Elsbeth

Elsbeth’s elf

Season 2

Episode 4

Editorial review

4 stars

****

Photo: Michael Parmelee/CBS

“Elsbeth’s Eleven” is my favorite episode of the new season so far: the guest stars are perfect in every scene and clearly having so much fun, and the story is built around a heist masterminded by terrible people who fail to achieve their objectives because they significantly better people perform a counter-raid, and then another person performs a raid inside the original heist (a three-way heist! Am I in actual heaven?). As if that weren’t enough, the episode as a whole presents compelling arguments for concepts such as the superiority of interclass solidarity over charity, egalitarianism over exclusivity, defined benefit pensions over market-based pension plans, and relationships governed by caring candor toward those governed. by Waspy notions of decency.

To get there, let’s go back to the financial problems of poor Roselyn (Vanessa Williams), who is fabulously wealthy, but despite having been well married and divorced three times so far, may not have enough money (just an insignificant $1). million! Can you even imagine?!) to continue living at her current pace of luxury consumption for the next 30 years.

Being confronted with this brutal reality is bad enough, but learning from it while trying to leverage the wealth and influence she thought she had is even worse. It turns out that Vivienne’s, the ultra-exclusive luxury shopping club in Manhattan that she has been a member of for over twenty years, is now enforcing rules that Roselyn didn’t know existed and that she finds terribly inconvenient. Do you need to show proof of your balance before shopping? In a store where if you have to ask how much an item costs, you can’t afford it anyway? This country is really going to the dogs! She also learns that, thanks to Vivienne’s new director, Valentina (Katie Lee Hill), and her extensive rebranding ahead of the store’s grand reopening after a five-year renovation project, no new members will be admitted for the time being. being. This makes Roselyn look foolish in front of her friend, future member, and struggling yogurt mogul Celeste (Jenn Lyon), and she just can’t have that. The obvious solution to this problem is one that will make Vivienne pay for the shame they foisted on Roselyn and Celeste while replenishing their own coffers: a heist. How elegant! How simple! How…murder? Wait, what?!

We’ll come back to that in a moment. The robbery, as a plan, is fine. It’s based on the Met Gala jewelry heist Ocean 8complete with fake jewelry being swapped for real ones, made possible in part by a bathroom emergency. Roselyn and Celeste team up with Judith (Becky Ann Baker), a sales associate who has worked with Roselyn for decades and is taking early retirement, which she can barely afford with the benefits Vivienne offers. “That pop-tart” Valentina is of course behind it, so Judith is vengeful. Celeste’s luxury bag faker, Huey (Adrian Martinez), will pose as a plumber and trade replica jewelry for loaned pieces for the gala reopening, worn by Roselyn and Celeste.

The murder comes as a spontaneous event, as Roselyn finds herself poisoning Vivienne’s security chief and gemologist Claude (Patrick Breen) after he declines her invitation to join the heist and tells her he is going to betray her to Valentina. A mean monologue when you’re trying to arrest someone is amateurish, bush-league nonsense on his part, that’s for sure, but murder seems like a disproportionate response. While Claude leaves a strangely non-specific voicemail for Valentina in the next room (another classic blunder), Roselyn takes some cyanide-containing silver polish from the container on his desk and stirs it vigorously into his tea.

After making a devastating joke: “Don’t worry, you won’t be able to buy a pair of studs tonight at Claire’s‘ – and after a big gulp, Claude dies almost immediately, just as Heather Chandler goes outside heath. Roselyn takes a moment to set the scene, complete with her own lipsticked teacup, to make it look as if poor Claude’s death was a terrible accident and, in a brilliant moment of improvisation, as if she had been poisoned. , too. She leaves behind a telltale clue – the silver spoon of polish from the set that Claude had polished for her – and tries to cover her tracks by consuming gallons of home-pressed apple cider (taken in sufficient quantities; the compounds in apple seeds can release cyanide into the bloodstream yield). The calm, matter-of-fact way she and Celeste explain Claude’s unfortunate cup of tea to Judith is both funny and chilling. What’s a little Agatha Christie-esque poisoning among the ultra-rich and everyone else when prestige is at stake? Judith is (rightly) quite shocked, but what’s done is done, and Roselyn – in an echo of Laura Dern’s character in Big little lies shouting, ‘I will do it not don’t be rich!” – shouts: ‘I will do that not Be upper middle class!” I’m not at all sorry to say that attending what amounts to a Costco for wealthy and ambitious ladies who lunch seems extremely upper middle class to me.

Solving the murder is pretty easy, especially after last week’s merry-go-round of visits to places Mac visited on Halloween night. Elsbeth and Kaya are suspicious of Roselyn, even after Valentina’s quick assessment – ​​supported by the medical examiner – that Claude’s death was a terrible accident. Her sadness is too theatrical and performative, her lipstick is smudged terribly deliberately on the inside and outside of the teacup (normally you only see it on the outside of the cup), and her waste is full of apple pulp after she suffered mild cyanide poisoning.

Combine those resources and opportunities with the financial motive that Elsbeth and Kaya eventually discover with a little forensic accounting and information about the heist once they turn Judith, and all they have to do is set a trap for Roselyn, Celeste, and Huey. That’s right, it’s time for a reverse heist! Detective Donnelly (Molly Price) has so far been resigned to working with Elsbeth and Kaya again, but they loves a robbery and is immediately all-in. Judith is crucial to the plan, pretending to still be part of Team First Heist so that her former partners in literal crime commit the crimes they plan. The would-be robbers perform exactly as expected, and once again Elsbeth and Kaya have helped their colleague catch their man.

The fast pace of solving crimes leaves more time for this episode to stretch out a bit with the ongoing plot threads of Captain Wagner’s concerns about workplace morale and his team’s perception of him as a leader, and the friendship of Kaya and Elsbeth. Wagner thinks holding a lottery for lunch with the captain is a good strategy, and while it’s not bad, he might want to go back to the drawing board and come up with something more substantive and less forced. Kaya has moved in with Elsbeth during a home renovation that she suspects could take several months, and it will take some time before they are on the same page about finances. Kaya very reasonably wants to pay part of the rent, which makes Elsbeth extremely uncomfortable, as if they were introducing a business arrangement into their friendship. Kaya’s perspective is the exact opposite, and I like that she doesn’t shy away from it. This is the kind of productive conflict that makes good relationships work!

In honor of Vanessa Williams, I’ve saved the best plot twist for last: Judith gets to enjoy her forced early retirement in far more comfort than she thought possible, because when Roselyn pushed her and her “tasty bag” into the walk – in a closet full of jewelry, she took revenge by taking everything in Roselyn’s safe. Living her best life in Paris, enjoying perfectly laminated croissants every day with money she got from being the episode’s only successful heist and quasi-class warrior – now that’s what I call retirement! I just hope for her sake that we don’t have an extradition treaty with France.

• Great needle drops as bookends for this episode: Christian Padovan’s “J’aime Pas,” and Julie London’s recording of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

• The award for achievement in wind instruments is shared between Elsbeth’s, which looks like it came from an apocryphal Missoni x Bargello collaboration in lush, deep autumnal hues, and Roselyn’s, with striking florals in subdued metallics on a black background .

• I have been so thoroughly indoctrinated into Derek Guy’s menswear erudition that I started cheering out loud when I saw how masterfully Claude’s suit combines and blends patterns and textures. His shirt features a small tartan check in blue and gray on a white background, layered under a black and charcoal Glen check waistcoat and a grey/navy/black floral jacquard (I think) tie.