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S02.E17: Four Body Problem

chitowngirl

By chitowngirl
in Elsbeth

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ItCouldBeWorse

ItCouldBeWorse

(edited)

I guess that a bright red coat is the least colorful clothing Elsbeth could find to wear to the funeral home, after the Captain said her striped sweater (which was actual pretty tame for her) was too colorful.

I also noticed that Elsbeth only had two tote bags with her when she was wearing the red coat, and zero bags with her when she went to the crematorium.  She was wearing a fabulous cape with armholes, though.  Were her mittens clipped to her sleeves?  I'll have to go back and watch.

Now, my big objection: the writers knew enough to have a shomer (a person who sits with the decedent until burial, reciting Psalms) sitting with the dead Jewish senator.  However, traditional Jewish burial requires a simple, plain, unpolished wood coffin with no metal or nails, not a big, fancy polished wood one with metal fastenings. (There are other details that I won't go into concerning Jewish pre-burial traditions, including that the the shomer  wouldn't be sitting in a public space with the coffin.  Here's a link for those who are interested in further details.)

Now, obviously not every Jewish person is buried in a traditional simple wood coffin, but a family who arranged for a shomer to be present almost definitely would have done so.  And the shomer would have also presumed that, and wouldn't have asked if the Senator was in that fancy coffin when he first appeared.  

Edited by ItCouldBeWorse
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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

1 hour ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

I guess that a bright red coat is the least colorful clothing Elsbeth could find to wear to the funeral home, after the Captain said her striped sweater (which was actual pretty tame for her) was too colorful.

I also noticed that Elsbeth only had two tote bags with her when she was wearing the red coat, and zero bags with her when she went to the crematorium.  She was wearing a fabulous cape with armholes, though.  Were her mittens clipped to her sleeves?  I'll have to go back and watch.

Now, my big objection: the writers knew enough to have a shomer (a person who sits with the decedent until burial, reciting Psalms) sitting with the dead Jewish senator.  However, traditional Jewish burial requires a simple, plain, unpolished wood coffin with no metal or nails, not a big, fancy polished wood one with metal fastenings. (There are other details that I won't go into concerning Jewish pre-burial traditions, including that the the shomer  wouldn't be sitting in a public space with the coffin.  Here's a link for those who are interested in further details.)

Now, obviously not every Jewish person is buried in a traditional simple wood coffin, but a family who arranged for a shomer to be present almost definitely would have done so.  And the shomer would have also presumed that, and wouldn't have asked if the Senator was in that fancy coffin when he first appeared.  

Well I was confused at the end about the same thing. I think David Alan Grier made another mistake, because I thought the deceased Senator was supposed to be in the pine box, which was shown empty. It was supposed to be a confusing episode of switched coffins, I think. What happened when he opened the refrigerator and was surprised to find it empty?  I had to give up thinking about it though. I was too confused. 

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ItCouldBeWorse

ItCouldBeWorse

1 minute ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Well I was confused at the end about the same thing. I think David Alan Grier made another mistake, because I thought the deceased Senator was supposed to be in the pine box, which was shown empty. It was supposed to be a confusing episode of switched coffins, I think. What happened when he opened the refrigerator and was surprised to find it empty?  I had to give up thinking about it though. I was too confused. 

Yes, I noticed the empty pine box, but it wasn't the one the shomer was sitting with.  If it was supposed to be, the family/Rabbi are going to be very upset at the funeral; another scandal for the funeral home.

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AnimeMania

AnimeMania

This was very confusing for a lot of different reasons. I don't know why the funeral director touched/used the conspiracy theorist's phone with his bare hands, fingerprints. Where the phone went to, especially if the lady was able to track it, why wasn't it still able to be tracked?

If the cremation device was working, why did the funeral director wait until he had another body to cremate, just throw the body in there as soon as it was working, don't over think it.

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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

1 hour ago, AnimeMania said:

This was very confusing for a lot of different reasons. I don't know why the funeral director touched/used the conspiracy theorist's phone with his bare hands, fingerprints. Where the phone went to, especially if the lady was able to track it, why wasn't it still able to be tracked?

If the cremation device was working, why did the funeral director wait until he had another body to cremate, just throw the body in there as soon as it was working, don't over think it.

I think it was tracked—to the cemetery. Now I’m just confused again. I erased the episode and I can’t review. Oh well, it was like musical coffins. 

Anyone else upset at Kaya’s diminished role now that she has been promoted?  More Kaya!  

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sempervivum

sempervivum

12 hours ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

Were her mittens clipped to her sleeves?

