Review: Elsbeth, “Catch and Kill” | Season 3, Episode 19

“Is it worth the endless scroll?”

There used to be a time when it was pretty common for actors to appear on the same show in different seasons as different characters, and audiences just accepted that. I mentioned in the Stray Observations of last week’s review that “Murder From Scratch” was directed by Pamela Adlon, who we all saw on Elsbeth last season as a murderous chef. I said she was this close to being this show’s Patrick McGoohan equivalent. To wit: on Columbo, there were a number of actors who would appear as killers more than once across multiple seasons. McGoohan wasn’t the only one, but he was the only actor to both act and direct on the show. He did so multiple times, and even co-wrote one of the show’s last installments, in 2001. 

Now, I’ve spent enough space over the course of the season calling out the times when Elsbeth has cast an actor or actress from the universe of The Good Wife to play a totally unrelated character. Among the differences between Columbo and Elsbeth is the fact that one of these shows existed in a vacuum, and the other one is part of an established universe of multiple series that span more than 15 years. Certainly the Dick Wolf stable of shows (at least Law & Order) have no issue casting the same actors to play multiple characters, but those are also shows with much less overarching continuity. More importantly, it was always acceptable to watch Columbo and see McGoohan as a humorless military-school headmaster or a raffish spy or a sleazy lawyer, because Columbo was always a procedural first. The Good Wife did have case-of-the-week aspects, but it was often driven (especially in latter seasons) by longer arcs, so someone like John Benjamin Hickey would appear in multiple episodes and seasons, but always as the exact same person. (Ah, the days of ChumHum.)

Elsbeth has always straddled the line between being a straightforward procedural and having longer arcs, and we’ve talked about how it’s much better at one of those aspects than the other. Over the weekend, Joe Adalian of Vulture noted that Elsbeth is just one such show attempting and not always succeeding to balance both of these aims. Since the strength of this show, at least for me, is its procedural quality, it would be pretty odd to see a prominent actor or actress show up more than once to play a killer of the week. If, say, Matthew Broderick showed up next season after he did so in Season 2, it would be a bit baffling. Among other things, we don’t think of the erstwhile Ferris Bueller as a chameleonic performer. If this show ever wanted to go back to the casting well for a repeat offender, it would have to cast someone who’s known for disappearing into characters.

Which brings us to “Catch and Kill,” and Tracey Ullman.