Spoilers ahead for Episode 7 of Elsbeth Season 3, called “And Then There Were Nuns” and available streaming with a Paramount+ subscription.
There’s no shortage of crime procedurals on television in the 2025 TV schedule, but none other than CBS’ Elsbeth has a comedic touch by featuring killers with fun motives, often played by pretty big stars. Apartment 7A‘s Dianne Wiest turned up for the latest episode as a nun who commits murder to try and save her convent… which involved setting events in motion to fling a pop star named Alaïa Jane to her death from a bell tower. It was a creative means of murder, and I realized that Mother Constance might be my favorite Elsbeth killer since Nathan Lane’s character in Season 2.
That is, I came to my realization after a very strange beginning of the episode.
An Elsbeth-Free Episode Of Elsbeth
Okay, the episode technically wasn’t Elsbeth-free, but “And Then There Were Nuns” had a cold open that lasted for more than ten minutes without the leading lady. Mother Constance went through a whole journey of 1) learning that the convent was being sold to a blasphemous pop star, 2) watching an episode of Father Crime (in a callback to the Season 2 fall finale with Laurie Metcalfe) with her fellow nuns, 3) seeing an opportunity to get rid of Alaïa, and then 4) manipulating the situation so that a bell would knock Alaïa to her death, with another nun pulling the rope. It was the perfect crime!
Well, it was the perfect crime until the long cold open came to an end and Carrie Preston finally arrived to start poking holes in Mother Constance’s story. I didn’t dislike the ten-minute setup for the rest of the episode, but it was a bit odd once I realized how much time had passed. Elsbeth always dedicates some time to show the killer of the week committing their crime, but not usually this long.
Fortunately for me, I adored this episode so much that I’m guessing it’ll go down as one of my favorites of the series, and not just because “And Then There Were Nuns” was a play on the title of my favorite Agatha Christie story.
I Love Mother Constance
As somebody who went to quite a lot of Catholic school back in the day (including four years with all girls), I’d been excited for “And Then There Were Nuns” ever since the promo aired with the first look at Dianne Wiest as Mother Constance. There was just a lot to love, and it was a pleasant surprise to get thex return of Dominic Fumusa as Jack Wilson, a.k.a. the leading man of Elsbeth‘s long-running in-universe crime procedural Father Crime. (The procedural is of course no longer featuring Laurie Metcalf’s murderous Regina Coburn.)
And let me tell you – in my experience, nobody appreciates a good Catholic joke as much as somebody who was sent to Catholic school. The nuns has personalities other than their habits, and we even got the returns of the lovely Ben Levi Ross as Teddy and The Good Wife‘s Sarah Steele as Marissa Gold. But none of it would have added up to making “And Then There Were Nuns” one of my favorite all-time Elsbeth episodes without Dianne Wiest as Mother Constance.
Wiest played Mother Constance’s motives and actions completely seriously, which is what made it funny opposite the quirkiness of Elsbeth herself. I also last saw her being delightfully creepy in the Rosemary’s Baby prequel, so I got a kick out of her being a different kind of killer on this series. The enclosed convent setting really made it feel like an Agatha Christie-esque story, and I loved the twist at the end that the convent actually was saved indirectly by the nun’s actions. She just won’t be on hand to celebrate it.
While there aren’t necessarily a ton of similarities between Dianne Wiest as Mother Constance in “And Then There Were Nuns” and Nathan Lane as Philip Cross back in the Season 2 premiere, I just really enjoy a bizarre but weirdly relatable motive brought to life by an especially skilled actor. Philip committing murder because an obnoxious guy had bad theater etiquette? Not morally correct, but he also doesn’t have a bad point. Mother Constance practically booby-trapping the convent to kill a pop star? A bold move that backfired.
I say all of this as somebody who counts Elsbeth as one of my favorite shows to tune into each week, and expect that will still be true heading into the 2026 TV schedule in the not-too-distant future. I can’t really think of a least favorite episode, but “And Then There Were Nuns” is definitely going to rank among my favorites.
Of course, Teddy cottoned on at the end that there’s something off with Alec Bloom, so the episode did end on a foreboding note, but it’s not like Elsbeth is a sitcom. Some drama is to be expected. After how Season 2 handled the arc with Judge Crawford (played by Carrie Preston’s real-life husband Michael Emerson), I’m on board with the possibility of a new nemesis.
Tune in to CBS on Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET for new episodes of Elsbeth Season 2, usually following Matlock at 9 p.m. ET, although Matlock took this past week off. You can catch up on any episodes you missed streaming on Paramount+.