Elsbeth Recap: The Price of Perfection

For its murders, Elsbeth often likes to riff on actual people, places, and things found in New York’s five boroughs – mafia history, high-end restaurant culture, the overheated co-op real estate market, and so on. Setting episodes in very specific milieux makes it easier to conjure the driven, obsessive characters who inhabit them, which then yields potential plot engines galore. “Four Body Problem” takes us to the world of an elite and historic Harlem funeral home, where reputation is everything, and nothing can be permitted to crack the veneer of perfection so prized by its clientele and staff. No exceptions, no excuses, and if anything threatens that perceived perfection — such as, for example, a whiff of scandal surrounding the death (or was it?) and (alleged) burial of a famed author — both the problem and its creator have to go.

Such is the dilemma faced by the Greene family’s fourth-generation funeral director, Arthur (David Alan Grier). He’s all in on their longstanding tradition of excellence; as he explains in a voiceover, each of us might have two or more weddings in our lifetimes, but everyone only has one funeral. It’s worth the time and effort (and money, more on that later) to plan a sending-off for your loved one tailored to their aesthetic and values to make it count. This lofty standard of care and execution is the basis for Arthur Greene and Sons’ very successful boutique business, and it’s easy to understand why this Arthur moves from being fed up with his nephew Russell’s promise to expose the truth (whatever that might be) about the family business’s role in what he believes is a decade-long coverup of novelist N.D. Longacre’s faked death.

How could she really be gone? The casket was closed, and could easily have been empty. Further, and far funnier, Russell believes she must be the true author of Jordan Peele’s Academy Award-winning script for Get Out. There’s no way a sketch comedy writer could write that! In other words, Russell and the many subscribers to his YouTube page are hooked on the “Tupac’s not dead” vibes, and he’s seeking approval to exhume Longacre’s grave to settle this once and for all.

Arthur wouldn’t have resorted to murder by shovel (and gullibility, in my opinion) had Russell not invoked the dubious testimony of his grandfather, who is in an assisted living home, weathering dementia. I get the feeling that Arthur might have countenanced the temporary wave of bad press Russell’s truth-seeking would have produced if he had not gone with the “well, Grandpa said!” approach, but Russell did, and Arthur’s drive to protect both the funeral home’s reputation and his father’s legacy led him to do what he did.

If only the two men had found a way to bond over their shared single-mindedness and unshakeable commitment to their values! Alas, it’s not to be, and Arthur bundles Russell’s corpse into the handy coffin in the hearse that he drove over, taking him unsuccessfully to a local crematorium and then to the funeral home, where he stashes his nephew’s corpse in one of the cold storage drawers.

Another vital theme emerges in this episode: the importance of listening and following up. It’s natural for detectives to get to a level of expertise that leads them to over-rely on certain assumptions. These include blowing off reports from paranoid crackpots and treating tip line calls as the phone equivalent of spam, and boy does it behoove Elsbeth and Kaya, once again working different cases, to second-guess their assumptions and follow up on such things.

The morning after Russell meets his early end, a video of him auto-posts to his channels, informing all of his followers and friends that if they’re watching it, he must be dead. Of the many who paid attention to Russell in life, only his friend and fellow conspiracy theorist (excuse me, no, that’s alternate thinker) soccer mom Barb (Jenn Harris) pursues the truth with anything resembling the tenacity Russell exhibited. Elsbeth and Captain Wagner are both skeptical that there’s going to be any there there, but off she goes to interview the deceased’s uncle at his place of business. Once again, Elsbeth is paired with a new-to-her uniformed officer, the very chatty Officer Chandler (Ethan Slater). Elsbeth’s ability to see herself more clearly and from others’ perspectives has been steadily improving, but I don’t think she’s ever encountered her verbal equal before. Chandler gives her a real run for her money, and it’s funny to see the shoe attaching itself so firmly to the other foot.

