Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for the Elsbeth Season 2 finale.
Pop a tribute to “Cell Block Tango” into any episode of a TV show, and I’m already inclined to like it a little more. I guess it helps, then, that the Elsbeth Season 2 finale, “Ramen Holiday,” not only has that aforementioned tribute, but also ends the season on an all-around high note. The past couple of episodes have really driven home the all-around thesis of the season — the inequalities of the justice system, the question of who is and isn’t believed when one side of the argument is a wealthy, powerful man — and while necessary both from a statement standpoint, and also to drive the actual overall plot forward, I have to say, I did find myself missing the more lighthearted side of Elsbeth, the side that made it stand out in the first place. And despite the episode taking place almost entirely in prison, the returning ensemble of guest stars, and the almost comical mystery left for Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) to solve, brought the show back to its lighthearted roots, just in time to set the stage fresh for Season 3. But I’m getting ahead of myself, so for the last time this season, let’s dive in!
Elsbeth Is Behind Bars in the Season 2 Finale
The episode picks up shortly after the events of last week, which saw Elsbeth arrested for criminal harassment and remanded into custody by Judge Edwin Dousant (John Carroll Lynch), who turned out to be a friend of the late Judge Milton Crawford (Michael Emerson). So much for due process, I guess. At the prison, Elsbeth is escorted to her cell by a guard, Rocco (Geoffrey Allan Murphy), via the men’s wing. Despite telling him she plans on keeping a low profile, that plan immediately goes out the window when she’s spotted by fellow inmates Joe Dillon (Arian Moayed) and Alex Modarian (Stephen Moyer). Given that she was responsible for sending both of them to prison, this puts her in a dangerous position, especially as they’re both happy to see her imprisoned herself. Trouble doesn’t get left behind in the men’s wing, however, as Elsbeth arrives in the women’s wing — this is a really small prison — and sees a few more familiar faces whose imprisonments she is responsible for: tech CEO Quinn Powers (Elizabeth Lail), mafia princess Pupetta Del Ponte (Alyssa Milano), matchmaker Margo Clarke (Retta), plastic surgeon Vanessa Holmes (Gina Gershon), and decluttering guru Freya Frostad (Mary-Louise Parker).
Later, Alex comes by with the prison library book cart, and explains to Elsbeth that he’s a prison “trustee,” and oversees the book cart, a privilege he earned by giving back to the prison community, specifically by staging plays with the other prisoners based on their cases. How Elsbeth doesn’t see this for the trap it is, I’ll never know, but Alex invites her to come to the next rehearsal to see what it’s all about. It turns out, though, that he doesn’t just hand out library books; he also runs the black market trade within the prison, as he exchanges a tin of anchovies with Pupetta for five packs of ramen, the go-to currency. Their exchange is cut short by the arrival of the warden, “Mama” Martin (Donna Lynn Champlin), who employs a don’t-ask-don’t-tell rule when it comes to prison trading. She’s really only there to introduce herself to Elsbeth anyway, and despite telling Elsbeth to come to her with any issues, our favorite consent-decree police consultant looks more than a little rattled.
She heads to Alex’s play rehearsal, cast entirely by her personal rogue’s gallery — Matteo Hart (André De Shields) is here too, making the costumes. The play is a twisted version of Margo’s case, which implies Elsbeth planted the evidence that got Margo arrested, and which features Quinn doing her best Elsbeth impression. Alex is every bit as creepy with Quinn as he was with his students, which Joe and Vanessa take very personally, but less out of a sense of Quinn’s safety, and more because they’re also interested in her. As rehearsal wraps for the day, Elsbeth notes that the others don’t have much respect for Alex, and he maintains that it’s because he gets at their truth — that’s definitely not it, but as the plays prove, “Truth” isn’t really a huge concern for Alex anyway.
Related
“Plenty of Prisoners Want Their Revenge”: ‘Elsbeth’ Boss Teases a Dangerous Season 2 Finale
“She is also the most hated person in the jail.”