Yup. This had me lol-ing. It must take her hours to get dressed; also, have we seen any of her outfits on repeat? I think she may re-use accessories (that furry pink bucket hat), but she must have a hell of a walk in closet to accommodate her stuff.

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DearEvette

DearEvette

(edited)

This was a miss of an episode for me.

First, I think it is one where the writing made everything very obviously convenient for Elsbeth.  She overhears a conspiracy theorist complaining about her missing friend.  Did the friend ever  even file an actual missing person's report or was she just there complaining? 

Then when Elsbeth goes to speak to David Alan Grier, she finds his lack of alarm of his adult  conspiracy theorist nephew being missing for less than 12 hours suspicious.  She immediately hooks onto the novelist thing.. 

It it just felt like Elsbeth glommed onto the right suspicious thing for no reason other than the episode needed her to. Usually the writing is much better at giving her something to be suspicious about, but this time it just felt like she was practically psychic in latching onto what she needed to latch onto.

Second, even the crime itself... I know crime makes you stupid, but DAG didn't have to go the immediate route of killing his nephew.   The guy was already an conspiracy theory nut with very little credibility.  Since exhuming the body of the dead author required the family's permission, all he had to do was warn the sister that his nephew was a nutjob and that he and friends were trying to prove she was still alive for  internet  clicks.  That would have served to further discredit him and get the sister's back up so she'd be pre-disposed to distrust anything the nephew said.

Regards the phone.. I think at the time DAG was not concerned about his fingerprints because he planned to cremate the phone with the body.  And obviously did end up destroying the phone.

One thing I did like that the whole thing hinged on his inability to actually get rid of the body exacerbated by the influx of the people from the crash.  It was good to see his frustration.

And finally, how dare the nephew dismiss Jordan Peele as just a 'sketch comedy writer' who couldn't have possibly written Get Out.  There were some Key and Peele sketches that took really dark turns.

Edited by DearEvette
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christie

christie

(edited)
21 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

What happened when he opened the refrigerator and was surprised to find it empty?  I had to give up thinking about it though. I was too confused. 

He had hidden the nephew there (at least that was the impression I got). Since the fancy coffin was empty and had dirt in it I took this to mean that this was the coffin in which he had hid the nephew's body, he had taken the body out and hid it somewhere else (the fridge). 

20 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

If the cremation device was working, why did the funeral director wait until he had another body to cremate, just throw the body in there as soon as it was working, don't over think it.

It's not that easy, he needed a death certificate for the nephew, which he obviously didn't have, along with other documentation (the guy from the crematorium told him so on the phone. One would think that, as a longtime funeral director, he would know what documents are required by the crematorium).

Edited by christie
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Yeah No

Yeah No

On 4/11/2025 at 3:18 AM, EtheltoTillie said:

Anyone else upset at Kaya’s diminished role now that she has been promoted?  More Kaya!  

Yeah, I don't know where they're going with this or why. They have to know that the audience wants more of her and is irked by the "quirky officer of the week" assigned to Elsbeth. What's the point of messing with us (and Elsbeth) this way?

5 hours ago, christie said:

He had hidden the nephew there (at least that was the impression I got). Since the fancy coffin was empty and had dirt in it I took this to mean that this was the coffin in which he had hid the nephew's body, he had taken the body out and hid it somewhere else (the fridge). 

I think Elsbeth's nosing around got him nervous which is why he moved the body to the fridge. He probably wasn't using the best judgment at that point and was overthinking where to hide it. Then it was found there and assumed to be the pilot of the plane who was put there by mistake. First of all, there was no identifying information on it? Yikes. But looking past that why he would think it's a good idea to put his body in with the deceased woman when her sister was so overly concerned about every detail of that burial/cremation that she would want to be present for it as it's happening is beyond me. Too much scrutiny. I get it that he wanted to get rid of it ASAP but I would think someone in his position would know how to hide it better.

And yeah, the murder itself felt contrived and unnecessary. A little too convenient for the purposes of a plot. And same for Elsbeth's role here too. This and last week's episodes were not on my favorite list for this season.

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possibilities

possibilities

On 4/11/2025 at 3:18 AM, EtheltoTillie said:

Anyone else upset at Kaya’s diminished role now that she has been promoted?  More Kaya!

THIS. Why would they think diminishing the primary relationship of the show, the friendship between Elsbeth and Kaya, would be a good idea????

On 4/11/2025 at 1:41 AM, AnimeMania said:

I don't know why the funeral director touched/used the conspiracy theorist's phone with his bare hands, fingerprints.

That drove me crazy.

