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Elsbeth is back after a mini-break courtesy of March Madness, and this week she's crashing the 71st Annual Empire Debutante Ball — where old money, high expectations, and a suspicious death collide. The episode opens with the meticulous and immediately unsettling Lizzie Langford nitpicking every wrinkle in the tablecloths, and things only get stranger from there. Jason and Marissa break down the case, celebrate a listener shoutout to Erica M. for the inside scoop on Detective Edwards and the show's deep love of Broadway talent, and dig into what Alec's mysterious press conference cliffhanger could mean for the final five episodes of the season. Plus — is Winnie Crawford about to become the next mayor of New York? Marissa has thoughts, and she has been seeing it in her mind's eye. Five episodes left, and the stakes just got a whole lot higher.
TIMESTAMPS
00:04 – Welcome back from the March Madness break and checking in on the season countdown
08:04 – Listener shoutout: Erica M. on Detective Edwards, Michaela Diamond, and the Broadway connection
12:44 – Into the case: debutante balls, cotillions, and the 71st Annual Empire Debutante Ball
19:34 – Breaking down Lizzie Langford and the episode's central murder
38:04 – Marissa Gold's character arc — what made her so cynical and political?
45:04 – Alec's press conference cliffhanger and Winnie Crawford season finale theories
Enjoyed the episode? Hit subscribe so you never miss a recap! If you love what we're doing, leave us a rating and review — it really helps the show grow. Want to support The Good Pod directly? Buy us a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/goodpod — every cup keeps the recaps coming. Thanks for listening!
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What is The Good Pod?
Calling all fans of courtroom intrigue and complex characters! Join us each week as we dive deep into the gripping world of "The Good Wife," "The Good Fight", "Elsbeth," and the entire legal drama universe created by Robert and Michelle King. Jason Reed and Marissa Garza, break down each episode, unpack intricate plot lines, and analyze the moral dilemmas faced by Alicia Florrick, Diane Lockheart, Elsbeth Tascioni, and their colleagues. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to these addictive shows, you'll gain fresh insights and catch details you might have missed.
welcome to the good pod where today we're talking elsbeth season three episode fourteen dead you taunt i am one of your hosts jason reed with me as always presenting marissa of the chicago buzzers teacher podcaster lover of pens marissa you good Jason, are you good? Are you good? Are you sure? Are you good? Are you okay? Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. We back, baby. Elsbeth is back. This is the second little mini break we've had to take. The first one was a big break. This one was a little more of a mini break. But we're back with the Elsbeth of it all. I do wonder if we're going to be uninterrupted for the rest of the season. We have what? I think it's season eight and Five more episodes after this. So hopefully we can get through those uninterrupted without any sports breaks. Because, I mean, if you recall, the first break was from the Olympics. Now this mini break was for the March Madness. I was like, hopefully no other sports will come and derail us until the season finale. Yeah, there's another episode that bells us in the books. Before we get into the nitty gritty of the case, I want to remind you of some free and easy ways that you can support this podcast. You can do that by rating, reviewing, subscribing, wherever it is. You are listening and are watching. That really helps us get the eyes and ears of more people that will be interested in the content like this of Elspeth, even of The Good Wife. To all of our coverage, we do cover The Good Wife over on the sister side of this podcast every week. So we're actually in season five of seven of that show. Then we'll move on to The Good Fights. We still got a ways to go. So rating, reviewing, and subscribing really helps us get more eyes and ears. If you want to just talk to us about the show, give us your comments, give us your feedback. You can always do that at thegoodpodfeedback at gmail.com. Listen, shout out to Erica M. Yeah. Who emailed us a while ago. I was like, hey, I know you guys were talking about, you know, Detective Edwards. Where has she been? She's back. She's here. Erica reminded us, hey, the actress that plays Detective Edwards, Michaela Diamond. She's been busy. She's been on Broadway. She is a Tony nominee for Best Actress in a Musical and a Tony winner as a Best Musical Producer. She's been developing a new show on Broadway, so she hasn't been around for a while. uh so yeah and she also she also reminded us that uh detective spongebob is also a uh no not spongebob teddy is also a vaunted broadway performer um this all tracks given the kings the kings the kings love a few things the kings love repurposing actors almost every actor you ever see on this show is a reuse from the good wife it's like every time i look up someone anyone like that that is a a player on these episodes they all have one episode credits from the good wife so like always being reused um and then the kings also love themselves some broadway performers that's that's a couple things you can really count on the kings for every show every week is using some of those uh some of those things You know, if you also want to help us out, you can do that monetarily by going to buymeacoffee.com slash goodpod and donating any sum of money you wish. This is a small business fledgling podcast. So donations really help us in the running of this thing. So that would be greatly appreciated. yeah and i'll just throw like a little vulnerability moment here like i have been laid off since august of and if you have noticed maybe some of the editing quality has not been so great in a couple of episodes um that is mainly due to the fact that i don't have access to the resources that i had before when i had you know a job um so if you would like to donate to the pots to help us get back on track where we can edit things and be in a way that is more comforting to your ears and maybe allow us to do better things um buying us a coffee or two would be very helpful to to help get get us back on track right now it's a very manual process and i'm having to like relearn a lot of things which i don't mind doing it's just just just so you know if you're like why hasn't marissa posted this podcast well it's just taken me a little bit longer than it used to so that's a little peek behind the curtain in terms of what we're looking for support for um when it comes to this podcast and marissa does all the technical producing because jason don't know nothing about computers if you had a peek into our pre-show process you would know jason knows nothing about computers They just have to, it is plugged in, right? Like your computer is plugged in. Right now it's plugged in. I try to like, listen, cause here's my process, right? I'm in my basement when I podcast, like this is where my podcast studio slash dungeon is. So every time I take notes, I take notes in the living room. Cause that's where the good night, nice big TV is. So I take my notes in the living room with my computer, not plugged in to the power source. Cause you know, I can do that. But the problem is I bring it back downstairs to the podcast and And sometimes I forget to replug it back in. And let me just say, some of the editing prowess of Marissa, you would never know that sometimes in the middle of our episodes, my computer just dies and we've got to figure that out. So yeah, Jason is not good with computer stuff. That's why Marissa does all the technical producing on this show. jason has his own he has own value we're definitely much a team it's just that i have this set of skills in which i can i can help with the pod set of skills exactly exactly um okay so with all that out of the way let's get into the case uh this this time around um this time delving into the world of debutante balls do we think we're maybe running out do we think we're running out of industries to like really get into because like debutante balls now okay Yeah, I mean, I know they were a very big thing in The Summer I Turned Pretty, if you watch those things. But I don't really know, like, how big debutante balls are. Do you have any exposure to this world, Jason? Do you have any, like... No. I mean, I've heard of the concept of a debutante ball. They used to be plot devices in sitcoms in, like, the nineties. Like, there would be some shows that had debutante balls. I'm sure the Gilmore Girls, which you're obsessed with, had some type of debutante ball set up. So that's really my breadth of knowledge of debutante balls. I've also heard of, it's also mentioned in this episode, cotillions is a thing I've heard of. Yes. Yes, it's definitely like the patriarchal practice of letting people know that a woman or a child is ready to become a woman in this world. It's not great. In Mexican culture, it's known as quinceanera when you turn fifteen. that's the time get out there