Blanke and Wagner Work to Free Elsbeth in the Season 2 Finale
Back at the precinct, Detective Kaya Blanke (Carra Patterson) is still frustrated that Elsbeth was sent to the detention center without bail. She suggests they go to the press, but Captain Wagner (Wendell Pierce) tells her that won’t help, given the sheer amount of drama that’s surrounded her in the press this year, with the Van Ness case, and Crawford’s assassination. While Blanke is obviously worried about her best friend being held behind bars indefinitely, she’s also worried that she won’t get a chance to say goodbye before she heads out for her task force training program in DC. Wagner suggests that he at least try talking to Judge Dousant, to appeal to his better nature. I doubt he has one, but I guess it’s worth a try.
Meanwhile, Elsbeth flags down Rocco to tell him that she finished the book she borrowed from the library cart — going so far as to even read the cryptic love notes past prisoners wrote on the inside cover — and asks if he can take her to the library to get a new one. He tells her he can’t, as he was caught watching cat videos on his phone by the warden. Elsbeth empathizes, recalling a similar incident she had with Captain Wagner, but Rocco cuts her short after hearing who she worked with at the NYPD. Rocco, it turns out, aspires to be a police officer, and looks up to Wagner, so Elsbeth offers to put in a good word with the good captain…if Rocco sneaks her into the library. He agrees, and there she finds Alex sitting with his back to the door. When he doesn’t respond to her at all, Elsbeth realizes it’s because he’s dead from a stab wound to the back, though the murder weapon is nowhere in sight. Rocco sounds the alarm, and tries to get Elsbeth out of there, but she’s already in investigation mode. She suggests they test the water in Alex’s bowl of ramen to see how cold it is, to estimate a time of death, and notes that the ramen has a distinctive scent, but doesn’t get much further than that before Mama arrives from the men’s ward and kicks her out.
Elsbeth goes to visit the warden in her office to talk about the case that is now occupying her thoughts, and Mama tells her that the library, kitchen, and laundry are all spots in the prison that the security cameras don’t reach. Add to that the fact that Alex was killed during activity time, and the fact that most people in the prison hated him, and the list of suspects is long, to say the least. Mama asks that Elsbeth just keep her head down and make the most of the freedoms that the prison allows, like activity time and arts and crafts, and Elsbeth agrees, though if I know her, that’s not all she’ll be doing.
Wagner, meanwhile, makes good on his promise to seek out Judge Dousant, and finds him at his tailor. He tries to make a case for Elsbeth being let go, given her track record, and acknowledges that the death of a friend, in this case Crawford, makes things emotionally fraught. Dousant, proving that men are never dangerously emotional, is immediately upset at Wagner writing it off as a mere “death,” saying Crawford was “gunned down in cold blood” while Elsbeth did nothing — unclear what he expected her to do, though. Jump in front of the gun? Tackle Delia? — and will therefore be punished accordingly. If only that argument made an ounce of sense, but unfortunately for Wagner, that’s not enough to change Elsbeth’s sentence, at least not yet.
Elsbeth Solves a Murder From Prison in the Season 2 Finale
Back at the prison, all the cells are being searched for anything in connection with Alex’s death, including Elsbeth’s. Rocco explains that they’ve confiscated quite a number of interesting things from prisoners in the past, including weapons fashioned during arts and crafts time. When Elsbeth still can’t stop talking about the murder, Rocco suggests that she try befriending the other inmates instead. Efficient queen that she is, Elsbeth does just that, while also trying to figure out where they were at the time of Alex’s death. She starts with Quinn, who tells her that Alex constantly gave her notes about her portrayal of Elsbeth, even while trying to flirt with her, but she denies killing him, explaining that she was in the yard, meditating at the time, and says that Margo can vouch for her. Margo confirms that she did see Quinn in the yard, and when asked about Alex, tells Elsbeth that he would ask her about her work to get tips on how to pick up women at the prison, but adds that she didn’t kill him either, though her alibi places her somewhere other than the yard.