I also thought he should have destroyed the phone, not put it in the coffin. Smash it, take the card out, throw it in the river or incinerate it or something. I would like to see Elsbeth solve cases by being smart, not because her suspects are sloppy and stupid. Even if he planned to burn it in the crematorium, he was still being very sloppy.

And even if you are comfortable around death, that's not the same as being cavalier about murdering someone. He was so casual about it, I had to think he'd done it many times before, but the show seemed to not be concerned with that possibility.

 

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Yeah No

Yeah No

2 hours ago, possibilities said:

I would like to see Elsbeth solve cases by being smart, not because her suspects are sloppy and stupid. Even if he planned to burn it in the crematorium, he was still being very sloppy.

And even if you are comfortable around death, that's not the same as being cavalier about murdering someone. He was so casual about it, I had to think he'd done it many times before, but the show seemed to not be concerned with that possibility.

Thank you for articulating what I was thinking about Elsbeth. We want to see her be clever up against some really clever criminals not sloppy ones that make it easy for her. That's not the point of this show. The point is to see her figure things out that are a) difficult to figure out and b) no one else could figure out.

Also, not only was this man cavalier about committing murder, but he was cavalier and cold blooded about murdering a relative. The show somehow didn't make that believable. Surely there were other things he could have tried before killing his own nephew.

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Driad

Driad

Apparently this episode went back to the "show who did what to whom" formula, but not for me.  I couldn't watch it live, and I don't have a recorder or streaming service, so I watched it on CBS.com the next day.  The images were very dark (even with the brightness on my laptop turned up) so when the crime happened I couldn't see anything.  Luckily the guilty person looked guilty and I was able to figure things out.  I have had to watch on CBS.com before, but it usually isn't a problem because this show is usually well lit.  I just wish CBS.com was not so much darker than watching on TV.

Chit Chat

Chit Chat

23 hours ago, possibilities said:

Why would they think diminishing the primary relationship of the show, the friendship between Elsbeth and Kaya, would be a good idea????

I think it would be unrealistic to expect Kaya not to move up within the ranks, so this will be tricky on how they write their relationship going forward.

I just binge-watched the series, and we can see in last few episodes how Kaya seems to be distancing herself from Elsbeth a little at a time.  She's still friendly to her, but now that she has a boyfriend, she seems to be pulling away from Elsbeth, which is a normal thing that happens.  Kaya is moving up and on!! 

Hopefully the writers can figure out a way to keep their friendship intact and that they can continue to work together. 

On 4/11/2025 at 10:41 AM, sempervivum said:

I think she may re-use accessories (that furry pink bucket hat), but she must have a hell of a walk in closet to accommodate her stuff.

And a budget to match!!  Also, does Elsbeth own or rent the whole building she's living in?  I love it, but it looks super expensive. 

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tv echo

tv echo

(edited)

I thought this episode was just 'meh.'

I also miss Kaya and her friendship with Elsbeth. Hope they're building up to something that will bring Kaya back into the main story more.

That said, I did like the new cop assigned to Elsbeth, Officer Chandler. He's played by Ethan Slater. Until I read it somewhere, I didn't realize this was the same actor who played Boq in Wicked. Also, he's another Broadway star. So I wouldn't mind seeing him again in a recurring role.

Edited by tv echo
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Chit Chat

Chit Chat

After the last episode, I was hoping that Elsbeth would tone it down with the huge tote bags she carries.  I know that it's one of her quirks, but the bags seem to be getting bigger by the episode!  It's hard on one's shoulders to be carrying around that much crap, and it looks ridiculous.  I guess those are her security blankets.  😏

I enjoy the show, but she should lighten up on the accessories. Also, it seems like they're always dressed for winter on this show.  Doesn't it get pretty hot in NYC in the summertime?  I do like her colorful wardrobe though. 

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shrewd.buddha

shrewd.buddha

(edited)
On 4/12/2025 at 11:44 AM, Yeah No said:

We want to see her be clever up against some really clever criminals not sloppy ones that make it easy for her. That's not the point of this show.

Isn't the appeal of a murder mystery show having a mystery to solve?  Already knowing the who, how and why - and then waiting for Elsbeth to figure it out in the quirkiest way possible feels more frustrating than satisfying.
  We only started watching a few weeks ago, so we are wondering if this is the usual course of events. There was no mystery to the previous week's murder either.  

Edited by shrewd.buddha
shapeshifter

shapeshifter

7 minutes ago, shrewd.buddha said:

Isn't the appeal of a murder mystery show having a mystery to solve?  Already knowing the who, how and why - and then waiting for Elsbeth to figure it out in the quirkiest way possible feels more frustrating than satisfying.
  We only started watching a few weeks ago, so we are wondering if this is the usual course of events. There was no mystery to the previous week's murder either.  

