Carrie Preston’s Murder Mystery Series Makes Jeff Hiller Completely Wig Out

Editor’s Note: The following includes spoilers for Elsbeth Season 3, Episode 12.Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) has been in hairy positions before, but never literally — until this week, that is. “All’s Hair,” Episode 12 of Elsbeth‘s third season, sees our favorite redhead investigating the murder of a celebrity wigmaker. It’s a tale of dishonor, distrust, a drag brunch, Diana Ross, and a daring new look for Elsbeth… and Detective Bobby Smullen (Danny Mastrogiorgio). That said, is “All’s Hair” a cut above the rest, or a shear disappointment?

Dishonor Between Wigmakers Leads to Murder in ‘Elsbeth’s “All’s Hair”

Five expert wig makers are crowded into a room with a customs agent. There’s a coming Wiggageddon, a perfect storm of big events all happening at once, and they’re waiting for news about a priority shipment of Molten-Gold, rare and untreated virgin blonde hair. Unfortunately, it’s delayed, meaning they will have to wait to complete their wigs. Four of the five have high-profile clients that are waiting, and the fifth, Felix West (Jeff Hiller), “The Rug Doctor,” needs to complete a wig for a crypto king’s wedding.

Felix returns to his shop, where he’s visited by Lina Vyanti, host of a national morning show. She has a problem: she’s being ridiculed because the wigs look like wigs in HD, and she wants a natural look, Felix’s specialty. Only Felix has a problem: Lina is a client of Domenico Cappelli, one of the wig makers, and the five have an unwritten code of honor where they don’t poach clients. But honor gets pushed aside with more money and the promise to introduce Felix to her showbiz friends. It’s Felix’s ticket out of business offices and hospitals, and he takes it. Her color, Molten-Gold, is impossible to find, but he has a stockpile of it. Not enough, though, so when he sees a teen on a bench, with her Molten-Gold hair in a ponytail, he walks over, cuts it off, and speeds off to finish his pièce de résistance.

Just then he gets a phone call from Domenico, saying they need to talk. Felix goes to Domenico’s home, walking in when the aroma of Mama Cappelli’s sauce cooking lures him to the kitchen. Suddenly, Domenico appears and pulls Felix away, accusing him of poaching. Felix feigns ignorance, but Lina cancelled her appointment, opting to use her “natural hair” at a gala. He demands that from now on, Felix is his employee, and he’ll take 40% of every wig Felix produces. He knows about the ponytail snip, and if that gets out, Felix is finito. But when Domenico turns away, Felix attacks him. Domenico gets his hands on a hot curling iron and sears a burn mark into Felix’s forehead, only for Felix to wrest it away and strangle him with the cord. Felix takes the curler and a few high-priced wigs, staging the scene as a robbery gone wrong before darting away.

Elsbeth Cuts Down the Suspect List To Narrow in on Felix

Elsbeth, Chandler (Ethan Slater), and Smullen are at the scene. The smell of Mama Cappelli’s sauce proves irresistible, and Elsbeth walks over to take a whiff of it just as Mama Cappelli walks in. She’s the one who found her son, and adds that the wigs that were taken, like the one worn by Diana Ross, were the most expensive, and posits that whoever killed her bambino knew which ones to take. Smullen and Elsbeth turn back to the body, noticing that he was strangled by a cord, and a burn suggests that the murder weapon could be a curling iron. So, if he was strangled by a heated curling iron, perhaps the murderer, a wig expert, was burned as well. Cut to Felix, who is now sporting a toupee to cover the burn mark on his forehead.

Back at the precinct, Elsbeth and Smullen explain the case to Captain Wagner (Wendell Pierce), who tells them to bring in the four wigmakers, while he works on a case for a donor to the Payne-Wagner Foundation, whose daughter is being bullied. The four are brought in, with Elsbeth looking them over for burn marks as Smullen does the questioning. There’s nothing to suggest that the first three did it (one does suggest Smullen get a toupee, which he later does, humorously), and Persimmon offers up that when they talked about divvying up Domenico’s clients, Felix only wanted Lina. But Felix states that he’s just a big fan, and if she wants to work with him, he has a stock of Molten-Gold. Only Lina says that she had already commissioned Felix to make a wig before Domenico’s death.

Felix Has Toupee the Piper in ‘Elsbeth’s “All’s Hair”

Felix insists he didn’t steal her, and that Lina came to him, so Elsbeth and Chandler go to visit Mama to find out if Domenico knew about Lina turning to Felix. She doesn’t know for certain, but is adamant that if he did know, he definitely would have confronted him about it. That puts Felix in the crosshairs (and a jar of Mama’s sauce in Elsbeth’s bag), but they need more. They do know Domenico called Felix just before his death, and when Elsbeth goes to Felix for a wig fitting, Chandler tags along to ask what the call was about. He waves it off as business talk, but as she keeps pressing, he switches topic, and asks what she’s doing Saturday morning.

Saturday morning comes along, and Elsbeth, in a blonde wig, Chandler, and Felix are having a great time at Mimosas and Mirrorballs, the “best drag brunch in the city,” when Felix points out that one of the performers has a Diana Ross wig, one of the stolen styles. The only person that would have come from is Persimmon, so he’s taken into custody. He couldn’t have done it, and has proof, but is surprised to hear that Felix would have poached Vyanti, given he was as desperate for the Molten-Gold shipment. He wouldn’t have enough to make a wig, although he would if he were to have, say, cut the ponytail off a teenage girl.

Turns out that Wagner’s case is directly tied to the cut ponytail. Domenico found out about Felix’s attack when the girl’s father approached him about a faux ponytail. But there’s still no evidence that Felix was at the scene. Or is there? The secret’s in the sauce, with a wig hair that matches the wig Elsbeth was wearing found in the jar of sauce she was given by Mama. Felix’s invite to brunch was simply to plant the stolen Diana Ross wig so he could shift suspicion to Persimmon. As Felix is escorted out, he says, “So this is it. I played it short and slick in the world of hair and got tangled in my own weave.”

“All’s Hair” is a pedestrian affair. Not the best, not the worst, but just there. Hiller’s good, but doesn’t match the quality of the guest stars this season has brought in to this point. And resting the damning evidence on a strand of hair that somehow made it into a jar out of a huge pot of sauce is among the weakest yet. But there’s an interesting twist to the Alec Bloom storyline, with Winnie Crawford (Henny Russell) asking Elsbeth over lunch if she trusts him. She says she does, but has her guard up about Winnie, while Winnie is pretty sure Elsbeth knows more than she’s letting on. Between that and Teddy’s article, it gives Winnie a path to derail Bloom’s campaign, her true goal in bringing it up.