Hitting that dead end, Elsbeth moves on to Joe, who offers her a cup of toilet wine — it’s OK if you just gagged, I did too. Despite maintaining rigorous hygiene practices for his prison mixology, Joe is frustrated that with Alex gone, he’s lost his ingredient supplier, but notes that Alex always overcharged them anyway. Ramen, it turns out, is not the sole currency of the prison, as Joe tells Elsbeth that the wealthier prisoners also used cash to get things they wanted, and all of it was funneled through Alex. Vanessa and Freya also didn’t think very highly of Alex, or of his preferences for younger women, but both also have an alibi, as Vanessa was giving herself a facial, which Freya was present for, Freya suggests that rather than one of the inmates, Alex’s killer was more likely someone with access. Someone like Rocco.
Elsbeth’s final stop is the kitchen, where Pupetta is doing some food prep. There, Pupetta tells Elsbeth that her uncle Vinny served time in the same detention center back in the day. Vinny is something of a legend in the family, as while he was in prison, he was said to be digging a tunnel to escape, but never went through with it, as his girlfriend was also serving time in the women’s wing. While Elsbeth struggles to chop onions with her plastic knife, Pupetta has a much easier time slicing garlic with a bit of ramen sharpened into a razor blade. I guess we now know what happened to the murder weapon. Elsbeth heads to Mama’s office and shares her theory that the knife used to kill Alex was made out of ramen, which the killer then disposed of by dropping it into hot water. Mama buys this story a little too quickly; then again, if Pupetta’s blade and Elsbeth’s vest are anything to go by, the crafts table at this prison is better equipped than your average craft store. While Mama acknowledges that she and Rocco have confiscated a lot of wild things over the years, she also makes the logical leap that if Pupetta made a razor, then she made the knife too, and she has her taken away for Alex’s murder. Elsbeth protests, as the ramen didn’t smell like Pupetta’s cooking, but Mama goes through with the rearrest.
‘Elsbeth’ Season 2 Finale Gets a Full-Scale Musical Number
What follows is the most fun sequence in the episode, and really, in the series: a full-length spin on Chicago‘s “Cell Block Tango.” Really, with as much Broadway talent as this show boasts, it was only a matter of time before we got a musical number, and given Elsbeth’s love of theater, of course it comes in the form of a dream sequence. The whole thing is really just a summary of why each of the women — sorry Joe and Matteo, you have to sit this one out — might have wanted to kill Alex, though even their dream selves deny having done it, even if Alex, ahem, had it coming. Rocco wakes Elsbeth up out of her dream sequence, and at her disorientation, says that it isn’t uncommon for the inmates to pretend they’re elsewhere, even if that elsewhere is just a better facility, as Alex seemed to think he was going to. Neither Elsbeth nor Rocco is sure what gave Alex that impression, but it’s definitely something worth following up on.
Meanwhile, at the precinct, Kaya and Wagner have reached the end of the line, but Lt. Connor (Daniel K. Isaac) arrives with Teddy (Ben Levi Ross) in tow, the latter having found a new path worth investigating. Teddy says that he found it odd that Crawford would have just happened to be the one assigned to the Mertons case, so he went digging and realized that the original judge on the case was supposed to be Dousant. Since the judge recused himself with no publicly-listed explanation, Connor assigns Officer Chandler (Ethan Slater) to investigate the connection. He might be chatty, but Chandler is also good at his job, as he and Wagner head out to once again confront Dousant at the tailor. Chandler says that Dousant recused himself from the case after being invited to a junket paid for by a major Historical Law Society donor, the same society that helped cover up Crawford’s first murder, and now helping him cover up the second by letting him preside over the case. Dousant counters that if there were evidence of Crawford killing someone, they would have charged him properly — I can’t decide if Dousant is willfully ignorant regarding abuses of power, or if he is also covering for Crawford — so Wagner pulls out their other little bit of evidence: Dousant went to said junket with a woman who is not his wife. Nothing like blackmail, is there?
