Who I’d Want Solving My Murder: Three Crime-Solving Teams Face Off

Elsbeth Tascioni, Morgan Gillory, Max Mitchell. They don’t carry (real) badges, but they are law enforcement’s not-so-secret weapons on CBS’s Elsbeth, ABC’s High Potential, and The CW’s Wild Cards, respectively.

Of course, they don’t work in isolation. Their partners, captains, and other team members (on either side of the law) are vital to their success rate.

So how do these teams stack up in direct comparison? Whose superpower is most reliable? If you were to meet a grisly, mysterious, inexplicable, homicide-assisted end, who would you want on the case?

Round 1: The Partners

One common trait our crime-solving partners share is that they are all good police officers. Solid, rule-following, by-the-book detectives with a pronounced level of competency.

Honestly, they are the stuff crime procedurals are made of. They believe in justice and are willing to risk their own safety to win the day for victims and their families.

Even if they weren’t partnered with quirky, eye-catching individuals with particular sets of skills, they’d still be out there, solving crimes and making the world a better place. Just in quieter, less splashy ways.

Submitted for your consideration: Detectives Kaya Blanke, Adam Karadec, and Cole Ellis.

Candidate A: Kaya Blanke

Like all the candidates in this round, Kaya had no idea what she was in for when, for the first time, her primary, Elsbeth Tascioni, introduced herself at a crime scene.

But as a regular beat officer at the time, Kaya had more time and patience to observe Elsbeth doing her thing than the detectives did.

She quickly realized the crazy-seeming redhead with her overflowing handbags had a gift for spotting the important clues.

Together, they were an extremely effective team, with Kaya’s calm balancing out Elsbeth’s frenzy, and they grew close as colleagues, briefly roommates, and ultimately best friends.

Unlike the other two candidates, we meet Kaya before she makes detective and get to see the diligence and integrity with which she does her work. The fact that it paid off with her promotion on the Elsbeth Season 2 finale made us cheer out loud.

Candidate B: Adam Karadec

Adam Karadec has immense potential of his own. Before being forced to partner up with Morgan Gillory, he was definitely leading the pack to be named LAPD Stick in the Mud of the Year.

That being said, there’s obviously a time and place for following protocol and established procedure. Without staunch police paladins like Karadec holding the line, chaos and anarchy loom large.

He didn’t become the Major Crimes division’s lead detective by luck or nepotism. He’s earned his place through hard work and a good head for investigating. After all, he figured out it was Morgan who messed with his evidence board on the High Potential series premiere.

Morgan’s probably done more for him in terms of character development than he’s affected her. Thanks to her infuriatingly effective unorthodox approach to crime-solving, he’s learned to loosen up a bit and take in the bigger picture.

Candidate C: Cole Ellis

None of our partner candidates is particularly hard on the eyes, but Giacomo Gianniotti is a special level of gorgeous. It has to be said.

As Cole Ellis on Wild Cards, we first meet him in a middle ground between Kaya and Karadec — a detective demoted to “water-cop” — after his investigation into his brother’s death attracts the attention of some nefarious folk.

He’s less resistant to his unusual partner than Karadec is, seeing as their success means regaining his detective rank.

Still, he lives in hope that he can reform Max’s con-artist leanings. But it’s Max’s connections, not the police rulebook, that finally lead him to the truth about his brother’s case.

And the round goes to…

Team Elsbeth takes the first point for the simple fact that Kaya has improved Elsbeth’s life as much as, if not more than, Elsbeth has improved Kaya’s.

From workmates to roommates to best friends. Even with Kaya gone to her undercover assignment, she’s still the only person Elsbeth sees as her “partner.”

Neither of the other partners in the category would dare to offer love advice, food recommendations, or honest fashion critiques. And both of them spent way more time resenting the show’s primary than appreciating their abilities.

My personal gripe is forcing romantic overtures into every hetero man-woman partnership. Just let them be friends, for goodness sake.

Hot take: Ellis and Karadec would both be more fun to watch if Max and Morgan, respectively, could chime in as the peanut gallery on their relationships with other women, instead of gazing longingly at them from a distance.

