Everyone's favorite Chicago attorney came to the Big Apple as the "police of the police" to keep an eye on the boys in blue while lending a hand to the NYPD string of murder cases.
By the end of Elsbeth Season 1 Episode 1, viewers found out that the lawyer turned sleuth was in NYC for a different matter entirely.
Elsbeth was sent to watch Captain Wagner, but that didn't stop this intrepid purveyor of truth from cracking one murder case after another.
One of the first things audiences likely noticed about this series is that it is a spinoff of a spinoff, as Elsbeth first appeared in The Good Wife.
She then went to The Good Fight, where she continued her quirky approach and eventually got her own series.
Elsbeth has a much more fun and whimsical tone than its fellow series, all of which are part of The Good Wife franchise.
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With a "howcatchem" premise, the show took quite a few liberties with its murder mysteries, some of which were genuinely implausible or ridiculous.
Elsbeth's borderline obsession with floral prints is the only thing campier than some of the characters or plots.
Every episode brought a familiar face each week, with almost all guest appearances being actors already appearing in The Good Wife or The Good Fight.
We like a show that keeps it in the family.
If you've got knee pads, grab them because we're about to break down the best and worst of the first season of Elsbeth, and things could get bumpy or, as Elsbeth would say, "I'd love to, but my knees."
Best Episode - "Love Knocked Off"
The hilarious episode starts things off strong. It likely had viewers laughing from beginning to end with its hilarious dialogue and perfect amount of over-the-top acting.
In Elsbeth Season 1 Episode 4, Elsbeth is joined on screen by the comedic genius Retta, an actress known for her perfect delivery of dry and stinging sarcasm.
Known for her roles in Good Girls and Parks & Recreation, Retta played a murdering matchmaker who kills her victim with a statuette of Cupid.
Elsbeth Season 1 Episode 4 Review: Love Knocked Off
Sometimes, the plots write itself.
This episode also gave audiences the most shocked quote from Elsbeth, "And lawyers always end up having sex on top of desks. You never see the stapler until it's too late." No one tell Teddy.
Worst Episode - "Ball Girl"
If you followed our reviews of Elsbeth throughout its season, you probably remember that this particular episode is frequently questioned.
Don't get me wrong. Blair Underwood of Quantico did a fantastic job acting and led a serious and, at times, dark portrayal of his character.
The only problem is that it felt so out of place on a show like Elsbeth, where reality stars have blenders thrown into their bathtubs.
But in Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 5, things in the writer's room were clearly all over the place when they penned the plot for this insanely implausible murder.
How does Underwood's Cliff McGrath go about enacting the heinous crime of murder? With a nitroglycerin-soaked sports towel.
Obviously, by itself, nitroglycerin isn't fatal, but combined with erectile dysfunction medication, it becomes a cocktail of killer ingredients. Who knew?
Perhaps it was the questionable form of murder juxtaposed against the episode's tone, but overall, "Ball Girl" was a miss.
Don't even get me started on the actual ball girl from the episode, who embodied everything insufferable about Gen Z.
Best Murder Scheme - Jane Krakowski as Joann Lenox
In a show with a different murder every week, there are bound to be some schemes that are better than others, and this one had the bonus of Jane Krakowski.
Known for her roles in 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the actress brought years of TV comedy gold to her character of Joann Lenox, a high-class real estate agent in Elsbeth Season 1 Episode 2.
What made this murder scheme stand out from the rest is how elaborate it was and how many hands it took to pull off this Manhattan murder.
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Perhaps it's the premise of knowing how the murder goes down from the start of the episode, but every single character seemed so suspicious from the jump.
It takes a certain kind of insufferable neighbor to make a whole apartment building of residents agree to help off one woman, but she wasn't exactly innocent, as viewers found out in the end.
Worst Muder Scheme - Elizabeth Lail as Quinn Powers
What in the world was Quinn Powers thinking with this all-over-the-place plot that involved so much groundwork to be laid? What is in this chick's kombucha?
In Elsbeth Season 1 Episode 8, audiences were Quinn, played by Elizabeth Lail, known for her roles in YOU and Once Upon a Time.
In the series, she portrays a tech CEO who goes to great lengths to stop a journalist from running a story that could ruin her business.
The biggest issue with Quinn's plot is that it required too many angles and details to fully sell the story that a dog-napper just happened to be prowling the journalist's neighborhood for purebreds.
How does she do this? She posted fake missing dog fliers all over said neighborhood and then had her employees run the news on her location-based crime alert app. She basically breadcrumbed the police.
Campiest Murder Scheme - Gina Gershon as Dr. Vanessa Holmes
This episode came so close to being the best of the season, but I had to give it to my girl, Retta. She killed it in that episode.
However, Elsbeth Season 1 Episode 6 boasts one of the most unheard-of means of murder without asking viewers to suspend too much of reality to understand it.
Gina Gershon plays Dr. Vanessa Holmes, a plastic surgeon who kills her former protege by way of off-brand Botox. Granted, it was the stabbing that did the trick, but the victim still got a body full of botulinum.
Elsbeth Season 1 Episode 6 Review: An Ear for an Ear
This was one of the few murder plots that could've succeeded, as the doctor's plan for covering her tracks was simple and well-strategized.
Vanessa dropped the scalpel by not keeping her mouthy wife away from Elsbeth and the police, as the spouse connected all the dots and filled in the blanks for the NYPD.
Most Improved - Detective Donnelly
Every episode of Elsbeth saw a rotation of detectives for the Chicago attorney to shadow, with a few investigators making repeat appearances.
In Elsbeth Season 1 Episode 3, we meet Detective Donnelly, a no-nonsense member of the NYPD who has seen too much and has left her with a trademark amount of NYC sarcasm.
Each detective on the series had a rough start with Elsbeth, but a few of them managed to come around in the end, and Detective Donnelly had by far the most significant turnaround.
By Elsbeth Season 1 Episode 7, Donnelly no longer seemed bothered by Elsbeth and even conversed casually with the attorney in between moments of bitter and cynical remarks.
And we can't forget that warm but brief moment shared between Donnelly and Elsbeth when the detective told the titular character that she would miss her. Rough on the outside but gooey and sweet on the inside.
Most "Room for Improvement" - Captain Charles Wallace Wagner
Don't get me wrong. Captain Wagner was a fantastic boss who was good at his job and upheld ideas of truth and justice in high regard.
But in the end, the captain was right when he blamed himself for not realizing the corruption scheme that was happening right under his nose.
He said himself that he thought he knew Lieutenant Noonan and that the man was even at Wagner's wedding.
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Yet he couldn't see that his friend, who he'd known for God knows how many years, was deeply corrupt and dragging the captain down with him.
After Noonan was behind bars, Captain Wagner felt hurt and tried to fire Elsbeth, even though he would never have known about the corruption without her.
Thankfully, in Elsbeth Season 1 Episode 10, the good captain came to his senses in the end by giving Elsbeth a permanent position in his precinct.
But it would be great if Charles could be a little more consistent with his reactions and more aware of what's happening around him.
Which episode from the first season was your favorite? Which episodic guest was your favorite?
Drop a comment below to let us know, and join us again when we share everything we know about the next season.