Review: Elsbeth, “Yes, And...” | Season 3, Episode 1 / Matlock, "The Before Times" | Season 2, Episode 1

Welcome to our weekly coverage of ElsLock, with Josh Spiegel's analysis of CBS' paired procedurals Elsbeth and Matlock as they head into their third and second seasons. As always, this first review is free for all, but subsequent reviews will only be for paid subscribers. $5 a month gets you access to these reviews and so much more.

What does it mean to be a procedural network drama in the year of our Lord 2025? Episodic Medium’s benevolent overlord Myles and the esteemed TV critic Alan Sepinwall (also now on Ghost) just a couple weeks ago mused on this question, noodling on how to cover such shows on a week-to-week basis, and if doing so can bear critical fruit even if (or especially because) the shows in question may not be as high-quality as more prestige-y shows. Procedurals may not clean up at the Emmys, but ABC has the perpetual motion machine known as Grey’s Anatomy coupled with 9-1-1, and NBC has entire nights dedicated to the hard-working public officials of New York and Chicago. For a very long time, CBS had a stranglehold in its own way, with the CSI and NCIS franchises. It still has the latter, and newer series like Fire Country and (naturally) the upcoming Sheriff Country. But Thursday nights on CBS are now two-thirds dominated by strong, clever, and off-kilter women. Although the second and third seasons of Matlock and Elsbeth, respectively, began on a Sunday night this year, their regular timeslots are Thursday nights, and they pair extremely well.

I should note here that Matlock did seem to come awfully close to bucking that Emmys trend last month. Kathy Bates, starring as Madeline Kingston (and undercover at the tony law firm Jacobson Moore as Mattie Matlock), was not only nominated in the Best Lead Actress in a Drama category, but a slew of awards prognosticators thought she was pretty much the shoo-in to take the statue. In the end, Britt Lower won for her work on Severance, which felt both logical (why wouldn’t an actor from one of the buzziest prestige dramas win?) and a bit of a shock because of Bates’ fame and talent. My own hot take, which probably helps ground you pretty well to my thoughts on ElsLock (the combined name for these two-for-the-price-of-one recaps moving forward), is thus: the wrong CBS actress got nominated. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, and dive into the actual recaps.

“We’re in a scene?”

In comedy, timing is everything. In the last couple of months, we’ve all been getting a largely unwelcome crash course in the importance of comedy, in no small part because of timing. As Joe Adalian noted at Vulture when breaking the news in early August, it’s not exactly clear when Stephen Colbert was signed on to appear in the season premiere of Elsbeth as a talk-show host. When talking to Carrie Preston a couple weeks ago on his show, he suggested it was quite a few months ago, or at least…y’know, before his own talk show was unceremoniously canceled for reasons that definitely have nothing to do with his mocking the Paramount/Skydance merger for being too acquiescent to our current president. But the casting is pretty notable, as is the timing (especially after Jimmy Kimmel’s brief suspension last month). 

The fictitious late-night host Scotty Bristol (Colbert) is only briefly seen in his performative element, both when talking in the green room to an upcoming guest (the wellness writer Sherry, last glimpsed in season two with Elsbeth in the woods) and on his actual program. Scotty is not, from those quick shots, a political comic at all. If anything, he’s in the vein of Don Rickles, cheerfully putting down Elsbeth for being…well, very much like the Elsbeth we all know and love as she overshares with a stranger/lays down some helpful exposition about her summer break with the still-offscreen Angus. (Both Scotty and Colbert seem to equally dislike being put on the spot by a guest who can tell he hasn’t read or watched their work.) Scotty’s open disdain for others extends to both his head writer Laurel (Amy Sedaris) and her husband/his sidekick Mickey Muntz (Andy Richter). So it’s not much of a stretch that when Scotty rejects Mickey’s plea for time off to get his heart healthy again, Laurel steps in and uses Scotty’s beloved shredder to strangle the host to death.

Throughout its first two seasons, Elsbeth has had to walk a careful balance of comedy and drama, shifting between Preston’s delightfully quirky performance along with an innate intelligence that lends itself to cases that must be established, created, and solved in 43 minutes. If you have read my Poker Face recaps, you know that while I like that show’s modern-day Columbo riffs a lot, I sometimes wish the show could take its time in establishing a world in which its lead character must solve crimes. Elsbeth, being a network show, doesn’t have that benefit (and we don’t live in a world anymore where broadcast shows are longer than an hour including commercials). It does help that the show’s general locale is unchanged in New York City, but the miniature universes within only get so much time to be fleshed out.

