Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 16 Brings in a Showtime Star as a Clutter Guru Who Makes a Murderous Mess

Elsbeth takes on a case with an clutter guru who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Read the Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 16 review here!

The post Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 16 Brings in a Showtime Star as a Clutter Guru Who Makes a Murderous Mess appeared first on TV Fanatic.

For an episode centered around love, Elsbeth sure chose some odd relationships to depict.

There’s campy comedy, and then there is mildly obscure humor, which has found its way onto the show.

There were a lot of hands at play in weaving this particular episode. For one, whoever created the character Freya is probably not the same person who suggested she be in a throuple.

The Elsbeth writers had some fun with “Hot Tub Crime Machine” and with Mary-Louise Parker’s character. She was the perfect example of what happens when crazy meets controlling.

Along with that, the series is shifting gears and preparing for a new dynamic around the precinct.

Elsbeth feels like a different show without Kaya and Miss Tascioni attached at the hip every second, but I can see why the hands behind the show would want to nip that in the bud.

Elsbeth Has Started Splitting Up the Dynamic Duo of Miss Tascioni and Officer Blanke, But It’s for the Best, and It Actually Makes Sense

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Listen, anyone can tell you that I love Kaya and Elsbeth as partners. Officer Blanke was the first friend Elsbeth made in The Big Apple.

Throughout Elsbeth Season 1, part of what made the freshman season so fun was watching Kaya form her friendship with the very weird and boundaryless Elsbeth.

However, we should have realized there was an expiration date for that dynamic duo working together on every case.

If anything, my hat is off to the writers for bringing the series into reality. How many shows have you seen where people stay in the same job position for seasons upon seasons?

In the real world, people usually advance their jobs and careers or find new ones. It wouldn’t be a good look for Kaya to still be in her officer’s uniform three seasons from now.

However, I think the real reason the writers are moving Kaya up the ladder and ultimately separating her from Elsbeth is much more easily explained.

This series is about the titular character and the hijinks she gets up to. It’s not a buddy cop show.

Because Elsbeth and Kaya’s relationship extends beyond the workplace, Carra Patterson‘s character spends a good chunk of the episodes right next to Miss Tascioni.

I can’t lie — that’s a lot of time spent around Elsbeth and her thousands of tote bags.

Ultimately, it would be better to diversify the story by having Elsbeth work alone with the other detectives like she did with Edwards.

Speaking of the skeptic, when will the other detectives stop questioning Elsbeth’s hunches? The woman has yet to be wrong, but I guess a perfect track record isn’t enough.

The Means of Murder Was Very in Character for a Narcissist Like Freya Frostad

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To be fair, Freya was hardly the kind of individual to partake in a throuple relationship. So, it didn’t take much for Elsbeth to smell something fishy.

Did anyone else find the way Freya killed her ex was just a little too elaborate and specific? I get that she was trying to make it look like an accident, but it’s important not to get lost in the details.

If you read the Elsbeth reviews for Season 1, you know I kept a keen eye on the means of murder and how it stacked up against the murderer.

For example, Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 15. Tracey Ullman (Curb Your Enthusiasm) played Marilyn Gladwell, a psychic con artist who swindled rich ladies out of money and used a bow and arrow as her means of murdering the victim.

Sorry, but what? Elsbeth is no stranger to the whacky and otherwise strange storytelling methods, but it has to at least make some sense.

In the case of Freya, her setting up an elaborate plan to make it look like her ex’s hair got stuck in the hot tub drain and accidentally drowned was very in character.

Still, how long had she been trying to kill the man again? The show should have done some kind of “failed murder attempt montage.” That would’ve been campy and hilarious. Very Elsbeth.

In the end, it really conveyed just how unhinged Mary-Louise Parker’s character was. Because of her controlling nature, she decided the only outcome for her ex was death.

Love makes people do crazy things, but obsession is where infatuation meets narcissism.

Rather than switch gears and re-strategize, she doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down until she finally had the third in the throuple to herself.

Mary-Louise Parker Was Perfection as an Episodic Elsbeth Killer And, Thankfully, It’s Not the Last We Will Be Seeing of the Actress

We really do have to give it up to Mary-Louise Parker. She understood the assignment and delivered a cracked character coming apart at the seams.

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To be fair, when discovering the actress would be playing a clutter guru, I had her portrayal depicted differently in my head.

I thought she would be very relaxed and all about letting things go. Granted, that was before I discovered that her character is actually a sociopath who uses her decluttering techniques to control people.

It’s no wonder we’ll see the actress again during the star-studded Elsbeth Season 1 Finale event. I don’t know what the writers have planned, but with that many returning guests, it’s going to be mess, mess, messy.

So, make sure you have your forty-four things ready for when Freya makes her icy return, but hopefully with no more throuple interviews.

I’m not knocking throuples, but the interviewing was way too weird. Does that happen in real life? It’s thorough, and every relationship has the right to its own rules, but that’s too much.

I half expected someone to bring up health benefits.

Elsbeth Season 2 Has Set Itself Apart from Its Freshman Season by Introducing Themes That Were Barely Touched on Before

While we’re talking about odd pairings and the interesting choices they make in relationships, what the hell is going on with Teddy and Roy? And why am I so invested in a recurring character’s plot? I’ll tell you.

For the entirety of CBS‘s Elsbeth Season 1, the titular character was perpetually bummed that Teddy wasn’t really in her life.

Cut to this season, and the kid is on every other episode with some boyfriend drama that decides if he should stick around to spend more time with his mom.

It seems like Teddy has settled on being with Roy, but even just typing that out makes their relationship feel tenuous at best.

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Do I need to remind you that Roy has a podcast? Or that it’s about whales? Teddy’s boyfriend Roy has a podcast about whales.

Listen, whales are majestic creatures, but you’ll get one conversation about them out of me, and that’s it.

There’s been a great deal of focus on love and relationships on Elsbeth Season 2. For one, how are we still talking about Angus so many episodes later? Is he moving to America? Are he and Elsbeth going to try long-distance?

It really seems to be a matter the show wants us thinking about considering how often it is brought up.

Honestly, though, I think it’s to distract us from thinking about what Michael Emerson‘s Judge Milton Crawford is up to. We’re still waiting for that shoe to drop.

Whatever is happening with the epic ending to this season probably has something to do with Elsbeth’s nemesis.

I think he’s working in the shadows to have her disbarred, with possibly even greater forms of retaliation to come.

We’ll just have to sit back and enjoy this ridiculous ride until we reach its whacky destination.

What do you think Judge Milton has planned for Elsbeth?

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Do you think the guest stars on the Elsbeth Season 2 Finale are connected to Judge Milton’s plan?

Please drop a comment below to let me know what you think, and join me again when I review another episode of Elsbeth!

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The post Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 16 Brings in a Showtime Star as a Clutter Guru Who Makes a Murderous Mess appeared first on TV Fanatic.