Meanwhile, Kaya is undergoing a classic new detective rite of passage, (wo)manning the tip line, and being reminded along the way that showing up in person to address a caller’s concerns can save time and cement relationships with concerned residents. In this case, Mrs. Henderson believes that Russell is alive, because he keeps stealing food from her kitchen, but this potential lead comes to nothing when it’s revealed that the intruder is instead a massive, brazen raccoon making itself at home in her kitchen. Kaya now has an episode of rodent wrangling under her belt, and a story she can dine out on for years. This episode does a particularly nice job of juxtaposing light and heartbreaking moments. On the light side, we have the sweet-natured yapping of Officer Chandler, the kitchen raccoon, and some farcical moments at the funeral home that resemble nothing so much as three-card monte, corpse edition. No surprises here, veteran comedic actor David Alan Grier is great at conveying Arthur’s increasing exasperation with the constant push-pull of what would be a very busy work week even without having to dispose of his nephew’s body. Sir, you would not be in this pickle if you had simply not done a murder!

We also learn that Arthur’s unswerving devotion to protecting his father’s legacy is an even bigger factor than his determination to maintain his family business’s reputation. Following Barb’s suggestions and leads — proof once again that a good note can come from anywhere! — Elsbeth eventually arrives as a visitor to Arthur’s father, Randolph. By this point, she knows that N.D. Longacre’s cousin and pallbearer was suspicious of how light her casket was, inadvertently starting the rumor that she wasn’t in it, and opening the door to the idea that if she wasn’t in it, she must still be alive. We also know that Randolph confirmed to Russell that Longacre was not in her casket. Now we learn that Arthur solemnly promised his father that he would not allow anyone to open Longacre’s coffin for any reason and that the promise was necessary because, with his mind clouded by grief for his dog and the dementia that forced his retirement, Randolph had accidentally sent Longacre’s body to the crematorium when he meant to send his late dog, Polly. Consequently, as the Longacre exhumation shows, Polly was buried in Longacre’s casket, and Arthur couldn’t bear to strip his father of his dignity.

Following her nose to a funeral where Arthur has managed to convince the dithering family to cremate rather than go with burial, Elsbeth has her most down-to-the-wire crime-proving moment yet. Had she arrived just a minute or two later, all evidence of Russell sharing a coffin with an actual client would have gone up in flames.

All’s well that ends as well as possible under the circumstances, and in the episode’s final moments, we are jolted back to this season’s endgame plot when Captain Kershaw calls Captain Wagner to warn him that reopening a murder investigation into a sitting judge with a sterling reputation is extremely dangerous. Elsbeth has been tiptoeing up to this inevitable showdown for months, and I’m ready! Let’s gooooooo!

In This Week’s Tote Bag

• We have just three episodes to go before this season draws to a close, and I’m curious about your predictions! I think we can safely guess that Elsbeth will get her man — that evil Judge Crawford isn’t going to get away with literal murder. I bet she flies to Scotland afterward for a loving reunion with poet/songwriter/firefighter and coat appreciator Angus. Beyond that, your guesses are as good as mine, so let’s hear them!

• I can only ever take benign conspiracy theories seriously, and the one floated early in the episode about Arthur Greene & Sons launching Star Trek legend Nichelle Nichols’s ashes into space is a perfect example of the form.

• At one point, Arthur meets with a client to discuss the cost of a 100 percent eco-friendly funeral for their loved one and quotes an eye-watering cost of $270,000. This isn’t a new thing, of course, as documented by Jessica Mitford in her landmark book investigating and criticizing the funeral industry, The American Way of Death.

• I enjoy Dan Lawson’s costume design in every episode, but this week featured two standout coats that deserve special notice — a dress coat in light pink, which looks customized with abstract, Basquiat-inflected embellishments, and a thigh-length ivory cape (!) featuring oversize appliquéd pale pink peonies. (Actually, they might be camellias; they’re gorgeous either way!) It’s so elegant, but pairing it with Elsbeth’s hot pink accessories pulls it back to being whimsical. Well done.