Elsbeth Season 3 is diving into trad wife culture in episode 18, Murder from Scratch, and the results are as crispy as homemade sourdough — and just as labor-intensive. When documentary filmmaker Audra films trad wife influencer Juliet (a scene-stealing Anna Camp) making a vegan dinner from scratch for her husband's boss, she catches something shocking on camera: lard. In a vegan dinner. What follows is a murder as convoluted as the lifestyle Juliet is selling, involving baking ammonia, bleach, a cleaning pod, and a hard drive hidden in a chicken coop by a kid named Deservedly. Meanwhile, the precinct faces a budget crisis that threatens to send Detective Buzz Fleming into retirement before he's ready — and Elsbeth, Wagner, and the gang aren't going down without a poker fight.

00:00 – Intro and housekeeping: 50 ratings milestone and listener review shoutout
03:47 – Episode recap begins: the trad wife opening sequence with Juliet and filmmaker Audra
10:23 – The lard reveal and how Juliet tries to silence Audra for good
17:42 – Elsbeth and Smullen arrive at the crime scene; the Arnold Palmer clue
28:58 – The B storyline kicks in: Commissioner Tully forces Buzz into retirement
44:00 – Elsbeth finds the hard drive in the chicken coop; the butter churning scene
54:52 – Poker night, Tully's cheating exposed, and Buzz gets to stay

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