Round 2: The Commanding Officers

The trick with being a captain on a crime procedural is walking the line between approachability and authority. That is, if you’re not one of those “Corrupt Captain” tropes.

Among our candidates for best Commanding Officers, we have solid leaders with experience, drive, and a “bigger picture” perspective.

All three of them are willing to get down in the trenches with their team, and they’re out for justice, not political leverage.

Submitted for your consideration: Captain CW Wagner, Captain Nick Wagner (no relation that we know of), and Chief Patrick Li.

Candidate 1: Charles Wallace Wagner

Wendall Pierce will always be Bunk Moreland in my heart of hearts, but I’m always willing (and usually delighted) to have him pop up on my screen as someone new and curmudgeony.

As Captain CW Wagner on CBS‘s Elsbeth, he started out understandably with his nose firmly out of joint, forced to accommodate Ms. Tascioni as an independent observer for the Justice Department-mandated consent decree program.

Most probably, this was because he sensed she was actually there to investigate him for possible corruption.

Once all the subterfuge was revealed and the real source of corruption dealt with, Wagner reluctantly admitted that Elsbeth had become an asset to the department.

Despite his exasperated status quo demeanor, Captain Wagner is one of Elsbeth’s staunchest supporters. Furthermore, he looks out for her, recognizing that her brilliant mind doesn’t always take more obvious dangers into account in its lightning-quick calculations.

Candidate B: Nick Wagner

Captain Nick Wagner came in to command the LAPD Major Crimes unit on ABC‘s High Potential behind the eight ball, an unexpected outside hire when everyone was anticipating Lt. Soto would be promoted to captain.

He probably knew this, but isn’t one to care. In general, he was heavy-handed, sly, and confrontational from the get-go.

During his tenure, his connections with FBI operatives and political figures come in handy but don’t endear him to the team. Again, this doesn’t bother him.

The High Potential writers have tried to draw parallels between his rogue captain approach and Morgan’s outside-the-box style, but it’s been a hard sell.

Spoiler alert: Kissing the consultant won’t score any points with this judging panel. Ick.

Candidate C: Patrick Li

Chief Patrick Li is the classic Lou Grant-style boss with a gun. And I mean that in the best way possible. I love a good-hearted grump.

On The CW‘s Wild Cards, all his personal alarms go off when he’s saddled with the dubious duo of black sheep demoted detective Cole Ellis and con artist Max Mitchell. I mean, of course they did.

Over three seasons, we’ve learned a lot about Chief Li. He’s curt and impatient with nonsense. His background holds its own secrets, but he’s more than the sum of his experiences. I suspect that he has more of a sense of humor than he lets on. After all, who could put up with Yates without one?

Like the other C.O. candidates, he comes to appreciate his odd couple team. They close cases, expose corruption, and save the day with remarkable regularity.

However, he’s not fooled by Max’s charm. He’s indebted to her and grateful for her discretion after she saves him on Wild Cards Season 2 Episode 7, “The Big Bang Theory,” but he has no illusions about which side of the law she prances on.

In the Wild Cards Season 3 finale, he reminds Ellis that, as the one with the real badge, Ellis can’t afford to follow Max down her rabbit hole of legally ambiguous solutions.

And the round goes to…

It’s a close call between Captain C.W. Wagner and Chief Li, but Wagner gets the edge for his willingness to mix it up with all sorts to get the win.

While Chief Li does what he has to do in terms of hobnobbing and smiling politely to get his department the resources it needs, he shows no signs of seeking to climb the political ladder.

Wagner, on the other hand, is right at home with soirees and fundraisers. He’s often the arm candy to his fundraising socialite wife, Claudia Payne.

Before a certain flame-haired consent-decree attorney fell into his bullpen, Wagner was probably content to keep his police and party lives separate.

But since Elsbeth started finding answers in unexpected places, Wagner’s neatly partitioned life has evolved into a more complex structure. Poker game deals, calling in favors, leveraging personal intel. The overlap between networking and nabbing the baddies grows at every opportunity.

Yes, Wagner’s a captain, but he’s in it to win it and willing to play all his cards in the interests of justice.

