Elsbeth Recap: Love Is In The Air

Usually, we viewers know whodunit before the cold open of each episode of Elsbeth. In those cases, the fun is in watching Elsbeth and Kaya figure out and expose the murderer of the week, but for “Tiny Town,” even though we don’t know whodunit before our favorite investigators, our forensic gaze is still trained most sharply on the sweetly unfolding transatlantic romance between Elsbeth and a handsome singer-songwriter and [profession redacted for the moment] in Scotland. Yes, the number one eyewitness to the murder of cosmetics researcher/developer Hayley Ritter is performing his civic duty internationally, thanks to Iris, the 24/7 video portal linking a little plaza in Manhattan and a tiny Scottish fishing village.

This civically minded fellow, Angus Oliphant-Donnachaidh (roughly pronounced either Don-a-HEE or Don-a-HAY, played by Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd, which I believe is pronounced YO-ahn Gri-FITH, with a bit of a trill on the “r” in “Gri”), spends quite a bit of his day playing his mandolin and writing songs over endless cups of coffee from the obliging Fiona. The two of them have taken a wee bit of a shine to a particular pair of coffee drinkers they see meeting up repeatedly in Manhattan.

Because the young woman shows up with a rose each time and the two seem laser-focused on each other, Fiona and Angus have concluded that they’re a Tinder match, calling them The Lovers and nodding happily when the couple leave the plaza together after their third meet-up. This is a very wholesome and lovely mini-version of Jimmy Stewart’s observations of his neighbors in Rear Window, right up until the moment when it takes an actual Rear Window-like turn by showing the young woman’s murder. She’d been waiting dejectedly for her apparent swain, heart-shaped box of chocolates sadly unclaimed, when a different man arrives and loudly confronts her. Their argument turns physical, and she falls to the ground as he leaves, then seems to choke to death as Angus can do nothing but watch in increasing horror, wildly gesticulating at the clueless tourists whose backs are to Hayley.

Angus and Elsbeth hit it off right away, moving quickly from miming to speaking on the phone. He shares all the details he can and is very taken with Elsbeth’s jacket, a fuzzy hot-pink number with massive lapels that flow into a hood at the back. It’s her favorite color, and funnily enough, I believe Angus when he says it’s his favorite, too. Considering how baffled most people in New York seem to be about Elsbeth’s exuberant taste in clothes, this minor compliment is a big deal.

Elsbeth is not the only one enjoying attention from a highly eligible man. Cameron (a.k.a. Dr. Claydel, the handsome and thoughtful medical examiner who rents a room from Kaya) just happens to swing by the precinct to share in person the results of Hayley’s autopsy (and to see Kaya). Sure, he could have called them in or emailed them over, but, you know, he was in the neighborhood, so he might as well stop by (and also see Kaya). It’s the professional thing to do! Hayley’s death was caused by a fentanyl overdose, which makes the chief of security and her former colleague at Elle-Même Cosmetics, Mr. Thorwald, sad and utterly confounds her grieving-yet-a-tiny-bit-suspicious boyfriend, Charles.

Thorwald says she’d tested positive for fentanyl in a routine random drug test earlier in the week, and he’d reluctantly had to report the instant firing offense to HR. Charles rejects the entire idea out of hand: he and Hayley were in a rocky place at the moment but really making a go of it by attending couples therapy while also pursuing IVF, and there’s no way she’d relapse while trying to conceive.

Elsbeth and Kaya can’t quite square this guy’s staunch defense of Hayley’s sobriety with the alarmingly aggressive behavior Angus witnessed Charles directing at Hayley shortly before her death. He suspected her of infidelity on the basis of her use of an encrypted messaging app and having turned off her phone’s location sharing with him. His suspicion is disproven once Kaya and Elsbeth learn that the man Charles suspected Hayley of cheating with was not a Tinder match but an investigative journalist named George. As George’s partner explains, he’s scrupulously ethical and careful, using only encrypted messaging apps to communicate with his sources and keeping everything about his work quiet, even from George’s partner until he publishes.

It’s sadly no surprise to learn that George, who partner says had dashed off to speak with a source the day of Hayley’s murder, is also dead. His body was found in a park not far from the plaza where Angus saw him and Hayley meeting, and by an incredible coincidence, his death was caused by a fentanyl overdose. On the eve of filing a big exposé. Is investigative journalism always as dangerous a profession as it seems to be in the Elsbeth universe? By my recollection, poor George is the second investigative journalist so far to be murdered on the show.

Over the course of this episode, Elsbeth returns to the Iris and speaks with Angus by phone many times for both work and cuteness reasons. He identifies Charles as the man who confronted Hayley, describes George in detail for the police sketch artist, compliments her on another coat (a beautiful marine blue dress coat), and just generally makes himself useful while sharing increasingly charming details about himself. He’s a songwriter, with tracks up on Spotify under the title Scottish Moments (no bagpipes, promise). They aren’t good, he says, because bad ones are so much easier to write. He shares Elsbeth’s enthusiasm for New York. He’s never visited before, but sure would love to someday, though first he needs to play some gigs in Edinburgh. As these two grow increasingly moony-eyed for each other, I thought of my request earlier in the season that Elsbeth honor its titular character by highlighting men smitten with her. Not in spite of her extremely idiosyncratic ways but because of them.