“Yes, And…” isn’t some mind-blowing expose about late-night TV; if anything, the proliferation of behind-the-scenes details about real late-night shows means that most viewers will understand enough that writer Jonathan Tolins doesn’t have to hold our hands in establishing a world where writers are too busy doing bits to realize they may be murder suspects, and pages are the only ones who hear all the juicy details because the talent doesn’t worry about oversharing to someone they perceive to be so unimportant. “Yes, And…” is also not Elsbeth at her darkest moments, thankfully. (I enjoyed Preston’s tete-a-tetes last season with her real-life husband Michael Emerson, but I’m glad the running storyline inspired by his ruthless character is done for now.) It is largely a loopy hoot, much like Elsbeth herself, quickly making sure we grasp the new normal of season three while allowing an extended scene in which Preston and Sedaris indulge in improv games.

I do want to acknowledge this week’s subplot, as the rest of the precinct lashes out at the overly officious Lt. Connor (Daniel K. Isaac) and his annoying budget cuts of everything from trash pickup to office supplies. It’s heartening to see how Elsbeth has become such a friend of his after his initial introduction last season as an adversary to her work with the consent decree. But in an episode that’s already very meta, and especially in the first episode after which the show’s original third regular, Kaya Blanke (Carra Patterson) has left for undercover work, I can’t help but wonder if the subplot is this show’s way of lashing out, Colbert-style, at its corporate overlord. We learn at the end of “Yes, And…” that Capt. Wagner (Wendell Pierce) is so unflinching in sticking with the budget cuts for one reason: it was either these cuts or losing Elsbeth. It’s not hard to wonder if this show’s creative team were told that, yes, this show was reasonably successful, but its long-term future needed one less regular cast member to pay.

Stray observations

• If the talk-show material isn’t meta enough, how about the already fully Broadway-pilled Elsbeth not just establishing Scotty as a die-hard fan of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, but having Lt. Hackett agree with Elsbeth about the show’s backwards-storytelling format? That’s because, for the uninitiated, Lindsay Mendez recently co-starred with Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe in the recent Broadway revival of…Merrily We Roll Along.
• Honestly a bit bummed out that we don’t see any real photos of Colbert or Sedaris from their days at Second City Chicago.
• I’m onboard with mocking Best Picture winners for not being that memorable, but when I think of Argo, I think of Alan Arkin saying “Argo fuck yourself.” Maybe it’s just me?
• Andy Richter is, as of this writing, still part of the current cast of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. Andy only needs to make an appearance soon on an NBC show to hit the network-TV hat trick.
• As much as I like this episode, the best New York-set thing featuring both Amy Sedaris and Andy Richter remains the modern Christmas classic Elf.

“From this point on, she is not your friend. She is your adversary.”

I should clarify that I do think Kathy Bates is really quite good as Madeline Kingston/Matty Matlock. As I was rewatching the final handful of episodes in the late summer, I watched one specific critical sequence in which Madeline/Matty broke down emotionally about the loss of her adult daughter Ellie to opioid addiction, about the choices she’d made to live a double life and bring down the same people who were offering her guidance and mentorship in her later years. And as it unfolded, I thought, “...this is the episode she submitted, isn’t it?” (The answer was yes.) Quite frankly, if it had just been between Bates and Lower, I…kinda think Kathy Bates should have won. (Britt Lower is excellent in her own right, but she should have gone in the Supporting Actress category.)

But Bates walked away empty-handed, which isn’t that big a deal when you’re talking about one of the highest-rated shows on network television. The success of the Matlock reboot has been frankly stunning, not because CBS managed to launch a well-rated new procedural, but that a reboot of a show that’s been an easy punchline in the past would be any good at all. I didn’t go out of my way to watch the series premiere until many other critics who I respect suggested this show, developed by Jennie Snyder Urman of Jane the Virgin, was a lot better than it had any right to be. The curious part about Matlock is less that it’s entertaining and intelligent, but that the aspect of the show you expect is the least involving. 

I will also acknowledge: of these two shows, I prefer Elsbeth, specifically because the aspect you expect is more enjoyable. That, to be clear, is the case of the week. Elsbeth lives or dies as much on its weekly criminals as it does on Carrie Preston’s immense charm. Matlock is able to live or die on two parts: Bates, who is excellent; and the twisty nature of the character she’s playing. Snyder Urman was smart enough at the outset to realize that a full-on reboot of an 80s legal show with an outlandishly folksy lawyer would die on the vine. (Beau Bridges, as the recurring law-firm honcho who’s unequivocally a bad dude, is kind of playing the dark-side version of Matlock.) So the twist that underpins the show – that a well-off ex-lawyer named Madeline Kingston is undercover as Mattie Matlock, working at the law firm she blames for perpetuating the opioid epidemic that killed her daughter, so she can bring them down from the inside – is what hooked me, and likely many of you.