At the prison, Elsbeth asks Mama about the rumored Del Ponte tunnel, which she dismisses as a myth. She also asks about Alex’s potential transfer somewhere cushier, but that question isn’t dismissed. Rather, Mama tells Elsbeth that Alex was supposed to meet with the DA the day after he was killed. Suspecting Alex was trying to make a deal, Mama suggests that Alex had gathered intel on the other inmates while directing the plays, and was going to use that information to barter with the DA, giving any and all of them plenty of motive to kill him. She tasks Elsbeth with keeping an eye out on the floor, and, to help with that, makes her the new book cart trustee.
Fortunately, Pupetta is no longer salty about her rearrest, and is at least willing to chat with Elsbeth, even if she doesn’t have the funds to pay for her black market ingredients, and Elsbeth doesn’t know how to get said ingredients anyway. She tries offering Pupetta an N.D. Longacre mystery instead to pass the time, a novel that Pupetta says her Uncle Vinny loved. Remembering a comment Pupetta made about Vinny’s distinctive signature, Elsbeth recalls seeing it in the inside cover, along with a cryptic message. Later, at mealtime, the ladies bemoan the state of the prison food, now inedible since they won’t let Pupetta back in the kitchen. But Pupetta isn’t the only chef to have graced the halls of the Midtown Detention Center, as one Chef Veev was also an inmate there before being transferred.
Besides hearing yet another name from her past, something else also clicks for Elsbeth, and when Mama has everyone in the women’s wing gathered to assure them of their safety, she uses the opportunity to tell them all that she actually solved the mystery of Alex’s death. While most people there had motive, she points to Mama as the murderer. She says that Alex’s meeting with the DA wasn’t to give them information about the prisoners, but about Mama herself, and the black market she runs, using him as a go-between, and with her willful ignorance acting as a cover. She says that Mama stabbed Alex with a knife made of ramen that Veev crafted, and Mama confiscated, which was mixed with her signature herb and spice blend that Elsbeth recognized as familiar. The only problem with this theory is that Mama was in the men’s wing at the time of the murder, but even that problem has an easy solution, as Elsbeth leads them all to the not-so-mythical tunnel that Vinny Del Ponte dug out during his stay, the directions to which were contained in the cryptic note in the book. While Elsbeth is happy to have solved the mystery, the inmates are less so, once they realize that Mama’s arrest means they’ve lost their black market supplier, jacked up prices or not.
At the precinct, a goodbye party is in full swing for Blanke, with Detectives Fleming (Daniel Oreskes), Smullen (Danny Mastrogiorgio), and Edwards (Michaela Diamond) in attendance, along with Blanke’s boyfriend Cameron (Sullivan Jones). The party feels bittersweet without Elsbeth there, but Wagner and Chandler arrive just in time with Elsbeth in tow, now free from jail, and things take a turn for the cheerful. As much as this is a goodbye party for Kaya Blanke, it’s also very much a goodbye party for Carra Patterson, who luckily will still appear in future seasons in a guest star capacity. I knew Blanke’s promotion meant seeing less of her, so it’s not like this came out of nowhere, but her friendship with Elsbeth was so special, and such a core component of the show, that I’m sad to see her go. Her departure, and the absence of any looming threat, means that Elsbeth effectively feels reset for Season 3, making this finale the perfect sendoff for everything the show has done thus far.
Elsbeth closes out Season 2 with a lighthearted, compelling finale that feels like a satisfying end while also setting a fresh stage for Season 3.
- Release Date
-
February 29, 2024
- Network
-
CBS
- We love a musical number!
- Episode 20 puts a button on the first two seasons, allowing Season 3 to start fresh
- I’m gonna miss Kaya, but I’m glad she got a proper sendoff.
