Elsbeth Season 3 Episode 1: Yes, And...

Way Late with Scotty Bristol is hosted by Scotty Bristol (Stephen Colbert), a man who is nasty and ungracious to his staff, does not bother to prepare for interviews, and torments his writers by making sure they can see and hear him shredding their joke pitches. His producer Laurel (Amy Sedaris) and his on-air sidekick Mickey Muntz (Andy Richter) — Laurel's husband — have absorbed years of it, and Mickey's health is paying the price.

Laurel finally has had enough. Using their once-upon-a-time history, she feigns seducing Scotty and gets his necktie caught in the much-hated high-capacity office shredder. The death is at first taken for a terrible accident, but Elsbeth, heavily jet-lagged after rushing home from visiting Angus in Scotland, notes that Scotty left his earbuds on his desk, that his tie would have had to be knotted tightly for the strangulation, and that he was lying backward over the shredder.

Detective Smullen takes the case, and Elsbeth gets a new minder in Kaya's absence: Officer Grace Hackett (Lindsay Mendez), an aspiring stand-up comic.

Smullen wants to pin the murder on Mickey, the oft-humiliated sidekick, but Elsbeth points out that Mickey is not a boat-rocker, let alone a murderer, and has a serious heart condition. Hackett reassembles the shredded paper into a packet of spec joke pitches, and her comedy-world experience reframes what joke theft means to writers. Elsbeth gets the guarded Laurel to lower her defenses by asking for an improv lesson, and the "yes, and" principle she picks up there feeds her thinking about the case.

Mickey, it emerges, had been psyching himself up in the elevator to give Scotty an ultimatum — approve his time off to stabilize his health, or he quits. Instead, the shock of deducing that Laurel killed Scotty triggers a fatal heart attack, and Laurel tells Smullen that Mickey's intense guilt, which he had confessed to her, triggered the failure.

Elsbeth overhears Laurel "yes, and"-ing that theory, and a memory of the wastebasket Smullen planted in her office gives her the answer: Laurel shredded a joke pitch packet in her own office and put the shreds in Mickey's bin after Matthew the Page had already emptied it. The motive runs back to the improv trio the three once were — Scotty's exploitation of that bond, from convincing the couple not to have children to refusing Mickey health time off, is what Laurel finally answered.

Around the case, the precinct is grim under budget cuts: coffee now costs $1, the three-by-five cards are gone, and Elsbeth is on a wait list for a Sharpie. Smullen takes his frustrations out on Lieutenant Connor, who implemented the measures, until Wagner steps in and later explains to Elsbeth that the changes are worth it because they keep her on staff. The episode closes with Matthew promoted to Mickey's old job, Ronan taking Scotty's chair, and Hackett deciding to revisit comedy — Ronan buys one of her jokes for $200.

The break comes from paper. Hackett's reassembly shows the shredded material was a packet of spec joke pitches, and Elsbeth's flash of insight — that Smullen planted his trash in her wastebasket to make a point, so someone could have done the same with shreds in Mickey's bin — exposes Laurel: after Matthew the Page had already emptied Mickey's bin, she shredded a joke pitch packet in her own office and dumped the fresh shreds in as a frame. The motive reaches back to the improv trio Scotty, Laurel, and Mickey once were, and to Scotty's exploitation of that bond: convincing Laurel and Mickey not to have children, refusing Mickey the time off he needed to stabilize his heart condition, and years of callousness on top.

The cost lands on Mickey, who never gets to defend himself formally: the shock of deducing that his wife killed Scotty triggers a fatal heart attack, and Laurel covers by telling Smullen that Mickey's confessed guilt triggered the failure — a story Elsbeth overhears and files away. The episode ends on its closing threads rather than on a courtroom: Matthew is promoted to Mickey's old job, Ronan takes Scotty's chair on Way Late, and Hackett returns to comedy with a $200 joke sale. Not resolved within the episode: the sources record no on-screen arrest or charging of Laurel, so what formally happens to her after the exposure is not shown.