Elsbeth Recap: Boundaries and Baseball Bats

Procedural shows, more than most, point us toward talking about them in chronological order. There’s a reassuringly consistent unfolding of the mystery of the week’s beats; we get some character and thematic development, a bit of overarching plot material along the way, aaaaannnd end credits. “One Angry Woman” marks what I think is the first time Elsbeth is encouraging a themes-first approach to an episode, and I’m here for it. The theme of the week — and, you could argue, of the season as a whole, drumroll, please! — is boundaries.

Everybody’s talking about boundaries, from Elsbeth and Teddy to sketchy Judge Crawford and Lonnie, the creepy podcast guy; from murder victim of the week Andy and his non-murderer Delia to Lt. Connor and his precinct-wide audit. Elsbeth and Kaya have been discussing, setting, and adjusting boundaries in their friendship all season. They’ve been at the heart of the few conflicts in their relationship — remember how Kaya had to convince Elsbeth that it would be better for their friendship if she paid rent while she lived in Elsbeth’s apartment? That boundary provided clarity, ensuring that both friends knew Kaya wasn’t living there as a form of charity from Elsbeth, which could have allowed small resentments to fester into a larger conflict.

Boundaries aren’t just about protecting oneself against certain behaviors or experiences, they’re about making the most room possible for the relationships we want to have with others. Teddy imposes the one fact per day rule with Elsbeth not only because he’s a grown man who doesn’t want her meddling in his business but because he’s a grown man who knows they’ll have the healthiest relationship possible when Elsbeth knows that they’re not a single organism separated by a very porous emotional membrane. Rather, because he is a grown man, Teddy wants Elsbeth to be in his life and he wants to not contribute to her outsized feelings of responsibility towards him. He’ll always be her baby, but he’s also an adult. They’re working on it in good faith, and they’re getting there. Here’s hoping that Teddy’s beau, Roy, moving to Brooklyn in the new year will help facilitate that process.

Elsbeth having to relinquish a lot of what she assumed would be inviolable Teddy Time during his visit due to her not being excused from jury duty actually works in favor of their relationship’s long-term health. Kaya introduces him to the touristy parts of city life she never participates in, taking him out to Coney Island, introducing him to the confounding, underfunded marvel of engineering that is the subway system, taking him to the High Line, and then debriefing over beers back at the precinct with Captain Wagner. Elsbeth’s beloved colleagues get to see Teddy as he actually is (not just the hyper-accomplished young go-getter Elsbeth is so proud of), and he gets to see how much these people care about his mom. Goodness, where did all these chopped onions come from? Families by birth and families by choice meeting and bonding are just very touching, she said, gently dabbing at her eyes.

It’s so interesting to get Teddy’s perspective on his mother’s life in New York. For all their good-natured joking around about him doling out just one Teddy Fact™ per day and her sunny hopes of luring him back up to New York more regularly, the real reason he’s dropped everything to visit her is to check on his mom’s well-being. He still has no idea why she seemingly fled Chicago and was really shaken by getting an SOS text from Kaya summoning him to New York. Is Elsbeth in a crisis of some kind? She seems okay, but is she actually okay? Yes and no — she continues to deflect questions about why she left Chicago, and she was in a bit of a state thinking she wouldn’t see him for months, but the worst of that has dissipated.

And, of course, nothing gives Elsbeth a sense of purpose like noticing when a justice-related mechanism isn’t functioning properly, so she’s drawn into this week’s mystery while serving as an alternate juror on a seemingly open-and-shut murder trial. It seems straightforward because of how much circumstantial and physical evidence links the accused and the murder — a man has been bludgeoned to death in his apartment, apparently by his lover, who was found by the police standing over his body, naked and covered in his blood — but once Elsbeth’s mind starts tugging on loose threads, she can’t stop.

