“Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” Threatens to Fall Down Its Own Rabbit Hole: TV Review
Caroline Framke Chief TV CriticIn its fourth and final episode, “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” finally gets to its point.After three episodes of unpacking the mysterious disappearance of Elisa Lam, the infamous Cecil Hotel in which she was last seen, the fraught history of downtown Los Angeles, and even several truly confusing “web sleuth” theories about what might have happened, the new Netflix series reaches a perhaps unsatisfying conclusion: that the simplest explanation is almost definitely the right one. This hour not only addresses all the reasons why this particular case got so much attention, but why that attention complicated everything about it beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.