There are few comforts as reliable as the TV procedural.

As television has moved more and more toward serialization, the pleasures of episodic storytelling have become all the more precious. It’s no surprise that audiences have gravitated toward series like Elsbeth and High Potential, and turned older shows like Suits into streaming success stories.

The world outside is chaotic, to put it mildly—we’ve been living in some version of “uncertain times” for at least the last five years—and it’s tough to deny the relief that comes from tuning into a weekly show and knowing exactly what to expect.

Elsbeth is a comfort show on a couple levels. First, because it rarely deviates from its “howcatchem” format, in which viewers see a murder take place and then watch Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) solve it. And second, because its title character maintains a level of good-natured optimism that seems downright inexplicable for a woman solving crimes in New York City.

(Warning: Elsbeth season finale spoilers ahead.)

In the final episodes of the show’s second season, however, that consistency found itself under threat. Elsbeth’s attempts to bring corrupt Judge Milton Crawford (Michael Emerson) to justice fail repeatedly—until, in “I Know What You Did Thirty-Three Summers Ago,” she witnesses him gunned down in front of her. The traumatic event punctures her cheerful outlook and forces her to confront the reality that some stories don’t wrap up cleanly, a less-than-comforting notion.