Stephen Colbert Joins for a Late-Night Murder Mystery — Plus, Grade It!

Man, CBS can’t stop killing Stephen Colbert, can they?

Elsbeth’s Season 3 premiere centers on the death of a fictional late-night host, played by the real-life host of the soon-to-end Late Night. And comedy fans get a three-fer: In addition to Colbert, Amy Sedaris (Strangers With Candy, The Mandalorian) plays the host’s headwriter/executive producer, and former Conan O’Brien sidekick Andy Richter plays his put-upon emcee.

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Does Elsbeth figure it all out in delightful fashion, per usual? Read on for the highlights of “Yes, And…”.

CUTTHROAT COMEDY | Fresh off a trip to Scotland, where she was visiting Angus (“my boyfriend — actually, I’m not sure I should call him that,” she says), Elsbeth attends a taping of Way Late With Scotty Bristol. She’s there in support of her friend, Sheryl, an author who’s a guest on that evening’s show. The host, Scotty, is an acerbic jerk who saves his meanest digs for Richter’s Mickey. In the audience, Elsbeth winces at the harsh jokes directed Mickey’s way, and it’s clear that headwriter Laurel — who is Mickey’s wife — feels the same.

After the taping, Mickey asks Scotty for time off to deal with his worsening health problems, which are only exacerbated by the high-stress work environment; Scotty says no. So Laurel sends her husband home, slips into Scotty’s office and starts reminiscing about the time the three of them were improv comedians in Seattle. From their conversation, we learn that she long ago chose Mickey over Scotty, but she’s flirting in a manner that makes Scotty think that she wants to cheat on her husband… and Scotty is into it.

But what Laurel really wants is to lure Scotty over to his industrial-sized paper shredder — which he calls “Mickey II” — so she can feed his necktie into it, strangling him to death. When Mickey comes back to have it out with Scotty, he finds his boss dead; Laurel is in the edit room, and no one knows she was ever gone.

ELSBETH TASCIONI, INC. | We get a brief update on Kaya (she’s working undercover) and Teddy (he got an investigative journalism job at the New York View) before Capt. Wagner calls a very jet-lagged Elsbeth in on the Scotty case. She’s paired with an officer named Grace Hackett (played by All Rise’s Lindsay Mendez), who is a standup comedian in her spare time.

Det. Smullen thinks Scotty’s death was just an accident. But Elsbeth takes a cursory glance around his office and sneaks in a fun Merrily We Roll Along inside joke (Mendez starred in the Stephen Sondheim musical’s recent Broadway revival) before declaring that the death was intentional. While questioning a prickly Laurel, Elsbeth asks for an improv lesson: She thinks it’ll help her “think on my feet” in her line of work. Laurel indulges her, noting that a tenet of the craft is to answer “Yes, and…” whenever another actor puts forth an idea. “You never deny what the other person says, because it kills the scene,” she adds.

MICKEY FIGURES IT OUT | Eventually, Mickey gets to the point where he asks whether Laurel was actually in the edit bay, and not the boss’ office, when Scotty died. “Don’t do this, Mickey,” she says, which is confession enough for him. The shock is so bad, and his cardiovascular system so compromised, that he has a massive heart attack and dies on the spot. When the police and EMTs arrive, Laurel announces that her husband confessed to Scotty’s murder and then keeled over from the immense guilt.

After the coroner’s report confirms the cardiac event, everyone except Elsbeth accepts Laurel’s story as fact. But wouldn’t he have felt better, not worse, after unburdening himself? she wonders. And given spousal privilege, Laurel didn’t have to tell the police about her husband’s confession. Laurel quickly says that Mickey suspected her of having an affair with Scotty, and she couldn’t convince him it wasn’t true — and Elsbeth notes that, much like in an improv class, Laurel found a new detail that forwarded the story exactly when she needed it.

Eventually, with the help of a network page, Elsbeth realizes that Mickey II was empty when Scotty died. And to make it look like an accident, Laurel had to run to her office and grab some paper from her shredder, then put it in Scotty’s — except the blades on the two machines are different, proving that she’d staged the scene. “We had a good thing going,” Laurel says sadly as Smullen and Hackett arrest her.

BARE BONES FOR A GOOD REASON | Back at the precinct, where the department has been going without basics because of budget cuts, Elsbeth is a hero when she provides Way Late office supplies for her co-workers. She wonders why Wagner agreed to such a severe reduction in the budget. “It was either those cuts, or get rid of you, and that is not something I would entertain,” he says fondly.

Now it’s your turn. Grade the premiere via the poll below, then hit the comments with your thoughts!

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