and recently revived by both Elsbeth and Poker Face.
Our Take: Despite the headline-making first episode, which Colbert did right after The Late Show was canceled by CBS, It feels like Michelle and Robert King, along with showrunner Jonathan Tolins, are getting Elsbeth back to what we enjoyed about the show when it first started. Last season, there seemed to be too much of an emphasis on the season-long story arcs, and the central mysteries in each episode suffered as a result. This season, while it seems that there will be some continuing arcs, the mysteries themselves have room to breathe and become more than just a vehicle for Carrie Preston to do her Elsbeth thing.
Those arcs will likely involve something with Elsbeth’s son Teddy, and the cost-cutting going on at the precinct, which was blowing back on number-crunching Lt. Connor (Daniel K. Isaac). One of the unfortunate byproducts of a re-emphasis on the cases each week, though, is that Patterson has become a recurring guest star instead of a main cast member. We’ll see her pop up from time to time, but she won’t be there every week.
The friendship and partnership between Elsbeth and Kaya was one of our favorite aspects of the show’s first two seasons, and it’s certainly going to be missed. But Elsbeth is also trusted more by Capt. Wagner and the people at the precinct, so having someone “watch over” Elsbeth isn’t as necessary. If the writers give us patrol partners that are as fun as Grace Hackett was, we’ll be OK with it.
As for the murder in the first episode, we appreciated seeing Colbert and Sedaris acting together for the first time since Strangers With Candy, and the chemistry they have as longtime friends was still there. Also, having Richter play the sidekick was a fun not-so-inside joke, given how many years he sat alongside Conan O’Brien on his various shows. And we get why the Kings decided to lean on the “Yes, and” of it all when it came to Elsbeth and Laurel doing improv together, but we think that joke burned itself out pretty quickly.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Teddy puts a blanket on his mother as Elsbeth finally gets the sleep she’s been craving.
Sleeper Star: We’re curious to see if the rotating cast of detectives is expanded this season. But we’ve also gotten to like the ones that are there: Smullen, Fleming (Daniel Oreskes), Donnelly (Molly Price) and Edwards (Micaela Diamond). Also, we will also see more of b as officer Nikki Reynolds this season.
Most Pilot-y Line: Like we said, as much as “Yes, and” has become shorthand for making fun of improv, it really got leaned on heavily during the episode.
Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re suckers for mysteries, especially the “howcatchem” kind that Elsbeth usually is. But last season wandered a bit away from that format, and we hope that in Season 3 the mysteries each week get the attention they deserve.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
Credit to Nypost AND Peoples
