Elsbeth – Episode 4 “ Love Knocked Off” Recap & Review

Love Knocked Off

Episode 4 of Elsbeth starts with two women arguing. Lainey is angry at her highly-paid matchmaker, Margo, for failing to find a good match. Lainey sends Margo out of the house with a threat that she has until the end of the year to find her a husband, or she will tell everyone that Margo Clarke is a fraud. When Margo steps out of the apartment, she finds a policeman writing her a ticket, and she takes out her anger on him, landing in jail. 

Margo says hi to an inmate in a cell next to hers, and six months later, a man proposes to Lainey. Fast forward one year, a man arrives at Margo’s luxurious house in the Hamptons, and he tells Margo that he is unwilling to file for divorce as they had agreed earlier. He says he hates picking fights with Lainey and has fallen in love with her. Therefore, he says he will come clean about their deal with Lainey. Margo panics because they might be arrested for fraud, so she hits him on the head with a cupid and dumps the body, plus the murder weapon, into the ocean. 

Captain Wagner shows a photo of the murdered man, Gabriel Erwood, to Elsbeth and Kaya. He tells them that Lainey is a friend who reported her husband missing and sends them to look into the issue to show Lainey that the police are taking the disappearance seriously. Kaya and Elsbeth pay Lainey a visit as a courtesy, and she leads them to Margo’s house. 

When questioning Margo, she insisted that Lainey was impossible to live with and that Gabriel expressed interest in wanting to leave her during their talk. Meanwhile, Elsbeth notices the missing carpet and the lack of woody smell from the fireplace. Margo says that she had requested a new curtain at the local antique store since she did not like the colour of the one she had just disposed of.

Kaya asks to see the video from the CCTV around Margo’s house, and the videos only show Gabriel’s car driving out of Margo’s house. The car is near the bus station, so Elsbeth and Kaya head back to Lainey’s to ask about it. On the way out, they run into a masseuse team that Gabriel invited the day before for their anniversary. Elsbeth and Kaya send each other suspicious looks, both thinking of the possibility of foul play.

Elsbeth shares their findings with Captain Wagner, but he thinks there is insufficient probable cause to search Margo’s house. While discussing, the Captain’s wife invites Elsbeth to a fundraising Gala. She mentions that Gabriel seemed so taken with Lainey that she does not think he would walk out on her. Captain Wagner tells Elsbeth that he will put a detective in the case only after they find him some credible evidence. Therefore, Elsbeth tries to get Kaya to go with her to look into how Gabriel’s car got to the bus stop, but Kaya is busy and has to do it alone. 

On the way back to Hampton’s, Elsbeth strikes up a conversation with the driver, who says Gabriel did not board his bus, and she gets him to ask other drivers if they saw him. At the antique store, Elsbeth learns that Margo had ordered a rug but wanted the same colour as the one she disposed of, contrary to what Margo had told her.

Coincidentally, Elsbeth runs into Margo at the store, and she notices that she is carrying a fireplace cleaner, which intensifies her suspicion. Margo says that the cleaner is because of her allergies and the ashes aggravate them. Elsbeth mentions that the police are investigating the case since they think something happened to Gabriel piques Margo’s interest, and she invites Elsbeth for a walk. On the way, she tries to insist that Gabriel expresses wanting to leave Lainey and that she has a ferocious temper. They run into some fishermen, and Elsbeth stops to greet them. 

At the NYPD, Elsbeth runs into Kaya’s desk to share her findings when Captain Wagner and Detective Darren from Suffolk County PD interrupt them. Suffolk PD found Gabriel’s body about a mile off Georgica Beach. A blunt object hit him in the head, and then his body dumped into the ocean.

The detective shows them a piece of brass pulled from Gabriel’s head, indicating that the thing that hit him was made of brass. More importantly, the victim’s real name is Dennis Pagano, from Teaneck, New Jersey. Although the case is interesting, Captain Wagner warns Elsbeth and Kaya to leave it to the Suffolk PD. 

While Elsbeth and Kaya are talking about how the police will concentrate on Lainey as their prime suspect, she walks into NYPD, furious that the police are treating her like the killer. She insists that Margo must have known that Gabriel was a fraud because she always does background checks. Kaya finds a lead, Pagano’s girlfriend, to help them better understand the victim. After talking to her, they find out that Pagano had broken up with her a few days earlier, saying he was in love with his boss, Lainey. 

The girlfriend tells them about a file cabinet, and inside, they find receipts for tattoo removal, fitness training, and vocal dialect coach, which leads them to their other clue that Margo glowed him up to fit the description of Lainey’s ideal man. Even arrest records show that Margo and Pagano were booked at the same police station simultaneously. They follow the lead and ask Margo about it, and she does not deny the fraud, but it is still insufficient to warrant an arrest. However, on the way out, Elsbeth notices that Cupid is missing from Margo’s house, and she says she put it in storage since she dislikes clutter.

Elsbeth tries to get Wagner to send a search team to look for Cupid around where the body was found, but he does not authorise it. So, Elsbeth and Kaya visit Lainey to ask about the Cupid, and she says that she bought him the Cupid, but it is a knockoff that is not made of bronze but brass.

Meanwhile, Margo tries to tie up loose ends by asking Arthur from the antique shop to get her the bronze cupid promptly and pays 60,000 for it. She then invites Elsbeth back to her house under the guise of showing her a date for the upcoming gala. As expected, Elsbeth notices the Cupid but is not convinced because she remembers that the Cupid in the photo had three arrows while the replacement has two. In addition, the new Cupid was made of bronze, while the one Lainey gifted her was brass. 

Margo thinks she has won, saying that the brass cupid is not in her house, so there is no way to prove Elsbeth’s theory, when two fishermen ring the doorbell. Elsbeth had sent them back to where they found the body with a metal detector, and they found the chipped brass cupid. Detective Darren arrives soon after and arrests Margo.

Next, Elsbeth and Kaya attend the fundraising Gala, and some detectives show interest in learning how Kaya solved the murder. Elsbeth’s handler calls her for an update on Wagner, but she says she has nothing to report since she just got to the party.

Later that night, Wagner’s wife says she likes Elsbeth, an exciting person who seemed genuinely interested in the foundation and Captain Wagner because she asked many questions. Wagner responds by saying that it is what she does whenever she is on a case pursuing her prey. Suddenly, realisation dawns on the Captain, and his eyes widen at the end of the episode. 

The Episode Review

The episode is a switch-up from previous ones since the police do not stage some elaborate plan at the end of the episode to catch the killer. In addition, it offers Kaya some character development as Captain Wagner allows her to investigate a case.

Captain Wagner seems to have figured that she might be Elsbeth’s prey. What will he do with the new information in the next episode? This episode has the best guest stars so far who added a bit of flare to the episode, including Gloria Reuben and Captain Wagner’s wife, Retta as Margo Clarke, the matchmaker, Ryann Cooper and the murder victim, and Ruffin Prentiss as detective Darren.