get yourself a husband get on the market uh and as a half mexican woman myself i was offered a quinceanera and i said no thank you yeah it's it's a little bit like the debutante ball is a little bit of a creepy practice because it's just like hey here's my daughter guys come come get her like oh that's weird and odd um I think they've tried to tamp down on that and probably encourage debutante culture. I hope, I guess. I hope. There are other things tied into quinceanera celebrations and everything like that, but it's still very much at least in certain pockets of the world a thing that happens. But not like this. This debutante ball is fancy schmancy. We've got tablecloths with wrinkles in them. Things that are not, you know, something that would show up at the seventy first seventy first annual Empire debutant ball. At the beginning of this episode, we are introduced to Lizzie Langford, who is nitpicking the situation, saying it not to her liking. And it took me a while, Jason, to really kind of place who Izzy was being played by. i'm glad you could because i was like i don't know who the heck this person is again going back going back to my fallback statement of like i think we might be running out of guest stars but apparently this person is uh is someone notable according to you because you watch this show that she is probably most famous for uh very big in white culture oh snap um that's true uh j uh j smith cameron is who plays izzy and she is from the tv show succession which i have no i know i know i'm told a thousand times i should be should have watched succession i should be catching up on succession i should re-watch the series and i know it's listen it's on the list but the list is huge okay i had a whole month off work and succession still didn't come close to getting watched um so the list is huge y'all um so yeah jason with the camera from succession is is who uh plays izzy who's a very like um because we met we met this type of murderer a lot of times before very type a nitpicky uh karen-y type of character that we have here and also has some sort of personal vendetta against who whomever the victim is and in this case uh the victim ends up being sterling brown not sterling k brown or barlow Sterling Barlow, who comes up and basically tells Izzy, look, my daughter needs to be in this debutante ball next year. And Izzy is, like, the person to kind of put this whole thing together. And she's like, this is the best in the world. I don't know if your daughter really belongs here. And I also don't know if you have enough money to kind of make this happen. happen yeah yeah you know you know we love the kings and they're like jump cut transitions she's like and in my world money can't buy everything douche one year and two million dollar donation later like oh i guess it can i guess it can i guess money does buy stuff in your world there izzy Yeah. So you're after that first conversation with Sterling. We are now at the seventy second annual Empire City debutante ball. They could come up with a better name for this. Like it's a little hard to say. The AECDs. I don't know if we need to put the annual. We could just call it the Empire City debutante ball. Like I think the annual is really kind of tripping me up. But here we do see that Plum Barlow is in attendance, which means Sterling, you know, did his time. He paid his money. He's very happy that Plum, first of all, named her daughter Plum, but is not too happy with who Plum is being escorted by because this is the whole other part of the politics is who is going to escort whom. in this debutante ball and plum is paired with brando who has a sword but doesn't really know how to use it yes because you need a sword in twenty twenty six i thought i was gonna come into play how clumsy he was with the sword because he's like fumbling the sword at the beginning it's like because you know as you'll say as you'll tell us later like the the sword is used in the murder so like how could this guy use the sword like this because he's pretty he's pretty clumsy with it Yeah, and Brando, like, at first, Izzy's like, well, you know, Brando's, like, you know, in with the in crowd. His dad's the movie star. Like, this is good for Plum. Like, this is a good placement for her. And Izzy decides, I'm going to offer to take a picture of Plum and Plum's mom using mom's phone. And we see some, like... enter of a phone number, something, something, and then a delete thing. I talking about being tech savvy and I know I am still a green bubble and will always be a green bubble. So like iOS doesn't necessarily, isn't my native language. Um, but I, I could not tell what she was doing really at this point, other than she was texting someone and she didn't want that person to know, but she was taking forever. She was like, I need to find the best filter, text, text, text. She's like, hey, look at her hair while I do stuff on your phone. It seems as though if she was coming to this moment with that plan, she's been thinking about this for a year in terms of how everything was going to come together. The text was sent from Plum's mom's phone to Brando saying, hey, meet me downstairs later or meet me in the basement. Something like that. Some sort of rendezvous she was trying to set up. i felt like this you know with the phone stuff was the first one of the first major blunders of izzy's plan agreed because why in the world would you do this from from someone's phone that's like you know associated with the victim doesn't make sense to me yeah and i don't know like Especially if you're not going to sign it as Gwen, right? Brando didn't know it was from Gwen's phone. It was still a random number. And also, Brando, do not go places where you don't know a person and then take off all your clothes. Brando, come on now. It's called stranger danger, Brando. We don't go meeting with strangers. But yeah, why would you text that from Gwen's... I would understand if Brando... If she signed it Gwen, right? Like... That would be also weird, but it didn't make sense to me why she did it from someone else's point of view. What? It was just hot mom. Yeah, I was like, okay, weird. Why would you grab someone else's phone that's just not associated with this at all? But it was weird to me. yeah and also like um you know it doesn't take that long to find a filter on a photo and also these people are rich so they probably could have retouched a photo you know what i mean like it's not like the whole excuse of trying to find a filter was a little fumbly for me as well we're going to we're going to fi we're going to look into brando's communications so we're going to find right who sent this text it's like why would you lead them right to gwen to give to actually to talk more with gwen and find out more information from gwen that was that was a big wonder number one and also like the only other thing like she wrote the text from gwen's phone and then deleted it right away so like when you go talk to Gwen like Gwen doesn't really have anything that would really implicate her even you know what I mean like even if like if she had left the text there or had some other like a response from Brando or something that would have maybe solidified it a little bit more for Gwen but and yeah it would have made more sense to say Gwen and Brando were having an affair. So Brando wanted to, Sterling confronted Brando for having an affair with Gwen and they struggled and Brando cut him with a sword. Or get Brando's phone and have Brando text Gwen instead of Gwen text Brando. I would understand if you wanted to implicate people in this murder to make the story more believable. You could say, yeah, Brando and Gwen were banging, so Sterling confronted Brando, and Brando ended up killing them in self-defense. That would be a more believable story than Sterling didn't like Brando because he came from a new money. Okay, not believable. And that would make sense why you were using Gwen's phone to send the communication, right? You pick up what I'm putting down. Yeah, yeah. At this point, Izzy gets a hold of some gloves that will come into play later and talks to Sterling. And he's like, hey, your first wife is here. At first she says, your wife is here. And Sterling is like, my first wife? Yeah. First or Gwen, his current wife. No, your first wife. And this is kind of like something that gets Sterling's like, uh, alarm bells going off. He's like, oh, this is bad. Like, this is, this is not good. Yeah. And that, that also made no sense. Cause it's like, why would Sterling's first wife be here? I don't know. That confused me. Even Sterling was like, what? Why? Izzy tells him she wants you to meet her in this and such room. He's like, okay, well, tell my wife. Actually, don't tell my wife. Was he planning on going and having an encounter with his first wife? I was like, okay. It's such an implausible thing to make up. Sterling bought it, but it's like, okay, that's weird. Yeah, because the mission here was to get Sterling to go into this room. So it was like, hey, your first wife is over in this room over here, and that was enough, I guess. To go back to the glove of it all, um, I was like, what's happening? Izzy has the gloves from one