Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Elsbeth Season 3, Episode 13.After a rare misstep last week, Elsbeth is back to form with “Murder Six Across,” with Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) looking to solve the puzzling murder of a crossword editor at the annual crossword championship. While she’s there, she comes across guest star Steve Buscemi, playing the elite puzzle solver who took the editor down. But the question is, can she see through the enigma that is her beau, mayoral candidate Alec Bloom (Ivan Hernandez), or will she remain clueless?
Steve Buscemi Edits Out the Editor in ‘Elsbeth’s “Murder Six Across”
“Murder Six Across” opens on the National Crossword Tournament mixer, where a small group of elite solvers talk about the state of the puzzles in the daily paper. Simon (Buscemi), a piano tuner by trade, decries the work of crossword editor Morris Long (Richard Robichaux) who, in an effort to keep the puzzle relevant, has taken to adding contemporary slang into the puzzles, words like “cheugy” (outdated or uncool). Talk swiftly turns to Simon’s immaculate grooming, with the others teasing him about his crush, fellow solver Elaine (Allison Guinn), who will be arriving at the tournament as a recently divorced woman. But when she arrives, Simon gets tongue-tied and starts stammering.
Buscemi will appear as a master cruciverbalist in this week’s episode, “Murder Six Across.”
Luckily, the tournament is about to begin, sparing Simon from further embarrassment. Morris, who founded the tournament, welcomes the competitors before starting the timer for the first round. Those that solve the increasingly difficult crosswords with the best times advance to the semifinals, he explains to the public radio commentator covering the event (“please consider donating”… hilarious), eventually whittling the field down to the top three who will vie for the championship. Simon finishes first, followed by the other elite solvers. Afterward, they talk about the puzzles, with Simon harping on the TikTok dance clue as being particularly insulting. “Someone,” he says, “should really talk to Morris.” Elaine suggests that she could, sometime over the dinner Morris invited her to.
The revelation stuns Simon, who claims it’s an abuse of power on Morris’ part (secretly upset that Morris beat him to the punch), but Elaine doesn’t mind, seeing it as an opportunity to get to know Morris better. Simon marches to Morris’ room to confront him, reminding him about the rules that state judges can’t date competitors. Morris reminds Simon that he wrote the rules, and while sharing meals isn’t one, badgering judges is, and penalizes Simon with 15 seconds added to his time. That opens the floodgates, with Simon calling Morris out on his lazy clues and subpar pop culture references, “bending to the will of a generation that gets their news from an emoji.” That’s the final straw for Morris, who disqualifies Simon permanently. But as he’s about to call for security, Simon puts a swag bag over his head, choking him to death. He takes Morris’ phone, texts the other judge that he’s fallen ill, and walks out the door, the Do Not Disturb tag on display.
Elsbeth Reluctantly Reenters the World of Crosswords in ‘Elsbeth’s “Murder Six Across”
But Simon has a tournament to win, so he continues competing while putting ice on Morris’ body in the bathtub. With his place in the finals complete, he stuffs Morris’ body in his big trunk – the one he carries past puzzles in for studying – rents a cabin near Stillford with Morris’ phone, and takes Morris’ car there, where he dumps the body in the forest, taking a train back to the city, deed done. The body is found three days later, and Elsbeth, Wagner (Wendell Pierce), and Detective Edwards (Micaela Diamond) meet with the Stillford deputy at the precinct. Curiously, Morris never checked out of the motel, but did check into the cabin, despite having his own cabin nearby.
Wagner puts Elsbeth on the case, which she reluctantly accepts, having sworn off crosswords and their little empty boxes that need to be filled. They’re off to interview the people who knew him best, those elite solvers, one of whom discloses Simon’s crush on Elaine, and his righteous anger at Morris for asking her on a date. Elsbeth and Edwards meet Simon in the hotel bar, where he claims to have really liked Morris, had no issue that he had asked Elaine out, and how personally he loved pop culture, and was pleased they were now in the puzzles. He pays his bill with exact change, a compulsion of his to always have on hand, and ends the conversation. Only Trudy, another solver, laughs that off, saying not only did Simon not like pop culture, he liked it the least out of the group, and raised such a stink over the inclusion of a Survivor clue that the paper issued an apology, vowing never to reference the reality TV genre in the crossword again.
