The Show Will Never Be the Same After This Shocking Turn

Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 18.

After a quiet couple of weeks, it looks like things are heating up! It’s not often that a TV show makes me gasp out loud while watching, and Elsbeth managed that twice this week with Season 2 Episode 18, “I Know What You Did Thirty-Three Summers Ago.” Elsbeth’s (Carrie Preston) road to bringing down Judge Milton Crawford (Michael Emerson) was never going to be an easy one, it’s true, but I’d be lying if I said I thought it was going to shake out the way it did in this episode. This is also the point where I confess that the direction I thought the finale was going is now completely out the window, so I guess it’s time to start speculating again!

We See Judge Crawford’s Past in ‘Elsbeth’ Season 2 Episode 18

The episode opens, as the title would suggest, 33 summers ago, specifically the summer of 1991, where three young people — Andy (Ian O’Boyle), Sherry (Ava DeMary) and another young man who isn’t named (Ethan Dubin), but whose identity is fairly easy to guess thanks to an uncannily Michael Emerson-like performance, sneak into the yacht club where Andy works after hours to use the pool. Milton hits on Sherry in a way that would make any toxic, negging man who spends too much time on the wrong side of the internet proud, but she isn’t picking up what he’s putting down, expressing far more interest in Andy instead. Andy prepares to join Sherry in the pool, but before he can, he’s stopped by Milton, who tells him that Sherry confessed earlier that she thought Andy was third-wheeling her night with Milton. Andy, sweet boy that he is, apologizes for not picking up on Sherry’s interest in Milton and agrees to leave them alone, at which point Milton joins her in the pool alone.

Sherry is obviously surprised to see that Andy is the one who left, but her night takes a turn for the horrific when Milton outright makes a move on her and doesn’t take no for an answer. He slaps her after she shoves him away, and calls her trash to boot — charming — but at least she gets in one really good punch to his nose, adding that her friend group all refer to him as “the lurker” for the way he follows them around all summer despite no longer being a teenager himself, before he holds her head underwater and drowns her. Elsbeth has never been the kind of show to shy away from the kinds of horrors that women face socially, or in the workplace, and I’m struggling to remember if the show ever broached the topic of sexual violence before in a case of the week, but this is definitely the most visceral it’s ever been. Andy is nearly out of the building before he thinks better of borrowing Milton’s car, and comes back to return the keys, finding Sherry dead in the pool, surrounded by blood. It’s not immediately clear how Milton plans on resolving this, but what is clear is the way he’s obviously implicating Andy in it too.

We then cut to present-day Judge Crawford, in a meeting with Victor Landis (Pun Bandhu), a lawyer there to question Crawford about his past, and any unpleasant things that may pop up as he prepares for the White House to nominate him to be a federal judge. Landis says that once this happens, people will pop up to discredit him, and asks him multiple times whether there’s anyone from his past who may try to do just that. With a quick flashback to the night he killed Andy Mertens (Quincy Dunn-Baker) — and yeah, I didn’t clue in until this revealed that they were the same Andy — he assures Landis that no one will be popping up.

Over at the precinct, Captain Kearshaw (Jen Colella) is in a meeting with Elsbeth, Captain Wagner (Wendell Pierce), Detective Kaya Blanke (Carra Patterson) and Detective Rivers (Braden De La Garza), telling them all that before she accuses Crawford of murder, she needs them to be sure that he’s guilty in the first place, given his status. Elsbeth promises that it is a sure thing, recapping her Donna Summer theory for Kearshaw. After Rivers confirms that he didn’t make note of what record was in Andy’s record player, Elsbeth reminds them all that Delia (Meredith Holzman) told them at her trial that she couldn’t hear Andy being attacked because the music was too loud, but she didn’t mention what kind of music it was, and neither did the defense nor the prosecution, and it wasn’t included in Rivers’ report. This should mean that the type of music playing would remain a mystery, but Elsbeth tells them all that Crawford came up to her after the trial and called Andy a “disco-loving pervert,” which he wouldn’t know unless he was there.

