Elsbeth's Biggest Mystery Is Hindered By A Short First Season

One of the biggest casualties in the world of shortened-season television is that mysteries run the risk of not having an exciting climax anymore, as there is not enough time to truly give a solid build-up. Elsbeth, unfortunately, has fallen into that trap.

At the beginning of the series, Elsbeth is meant to be spying on Captain Wagner to discover if he is corrupt. However, in the span of nine episodes, Elsbeth is barely shown to actually investiage anything. This remains a subplot in most episodes that is only given a few episodes of spare time while the majority of the storyline is taken up by the murder mystery of the week.

By the time this investigation comes to a head, Elsbeth's secret reason for being present had already been revealed to Kaya and Captain Wagner, the only two other series leads. But, instead of drawing it out, the final confrontation between Captain Wagner and Officer Noonan occurs without any real sense of build-up and gets handled just as quickly within the same interaction.

There was no plot twist or real sense of intrigue surrounding this confrontation, as Officer Noonan was a supporting character who was never really a solid presence in the show to begin with. His character is never expanded on or developed, and he comes off as a dull one-note villain without a strong motivation.

The lack of screen time devoted to actually solving this mystery certainly hurt it, but so did hot little time there actually was to unraveling the truth behind what was really happening and who was involved.

While Elsbeth's season finale may have a surprise or two up its sleeve, the anti-climactic revelation and direction of the show's main mystery is a result of now having enough episodes to add substance to one of the show's most important storylines. That is unfortunate, as Elsbeth had the potential to draw the story out and really lean into the growing teamwork between Elsbeth, Kaya, and Wagner as they worked toward trying to prove Wagner is innocent together.