Roush Review: ‘Elsbeth’ and the Art of the Light Mystery

Columbo wouldn’t know what to make of the technicolored outfits sported by amateur snoop Elsbeth Tascioni (played to quirky perfection by Emmy winner Carrie Preston). Yet the iconic TV detective, immortalized by the late Peter Falk and known for his shabby trench coat, would likely recognize a kindred spirit cut from the same metaphorical cloth.

Elsbeth, a delightful spinoff built around a memorably offbeat character first introduced as a foil on Robert and Michelle King‘s The Good Wife and The Good Fight, is in good company. Peacock‘s terrific Poker Face, starring Natasha Lyonne as Charlie, an irreverent drifter with a gift for spotting murderous liars, follows a similar Columbo-like “how-catch-’em” light mystery format. We see the crime and the criminal—typically a well-known actor—before our hero even shows their face.

Elsbeth’s madcap wardrobe and sunny sensibility, much like Columbo’s shambling demeanor and Charlie’s scrappy underdog persona, ensures that the murderer of the week will fatefully underestimate this seasoned yet unorthodox lawyer. Same goes for her colleagues at the NYPD, to whom she has been assigned from Chicago as an objective observer for the Department of Justice.

“You sent me a nutcase,” growls the wonderfully gruff Wendell Pierce as Capt. C.W. Wagner to a DOJ agent, who laughingly assures the boss and unknowing target of Elsbeth’s inquiry, “She’ll grow on you.” Does she ever.

Peering over the cops’ shoulders with incurably perky curiosity at every crime scene, Elsbeth is the most perceptive of pests, always poking her nose where it isn’t wanted while sniffing out the clues others have missed. “I find it hard not to push buttons,” she admits in one of Thursday’s two episodes, the first new Elsbeth mysteries since the pilot aired as a preview in late February. The wait was worth it, because the fun is watching her ruffle the cosmopolitan feathers of such arrogant archetypes as a shady theater director (True Blood‘s Stephen Moyer in the pilot episode), a manipulative reality-show producer (Modern Family‘s campy Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and a ruthless real estate agent (30 Rock‘s slinky Jane Krakowski).

The guest stars look like they’re having as much fun sparring with Elsbeth as we do watching them. And although Elsbeth tells this week’s reality-show villain, “I don’t think I’d do well on television,” that’s obviously not true. At a time when so many nights are overrun with grim and formula crime dramas, Elsbeth and its playful Thursday night neighbor, the legal farce So Help Me Todd (starring Skylar Astin as a hapless private eye and Marcia Gay Harden as his uptight lawyer mother) are refreshing respites.

Elsbeth may not make you die laughing, but you’ll certainly smile.

Elsbeth, Returns, Thursday, April 4, 9/8c and (its regular time period) 10/9c, CBS