of the other debutantes. Big white gloves. She puts some lipstick on the gloves. She's like, oh my gosh, your glove is so dirty. Let me wash it for you. And then I'll give you a new pair of gloves. It's only your gloves from your Aunt Jackie. Let me go clean them up and give you new gloves. It's like, okay, cool. That will definitely come into play later. But it's just like... okay you got these gloves for what reason we find out what reason but also the reason doesn't make sense as well um so yeah it's izzy izzy has had a whole year to plan this you can tell she planned this down to a t like when it was first going down i was like oh wow this is actually a pretty decent uh plan that our murderer has but as i like looked at as i like thought more about it i was like none of this makes any sense it's a bad plan it was really kind of clumsy it really just it it wasn't well thought out it was successful but it just has its moments uh at this point brando is in the room waiting for hot mom to come down and um he takes a selfie and tries to send it to hot mom but it doesn't get delivered So Izzy is doing her best to replace the gloves that she took from the debutante that you mentioned, Jason. And at this moment, she then has the sword, Brando's sword, and confronts Sterling with the glove and the sword. I guess the thinking here is to frame the debutante because it's her gloves. Well, I don't even think that was the case. I think... i think she took these gloves for no reason she literally could have gotten like some latex gloves from anywhere having her pocket something else anything else like anything else i don't know why she had to steal a debutante's gloves to get this done she could have done this in a thousand other ways i'm not sure why the gloves were really necessary here And of all of the, like, if you have a year to plan this, is a sword being the murder weapon the easiest thing to, like, really put together here? Because she's standing there with the glove, with the sword in her hand, and she confronts Sterling and says, you destroyed my debut way back when. You humiliated me. Now, like, you're forcing my hand here. Like, I have to do this. And Sterling then recognizes Izzy as... who he calls half off and this is enough for her to just like take the sword and like literally just like perfectly aim at his heart and stab him and then she burns the gloves and replaces the sword so i don't know i don't i just i don't know i mean maybe she took a lot of classes with fencing classes or something but a sword is not exactly like the easiest murder weapon to manipulate i mean we've seen like a million other weapons covering the show so it's like you could have done a lot of other things um but hey i guess the sword is quick and quick and efficient so she decided to go that way how she perfectly targeted the heart i don't know um but uh like like right there like right there like and the man was like dead on impact like there was no anything like that so i don't know maybe she did take classes or at least studied a lot in the last year At this point, Plum notices that Brando and her father have gone missing right before the presentations, which is part of the whole gig. Brando does come back, though, and then Plum does win debutante of the year, and she has to use a sword to stab a cake. Because we must have swords. I don't know why the sword was needed to stab the cake. I don't know what tradition that signifies. Okay, cool. And right as she's doing those plums, Mom Gwen finds that Sterling is dead and announces it to the ball. And there's red on the sword, which gets... I think it was Izzy to say, that's not red velvet cake or something. Yeah, Izzy who has been practicing this line for a year now is just like, that's not red velvet on that sword. It's like, okay, Izzy, a little too overdramatic. She was waiting for this moment to be the one to discover the blood on the sword to perfectly frame Brando in this moment. So that was like the murder part. And as we've talked about, at least the season, that section of the television episode is a little bit longer than usual. So that took us about a third of the way in. Then we get to the Ellsworth portion where Ellsworth Tassioni solves murders in thirty minutes or less. Pretty much. But she has hope. She has hope. Yeah. Well, I definitely noticed the time when Ellsworth comes into the proceedings. It's like, oh, it's like thirty minutes of the episode, like, you know, with no commercials, of course. It was like, you know, Ellsworth Dacioti, some solid cries in thirty minutes. I love that. Or your money back. Or your money back. Or the murderer's free. Or the murderer is free. Which will never happen. So we're teamed up here with Detective Basketball. So good to see Mina Taylor is back on the screen. And I don't know. Elizabeth walks into this and she is very confused. And I would be too. Because this is such an... I don't want to say outdated. I don't want to really like if anyone in this world, if anyone listening has like experience with debut taunting, I'd love to hear from you. But all of these women are dressed up like all of these girls are dressed in white and they're like walking around with men in tuxedos. So I was thinking this is like a mass wedding of some sort. I thought this was like a lot of child bride weddings. I don't know what was going on. Yeah. I mean, you know, zeitgeist around girls and men, like it's just a little weird, just a little weird. At this point, Izzy comes up and introduces herself and tells them about what happened. Yeah. You know, the discovery, the cake cutting, like, and there was blood on the sword and everyone else thought it was red velvet. Yeah. your eyes have to be like pretty good to know that that was blood and not red velvet especially like Izzy is not you know a young whippersnapper like she's been she's been doing this you know for a long time and Izzy turns and puts the blame on Brando saying it was because Sterling was not happy that Brando was the escort for Plum yeah you know blunder number like three or four for izzy of immediately coming into the scene to be like it was that person definitely wasn't me it was definitely that person Do you think that's because people in a certain area of society think that they can't be touched? Like no one's going to find their mistakes. No one's going to see through them. I think that's, I think that's the prevailing theory of most of the murders that we get on Ellsworth. Cause I would probably say like, just, just throwing out a number, I would probably say like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, inherently, they think they are smarter than others. They think that no one's going to be able to see through anything they do. I think if we were to talk to the Kings, which we hope to one day, they might confirm that that's a reason they cast a lot of these type of characters as the murderers because they think they're untouchable when they're really not. It's like they took the Colin Sweeney archetype and just made it... it's like a like a like a like a like a like a like a like a like a like a like a like a like At this point, we're introduced to, well, Elzabeth is introduced to Jules, Izzy's assistant, who has, and you always know when there's like murder and the assistant, the assistant's going to be key in our whole thing here. Because Izzy's like, I don't have time for this. Talk to my assistant. Bye. Yeah. That wasn't weird. She comes in and she fills Elspeth in and Taylor in on some of the details. Jewel says that I don't know why Izzy told you Sterling was mad. He couldn't escort Plum. He didn't really care that much about this whole thing. He just wanted to get Plum into the thing. He didn't really care about his interaction. Yeah. What we hear later is basically Gwen made him get Plum into the ball. He didn't really care too much about the whole debutante of it all. Izzy's out here talking about, oh yeah, Sterling really wanted to be Plum's escort, but I say traditions are traditions and dads can't be escorts. And, you know, like blunder number five, coming up with this like really dumb lie. That's easily provable, easily disprovable. I should say like that. That's what a lot of our murderers do. Like, I'm going to give you some BS story that anyone that is around me, my order will tell you is not true. It's like, Jill's like yeah the dad didn't give one crap about being Plum's escort he didn't care that much he's like okay well that's like after that Izzy is like okay zeroing in on Izzy she's telling dumb lies she's throwing people right under the bus as soon as we get here boom that's my suspect right there and more than likely the person that did it like Elizabeth like I think we commented like one of the other episodes is like okay it took a little longer for Elizabeth to get the prime suspect this was like boom automatic you're my suspect let's go let's find out how you did this Yeah, and I think it makes a difference because for a couple episodes this season, Elizabeth wasn't in the crime scene right away. But if she's at a crime scene, she's really able to lock in and say, it's this person. So even though Brando is in holding, she's locked in on