Not every show is going to appeal to every viewer.
There are lots of popular shows I don't want to watch.
Over time, my taste has changed too.

Columbo followed a formula like Elsbeth, producing and airing 69 episodes from 1968 to 1990: wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbo#Episodes

It just occurred to me that I like this formula in part because I relate to the main character who sees and dwells on things that others ignore, and she actually gets some validation for it — so I guess that gives me a bit of a vicarious thrill. 

Also, seeing how Elsbeth gets her criminal is more intriguing to me than "who dunnit," perhaps because there's not so much dithering about whether or not someone was horrible enough to commit the crime.

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Chit Chat

Chit Chat

1 hour ago, shrewd.buddha said:

We only started watching a few weeks ago, so we are wondering if this is the usual course of events. There was no mystery to the previous week's murder either.  

I binge-watched the series the past 2 weeks.  Sometimes we know who the murderer is right off the bat, and sometimes we don't.  The biggest give-away is that the murderer is usually the first person Elsbeth talks to in her investigation! 

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AnimeMania

AnimeMania

4 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

Isn't the appeal of a murder mystery show having a mystery to solve?  Already knowing the who, how and why - and then waiting for Elsbeth to figure it out in the quirkiest way possible feels more frustrating than satisfying.

I think a lot of the appeal (similar to Poker Face) is getting a big name guest star to be the focus of the episode each week. Can they create a compelling narrative that might convince you that this person would murder another person and can they do it cleverly enough to "almost" get away with it. Unfortunately, this wasn't one of those episodes. 

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Nashville

Nashville

(edited)
On 4/13/2025 at 7:31 AM, Chit Chat said:

I just binge-watched the series, and we can see in last few episodes how Kaya seems to be distancing herself from Elsbeth a little at a time.  She's still friendly to her, but now that she has a boyfriend, she seems to be pulling away from Elsbeth, which is a normal thing that happens.  Kaya is moving up and on!! 

Interesting point for consideration, though: if it weren’t for Elsbeth, would Kaya even be experiencing these opportunities to move up and on?

Without Elsbeth to pull Kaya into the mix of professional discussions with the captain and other detectives, I strongly suspect Kaya would’ve spent a couple more years (at least) in uniform before having the opportunity to move up - assuming that under alternate circumstances (a) any opportunity would have presented at all and (b) her superior(s) would have felt any inclination to help Kaya navigate the educational and procedural hurdles Kaya first had to overcome.

Not suggesting in the least anything like Kaya’s current career success is 100% beholden to her friendship with Elsbeth - but I do feel Kaya’s experience with Elsbeth has significantly contributed to putting her career on its current fast track.  

Edited by Nashville
Captain, not Chief
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Chit Chat

Chit Chat

5 minutes ago, Nashville said:

Not suggesting in the least anything like Kaya’s current career success is 100% beholden to her friendship with Elsbeth - but I do feel Kaya’s experience with Elsbeth has significantly contributed to putting her career on its current fast track.  

What I've enjoyed about their friendship is how Kaya was friendly & helpful to Elsbeth when she first got there.  Others weren't so nice!  It's nice to see that they've helped each other in certain ways.  

I hope that with all of the changes for Kaya (promotion, boyfriend), that she and Elsbeth will still be able to work closely together and maintain their friendship outside of the office.  

It might be fun though seeing different police officers helping Elsbeth and see how their personalities get along, but again, I do want Kaya to still be a main cast member in the mix.  Please don't sideline her, writers!!

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12catcrazy

12catcrazy

On 4/13/2025 at 8:31 AM, Chit Chat said:

I think it would be unrealistic to expect Kaya not to move up within the ranks, so this will be tricky on how they write their relationship going forward.

I just binge-watched the series, and we can see in last few episodes how Kaya seems to be distancing herself from Elsbeth a little at a time.  She's still friendly to her, but now that she has a boyfriend, she seems to be pulling away from Elsbeth, which is a normal thing that happens.  Kaya is moving up and on!! 

 

Is there are possibility that the actress who plays Kaya is doing other things  so they are limiting her screen time in the meantime?  

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AnimeMania

AnimeMania

2 hours ago, Nashville said:

Not suggesting in the least anything like Kaya’s current career success is 100% beholden to her friendship with Elsbeth - but I do feel Kaya’s experience with Elsbeth has significantly contributed to putting her career on its current fast track.  

Isn't Kaya related to Captain Wagner in some way?