Wagner adds that Crawford has been a problem for them since Elsbeth started wondering why he was so desperate to put Delia away for murder, and with Kearshaw’s go-ahead, he tasks Blanke to reexamine the case with Crawford in mind as the killer, and orders Rivers to shadow her to learn something from her — also with Kearshaw’s blessing, and her order for him to shut up as he does, which I love. Blanke suggests they start with motive, as even Elsbeth’s theory doesn’t account for that, but while she may not have the answer, she does have a lead: Delia. Delia, it turns out, is there with a box of Andy’s things that she stole from him while they were together — questionable, but helpful at the present time. Elsbeth finds a picture of Andy while he worked at the Stockport Yacht Club, which Delia says he only did for one summer, while living one town away, and Elsbeth tells them that Crawford’s family were members there. Coincidence? Maybe. But it’s road trip time!

Elsbeth Goes on a Road Trip in Season 2 Episode 18

Back at Elsbeth’s place, Teddy (Ben Levi Ross) has come over to dogsit Gonzo while his mom goes to Stockport, and also so they can look over his LSAT results together. The results turn out better than he expected — 177, which is higher than musical Elle Woods, but lower than movie Elle Woods — and that is what makes up Teddy’s mind to go to law school after all, after being on the fence about following in his parents’ footsteps. With Teddy now researching schools, Elsbeth heads out to meet Wagner, with too much luggage in tow. Back in Crawford’s office, Landis continues to comb through the details, this time Crawford’s financials, and asks about his membership at the Stockport club. While the membership itself seems fairly legitimate, Landis points out that Crawford doesn’t list his home near the club as a second residence on his paperwork. Crawford assures him that everything other than that is above board; however, if he was hoping to avoid suspicion, the trouble is just beginning.

At the Yacht Club, Elsbeth and Wagner meet up with Jordy (Scott Drummond), who used to work with Andy back in the day, and went to school with him as well. He tells them that Andy’s plan had initially been to stay local and go to community college, until a last-minute scholarship came through and took him to a school in New York, after which he never returned. While they talk, Elsbeth finds proof that Crawford was a member of that same club, finding his name on an old rowing trophy. Jordy tells them that the Crawfords have been members for a long time, but he and Andy wouldn’t have crossed paths, as the staff and the members didn’t tend to socialize. Though that proves to be a dead end, things take an encouraging turn when Elsbeth finds an old picture of the swim team, and Jordy tells them that the club used to have a pool, but it was closed in the ’90s after Sherry’s death.

The revelation leads them to Sherry’s sister Laura’s (Zoe Mann) home, where she says that Sherry breaking into the pool by herself with a bottle of booze was pretty par for the course for Sherry. She adds that Sherry was in love with Andy and followed him around all summer, and says that she’s still angry that, after all that, Andy skipped her funeral. While she steps away, Elsbeth connects the dots for Wagner, saying that if Sherry and Andy were inseparable, but Sherry died and Andy left town shortly after, the circumstances of her death might be connected to Crawford, too. Laura returns with a box of Sherry’s personal effects, including the sealed evidence bags containing her belongings from the crime scene. Elsbeth and Wagner head out to speak to Detective Haines, the one who investigated Sherry’s death, at the site of the filled-in pool. Haines agrees there are some inconsistencies in the verdict, like the fact that the bottle was empty but her blood alcohol level was low, not to mention the astronomical price of the scotch she was supposedly drinking.

Elsbeth then adds that there was a spot of blood on the fanny pack Sherry had with her, but she allegedly fell so far away from the fanny pack that it’s not likely her blood got on it, and it must belong to someone else instead. While they didn’t have DNA testing in the early ’90s in rural police departments, they sure do now. As they leave the club, Wagner concedes that covering up a murder is a good incentive for Wagner to have killed Andy, but now they need to prove Crawford killed Sherry instead. Unfortunately, Landis overhears the entire conversation as he arrives to check out the club for himself as part of his process for Crawford’s confirmation. He calls Crawford to see why two people would be at the club asking questions about him, and Crawford clues in to exactly who is asking things right away.

Back at the precinct, Rivers says that despite scrubbing Andy’s email and call logs, there’s nothing that connects him to Crawford. Even the fact that Crawford’s car was near Andy’s place a couple of hours before Delia’s arrest isn’t enough to place him inside the apartment at the time of the murder. Elsbeth, meanwhile, is reading through Sherry’s diary, and notes a lot of mentions of Andy throughout, eventually culminating in an account of a bonfire party they all went to, where Andy arrives with his “new friend,” a “rich creep” known as “The Lurker.” She doesn’t name names — and I remember all too well being a teenage girl who refused to use people’s real names when talking about them, even out of earshot — but Elsbeth and Blanke see this teenage behavior for what it is.