Izzy. And Brando explains that there are a lot of powerful people, New York City people at the ball. And we do hear Taylor say, this is not for me. I don't blame her because I could not go through with it myself. Yeah, Nateka Taylor is not for this high society bullshit. She's like, this is not my world. I don't love it. I hate the patriarchy of it. I hate the hidey-tidiness of it all. Not my jam. Not my jam. I was trying to make jam into blood, but that didn't really make sense. I mean, how do you explain that it does? I know, but I couldn't really do it very gracefully. Anywho. The best jokes are the ones you have to explain. yes that's my next podcast jokes i have to explain with marissa garza okay so brando's prints are on the sword and his blood is on or sterling's blood is on the sword so even though a classic elspeth even though there's evidence pointing to one person she's very locked in that this is izzy um they question brando who proclaims his innocence and then they're like well then What happened? How did this happen? And Brando eventually tells them about leaving the sword outside the hotel room. Vulnerability here. And then they do check his text messages, but they don't check the photos. But also... Well, because Brando's like, go ahead, check my text messages, but not my photos. Yeah. Do not go in the photos. That's the first time he has sent a photo. Yeah. It's just like when you show your friends a photograph, like, go ahead, swipe like three over. Do not swipe four over. You can swipe three, but you got to get the phone back. Do not swipe more. Neither of us will enjoy if you swipe more than four times. It'll ruin it. It'll ruin us forever. Like, you'll never see me in the same light. Yeah. So they're walking away from this asking themselves, like, who is Hot Mama? Because of the text message that was on his phone. So they go and confront Gwen, basically with the premise of, like, you're going to cheat on your husband with Brando. And she's like, do you know how much money I would lose if I did that? And he's in town, so no. She goes, why would I cheat on him when he was in town? Like... like why would i do like he has to be away from like this the the state for me to cheat on because i don't want to get caught like the best way for me not to get caught is when he leaves town i would never treat him when he was in town that would be that's dumb i would like that's a lot the more likely that i get caught then you idiots like not that i would never shoot my husband i would never shoot my husband when he's in town like not now like the circumstances are not good uh And so they do check her phone as well. They do not see the messages. And she also is like, do not look at my photos. It was so funny because it's like the exact same way to like check my messages, but not my photos. Do not check my photos. And she's like, she's like, why would Brando want to, you know, want to see me? Does he want to see me though? Like, keep in mind, this woman's husband was just murdered viciously at her daughter's debut. She's like, but I would, I would take some consoling for Brando if he's offering. You know, I just started watching Your Friends and Neighbors on Apple TV. And it has, like, it's reminding me of that because, like, sometimes women have to marry men to get closer to power and money. And if they lose it, it's not, you know, like... this Ellsworth episode was chock full of them. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So the message is nowhere on the phone, but like detective, what's her name? Detective basketball is like, well, you could have deleted it, but also like spoiler alert, detective basketball, you could contact the phone company and nothing you delete is really ever deleted. I don't really know why that was like a stopping point, but yeah, She does say that Izzy used her phone for this picture. And Gwen is like blaming herself for this because she tried to get Plum into the ball and she made Sterling do all of this stuff. And then she calls Plum over and is like, hey, can you provide me with an alibi? Plum, honey, come give mommy an alibi. Yes. Okay. And Plum is like, yeah, she was always by my side. And my dad's only beef with Brando was that he was new money. But she also does admit that she didn't pick Brando as the escort. Izzy did. Dun, dun, dun! This whole episode really gave me reminders of the Gilded Age. What was it called in Gilded Age when they... They had, oh my gosh, I'm blanking on names, the daughter that they married off. They presented her. I forgot what it was called. They had some kind of portrait painted. That was kind of her debutante ball. And also, you know, the talk of new money versus old money. I was like, okay, this is really giving us some Gilded Age now. Well, yeah, and I think that's really interesting is that that sector of society has really, really held on to this divide where the rest of us are just like, We're just trying to make it. I take any money. Old money, new money, used money. Whatever money you got, I'll take it. I love it. Gladys. Gladys Russell. Gladys is big time. They are filming in New York right now, so we should be back on Gilded Age coverage soon. Gilded Age corner. Let's go. Yes. Okay, so Elizabeth and Taylor go talk to Jules, the assistant, and she is perplexed as to why Izzy even let Plum come into the ball. Izzy always used to refuse to let Plum join in the past. This is probably given the history between Izzy and Sterling. And she also mentions this is the first time swords were allowed back in the ball in decades. Oh, interesting. I mean, it does seem kind of weird. It's like someone gets impaled with a sword. the first time a soldier let back in and Izzy is the coordinator of the ball. Hmm. You know, something, something in the back of my brain. So, I mean, that's weird for some reason. I don't know. And as if on cue, because it really was on cue, Izzy pops up and tries to say, like, we wanted to go back to tradition. Like, this is, we're trying to, you know, go back to our roots. She tries to kind of distract Elizabeth and Taylor with these tiaras, you know, like, which is very, like, Elizabeth loves a hat. It's as if she knew Elizabeth. She's like, okay, Elizabeth, let me distract you with some nice shiny things. But little does she know that even distracted Elizabeth is a smart Elizabeth. is always watching and always uh keep an eye out on you uh especially since like she is zero down on his ease like yes you can distract me for a second with some shiny tiaras like we'll even see the moment where elsa puts on the tiara she's just in the room with the tiara like you know the first thing she did was you walk like can i put this on But she's always going to be questioning. So she asks Izzy, like, how did Sterling end up in the suite that he was in when he died, when he was killed? And Izzy's like, I don't have any idea. But she is really pushing this Brando thing. Like, poor Brando. Like, this poor kid. Elizabeth confronts Izzy about letting him into the ball and using Gwen's phone. And Elizabeth deducts that Sterling had been at the ball in the past. And Sterling in what year, Jason? The best year, nineteen eighty two. I wonder what happened in nineteen eighty two to make you say it was the best year. Maybe some geniuses were born. Some great people of history were born. I don't know. Maybe. But yeah, because I mean, like it was good deducting on Elizabeth's part to be like Sterling had told Jules that he didn't remember there was a debutante of the year, which means he had been at a ball in the past. So that makes me think he'd been involved at a ball in his youth. Like, OK, good deducting. Good job. Yeah, like you said, she can be attracted to shiny things, but her brain's always going to be going. And then Taylor says, again, in one of the, you know, every now and then in one of these episodes, we get a, just a line that we want to make sure that everybody hears. In this one, she says, nepotism makes the world go round, or maybe makes the lopsided. Yeah. Good job, Taylor. I'm liking you more and more, Detective Taylor. Yeah. And so they're questioning, you know, like, why pair Plum with Brando if Sterling is so against new money? Like, this is a little weird. And Izzy says, it's obvious. They both speak English. They watch movies and have good height. So, yeah, that's it. Like, they're compatible. it's like you if you were planning this whole thing you maybe should have anticipated this question and come up with a better because it's like they really caught they really caught her off guard she's like uh they are both people and they're both um of the humanoid species so perfect right makes sense to me stop asking me questions alive right now yeah yeah so that was a little sus and then we do find out that sterling was the escort for his first wife paulina which is who izzy was trying to use to lure sterling down into the suite that he was in and we learned that paulina and sterling were still in touch and izzy does not like this didn't see that coming no gotta go So at the precinct, they go and they talk to Paulina. Obviously, Sterling was the terrible husband if he couldn't remember which wife was around when he was