The good news about “The Before Times” is that a large chunk of the episode focuses on the more recent ramifications of that twist, instead of a case of the week that largely exists to mirror the current challenge between Madeline and her mentor Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), who only recently caught onto our heroine’s ruse. There are, in essence, four storylines: what Madeline and Olympia are going to do about the documents Julian hid regarding the pharmaceutical company Wellbrexa; what Madeline is going to do about the unexpected arrival of Joey (Niko Nicotera), the man who may be Alfie’s father; how Madeline and Olympia are going to get their teenage-girl client off a charge of felony arson; and what Billy is going to do about his old flame Claudia being pregnant. (More on that in the Stray Observations.) As ever, it’s the first set of storylines that remain compelling. That the case-of-the-week structure has yet to be consistently intriguing remains fascinating if frustrating.

This week, at least, the first two storylines are compelling enough. Madeline and Olympia are largely now on the same page, though we quickly learn that Olympia is trying something underhanded herself. We know (but Madeline initially doesn’t) that Olympia left the first season debating whether or not to help Julian out so that he wouldn’t be the fall guy for Senior’s shady dealings with Wellbrexa. Early in “The Before Times,” we also see that Olympia kept the smoking-gun-style Wellbrexa document to herself, literally installing a safe in her brownstone with a key that can’t be copied. There’s a good running gag here in which we realize that while Olympia is a tough-as-nails lawyer, she’s not super-great at sneaking around her own office. “I did my missions by myself,” Madeline tartly points out before Olympia sneaks through Senior’s rolodex to find out the name of a mysterious woman who may have joined him on the fateful trip he took to Sydney years ago while he made Julian hide that big tell-all on opioids. 

If you’ve been paying attention to Matlock, the show thrives on twists that are only partially visible in plain sight; so many of the episodes conclude with brief flashbacks to scenes we’ve already seen, but with more context filled in. So this week, even though the case of the week is solved quickly, the real surprise comes afterwards. What first seemed like a Mythbusters-style way to solve the case (by setting a fire via ping-pong ball in Olympia’s kitchen) was a ruse to allow Madeline to steal that one-and-only safe key, take the real Wellbrexa document, and swap it with a fake. It’s a good surprise, though one that makes me wonder: for the fact that this is so well-rated, it also seems like a show with a limited run. Now, this show is just starting its second season, so the fact that the premiere ends with Madeline (with her husband Edwin watching) apparently contacting the New York Times to tell all about Wellbrexa doesn’t mean she’ll go through with it. But if she does…well, how long can this show last? And how many more obstacles can the show throw in Madeline’s way?

Stray observations

• You could argue that Joey is an obstacle, since it’s confirmed that he is Alfie’s biological father but is also not sober by the conclusion. But it seems to me that if you’re worried about a custody battle, being part of a massively powerful law firm is a point in your favor.
• So, uh, let’s be real: covering the next handful of episodes of Matlock is going to be immensely weird and awkward. Why’s that? Oh, just the trifling detail— revealed just three days before the premiere—of David Del Rio being fired from the show after a reported sexual assault (in an incident that involved co-star Leah Lewis). TV production being what it is, while Billy is apparently going to be written out, that’s not happening for a while. Per the Deadline article, the show’s just wrapped the first half of the season, so…well, Billy may be a sore thumb for a while. 
• That said, in reminding myself that the first season’s cliffhanger for Billy was that his old flame Claudia is pregnant, I realized that her pregnancy is likely how he’ll be written out. I will also point out that while I like Leah Lewis as Sarah very much, I hope the show is able to figure out better ways to utilize her. It’s been too often that Billy and Sarah have been placed in the weakest parts of the show; pretty soon…well, it’ll just be Sarah.
• Just putting it out there in the world: just as both Jason Ritter and Melanie Lynskey (married in real life) showed up on the most recent season of Poker Face, I sincerely hope she shows up at some point this season as a guest.
• Aaron Harris and Sam Anderson, as Alfie and Edwin, are now series regulars. And of course, while I know he’s been a working actor for many decades, Anderson will always stand out to me as two different doctors: 1) Bernard the dentist from Lost and 2) the obstetrician from Friends who just loves the Fonz.