Trying to help his son Hunter, tennis coach Cliff McGrath drugs a star player, only for the man to drop dead on the court. Complicating matters is that Ashlee, a ball girl working for the tournament, spotted him tampering with the deceased's towel, and is intent on blackmailing him. Elsbeth is soon playing a game to find out the killer.
Tropes
- Accidental Murder: Cliff just wanted to drug Johann enough so his son could win. He didn't know Johann's girlfriend had given him "performance" drugs that interfered with the nitroglycerin on the towel and caused Johann to die on court. Cliff openly says, "It was an accident," while assuring his son it wasn't his fault.
- Blackmail Backfire: Played with. Ashlee the ball girl confronts Cliff on how he drugged Johann's towel and wants in on a scheme to drug other opposing players and clean up on bets. He points out she's wearing expensive shoes from a bet she made on his underdog son in the match where Johann died so she looks guiltier. Rather than be cowed, she just laughs, "Reverse card, nice," and assumes they're now a partnership over Cliff's objections.
- Buffy Speak: Ashlee speaks almost exclusively in TikTok slang.
- Exact Words: Johann's girlfriend, when asked if she drugged him, says she didn't give Johann anything that should've killed him. She did give him drugs, specifically erectile dysfunction meds—turns out they had a bad reaction with the nitroglycerin Cliff gave him, which caused Johann's death.
- In-Universe Nickname: Johann's is "Yo-Yo".
- Stage Mom: Cliff is a "sports dad" variant. He loves Hunter, but is extremely invested in his career, often to Hunter's own detriment. By the end, Hunter's sick of the whole thing and wants to quit.
- The Stool Pigeon: As she's being arrested at the end, Ashlee flat-out tells Cliff to his face that she intends to flip on him immediately to get her sentence reduced.
- Totally Radical: All of Ashlee's slang is technically correct, but you'll find very few twentysomethings who actually use it offline, especially when speaking to adults.
- Unwanted Assistance: No matter what Ashlee says, Cliff is intent that they are not working together.