Realizing that they’re pivotal for the case, Angus recalls that he’d missed ten seconds of Hayley’s death because he’d turned back to his table to help Fiona with the cup of coffee she’d spilled on his notebook. Fortunately, the Murray sisters — his town’s local pair of fractious know-it-all sisters — saw it, and as is the norm for them, they recall what they saw and squabble loudly about it. They saw a man whose face was obscured by a surgical mask that he lowered to either cough or sneeze on Hayley, but they can share other details. They’re both particularly absorbed by identifying the name of the tartan of Hayley’s attacker’s scarf. It’s the Murray of Atholl tartan. Wait, no, it’s Mackenzie. A passerby who caught a glimpse suggests Robertson Hunting tartan, which complicates matters even further, because I was able to find two examples of Robertson Hunting in the official Scottish Register of Tartans. All of the tartans that are definitely worth arguing over in this context are in the blue-and-green family, so hopefully that detail, along with the perpetrator’s surgical mask, will help efforts to identify him.

Armed with this detail, Elsbeth speaks with Mr. Thorwald in his office at Elle-Même about a serious discrepancy between her free-of-drugs recent IVF bloodwork and her fentanyl-positive result from just a day later. The date on the Elle-Même report isn’t clear, either. In a moment alone in Thorwald’s office, Elsbeth has a horrible moment of realization that Thorwald himself is the murderer when she sees his jacket and scarf, which is a blue and green plaid (though it looks more like a windowpane check), and finds a surgical mask in one of the pockets. Sure enough, Hayley was a whistle-blower, ready to raise the alarm about a carcinogen in the concealer she was working on. Thorwald neutralized her as a threat by framing her for drug use, then using one of Elle-Même’s mini perfume atomizers to spray fentanyl in her face and stealing the chocolates (which also held a thumb drive of company secrets) she’d brought to the hand-off with the unfortunate George.

This is the first time I can recall Elsbeth being in anything approaching actual danger, making it a huge relief when Wagner and Kaya barge in to arrest Thorwald. But wait, are they psychic? How did they know to come here? Elsbeth’s phone battery was at a terrifyingly low percentage and she hadn’t been able to raise the alarm. Wouldn’t you just know, that nice young man in Scotland called the NYPD switchboard to say he and the Murray sisters had spotted the murderer, and that Elsbeth was in his office at that very moment!

Elsbeth is bummed out that she can’t call Angus to thank him; his phone seems to be off, and Fiona doesn’t seem to know where he is, either. Happily, two other couples are having a lovely Valentine’s Day! Captain Wagner secretly took dance lessons for five weeks so that his wife Claudia could have the dance partner she deserves (aw!) for their wedding anniversary. Kaya gently but firmly turns down Cameron’s offer of a cupcake he brought home from work, noting that “a morgue cupcake is definitely not the vibe” and suggesting a spontaneous bodega date to pick up some ice cream (and, for a touch of practicality, dish soap).

That’s all lovely, but what! About! Angus!!! Well. His powerful new appreciation for Elsbeth and longstanding interest in visiting New York led him to hop a flight over the pond to see her in person. Is that possible, given the time constraints involved? Unless it turns out that Angus is a relative of Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott of the U.S.S. Enterprise and has been given an energizer for personal beaming purposes, no. Am I going to quibble further with it? Not at all. Both Ioan Gruffud and Carrie Preston absolutely nail the giddiness, with just a touch of reservedness that comes with the territory of making a big declarative gesture (or being the recipient of such a gesture).

Angus waves away Elsbeth’s concern about him missing the Edinburgh gigs they’d talked about. This isn’t going to be a problem for his music career because it’s really a hobby, not his job. Oh, his job? Yeah, he’s a firefighter.

In This Week’s Tote Bag

We’re going to need a second tote, because I have notes galore!

• “Thanks, Angus Oliphant-A-Blunka-Blunka!” and “We have a witness in Scotland???” are vying for funniest line delivery of the episode by Carrie Preston and Wendell Pierce, respectively.

• I would like Elsbeth to visit Sesame Street, somehow. She’d fit right in with her vibrant Glamour Muppet outerwear choices, and she could teach Big Bird about noticing things other people miss and chat with Oscar The Grouch about being vulnerable with people you care about.

• Want more Scottish murder mysteries in your life? Try Shetland on BritBox! It’s in a totally different vein than Elsbeth, as it’s a contemporary classic of the Sad Man Solves Murders subgenre, but it’s very good and there are nine seasons available.

• When Elsbeth writes her phone number on her hand to show Angus, so he can call her instead of miming through the Iris, I wondered what would happen if I called that number. Would it go straight to voicemail? Would I get an experience like They Might Be Giants’ famous Dial-A-Song service? Sadly, (312) 555-0172 is made up and not in service, but Dial-A-Song still is!