But is it a cut above the rest?
Without Morris around, Simon and Elaine have grown closer, but it’s Elsbeth who spots her off to the side, alone and visibly upset, and goes to comfort her. Simon spots the two together and comes over – it’s a great moment we’ll get to – but if he was hoping it would drive Elaine into his arms, he’s mistaken. Still, Elsbeth notes it’s a love triangle nonetheless, and the swag bags at the tournament could match the fibers found during Morris’ autopsy. As she digs deeper into the last ten years of puzzles, she notices that the earlier ones are far more intellectually challenging than the recent ones, with their youthful slang and pop culture… except today’s puzzle, which has turned to its old, challenging ways.
According to Morris’ coworker, he would have emailed the weekend’s puzzles on Monday morning, problematic given he was dead, meaning someone had accessed his email accounts, and texting as Morris. Security footage catches Simon in the elevator with his trunk, but that doesn’t prove anything. So Elsbeth heads to Stillford on the off chance she can find the trunk. She doesn’t, but she finds something better: the answer to the puzzle in a train platform newspaper box.
Elsbeth Solves Simon’s Puzzle in ‘Elsbeth’s “Murder Six Across”
It’s the championship round, and Simon is on stage, ready to compete, when Elsbeth, Edwards and a host of police officers call him outside. Elsbeth calls him out for having an argument with Morris around Elaine, one that got so heated that the clasp they found from Simon’s lanyard broke off, and the swag bag, with matching fibers, was used to suffocate Morris. He kept Morris’ body on ice while continuing the tournament, and his alibi for taking the trunk home in a taxi was ruled out earlier. But the final nail in the coffin was Simon’s own compulsions. He couldn’t resist buying the Met Tribune at the train station to do the crossword puzzle, and, because of his penchant for exact change, his fingerprints were on the quarters in the box. As he’s escorted away, Simon tells Elaine that he did it because he’s in love with her.
“Murder Six Across” is another hit for Elsbeth‘s third season, and guest star Buscemi is a huge part of it. It’s the perfect match of character with actor, especially in the scene referenced earlier where Simon goes to comfort Elaine. As he walks over, he says, “Come on, Elaine, cheer up — we all have to go sometime.” It’s hard to imagine anyone else besides Buscemi even saying it in that awkward, insincere manner he does so well. The crossword puzzle competition angle is fun, and seeing Elsbeth jumping right back into crosswords, having missed out on the Eiffel Tower because of finishing crosswords in her hotel room in France, is humorous and, for those of us who understand the need to “fill in those boxes,” accurate.
Which brings us to our friend Alec. Earlier in the episode, Elsbeth and Wagner watch an attack ad on TV branding Alec a liar, an ad sponsored by Winnie Crawford’s group. Elsbeth doesn’t believe he is and tells him so, but then comes dinner at the end. Teddy (Ben Levi Ross), his boyfriend, Elsbeth, and Alec are enjoying dinner at Elsbeth’s, laughing and joking, when the subject turns to movies, specifically E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial. Alec claims that the ending always makes him cry, which are the exact same words she said to him earlier about the movie, where he claimed never to have seen it. And when Teddy pulls her aside to let her know he’ll play nice, she stops him and says, “I think Alec is a liar.” See you in two weeks, friends.
- Release Date
-
February 29, 2024
- Directors
-
Nancy Hower, Robert King, Lionel Coleman, Rob Hardy, Robin Givens, Ron Underwood, Rosemary Rodriguez, Aisha Tyler, Bille Woodruff, James Whitmore Jr., Joe Menendez, Kevin Rodney Sullivan, Lily Mariye, Nick Gomez, Peter Sollett, Sam Hoffman, Tyne Rafaeli, Darren Grant, Fong-Yee Yap, Mary Lou Belli
- Another strong antagonist with Steve Buscemi, further proof that great actors make great villains.
- After last week’s disappointing resolution, the newspaper box clue is far more plausible.
- Longer than expected, but glad that Elsbeth finally dropped the blinders at the end.
- Elsbeth partnering with Edwards is good, not great.
