Elsbeth Recap: Nothing To Lose

“I Know What You Did 33 Summers Ago” is a little bit of a filler episode, but it meets both the entertainment and plot-forwarding thresholds easily enough. It’s also putting in work as the ante-penultimate episode of the season, reminding veteran viewers of all the reasons why what’s happening is unfolding while quickly bringing new viewers up to speed. This episode has four main movements, which I’m calling To Catch A Predator, Maximum Quirkiness, The Empire Strikes Back, and What Do We Do Now?

Depending on each viewer’s relationship to Elsbeth, To Catch A Predator either establishes or re-establishes the stakes through a combination of a flashback and exposition. Why are Elsbeth, Captain Wagner, Kaya, and Detective Rivers trying to discredit Judge Milton Crawford? He’s a powerful, well-respected sitting judge and a candidate for the federal bench, after all. Well, that’s actually why they’re surreptitiously investigating him, and on the double. Elsbeth has been suspicious of Judge Crawford ever since her jury duty service on a murder trial where Crawford seemed to be doing everything in his power to move the proceedings along as quickly as possible toward a guilty verdict, despite many obvious irregularities in his behavior and weaknesses in the prosecution’s case. Now that his appointment to a position at the federal level is imminent, time is pressing more than ever before, but he’s almost too big to fail, and as the team will soon discover, even more powerful and ruthless than they imagined.

You may recall from “One Angry Woman” that Judge Crawford snuck into the apartment of financial advisor Andy Mertens and beat him to death with a New York Yankees-branded baseball bat. Andy had begged for his life, promising, clearly not for the first time, that he’d keep Crawford’s secret, to no avail. This episode’s opening flashback shows us why and how the terrible secret that bound the two men together came about, way back in 1992. A teenaged Andy and early twenties Crawford break into the Stockport Yacht Club’s swimming pool after hours in the company of a very pretty girl named Sherry (Ava DeMary). Crawford, played by Ethan Dubin, who captures Michael Emerson’s vocal performance with deliciously chilling accuracy, is one of those blithe little princes so taken with their own wealth and power that he lacks any self-awareness or ability to see other people as anything other than tools for his use. After bragging about his family’s lofty position at the club and sending Andy away so he can get some quality time alone with the bikini-clad Sherry, Crawford gets to work. This situation would be a comedy of errors if not for its ending in tragedy: Andy is ignorant of Sherry’s affections, Sherry has no notion of Crawford’s intentions, and Crawford could not care less about either of them. He’s a purely selfish, self-congratulatory rich jerk with such thin skin and such staggering entitlement that when Sherry rebuffs his advance, he attempts to rape her. Their in-pool scuffle results in Sherry fatally cracking her head on the pool’s edge and Crawford pressuring Andy into agreeing to tell the police that both of them were present for Sherry’s unfortunate accident.

Now we know that Crawford is, at minimum, a killer twice over and unrepentant into the bargain. This is a man suited for the federal bench? That’s exactly what a lawyer named Victor Landis (Pun Bandhu) has been dispatched by the White House to determine. If Crawford’s got any skeletons in his closet, he should disclose them now so Landis can get ahead of them. Unfortunately for Crawford, and fortunately for the cause of actual justice, Elsbeth and Captain Wagner have gone on a little field trip to Stockport to revisit Crawford’s and Andy’s old stomping grounds, where they learn of Sherry’s awful death. They learn that Andy had worked at the yacht club that summer, but as a local kid of modest means, surprised everyone by snagging a last-minute scholarship to attend a schmancy university in New York and never came back to his hometown. Sherry’s sister, meanwhile, has never thought of Sherry’s death as anything but accidental, and offers Elsbeth and Wagner a big box of Sherry memorabilia, including her diary and an evidence bag holding Sherry’s very slightly blood-stained fanny pack. What a flawless little time-period detail in acid-wash denim!

From here, we segue into a half-and-half situation where Elsbeth is investigating with total sincerity, and the episode cranks up her personality to Maximum Quirk. At the site of the now-filled-in pool, she re-enacts the night of Sherry’s death with such gusto that the retired detective who had been assigned to the case first wonders if she’s okay and then declares watching her at work is way better than pickleball. Prior to this moment, we’ve been treated to her amusingly terrible JFK impression (given a quirkiness power boost by an accompanying reference to Little Edie Beale from Grey Gardens), seen the massive amount of luggage she’s brought for a brief overnight (I don’t travel light, either, but even I think two bags just for snacks is a bit much), and enthusiasm for what a fashion plate Sherry was. Every episode includes some reference or reaction to Elsbeth’s colorful wardrobe and knack for being everywhere, all the time, armed with minutely detailed questions, and I’m guessing that this megadose of oddball coding is primarily for the benefit of new viewers.