Crawford Threatens Elsbeth in Season 2 Episode 18

With the dead end going nowhere, Elsbeth heads out for the night, and gets a call from Wagner en route to the subway. He tells her that the commissioner called him, now well aware of their investigation into Crawford, and berated him. Wagner adds that Internal Affairs is now investigating him, punishment pending. While Elsbeth tries to get him to shift the blame onto her, Wagner’s bigger concern is that the commissioner found out at all, and he suspects Crawford had something to do with it, he’s just not sure how. And speaking of Crawford, the man himself catches Elsbeth as she’s heading for the subway, and corners her to ask her about the road trip to the Yacht Club. Elsbeth challenges him, asking why he wouldn’t recuse himself from Andy’s murder trial since he knew the victim, and it was a conflict of interest, but Crawford feigns ignorance, pretending that he simply didn’t remember Andy. He does pause, however, when she throws Sherry in his face, along with a hint about the “lurker” nickname as well. He recovers quickly enough to issue a well-placed threat to Elsbeth’s safety, right before he gets a call from Agent Celetano, her boss at the DOJ, whom Crawford explains was just fired, putting Elsbeth’s job with the police at risk too.

The bad news continues as Elsbeth arrives home to find Teddy and Gonzo, and senses that something is wrong. Teddy tells her that his dad called him earlier and said that he’s being investigated by the Illinois State Bar for some sort of ethics violation, the details of which aren’t even clear to him, but the consequences for which include disbarment. At the precinct the next day, Elsbeth finds things in chaos, and Blanke pulls her aside to explain that the commissioner slashed their personnel by 25%, with one detective already relocated. Blanke tells her that she’s worried she’ll be one of the first sent away, since she was the last detective hired, but Elsbeth doesn’t have time for much beyond basic comforting, as Wagner calls her into his office. Elsbeth catches Wagner up on everything that’s happened since her conversation with Crawford, and while Wagner thinks this is a good sign, pointing at Crawford running scared, Elsbeth counters that this is just him trying to scare her into silence. And you know Elsbeth is actually rattled when she suggests to Wagner that maybe just this one time they ought to let Crawford get away with it, if only to spare the people she loves from getting hurt.

That evening, Crawford throws a fundraising event for the Historical Law Society, and there he bumps into both Wagner and his wife, Claudia (Gloria Reuben). They are ostensibly there on a goodwill visit to forge an alliance between their foundations, and Claudia offers to get Crawford a drink while he and Wagner talk. The two step to the side, and Wagner tells him that they’re closing the Mertens case again, and throwing in the towel, so to speak, in exchange for Crawford removing the pressure from the precinct, and from Elsbeth. Crawford agrees, but the truce was a ruse, as Wagner and Claudia leave the party with Crawford’s used scotch glass in tow for Elsbeth to take to the DNA lab.

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At the precinct the next day, Elsbeth catches Delia up on their progress, and Delia asks her to ensure that they catch Crawford for what he did, as the trial ruined her life. She may not have been found guilty, but she is still having trouble getting a job or finding a place to live, all because of what Crawford did to her. She literally has nothing left to lose, which should sound more ominous than it probably does in this moment. In Crawford’s office, he finds Landis there waiting for him. He tells Crawford that everything looks fine on his end, except for his lingering concerns about what Elsbeth and Wagner may find, which Crawford promises is nothing. With that assurance, Landis says he will tell the nomination committee to make the announcement about his pending appointment as federal judge.

Meanwhile, still at the precinct, Blanke gets off the phone with an admin from Andy’s alma mater, who explained that Andy’s scholarship was funded by the Historical Law Society, which Crawford’s father and uncle were members of — she also adds that Crawford was already in law school when the murder happened, which just makes him hitting on a high schooler that much ickier, albeit not unrealistic. She and Rivers speculate the scholarship was to buy Andy’s silence, but they don’t have proof of what kind of silence Crawford was trying to buy, until Elsbeth arrives and suggests that someone as paranoid as Andy wouldn’t keep up with Crawford on his own devices, but would likely use Delia’s instead. In this case, Elsbeth reveals that a search of Delia’s phone yielded contact information for the Senate Judiciary Committee, whom Andy was trying to contact to blow the whistle on Crawford. As the committee keeps records of their voicemail, Elsbeth plays them the message Andy left, which definitely sounds like he’s talking about Sherry’s murder, but which he never managed to follow up on as he was killed a week later. With motive all but determined, they just need a forensic link, and Blanke calls Cameron (Sullivan Jones) at the morgue to get an update on the blood sample.

