Review: Elsbeth, “Good Grief” | Season 3, Episode 3 / Matlock, "Tomorrow is Still Tomorrow" | Season 2, Episode 3
Fewer words, please.
“I don’t need a man to be happy.”
At some point soon in these reviews, we’ll talk about one of my favorite aspects of the Good Wife Extended Universe: long opening acts that precede the titles and credits. While Elsbeth operates in the world of network television, it doesn’t have cold opens so much as full, robust opening acts, much as its predecessor series did. Today, though, I want to briefly offer a peek behind the reviewing curtain. While I do have access to screeners to the show, that sometimes means I get to watch “temp” versions of upcoming installments. What that primarily means in the case of a show like this is that things like the opening credits aren’t present. And if, say, you’re a person who largely avoids spoilers, you may end up being pleasantly surprised.
That’s my way of saying that I had no idea Carra Patterson, as Detective Kaya Blanke, would be showing up again on Elsbeth, and so soon. Because the opening credits didn’t show up in my screener, I was as stunned as Elsbeth herself was stumbling upon “Denise Jackson” or Kaya undercover as a dock employee, in the middle of a murder investigation taking place on the docks near Staten Island. Honestly, I appreciated the abrupt nature of Kaya’s return (one that I have to imagine is being teased in ads, since a press release I read after the fact loudly promoted her presence), because it took me delightfully off guard. Elsbeth is exactly as happy as you’d imagine to see her old friend, no less because in “Good Grief,” she’s grappling with the reality that she has to start fresh in the precinct with officers who may not be as quick to befriend her.