Round 3: Bonus Buddies

Admittedly, this is a bit of a wild card (no pun intended) category. Bonus buddies are useful team members who bring a particular set of skills to the table.

They might be the person who always “has a guy” for every task. Maybe they’re tech specialists. They might simply have worked the job so long that they know where the skeletons are buried and why they’re there.

Requirements for the Bonus Buddies candidates are (1) recurring, if not regular, appearances, (2) ability or access that the primary doesn’t have, and (3) provide assistance key to solving the case.

Submitted for your consideration: Teddy Tascioni, Lieutenant Selena Soto, and Ricky Wilson.

Candidate A: Teddy Tascioni

As Elsbeth’s only son, Teddy Tascioni occupies a very special place in her world. He accepts that she will always dote on him, but is also able to be honest with her about difficult topics.

Furthermore, as a journalist, he seeks out and accesses resources that she doesn’t tap regularly. Whenever he’s made an appearance, he’s added something to the investigation.

On Elsbeth Season 3, his primary role has been to play Devil’s Advocate regarding his mother’s relationship with mayoral candidate, Alec Bloom. This led to a temporary rift between Elsbeth and Teddy, but she’s too smart to recognize that Teddy’s just looking out for her.

Elsbeth and Teddy have a wonderfully close parent-child relationship that has evolved into mutual respect for each other’s fields of expertise. His genuine concern for his mother is heartwarming, especially since she devotes so much of her energy to caring for and looking after others.

Candidate B: Selena Soto

High Potential has given Lieutenant Selena Soto a special sort of middle ground in the LAPD Major Crimes Division.

She exists in a busy overlap between leader, colleague, confidante, and friend, but she manages to check all the boxes in a way that brings calm to tense moments.

Before Captain Nick Wagner swooped in, she acted as the unit’s de facto commanding officer. She made the call to engage Morgan Gillory as a consultant, recognizing her abilities as an asset to the team.

She takes the deal she struck with Morgan seriously, working quietly on the down-low to find out what happened to Roman. When that case takes her to a face-to-face sit-down with Willa Quinn, she understands that Quinn’s connections will make life difficult for her and the team, but doesn’t back down.

For better or worse, she takes a personal interest in the lives of her detectives and supports them when they face setbacks, knowing that they all need to be in the right headspace if the team is going to pull in the same direction.

Honestly, if she’d been the Commanding Officer candidate in Round 2, Team High Potential would probably have taken it. Soto beats them all, hands down.

Candidate C: Ricky Wilson

Ricky Wilson is the epitome of a Renaissance man, well-skilled in all things domestic, technological, and cultural.

On Max’s Wild Cards team, he is very much the temperamental Mastermind, putting together heists with his signature “process” and planning for all contingencies. His Internet reach appears infinite.

More importantly, he takes care of Max. When her mother was “dead” and her dad incarcerated, Ricky made sure Max had a home and all the comforts low-key larceny could afford them.

When Max and George set their sights on Joseph Edwards/Jonathan Ashford’s secret fortune, it’s Ricky who acquires the video memoirs for them to study and sets up the items needed to crack the code.

And when Vivienne returns, Ricky goes into protector mode, sussing her out for ulterior motives while crafting his most ambitious plot ever.

We don’t know where or why Ricky joined up with George and Max, but he’s everything they could ask for in a Bonus Buddy.

And the round goes to…

Well, duh.

Ricky Wilson is a walking, talking, fabulously coiffed, and quite literal deus ex machina, capable of finding any bit of intel, solving any mechanical problem, and brewing the perfect cuppa all at the same time. He pretty much blows everyone else out of the water.

Unencumbered by any sense of legal or traditional “moral” constraints, he always employs the fastest route to a solution and gets impressively creative when the job calls for it.

I might have created the category just to crown him the winner, but as a legacy torchbearer in the tradition of great minds with kind hearts (e.g., Criminal Minds‘ Penelope Garcia), he deserves the kudos.

Deciding Round: The Primaries

This has been fun, Fanatics, but it really all comes down to this: The Primaries. They are the spice in the mix, the quirk in the quest, the magic bullets that hit the bullseye.