there. Sterling called Paulina right before his death and left a voicemail asking why she was at the ball and where was she, like, trying to meet up with her. You know, Izzy. Girl, come on. Like, you could use, I mean, retroactively blunder number like two. Because, like, you could have done so much to get Sterling where you needed him to go. Why would you tell him his first wife was there? Which may trigger him into being like, why the hell is she here? Which might trigger him to call her and be like, why the hell are you here? Like, what are you talking about? You could have... has like plum needs something downstairs like it was so much easier than than having to do all of this other stuff um pauline paulina's like i would not be caught dead at that ball ever again um and it turns out that sterling was paulina's escort in what year nineteen eighty two eighteen eighty two and paulina talks about the ball and a woman was sent home crying that night because um it like she was not the debutante of the year overall paulina is just as terrible as we thought she at least how i thought she was like she's she's just not gonna be she's gonna be a paulina she's like making light of the fact that sterling is dead she's like oh so glad he's gone so glad he's dead like okay get on you get going she's so terrible That was a good one. That was a good one. Elizabeth Clark's Izzy being so, like, fuss around this whole subject. And she knows Sterling better than she's saying, like, Izzy knows Sterling better than Izzy is telling us at this point. And then I hated this. I hated this so much. I hated this with the burning of a thousand suns. We just get a coroner's report. Stop the Kaya erasure. Remember Cameron used to deliver us the coroner's report? It's like, hey, here's the coroner's report. You're just getting rid of all of Kaya and everything attached to Kaya. We are not going to stand for it anymore. I am so, like, I was like, where's Cameron? What's going on? I did see in some press that there was a wrap party for Elsbeth season three, and Car Passion was at the wrap party, so it's like, okay, I mean, it feels like... It wasn't an episode or two. It feels like, you know, the relationship is still good, so I'm... I'm just hoping that before the season's over, we get another Kaya appearance. Then to confirm that she's okay or that we have to rescue her or something. Please, please bring her back to our screens. Yes. Elizabeth goes back to visit Izzy with a copy of Dress Up magazine from the year in question. I won't keep saying it. You guys know it's the best year ever. It was also the year Epcot opened, so, like, come on. Elizabeth wonders... wonders to Izzy why Paulina would call Sterling that night unless someone convinced him she was there. This is so easy. Elizabeth could solve this in her sleep. So Elizabeth gets her husband to kind of scoot Elizabeth out of the door and he is like... I don't want to say my people, but I'm not a trained person, but I am a collector of things, specifically pens. And so I get it when someone shows some interest in your collection. This guy is a model train guy and he's got everything. He's got the hats, he's got the whistles, he's got everything. Yeah, model trains is very much a rich guy hobby and activity. In between CEO meetings, this guy does nothing but put together trains and watches it go around a track. Because this guy is apparently like a railroad magnate or whatever. His family is rich off railroads. And so that's his big thing. He loves to watch the trains go around and around the circle. like old money the railroad you know yeah yeah um so elspeth of course is like in on this trains let me see the trains it's like and and you know elspeth is is definitely doing her elspeth thing of like oh let me pretend to have some interest in what you're interested in so that i can pump you for questions for information Yes. Yeah. She gets him to talk about Izzy and all the work she puts into these debutante balls. He knows that people think that Izzy married him for his money and he admits that they wouldn't be together if it wasn't for her dad's untimely death. He also helped pick up the pieces after Izzy was humiliated from the Nineteen Eighty-Two Ball. And this is why Izzy is so devoted to the ball now. So we get some more context as to why Izzy cares so much about this. Yeah, that's what kind of connects the pieces of like Paulina talked about somebody being, walking away from the ball crying. And now he's telling me that Izzy walked away crying from this, was humiliated at this ball. Hmm, it's all connecting. The dots start to connect now. Could be Izzy who was crying. And she pops up again. It's almost like Beetlejuice. Like, if you see Izzy a couple of times, she's going to pop up. And she says, she, like, tripped during the waltz, and that's why she was deleted. It wasn't anything else. That's why she was crying. And before she leaves, I'll put something to see about Brando's new selfie. Timestamps at the time of Sterling's murder so it could be brando because brando was nude ed taking this picture at this time unless unless brando killed uh sterling with another type of sword uh it wasn't brando jesus Have you been reading Romanticy? What's going on? At this point, she also tells Izzy the height, the angle of the wound means that someone had to be much shorter than Sterling or much shorter than Brando. to have struck sterling in the way that he was struck down dead so at this point she's like izzy i know you're pushing this brando thing but it's not happening elspeth elspeth goes someone had to be much shorter and like goes over and stands next to izzy like so much shorter like you like you're shorter um it's had to be someone maybe about this height like goes down to izzy's height like to have murdered sterling so it's again just like i was like girl i know it's you like there's nothing you can tell like i'm gonna get you one way or another taylor at this point has dirt on izzy she says that her dad died in a car accident the day after man The best year for me, not the best year for Izzy. It's a bad year for Izzy. She hates the year that you were born. She curses you for being born in at this point this is like all still very suspicious and we do also learn that Izzy has a hidden sister Reina and but that is a step sister not a sister sister so this is like in this world of old money and all of this stuff like we know that like having a sister outside of the marriage or like from another marriage or something like that these would all be things that would not look good on the reputation of Izzy Yeah, Izzy and Reyna could not be further apart. We meet Reyna and she's like a nurse at a hospital. Yeah. Yeah. She does tell us that once upon a time, Izzy stole their dad's credit card to buy the debutante dress and planned to return the dress. But someone saw the tag on the dress. This is just like trauma for rich people. Or people pretending to be rich. Yeah. Cut the strap on the dress, making the dress fall. Ready for it? Half off. Oh, my God. That word was used by the victim. Oh, my gosh. I think it's Izzy, guys. I think Izzy's the one. I think Izzy is half off. Oh, my gosh. And they confirmed that it was Sterling that had cut one of the straps. And then her father died on the way to return the dress. So this is... all coming full circle at this point elspeth runs to tell wagner about the new motive that we well it's funny because you know they talk about the straps and elspeth's like the straps we still have to set up our eureka moment uh music oh my god it's hit me ding light bulb goes off eureka moment yeah that was that was it but like sometimes the eureka moments are like i don't know where you got this from else but this one was pretty straightforward this one was like oh okay well we didn't like we didn't end on someone talking about the straps and be and else we've been like the straps it's like they said it's the straps and you know like dad died on the way to return the dress it's as if elspeth didn't even hear that last line it's just like oh yeah the straps like are you listening to what i just said No, I was two sentences ago. I was thinking. I was processing. Was it about your dad? Sorry. Was it about straps? Stop thinking about straps. Elspeth runs into Wagner's office, tells him about this new motive, but at this time, Izzy's also in his office demanding that Elspeth gets arrested. Because she's claiming that Elspeth stole some gloves from Izzy's house and Elspeth, as we know, this is elizabeth core to the max elizabeth prefers mitten not gloves okay uh elizabeth reveals what reina told her about the ball and izzy is playing dumb at this point izzy says that without that moment she would never have met her husband so what sterling did was a good thing try to rationalize it away as much as you can uh as this being part of the motive in terms of why you wanted to kill this man uh but as he says there's no way i could have been running the ball and murdering someone yeah she's like the ball went off so well because i was working so hard and no way i could have done both things at the same time And she's really like, you really stole these gloves, Elizabeth. Like, she's