Elsbeth Season 3 Episode 12: All's Hair

Felix (Jeff Hiller), "The Rug Doctor," is one of New York City's elite five wigmakers - in rank, if not in glamour. His trade is hairpieces for businessmen and hospital patients, while Domenico Cappelli (Al Sapienza) is wigmaker to the stars. Felix's chance at the big time arrives through Domenico's own client, daytime host Lina Vyanti, who offers Felix her commission. He hesitates to betray Domenico - until she pays him extra.

There is one problem: Lina's hair shade is brutally hard to match, and Felix runs out of his Molten-Gold supply. He solves it by cutting the ponytail off a random bystander in a park. The bystander is Brynlynn Newell, a teenaged dressage competitor whose ponytail was meant to match her horse's tail, and her new bob sets off a scandal - her father Mitch, a major donor to the Payne-Wagner Foundation, suspects the girls at the competition bullied her and brings the police in on it.

Mitch also tries to get Domenico to make a fake replacement ponytail in time for Brynlynn's competition - and that visit is what exposes Felix's poached wig project to Domenico. When Domenico finds out Felix took Lina, and the hair for her wig, he tries to blackmail Felix, and Felix responds by killing him. Elsbeth and Detective Smullen work the Domenico Cappelli murder while Wagner handles the bullying case, until the two investigations turn out to be the same case.

Felix fights back with misdirection: he invites Elsbeth to a drag brunch and plants one of Domenico's wigs there to frame Persimmon, the wigmaker for drag queens - but Persimmon's alibi sinks the frame-up. Meanwhile Wagner speaks to the teen girls suspected of bullying Brynlynn and finds none of them responsible. The break comes when Wagner demands proof Felix was at the crime scene, saying "the rest is gravy" - which reminds Elsbeth of the jar of Mama Cappelli's gravy she has never tasted, and the gravy provides the proof. Felix is arrested, narrating his own downfall in private-eye style.

The codas land the pieces: Lina is horrified when she learns what Felix did and refuses to have anything to do with the wig he made for her; Mitch, learning the haircut had nothing to do with bullying, apologizes to the police and makes a hefty donation to the Payne-Wagner Foundation; Smullen ditches the toupee he bought mid-case; and Elsbeth, who tried going blonde to escape the paparazzi, decides she cannot abandon her signature hair.

The proof is a jar of gravy. Wagner demands physical evidence that Felix was at the crime scene, saying "the rest is gravy" - and Elsbeth remembers the jar of Mama Cappelli's gravy she has never tasted. The gravy provides what the case was missing, and Felix, who had already failed to pin the murder on Persimmon by planting one of Domenico's wigs at a drag brunch (her alibi held), is arrested, narrating his own downfall in private-eye style. Around the arrest: Lina refuses to have anything to do with the wig once she learns whose hair went into it, and Mitch apologizes to the police and makes a hefty donation to the Payne-Wagner Foundation once the bullying theory collapses.

Unresolved within the episode: Felix's legal outcome beyond the arrest is not shown; whether Brynlynn returns to dressage is not addressed; and the scrutiny around Elsbeth's relationship with Alec, particularly from Winnie Crawford, is left standing - as is Teddy, who is not speaking to her.