It only took one episode to know that Elsbeth is going to be a fun show. And the good news is that not only is it back on April 4, but CBS will be airing two new episodes back-to-back.
First up is “A Classic New York Character,” in which the loathed co-op board president (guest star Linda Lavin) of a luxury pre-war building falls off her balcony to her death. During their investigation, Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) and Kaya (Carra Patterson) meet Joann (guest star Jane Krakowski), a high-powered Manhattan real estate broker with huge clients and even bigger secrets.
Then, in “Reality Shock,” a larger-than-life reality TV star is found dead in her bathtub, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson guest stars as Skip Mason, the mercurial producer behind the popular, guilty-pleasure reality series “Lavish Ladies,” who becomes a prime suspect after he is accused of going to dangerous lengths to concoct “good TV.” Let’s just say he certainly comes across as guilty in TV Insider’s exclusive sneak peek, which you can watch above.
Plus, read on for scoop from Preston, showrunner Jonathan Tolins, and creators and executive producers Robert and Michelle King from a fun Tea Around Town event.
How does Elsbeth change as an investigator throughout the season?
Jonathan Tolins: I think she gets more confident. She finds that she has this knack for getting close to people who turn out to be murderers, which is something to adjust to. But a lot of it’s also about her relationships with Officer Blanke and with the captain [Wendell Pierce]. Because she’s there under dual purposes and has a secret mission, she has to navigate all the tensions around that while she’s solving these cases.
Michele Crowe/CBS
Speaking of, I love Elsbeth and Kaya’s dynamic and seeing them watching the reality show together. How much more are we going to get of that?
Carrie Preston: It gets deeper as we go along because they really need each other. Elsbeth is there on a consent decree, to babysit the police, make sure they don’t do anything that’s going to be litigious in any way, and Kaya is kind of her admission ticket onto the crime scenes. Elsbeth’s way of working, I think, starts to rub off a little bit on Kaya, and she starts to grow a little bit as an investigator and sharpen her own skills, and maybe she has her eyes on becoming a detective.
How are you rolling out what we learn about Wagner’s mysterious history?
Tolins: What’s fun is I think the writers’ room has come up with a way to have the twists and turns of that happen before the audience gets too far ahead of it, that Wagner starts to figure out things, too. What interested us most was how it affected the relationships of our three main characters once they start to get wind that things are not quite what they seem.
You’re also bringing in Gloria Reuben as Wagner’s wife. What will be surprising about what that relationship shows about Wagner?
Tolins: You see a softer side of him than you do usually. It’s a very loving marriage. They also have this foundation together that helps underprivileged kids, and they’re a real partnership.
Robert and Michelle, when I spoke with you before the season, you said that the show was designed to have the guest star with a small cast. What are you able to do with those guest stars because it’s not a whodunit?
Michelle King: Revel in them. It’s been one extraordinary guest star after another.
Robert King: I think that’s where the show’s most Columbo in that it really is two peers. Acting styles can vary, but they’re going nose-to-nose in a lot of the show.
Tolins: And I think that the specific nature of the howdunit is the fun of the audience knowing for sure a person is lying. It’s really fun to watch an actor do scenes where we know they’re lying, to see how they navigate that. It’s always delicious.
Preston: And each of the characters is so different. It brings a different tone to each episode. It’s almost like we’re doing a little movie each week. And so Elsbeth then gets to try to figure out what is going to unlock that person and get them to trip up and give her the in in solving the crime.
It feels like you have fun with the guest stars with that.
Preston: Yes, exactly. It’s a true cat and mouse, and that’s the fun of it. And to find those little twists and turns and play the subtexts with the other actors, all of which are such incredible talents, has been truly the most fun because it just changes things up. You don’t get stuck in a rut because it’s almost like we get a new series regular every week.
Carrie, I want to see you and Michael Emerson onscreen together again because he’s so good as Leland on Evil that I feel like he would be great as a killer, to see you two interacting that way.
Preston: Yeah, believe me, I’m going to make some calls, see if we can make that happen.
Robert King: Who’d you like working with most of the guest stars?
Preston: Oh gosh, I’m not going to pick a favorite. Everybody has brought a different energy to the set, so I love that. It’s like, “What’s behind the door?” each week. It’s fun for me because it makes my performance stay fresh.
Robert: That’s very diplomatic. Now just tell us.
Preston: Honestly, I really don’t have a favorite. Whoever it is that I’m currently working with tends to be my favorite.
What can you say about how the season is going to end? Have you designed this to have a cliffhanger?
Tolins: Certainly things come to a pivotal moment in Elsbeth’s life at the end of the season.
Michael Parmelee/CBS
What are you enjoying about playing Elsbeth and Wagner’s dynamic?
Preston: Wendell’s so wonderful to play with. He’s just such a brilliant genius actor. And I swear it was maybe three episodes in when he turned to me and he said, “I just realized this is a comedy.” He’s so used to playing these very serious type characters, and so I think it’s been really fun for him to play in a different genre than he usually does but still bring that gravitas that he brings to all of his roles. And that dynamic is playing out between Elsbeth and Wagner as well. I think he is being charmed by her even though he doesn’t really want to be and she’s melting him in a way. And I think that’s going to feed into our overall storyline between the two of them.
And what are you enjoying about that relationship from a producing and writing standpoint?
Tolins: Well, early on I said I wanted it to be my Mary Richards and Lou Grant [The Mary Tyler Moore Show] relationship. I think they’re both such fabulous actors and they’re so great together. In the pilot, Elsbeth says that she’s so excited to be on the side of the truth now, but she’s in this position where because she’s investigating Wagner, who is this man she likes and respects, she has to lie to him. And that is very uncomfortable for her. And so we’re exploring the tensions of that and when he starts to suspect that maybe she’s here for some other purpose, that it’s painful because you like them both and you like them liking each other.
And directing them?
Robert King: Here’s the thing about directing them: Don’t say cut at the end. Let them act past what the lines say because you’ll find that there’s just this tension between them, and it was like, “Okay, well, then how do you match it when you come around the other side?” So you usually get a great master and then you’re trying to match it over the shoulders to be the same thing because they have a really good interplay. Carra now, too. And this is me as an audience member watching. There’s a real pleasure in the way you two are playing.
Preston: Yeah, I love that friendship between Officer Blanke and Elsbeth. There’s a generational difference, so there’s a little bit of a mother-daughter, sister, maybe friend, different ethnicities, all of that stuff. There’s just this mutual admiration between the two of them that I think is lovely, and we don’t see that particular dynamic a lot.
Elsbeth, Returns With Back-to-Back Episodes, Thursday, April 4, 9/8c, CBS
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