really kind of about these gloves. And again, this was such a, why is this your play right now? Why are you accusing a New York City, why is it called Hard Detective at this point? Why are you accusing a detective of just running around and stealing your gloves? Why would you call so much attention to these gloves? This is getting you in trouble. It was such a bad idea. Huge blunder, number eight for Izzy in this moment. Do we feel sorry for Izzy because she hasn't lived enough life to know that these are really dumb mistakes? I don't know. I'm just like, girl, you really got to be better at this. Yeah, yeah. At this point, we're questioning Jules again. Izzy says that the ball went off without a hitch, but there are two mistakes. The gloves and the missing title of one of the people was announced wrong. So Jules is kind of letting Elspeth know that this is, you know, kind of what's the aftermath of the ball. Well, Jules is like... yeah just like actually the the the big title mistake was my mistake because because of something going wrong like she didn't understand the uh the knighting of people and what what makes who was sir what doesn't make who was sir and so she points out the fact that hey i tried to at the last minute give izzy like a card to to change the name that izzy would uh announce in the presentation but for whatever reason is he didn't get the card so like hmm What was Izzy doing that she wasn't around to receive this name change? Well, she was dealing with the gloves, Jason. That's what she was doing. The gloves were on fire, and so was the card. yeah and like uh jules was like hey i had to throw the card into the fire to because at that point i didn't want izzy to know that i knew about the mistake and didn't correct it in time so i had to burn the card and they're like burn the card a.k.a. fire. Hmm. Maybe we should look into fire. Maybe something's going on with fire. Yeah. Leases with the fire. Izzy's back at the hotel where the ball was held and Elizabeth was called there by Elizabeth who told them they found the missing gloves. Which Izzy, Izzy, Izzy. Izzy. I'm telling you, she's such a sheltered person. She doesn't know. Izzy, you had to know this was a trap. This was a setup. You burned the gloves. There's no way they could have found the missing gloves because you burned them. So you had to know this was a trap. Why would you come here? You should be like, actually, Elizabeth, you know what? Gloves are not important. Never mind. I'm good. I'm good. If you're going to arrest me, you got to come get me. I'm not coming to you for you to arrest me and do some stupid little show that you're going to put on about arresting me. Well, and okay, Jason, what do we think about this reveal? Because we are now in reveal territory in our episode. And Elizabeth is all in, per usual, in this. I would be so insulted and upset. Like, I know I have no right to be insulted and upset if I'm a murderer. But I would be so, like... you're you're you're hate me one of the worst moments of my life and you are having fun you are like planning some show playing some like elaborate uh little little play here that you have going on while i'm being arrested i i understand i murdered someone i get it i did something despicable i had something terrible i deserve to go to prison do i deserve to be humiliated by you putting on some little play and show Yeah, because at this point, we've got Jules behind a podium announcing Elsbeth, who is dressed as a debutante and being announced as a debutante. Lawyer, what did you say? Elspeth of the Goldman's, Tassioni. Lawyer, mother, can nap anywhere. I'm like, hey, hey, give me that one too, because that's a good one for me too. So we're just out here. There was a script involved in this. Yeah, it's like... after that meeting with Jules it was like at first like I didn't know what Jules' role was like gonna be in this whole thing but she was like I'm in and let's strip this out like Jules girl what about have some fun are you in or are you out like Your boss is a murderer and we're going to have a fun time bringing her down. Are you in? Because we got some script writing to do before we arrest Izzy. Well, first of all, I got to go get a fitting for a debutante dress. That's number one. Please hold. Number one. Number two, I need the tiara. And number three, I need gloves. meanwhile detective taylor you handle the scripting and the blocking of the scene while i go get the dress like i'm gonna like you're gonna come out uh after i'm present after i present like this is so elaborate of like all right this is your cue like this is not this is not a musical this is not a play this is this is we're arresting a murderer right now this is a little going a little bit too far at this point in these elaborate um reveals Yeah, and I think, like, I get, like, I get the whole dress straps situation. So she really, like, starts off saying that, like, this is the thing that got me, right? Like, this is the thing that can, is proving your motive here. Because we can prove that you photoshopped the dress. The dress in the magazine had straps. And the one that was, the picture that we had seen with her had a photoshopped strapless dress. Yeah. And this like caused a lot of humiliation and everything. And this is the pressure that Izzy faced back in the day that affected the whole Sterling relationship. Yeah, and so it's like she has PTSD from what Sterling did to her, which caused her to do things like Photoshop a different dress on herself in her personal photo, which was a direct tie of like, okay, you definitely did something weird because you took the time and the effort to Photoshop this new dress onto you for your personal photo, and it's so easily found in this old magazine that, okay, there's something going on here. Again, Izzy is just pretty bad at this. and also like i get that you had like personal humiliation but then this woman decided to make it her life's mission to keep sterling out of the ball like what if sterling never had kids what if sterling like did all this stuff and she was just like i'm going to keep this my little territory this is where i'm at it's not as if Like, I get Izzy feeling like she needs to take control of the balls to, I don't know, change the balls. But she didn't really change the balls. She... like if yeah it'd be one thing if she's like i'm going to make debutante balls more inclusive of you know people that can't afford debutante dresses or something like that that would make her mission more like understandable but she just came in and pretty much kept everything the same and like was is still like denying people access that are probably not part of the upper upper class like you would think because uh izzy was of someone that was not as high of a echelon i'm not even like did they really even explain how she even got into the debutante scene because apparently her, her family was not that well off. So I was like, I could understand if she came in and was like, I'm going to write the wrongs and make people and not make people have these like expensive dresses. I'm gonna let, I'm gonna lower the bar of entry for people to get in. Like I could understand if she was that person that, and that her, her experience made her like motivated to change the debutante ball scene or whatever. But that was not the case. No, her only mission was to never let Sterling into this ball again, which is also like a weak mission, in my opinion. You're going to do this? She was doing this for like, fifty years. She was doing this for quite some time. It's also kind of like, what do they call it? Whatever therapy. Exposure therapy. This is something that affected me, so I'm going to dive deep into that world. I think that was also part of it. I don't think a whole sterling of it all was her only motivation, but I think it was just like, I'm going to immerse myself into that culture. she can be an important person in a different role in that environment. So she's the one that everyone comes to for questions. Taking her power back. Exactly, exactly. The big tip off here, though, was the fact that Izzy signs her texts. Who signs their texts? I don't sign my texts, but Izzy does. Izzy signs them. Izzy. And in this one, she also signed it. Hot mom to Brando. And that was enough, I guess, to connect these two teams. I wonder why I'm going to recommend Elizabeth. You know that enough. I'm going to use more evidence. We didn't get that moment. We didn't get that. We didn't. I'm going to need more than a text signature to actually arrest this woman, okay? I need you to get more. Get more, Elizabeth. She did get more, which also was not super strong, but okay. Yeah, the other evidence was the fact that the gloves that were burned were Jackie Onassis' Aunt Jackie Onassis' gloves. They found pearls at the bottom of the ashes of the fireplace, and izzy as she's being you know arrested is just that he called me half off before i killed him he couldn't even remember my name i was like okay great we don't even need the evidence you just confessed awesome that's because that was a close call because you probably would have been out on bail pretty soon if uh we didn't have that confession right there