Nashville

Nashville

(edited)

Considering Kaya’s recent cavalcade of successes in both her professional and personal lives, I can’t help but think the other shoe is way overdue to drop - at which point I could easily see these writers taking us down a storyline path of a Kaya fall from grace, with Elsbeth being one of the only friends to stay by her side.

(And yeah - under such circumstances I could easily see Boyfriend dropping Kaya like a hot potato, for fear their personal relationship might result in professional career blowback.  Maybe it’s just my dad-of-daughters genes talking, but something about the dude just screams Rabbit to me….)

Edited by Nashville
Expansion
sugarbaker design

sugarbaker design

On 4/14/2025 at 6:44 AM, shrewd.buddha said:

Isn't the appeal of a murder mystery show having a mystery to solve?  Already knowing the who, how and why - and then waiting for Elsbeth to figure it out in the quirkiest way possible feels more frustrating than satisfying.
  We only started watching a few weeks ago, so we are wondering if this is the usual course of events. There was no mystery to the previous week's murder either.  

But this isn't primarily a mystery show. It's about 80% 'how they gonna get caught?' ala Columbo and Poker Face, and 20% classic whodunit. My numbers are generous, I can only think of less than 5 episodes that are whodunnits.

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Chit Chat

Chit Chat

1 hour ago, sugarbaker design said:

My numbers are generous, I can only think of less than 5 episodes that are whodunnits.

I like it when they change up the formula from time to time.  Honestly, I'm more interested in Elsbeth and her relationship with her co-workers than I am the actual crime!  That might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it works for me! 

possibilities

possibilities

I think the formula for this show works best when we know what happened-- but we also see Elsbeth being unusual in how she solves it. When she does standard detective work and doesn't rely on her unusual questioning mode, it does seem much less satisfying. When she used her ditzy act and the way people underestimated her, it made her triumph even more satisfying, and made the pepetrators even easier to enjoy seeing taken down. Also, it is more understandable that they have her as a conultant when she does something special and doesn't act like a usual detective. It makes the Dept look ridiculously incompetent when they can't solve a cse with out her when all she's doing is what they would normally do.

Columbo had the same detective/cop coworkers for the entire run of the show, I think (Randy and Captain SomethingOrOther), so they ought to be able to keep a relationship between Elsbeth and Kaya if they want to. I don't want to see Kaya held back. But they keep poairing her with other detectives, so it' sno tlike Kaya cna't be a detective and also work with Elsbeth.

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zapper

zapper

(edited)

I have a problem with this episode.

So after the shovel whack, Greene takes the *unfoiled* phone of the nephew, turns it off and chucks it into the coffin by the pillow. When the coffin is slid into the hearse we hear him banging and shouting.

If I was locked in a box, i'd be poking about and I'd likely find the phone. then I'd call for help. Why did this not happen?

  • we hear the nephew, so he's alive and kicking 
  • we see Greene unwrap his own phone in the hearse to look up the address of the crematorium, so that's not the nephews phone as we already saw it unwrapped, the nephew's phone must still be in the coffin
  • we know that the nephew was loaded with his head near the phone under pillow because we and Elsbeth see the dirty silk in the coffin at the end away from the pillow

So it seems like a bit of a plot hole that the nephew didn't phone for help.  And I guess we are to assume that the coffin was airtight so the nephew suffocated...

 

Edited by zapper
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Nashville

Nashville

2 hours ago, zapper said:

I have a problem with this episode.

So after the shovel whack, Greene takes the *unfoiled* phone of the nephew, turns it off and chucks it into the coffin by the pillow. When the coffin is slid into the hearse we hear him banging and shouting.

If I was locked in a box, i'd be poking about and I'd likely find the phone. then I'd call for help. Why did this not happen?

  • we hear the nephew, so he's alive and kicking 
  • we see Greene unwrap his own phone in the hearse to look up the address of the crematorium, so that's not the nephews phone as we already saw it unwrapped, the nephew's phone must still be in the coffin
  • we know that the nephew was loaded with his head near the phone under pillow because we and Elsbeth see the dirty silk in the coffin at the end away from the pillow

So it seems like a bit of a plot hole that the nephew didn't phone for help.  And I guess we are to assume that the coffin was airtight so the nephew suffocated...

 

If the nephew didn’t come to until after the lid of the coffin had been sealed, he very well might not have known the phone was there; he’d be encased with restricted range of motion within a 100% dark / 0% background light pollution environment.

SO, unless something (text, call, alert, notification, etc.) activated the phone display, he might not know it’s there for a while - if ever.

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