Unfortunately, it’s Elsbeth herself, not knowing of the existence of Victor and his own due diligence in vetting important potential judicial nominees, who tips Crawford off about her and Wagner’s investigation. He overhears her conversation with Wagner as the two prepare to leave the yacht club and immediately calls Crawford. I loathe this character as if he were an actual, terrible person in real life, and his Empire Strikes Back moves made my blood run cold.

The degree of detail that he knows about Elsbeth and everyone important to her, as well as his ability to pull levers that will hurt them, is staggering. Wagner gets an earful from the police commissioner, is threatened with internal affairs investigations, and learns that the personnel budget for his precinct is being slashed by 25 percent immediately. That personnel cut is likely to affect Kaya most of all since she’s the most recently promoted detective. Remember Elsbeth’s contact at the Department of Justice, Agent Celetano? Fired! The consent decree under which she’s been seconded to the NYPD is likely to be swept away, too. Elsbeth’s ex-husband even experiences some of Crawford’s displeasure, learning that due to an investigation for misconduct, he may be disbarred. In Illinois.

I know that Elsbeth is not going to execute a hard pivot into noir territory, but we’re definitely approaching a point of no return thanks to Crawford’s far-reaching machinations. This is so bad that his stalking and threatening Elsbeth at a subway station almost seems like a bit of collegial high spirits in comparison. Of course, Crawford is not satisfied with attempting to ruin the lives of everyone in Elsbeth’s orbit. He needs to stamp out any lingering vestiges of her investigation into Sherry’s death, too, and uses his influence once again to remove all records of the evidence she and Wagner gathered in Stockport (and the DNA sample Claudia snagged from his glass of Scotch).

Things go from pretty awful to grim as hell when Andy’s girlfriend Delia (Meredith Holzman), who Crawford had tried to railroad into being found guilty to sidestep any potential suspicion headed his way, guns him down on the courthouse steps on the day of Crawford’s nomination. In the moments before she’s dragged away by police, Delia tells Elsbeth that she had nothing to lose. I’m not convinced that Delia was acting entirely on her own behalf, but I imagine if there are any plot details that need to unfold around the murder, the remaining episodes of this season will reveal them.

So now Crawford is dead, but the malevolent chaos he sowed is continuing to mess with everyone’s lives, giving rise to our final movement, What Do We Do Now? Kaya correctly points out that Crawford’s assassination may now transform him into some kind of folk hero or a martyred fighter for justice. Where does this leave our intrepid heroes? Teddy feels hopeless and nihilistic, deciding he won’t apply to law school because he can’t tolerate the idea of working in such a corrupt system. Kaya is worried about losing her job, and Elsbeth regrets and feels so guilty about putting her friends in harm’s way that she’s considering dropping the whole thing. Bless Captain Wagner’s stalwart and laser-focused heart for the speech he delivers at the end, for it’s in the same league as classic Coach Taylor. He knows they’re all down, and he refuses to be out, saying, “We do what we can every day to try to make the system a little better.” To him, trying is the task. The outcome of the work is uncertain, but when you’ve tried, you know you didn’t stand by and do nothing when you could have done something. He’s absolutely right. Even in a corrupt system or other desperate situation, the point is to try.

In This Week’s Tote Bag

• The coat of the episode goes to the incredible belted trench Elsbeth wears when she confronts Crawford at the courthouse. It’s totally different from her other outerwear choices, pieced together in bold but not brightly-colored diagonal stripes. Further, the stripes are on the diagonal, making them suggestive of heavily stylized rain in a gale-force wind, and they only go in one direction. In a similar pattern like chevrons, the effect is symmetrical, suggesting balance. This is a coat that announces just how bad of a mess everything has become.

• The specificity of Elsbeth knowing that the film Elle Woods earned higher LSAT scores than the stage Elle Woods in their respective versions of Legally Blonde, and using it as a compliment to Teddy’s LSAT success — friends, I had to hit pause to laugh, rewind, rewatch, and laugh again. Of course, Elsbeth would notice and remember those details; in retrospect, it’s so obvious that they would be kindred spirits!