We know from the cold open that prior to Andy’s death, he and Delia had a fully consensual role-playing tryst one dark and stormy night, and that she was in the shower while he was being beaten to death by a very distrustful, bespectacled, middle-aged guy wielding a baseball bat (Michael Emerson, the king of playing characters with hidden and often morally questionable motives). His motive is unclear to us, though the perpetrator and his victim know each other, and have some shared secret-keeping history. The killer simply doesn’t trust Andy’s promise to keep whatever that secret is to his satisfaction, so it’s time to crank the record player up high and dispatch him as Donna Summer plays, compounding his extreme violation of the social contract with a less extreme but nonetheless shocking act of disrespect towards Ms. Summer. He leaves the bat behind, just outside the bathroom door, where a quizzical Delia picks it up before finding Andy’s corpse.

The motives of previous murders on Elsbeth have been very clear up until now; we’ve seen greed, jealousy, revenge, reputation preservation, and bad manners at the opera trigger the worst in our perpetrators. By contrast, Andy’s murder, and the murderer himself, are pretty obscure. We know that the killer is also the judge presiding over Delia’s trial, but until the last minutes of the episode, Elsbeth only suspects him of trying to railroad Delia, not of having had a hand in Andy’s death.

Elsbeth’s superpowers of noticing details others don’t and then asking questions about them until a discernible pattern emerges save the day. After wangling her way into the jury deliberation room by getting Lonnie the sexist podcaster disqualified, her questions about the weapon, motive, and witnesses’ testimony puncture hole after hole in the DA’s case against Delia. Sure, she has terrible boundaries (sneaking into your cute neighbor’s apartment to drop off baked goods? Ultimately harmless, but definitely unhinged behavior!) and is given to empty, if hot-headed, threats of physical violence, but being a little maladjusted isn’t the same as being a murderer. Delia deserves a competent defense, something she’s been robbed of by her cut-rate defense attorney, Chazz Milano (30 Rock alum Scott Adsit, applying just the right amount of comedy mustard to the role). Thank goodness for Elsbeth’s questions for providing it.

While Elsbeth succeeds in convincing her fellow jury members (including another great 30 Rock alum, Marceline Hugot, as the forewoman) that Delia didn’t kill Andy, this is the first time on Elsbeth that Elsbeth hasn’t solved the murder by the end of an episode. All along, we’ve been getting little breadcrumbs — for example, Andy’s willingness to believe that the U.S. government is capable of just about anything, based on what he’s seen; and Judge Crawford’s longed-for federal bench appointment — maybe they’ll turn out to be little red herrings, or maybe they’ll turn out to be the opposite of that. (Wild-caught salmon, maybe?) At any rate, know that His Honor Milton Crawford, who fancies himself not merely judge, but also jury and executioner, is going to be in Elsbeth’s metaphorical crosshairs for at least one more episode. He’s the most formidable adversary she’s faced so far, but even he isn’t immune to making mistakes. Snippily referring to Andy as a “perverted disco lover” in his kiss-off to Elsbeth, after no one mentioned disco during any of the proceedings opens him up to her further scrutiny. This is going to get good.

In This Week’s Tote Bag

• Casting note No. 1: Michael Emerson is not only a treat to watch anytime, but is also married to Carrie Preston. I can’t wait to see them go toe-to-toe again.

• Casting note No. 2: Judge Crawford’s bailiff is played by Wendell Pierce’s fellow The Wire alum Brian Anthony Wilson! Could a little reunion scene between them await us in the next episode? I dare to dream!

• Line of the episode: it’s a tie between Elsbeth asking Lonnie the podcast guy, “Would I have heard of it? Is it Car Talk?” and Lt. Connor indignantly describing his crummy, no-view-having office as “fabulous.”

• Chazz Milano, bless his incompetent heart, not only wears literally the same ensemble every day of the trial, but also has left the designer label tacked to his jacket sleeve. This man needs help in every aspect of his life; he’s like a cracked mirror reflection of Elsbeth!

• Almost as touching as Elsbeth’s son and work family showing how well they understand and how much they care about her is Lt. Connor finally coming around on what she brings to the precinct. Mr. Data Explains Everything And Everything Is By The Book has noticed that the precinct has received several formal complaints this week about serious procedural problems. They’re exactly the kind of issues Elsbeth would notice before they became a problem, and she’s been out all week. He doesn’t believe in coincidences. Aw!