thank you so much for signing your own uh arrest certificate thank you that was a good one thank you so much So that was the murder. That was the crime. We did have some other things happening in this episode to which Jason has made his... background on his on if you're watching the youtube that's what it refers to it does not refer to me is it is it i mean marissa i i just write the message you're not watching youtube it says do you know what my life is right now do you know do you know what it is you know what it is if you're not watching it says be better marissa g now you can read into that wherever you like you know whether it's marissa gold And my co-host just so happens to be named Marissa Garza as well. So I just write the messages, Marissa. I don't give the interpretation. They're like a divine. You're just the vessel for this message. I don't explain the messages. They're just up there. You read to them as whatever you will. Be better, Marissa. You can mean whatever you want it to mean. You got to look inside yourself to see what it means to you. I'm just saying. I'm not going to explain. It could be whatever. Well, let me add that to my therapy list and see what comes up. That's your business. I mean, you read and say whatever you want. We did have some action here with the Alec campaign thing. So the smear campaign is still going on. We did have a confrontation between Elzbeth and Winnie out on the street because Elzbeth is like, you misrepresented me. Like, you took my words and you twisted them. And Winnie's like, no, did I though? I mean... You don't trust him. I could see in your eyes that you don't trust him. So I just was doing right by you. She's like, it's really the vibe you're given. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't a vibe. Yeah. Yeah. You were like, you were questioning. I could tell. So I took that and ran with it. yeah and she's and elspeth is like well i gave you all this information about milton you can give me all this information about alec and when he's like you told me stuff i knew doesn't really count because like yeah you told me my husband was a murderer but i kind of thought he probably was so like that doesn't count like yes it does it counts she gave you evidence that you destroyed like she helped you out you can't you help her out in return come on Well, but Winnie is really invested in this New York structure, which we are seeing with the debutante ball, which if you watch the Gilded Age is a whole thing. Like the old money argument is still alive and well in New York society. So Elspeth wants any proof that Winnie has that Alec is not who he says he is. And Winnie says to Elspeth, you know in your heart, you know in your heart what Alec is. I mean, they're not that close. They're not that close. Like, do you know? I don't know. I mean, I don't even need to know what's in my heart. I know what I saw, which is him lying about watching E.T. And the only person, because we don't have Kaya, the only person... That she can talk to is Wagner. And so Elizabeth goes to talk to him about the Alex stuff. He's feeling like conflicted. And Wagner does give good advice, which I think Kaya would give in this instance too, is just like, trust yourself. Trust yourself here. You just gotta trust yourself, Elizabeth. Just trust what you know is right. I might have to have you record some like pep talks for the peeps. That'd be fun. later Alec goes to Elizabeth and is venting about this ad she stops him and is like look look I know that Winnie has dirt on you and either you can own up to this whole situation about not being unhoused and only be unhoused for two days you can do that or I'm going to do it yeah you either go down now or you go down later yeah Not the good type of going down, either. Yeah, yeah. So, I don't know. Do you think that Elko... Let's talk about something else now. Well, you know what he's saying. You know, uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah, you know. What else do you want me to say? I don't want you to say anything about it. Okay, so anyway, do we think, do we think, though, that Elzbeth, like, what would Elzbeth do? Would she have a press conference? Like, how would she tell the people? How would this get out? Like, I really do think she will do this. I think this is something that we're going to end up seeing, even though Alec is, like, spinning the heck out of this, right? He's like, my two days... of not being with my parents really made me want to become a public servant and make the housing better and all of this stuff. He meant no harm, which, just again, for reminders, especially white people, impact over intent. Okay? The impact of this is that he is lying to a bunch of people about his story. The intent doesn't matter. Yeah, because, I mean, he really tries, like, oh, I mean, like, you know, like, what? I was unhoused. Okay. For like three days. Like, you know, I had a fight with my dad, with my parents and ran away and slept on the streets for like a few nights. So technically you can't say at one point in time, I was unhoused. Like, okay. Like, okay. Like we see, we see what you're about. And yeah, he, he really is like, but yeah, yeah. But, but that helped me though. Like that, that made me understand the plight of the unhoused. You stop digging the hole. Cause you're, you're, you're, you're in too deep already. Just quit while you're behind at this point. Come on. yeah yeah and but i do think we will get this scene at some point i do think elizabeth is going to have to be the one i don't know we'll see how this what happens in the next episode which we'll get to in a minute yeah anyway i don't know if he really like drove home the point of like she's like listen You tell them, or I'm going to tell them. I will. Yeah. I will tell them. And we still didn't, like, she still didn't confront, like, yeah, and what about E.T.? Alec, what about E.T.? Like, you know, like, you remember that? That was a lie I caught you in. So what was your excuse for that lie? Because, like, you know, Alec is spitting this one lie of, like, oh, it was just this one lie that, you know, would help me in the race. But what about E.T.? Why are you just lying about movies you've watched? That doesn't make any sense. Are you just a pathological liar? Yeah, exactly. So, like, I wish you would have confronted him about that in that moment as well. agreed agreed so after this conversation alec is like a changed man or whatever like he's scared or something and it's so much to get marissa gold back on her tv screens like she hasn't been here this entire time she came running into ellsworth's office like oh my god is that marissa bruce is here oh okay like it was like this is like the end of the episode i'm like oh my god she just showed up yeah but she's as they say on Survivor, she's past. I'm past. It's basically like, listen, this is messed up what you're doing here. Like, why is he like this? And Elizabeth tells Marissa, like, I issued an ultimatum. And Marissa is like, this is about the people of New York City. Like, this is not about you. And also, how could you say this when you are someone who represented Marissa Peter Florek in Chicago. And she's out. But what is so confusing about, first of all, Peter will always be bad. Second of all... what happened to you're the only one who can save new york and we need to time up team up like where did that go what i know i i think i think marissa was genuine saying like i need you and your good pr to be with alec so that people want to vote for him Marissa is hardcore in the Alec. We dreamed up this scenario of Marissa knows Alec is bad, and she's going to enlist Al Smith to help bring Alec down. I was like, no, that was not the case at all. We were so wrong in that theory. Marissa is backing Alec a hundred percent, and she's doing her best Eli Gold impression. She's like, I don't care what he did. We need to get him elected. Eli Gold would do things for money. Marissa at least has again intent over impact Marissa at least has good intentions because she believes in Alec even though he's a liar she believes in his like well I think she knows lying comes with the territory in this Well, she's she's like she's excusing it as like part of politics. She's like, that's she's like, that's even a big deal elsewhere. Like, who cares if he's only on house for like two days? His his intent is good here. It's like, OK, but would the intent be recognized if people knew of his lies? Like, no, it would not be good. And so she's like, she's putting this on elsewhere. Like, what did you do to him? He's like, he's nowhere to be found. He's missing events. Like, what's going on? I was like, girl, uh he's lying and people need to know and yeah like and i loved how she'd like turn the table no she's like listen you can't be talking because you defended peter ford like oh good wife callback let's go we love good wife callbacks and yeah but i think i think l would tell you i think she's even said it a few times in the show i'm a different person than i was then like yes i know I have different morals and ethics. I'm more aware of things. Elizabeth is a pure do-gooder now. But yeah, I loved how Marissa used their past