While they wait for an answer, Teddy stops by the office with dinner for his mom, and she takes the opportunity to give him feedback on his law school application essay. Long story short, she feels it’s too generic to get him into law school and encourages him to be more himself. He suggests that he should write his essay on how his mother’s pivot from being a high-powered attorney to being the kind of person who seeks to put the powerful away is what inspired his own sudden change in direction, albeit sarcastically, but it turns out that that’s exactly the kind of personal statement Elsbeth thinks would serve him best — and his statement was so earnest, I’ll even forgive him applying for law school on a “my mom is my hero” essay. The happy moment doesn’t last though, as Blanke arrives to tell Elsbeth that the lab has no record of any evidence being submitted for testing at all: no fanny pack, no blood sample. Though Wagner and Blanke are still determined to catch him, on a technicality if they have to, like Al Capone being arrested on tax issues, it’s becoming increasingly clear that he’s outplaying them at every turn. Wagner and Blanke’s panic eats at Elsbeth until she storms out of the office, looking torn between rage and an anxiety attack.

Crawford Is Killed in ‘Elsbeth’ Season 2 Episode 18

She storms into the courthouse to confront Crawford following his nomination ceremony, telling him that despite what he thinks, he won’t get away with what he did. After some not-at-all veiled misogynistic comments about hysterical women, he confesses that he saw right through Wagner’s trick with the glass, which tipped him off about the DNA testing. She follows him to the door, promising to prove that he killed both Sherry and Andy, but Crawford is skeptical on both counts, insisting that she won’t. He all but confesses to everything, couching it in hypotheticals, telling her that all evidence of Sherry’s death is gone, and that the only person who could corroborate any of it is Andy, but he’s dead too, making this case a dead end. Outside on the steps, he goads her more, telling her that despite her belief in justice and righteousness, it’s the mighty that come out on top, adding that he is a mighty man.

Mighty he may be, but invincible he is not as Delia arrives and shoots him right in the chest, killing him. She told Elsbeth she had nothing left to lose, if only she’d taken that as the warning it was. Elsbeth is horrified and tells Delia that they would have caught him eventually, had they let justice play out, but Delia has no regrets. Given that he did attempt to sexually assault a minor at the start of the episode, and has done who knows what since, I can’t say that I’m sorry he met such a pathetic, violent end, but I am concerned about what this means for Elsbeth, legally speaking. She’s been seen threatening to catch Crawford, there’s evidence of her investigating him, and with no formal charges laid, there’s no reason for her to have been doing so. While I once thought the season finale would be Crawford using people Elsbeth has previously had arrested against her, I now wonder if they’ll be called on to help put Elsbeth away instead for her role in Crawford’s death.

At the precinct, Wagner is also upset at how it all shook out, calling it lawless behavior, while Blanke is mad that Crawford is being treated like a martyr, seemingly having them beat, even in death. Teddy comes to check on his mom and is shaken to the core enough that he tells Elsbeth he no longer wants to go to law school and play into a system that allows for behavior like Crawford’s to go unchecked. Wagner tells him that the approach in cases like this is to try and do the most to make the system just that much better. He turns to Elsbeth for backup, but this is finally the case that has pushed the eternal optimist too far, and she can’t bring herself to back up Wagner’s optimistic statement.

Elsbeth

Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 18 majorly ups the stakes with gasp-worthy moments that change the trajectory of the season.

Release Date

February 29, 2024

Network

CBS

Directors

Robert King, Ron Underwood

Writers

Michelle King, Robert King

Pros & Cons

• I was not expecting Judge Crawford to actually die! Before the finale!
• Blanke is back on the case and back with Elsbeth this week!
• We also get to see Elsbeth being unusually vulnerable, which is always a nice change.