'Elsbeth' Season 4 Episode 5 Recap: How a Superfan's Sweet Tooth Turned Deadly in 'All About Eats'

Few network procedurals have embraced their own chaos as gleefully as ‘Elsbeth‘. The CBS series is a ‘Columbo’-inspired comedy from Robert and Michelle King, and most episodes use the inverted detective format, so viewers know who did it long before the heroine does. That structure puts all the fun into how Elsbeth Tascioni catches the culprit.

Season four began airing on October 8, and the weekly guest appearances are almost always the killers of the week. Episode five, ‘All About Eats’, follows that pattern with Emmy winner Sam Richardson of ‘Ted Lasso’ and ‘Veep’. It aired on Thursday, November 12 at 9 p.m. ET/PT and was directed by Rob Hardy.

The case begins at Coney Island, where competitive-eating champion Desi Orr collapses and dies after downing 51 donuts at a Dingo’s Donuts promotional event. The killer turns out to be Cody Baxter, an eager superfan who became Desi’s assistant, played by Richardson. Elsbeth learns the lethal dose came from medication meant for Cody’s grandmother’s dog, injected into the extra jelly donut.

Elsbeth arrives at the scene late, distracted by the aquarium and a cotton candy cart. The autopsy reveals an overdose of blood pressure medication, along with traces of a GLP-1 drug. Desi had no prescription for that kind of medication.

That detail nags at her. Elsbeth wonders why a professional competitive eater would take something meant to suppress his appetite. Her questions lead her into the New York Coalition of Competitive Eating, where she meets founder Earl Keen, Desi’s girlfriend Candy and his rival Ben Tanaka.

Suspicion eventually lands on Cody. He was thrown out after Desi caught him dosing his water, and Desi ended their partnership by throwing Cody out of his apartment. Detective Fleming seems to like Cody, but Elsbeth stays suspicious.

The mystery clicks once Elsbeth works out where the pills came from. Cody had been sabotaging rivals with his grandmother Mimi’s GLP-1 pills, which explains why an appetite suppressant kept surfacing in a sport built on appetite. Elsbeth’s “very informative” chat with Mimi helps expose him.

The twist carries a bitter irony. Cody wins the championship before being arrested, so he finally gets the crown he craved, but only for a moment. Elsbeth also tells him that some of the things he told investigators turned out not to be true.

Meanwhile, the precinct gets its own sugary subplot. Captain Wagner coaches the softball team with excessive zeal, and the episode wraps with the game, where Elsbeth helps the precinct secure its first victory. It’s a goofy counterweight to a grim donut mystery.

Variety is part of the show’s appeal, and Carrie Preston knows it. She told TV Insider that episode two was particularly fun to shoot, calling it “a love letter to Arthur Miller.” Episode five swaps theater for Coney Island and cotton candy, proving the series can swing between very different worlds.

The format has its costs. Preston told The Hollywood Reporter that shooting each cold-open murder while finishing the previous episode meant “season one pretty much wrecked me physically.” Even so, she said the approach worked.

Preston has also said her dream guest star is Meryl Streep. That kind of ambition helps explain why the weekly cast keeps getting bigger and stranger.

The season has plenty more going on around the cases. Teddy has set a wedding date, and Erika Woods joined the cast as his soon-to-be mother-in-law. Elsbeth’s own mother is also arriving from the Midwest, so the personal stakes keep rising alongside the mysteries.