Each of our candidates brings their personality to bear on the cases at hand. Sometimes, they find a case that wasn’t even on the radar.

They’re sparkly, eye-catching masters of deduction. Their minds work on a different frequency than the rest of us. They catch the bad guys, and that’s what we want, right?

Submitted for your consideration: Elsbeth Tascioni, Morgan Gillory, and Max Mitchell.

Candidate A: Elsbeth Tascioni

Carrie Preston is such a delight as Elsbeth Tascioni. From her inception on The Good Wife, the character excels at subverting expectations.

Stepping into the central spotlight with her own series, she masked her trademark eccentricities for a short time.

However, as the series has progressed, her spidey sense of wrongdoing has somehow become heightened, bordering on the supernatural.

For example, on Elsbeth Season 3 Episode 16, “Murder, He Wrote,” there wasn’t even a crime being investigated when her antennae picked up on the killer’s misstep.

Elsbeth’s tenacity and persistence are double-edged blades. Once she’s got a whiff of villainy afoot, she becomes the perkiest, most annoying thorn in the bad guy’s side.

But it’s not really her choice, is it? She simply cannot rest until the case is closed and justice is served. She shares that compulsive trait with Morgan.

Candidate B: Morgan Gillory

From cleaning lady to consultant, Morgan Gillory’s been a force of nature since tidying up the office, sorting out the LAPD’s Major Crimes case in the process.

Bold. Brilliant. Bossy. She attacks life with more self-awareness than 99% of the populace, but knowing how her brain works doesn’t make living with a cognitive exceptionality any easier.

Since landing the LAPD consultant job, Morgan has figured out how things are done when you’re “po-po,” but chooses to follow procedure selectively. Like Ricky Wilson in Round 3, she takes the most direct approach to a solution. “Direct” rarely equals “protocol.”

Her keen observational skills and lightning-fast multitasking brain make the initial assessment of a crime scene or suspect remarkably conclusive. And her lack of filter means the information is usually communicated as quickly as it’s uncovered.

Her ability to compartmentalize means that both her family and the job get her full attention at all times. It feels exhausting to us, mundane folks, but Morgan’s priorities fuel her drive, and no one should get in her way when it comes to either her kids or justice.

Candidate C: Max Mitchell

In this trio of super solvers, Max Mitchell is probably the most Batman to the others’ Superman and Flash. (Look at me, DC name-dropping. Let it be noted that I’m growing as a geek.)

Max is the Batman because her superpowers stem from training and experience rather than from a savant ability. Also, with Ricky as her Alfred and Lucius Fox rolled into one, and the mansions she frequents, the parallels are pretty fun.

To be sure, she has a genetic advantage, given her parents’ criminal skills, but by the time she’s of use to the Vancouver Metro Police, her raw talent has been honed to a superior level of con artistry.

Max’s detection skills reside firmly at the intersection of Elsbeth’s instinct and Morgan’s objective appraisal. Additionally, she brings her own brand of people skills to the party.

And the WIN goes to…

Before we go any further, let me be clear. I adore all three of these women and everything they bring to the crime procedural genre.

But when it comes down to who I’d want solving my murder — which, let’s face it, would probably involve Star Trek memorabilia and a nice bottle of wine — it’s a no-brainer.

I’d want Morgan’s encyclopedic knowledge of random trivia to identify that the uniform I’m found in is clearly missing command pips, and the glass on the table is wrong for the vintage that was poured.

That said, Team Elsbeth has stronger support from its members in backing up the investigation. Credit should be given to the two rounds they won.

My only hesitation in not awarding Ms. Tascioni the honor of cornering my Klingon-cosplaying murderer while cheerfully wielding a phaser and/or corkscrew is that, like Poker Face‘s Charlie Cale, Elsbeth’s superpower usually only kicks in when she hears the verbal stumble.

I highly doubt Elsbeth’s fluency in Klingon, while there’s a pretty good chance that Morgan is at least conversational.

So that’s who I’d want solving MY murder, Fanatics.

Who would you want on your case?

Did I misjudge any of the rounds?

Hit the comments with how you would’ve ranked them all!

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