against her to be like, all right, yeah, we'll F you. You're not as goody-two-shoes as you think you are because you helped get the awful person as Peter Florek out of jail. So bam, bye. Marissa was in here for like three minutes of screen time. It was well worth it for sure. It was. And I guess you're right. I just, I'm still struggling with the show a little bit and really kind of wanting some sort of action like that. Like some sort of team up, some sort of takedown, some sort of something that kind of gives it a little bit more oomph. other than and i think for you who is a fan of all marissa's that spell their name with two s's uh i think you you really want marissa to be the of the utmost good and this is this is marissa in a little bit of a shade of gray here she'll snap out of it i have faith in her She's got to do the right thing at the end. That's what we have to hope for, is that she comes to her senses like, you're right, Elsbeth, let's expose the truth. I don't know if we're going to get that, but that's what you really want out of your Mercer character here. It's one that we loved on The Good Wife that always seems to be on the side of right. Now it's like a little bit, ooh, are you going a little bit too much over to your dad's side of things? and i'd be okay with if there's a conversation which i know we won't get we won't get a conversation about how she turned this character turned into this character you know what i mean how what made her move in this way um unless the kings want to tell us unless they want to come on and explain what happened with marissa what got her to be so cynical and go into politics like i would love to be ready we're ready for you guys yes at the end of this episode we do see wagner comes in as if he had like premonition this is like hey just you want to turn on the tv she's like okay and elizabeth turns on the tv and they're setting up a press conference for alec alec it's an empty podium at this point we've just got the banner across the bottom saying you know press conference from alec basically And we do not know what's going to happen. Is he going to tell the truth? Is he going to lean in harder? Is he going to drop out of the race? Like, where are we? What is happening? Do we even think he'll show up? There's so many questions. He's there at the end. We just don't know. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. um yeah so i i really do think this is going to set up for a winnie cooper winnie not winnie cooper uh winnie crawford this is setting this is this to me this is setting the stage for winnie crawford to be mayor and cause and see and cause our heroes some strife in season four i i'm really feeling that at this point i would what do we think i was gonna do in the next episode um drop out if he's gonna drop out next episode Yeah, I mean, why else would he be calling a press conference? Unless he... Unless he... OK, so the press conference options are, hey, I lied about being unhoused and I'm still committed to making it better for New Yorkers, you know, or but like or I hear someone who can prove that I was unhoused. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. OK, that'll be that'll be interesting. Do you think he could he could admit to the lie and still run for mayor and maybe and maybe get Elizabeth to help him like run for mayor still like, hey, like, I know you're right. I mean, I mean, yeah. Not even still together, but like, hey, Elspeth, I know you were right. I want to do things a better way. Can you help me do this? Can you help? Because I don't know. We have five episodes left. I don't know if it's going to be as cut and dry as like, I'm dropping out of the race. What are we going to do for the next five episodes if that's the case? Unless it's in that moment that Winnie Crawford says, hey, I'm running for mayor. I always envisioned like in the last like second of the season, that it's gonna be like, Alex out as mayor, like we found his lies, boom, boom, boom. And then it's like, now Winnie Crawford is projected to be throwing her hat in the ring and she's got a lot of support behind her. And then the season premiere, season four is like, Winnie Crawford, new mayor of New York, and then she's going to use her resources to cut funding to the precinct, maybe get somebody fired, maybe Ellsworth's going to be fired for the first few episodes of season four. That would be truly interesting. What if Wagner is fired? Yeah, something. Something to shake up status quo because that's that's really what we need is yeah so yeah that's that's like that's what i've always been envisioning like i i really think some sort of way winnie crawford's going to be mayor next season you've been envisioning it in your mind's eye behind your eyes yeah i'm sorry marissa you can't do that it's okay it's okay i'm sure it's great Yeah, I'm sure the world you're painting is so good. I just can't see it. I'm sure it's so vivid. I'm sure it's fantastic. But we shall see. We shall see what happens. I hear your point. We do have five episodes of something can't be as cut and dry as like I'm leaving. But also like it's also kind of hard to watch this. I don't know. I have to maybe I have to just enjoy the TV show. But it is kind of hard to watch in twenty twenty six when like is this the lie that could take down a candidate? Yeah, no. Definitely not. If this was real life, everybody would be like, everybody would be in an uproar for two days, and then something else would happen. And we would forget all about it. He'd still run for mayor. He'd still probably get elected. So yeah, I mean, listen, it does unfortunately remind you of like, some things going on today in our political landscape. Unless they use it as a way to make commentary on that. I just, I do need a shake up sometime soon. Probably we'll have to wait till season four, but it would be, it would be good to get that sometime soon. also think if it's if it's the case i'm suggesting like that you know he drops out eventually winnie crawford comes in i think it is the like the egg on elsa's face that we don't get a lot we're just like hey look what i did guys i got this liar out of office and it's like oh i bought a bigger evil and winnie crawford into office kind of like uh members of cabinet have been fired We'll wait and see what happens with other members of the cabinet. Yeah, exactly. Listen, I'm really excited to see what... They did a good job of cliffhanging what this was. I'm excited to watch the next episode and see what the case really is here. They've done their job, at least, in getting me pumped for the next episode. Just don't let me down. Just don't let me down next episode. And I think we do not have to wait three weeks to watch the next one. Yeah, thank goodness. Should be here next week, I hope. I haven't checked, but I hope so. Yeah, April ninth. Yep. Okay, cool. Yeah, so that's the episode, guys. Marissa, do you want to tell everybody where they can find you and what you're up to on the internet these days? Sure, sure. You can find me at itsmemarissag.com I forgot for a moment. I was like, .com? Yeah. It's Mumerisogy.com where you'll find links to all of the podcasts that I'm on. As Jason mentioned at the top of the show, a free and easy way for you to support us is by watching us on YouTube. If you'd like to like and subscribe to us over there, that would be great. If you're just a fan of Elsbeth, that really is kind of the place to be because it has its own dedicated feed. If you're just a fan of The Good Wife, it also has its dedicated feed, but we do hope you enjoy all of our shows, which you can find both on YouTube and in your podcast feed of choice. You can also find me on Whirlwind Podcasts talking about Pretty Little Liars one previously on at a time. Or going through the final frontier of space, which, hey, space, guys. Space. Back in the news. We're there. We're doing stuff. We're going around the moon. Me and my sister podcast about Star Trek The Next Generation over on USS Sisterhood. So you can find links to all of those at itsmumersage.com. Jason, I know you've got much more mess to talk about than I do. So what's going on with you? Me and Asia Welch are over on the Raw Pass Podcast Network wrapping up Age of Attraction. It's the show where it's like, oh, my God, people are dating people much younger slash older than they are. What mess will ensue? And there is mess. We've covered the reunion and the finale all in one podcast. So if that's something that you watched and enjoyed, come check that out. Me and Asia are also talking about the show Married at First Sight over on our Patreon at Perfect Match Podcast. Just go to the Perfect Match. Go to Patreon. Put in a perfect podcast and join up. We have a whole season rewatches. We're wrapping up season ten right now. One of the best seasons of the show. We also have seasons one and eleven. We did four rewatches for we have rankings over there. So if you watched and enjoy Miranda Forsythe, you currently watch it now. That's the place to be. So that's where you can check me out. That's where you can check Marissa out. And that's it. And we're checking out. And we're checking out this episode. Until next time, guys. Stay good.