Elsbeth Is Continuing the Legacy of The Good Wife

4 days ago 3

Elsbeth

Ahead of the Elsbeth Season 2 panel at New York Comic Con last weekend, the cast and creatives behind the hit CBS series stopped by the Collider Studio to preview what lies ahead for its characters, including Carrie Preston’s titular Elsbeth and Wendell Pierce’s Captain Wagner.

In addition to discussing the changes coming to Season 2, Pierce spoke about Wagner’s reservations about folks knowing what his initials stand for; showrunner Jonathan Tolins confirmed the second season’s 20-episode order; while executive producers, Robert King and Michelle King, discussed working with Broadway talent, how Elsbeth’s costumes really inform where the character is emotionally, the impact they’ve had on television, and what fans can expect for the future of their cancelled series Evil. You can read the full transcript of the interview below, and watch it in the video player above.

COLLIDER: Something I love about Elsbeth is that it is doing something that a lot of TV shows today aren't doing, which is it ended Season 1 in May and Season 2 is already on our TV screens again. What is the secret behind being able to keep a series on our screen so consistent throughout the year?

JONATHAN TOLINS: No time off.

CARRIE PRESON: I never stopped working. [Laughs] Working every day.

TOLINS: I can certainly speak for everyone in the writers’ room. We're always saying how lucky we feel to be on a show that we're able to make this many episodes and to keep going and to keep it alive. Also, I think we benefit from having a shorter time crunch because you can end up having too much time to put together an episode of television and you can spin your wheels and end up spinning things into the ground. I think this show itself has the energy of, “We threw this together,” but that energy ends up on the screen.

It keeps your audience engaged. They come back for more. Is Season 2 the same episode count as Season 1? Is it a longer season?

TOLINS: The first season, because of the writers’ strike, there was the pilot and then we did nine episodes after the strike, so it was only 10. We have an order for 20 for Season 2.

'Elsbeth's Weekly Guest Stars Make the Series

Congratulations! That's excellent. Carrie, there were so many fantastic guest stars in Season 1. Are there any episodes that you're really excited in Season 2 because of the talent that is coming in?

PRESTON: The most delicious thing about our show, really, is that Wendell, Carra [Paterson], and I are the three series regulars, and we get fourth series regular every episode. They're new, and they're all amazing. The casting has been extraordinary. It speaks to the writing and the show that people want to come and play with us at that level. So, right out of the gate, we had Nathan Lane, and he set the bar so high. He's so revered and he was so wonderful and it was such a brilliant script by John.

From there forward, we've just been blessed. We have people that I fangirl all over, Pamela Adlon being one, that I'm just super obsessed with, as a fan of her work. Then to have her be there and have her be everything that I wanted her to be and more makes my job so much easier because I can just play with these incredible people.

WENDELL PIERCE: I love going out and seeing other actors and saying, “Hey, do you wanna come and do our show?” I'm always pitching people. I come back, like, “I've met so and so, they want to do the show. I met so and so, they want to do the show.” It reminded me of when I was growing up, of the days of, “A cast of thousands,” or, “International casts from all over the world.” Also, in television, you had that big guest star, the movie of the week, and I feel like we're doing a little movie of the week every episode.

It's very much like Murder She Wrote , where you had all of these people that you're so excited to see on screen and join an episode. A thing that I'm very obsessed with with Elsbeth is her outfits. I love how her costumes sometimes reflect what's going on in the episode. I know in Episode 2 of the season, there's kind of an upset at the end of it with a conversation and a car ride, and I'm curious, we see her colorways come out of sync, and I'm wondering how intentional the colors that she wears in the episodes are.

MICHELLE KING: The genius Dan Lawson. He's been the wardrobe designer since The Good Wife and The Good Fight, and now Elsbeth, and he's just spectacular at it. He goes from character. He knows the characters inside and out. He's extremely aware of where the story is going and how to pull the eye to Elsbeth and make sure she's contrasting. It's magnificent to see.

It's magnificent to watch, as well. In preparation for this interview, I was reading around and seeing what fans are questioning and wondering about, and I saw a lot of fans who were curious about why Wagner doesn't like people knowing what C.W. stands for. Is it because of A Wrinkle in Time or is that something that we should pay attention to?

PIERCE: A Wrinkle in Time? I had not thought about that. So yes, it’s that! [Laughs] No, it sounds so much more like a strong leader. In my mind, I've created in his mind that having the initials is better than having the name. I have a friend, Eric; he spent his entire childhood going by Eric, but his first name was Lolis. Then he became a journalist and he embraced Lolis because he thought it was so beautiful and melodic and different. So, I think one day Wagner will embrace his name, eventually, when he becomes a better leader, but he's trying to put on a good front right now.

Where Are Things Headed With the New Lieutenant in 'Elsbeth' Season 2?

Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tascioni walking down a hall with Wendell Pierce and Carra Patterson in Elsbeth

I like that. Talking about leadership, he has a new person in the office that is kind of keeping him to task. Can you tease what's going on with the lieutenant who comes in and kind of throws things off this season?

PIERCE: Yeah, Lieutenant O'Connor is someone who's coming in to do an audit of the precinct and my leadership. He takes the place of someone who was corrupt — a close friend, but corrupt, and he’s out — and I realize now that he is kind of the manifestation of my own self-reflection. At least, I've gone deep into the script [laughs], and so he's this manifestation of me wondering if my best days are behind me, “Am I as good as I think I am?”

I'm enjoying that and really enjoying working with Daniel Isaac, who's the actor doing it. I’m starting to wonder if I can be a better police officer and why I became a police officer in the first place. So, he's a reflection of my own sort of self-reflection.

TOLINS: This is one of those things where we were writing a lot of episodes on the fly. We got to the end of the first season, and we loved the idea. First of all, production was dying for us to get Elsbeth out of that storage closet because it was very difficult to shoot in it, so we thought it was this lovely moment for Wagner to let her have Noonan's old office. It wasn't until we came together this year when we said, “Oh, there’s gonna have to be a new lieutenant!” Again, we just try to see everything as an opportunity, and it's like, not only is this person coming in to fill that space and to look everything over again, but he wants that office that he should have.

What's going on with Elsbeth this season that you can tease because, obviously, she doesn't have to root out corruption anymore, but there may be more corruption. What's going on with her this season?

PRESTON: One of the things we're exploring across the board is things from the characters’ pasts are coming back to haunt them or confront them. They're having to contend with. So, something is coming for Elsbeth from her past, and I think it's gonna shed some light, also, as to why she moved to New York and what happened with this thing from the past that made her feel like she needed to start fresh or run away. We're going to learn more about that as we go along.

Will we see more of her family by chance? Because there are a lot of mentions of her son in the early episodes.

PRESTON: It is fun to get to know Teddy from the writers. Every episode, I learn a little bit more about Teddy. He was only mentioned once in The Good Wife, the first appearance that Elsbeth ever had, and he wasn't even by name. So, having a show like this gives us an opportunity to really delve into her relationships: What is Elsbeth like as a mother? What is Elsbeth like as a friend? So, yeah, you'll learn more about Teddy. For sure.

The Kings Have Helped to Shape the Television Landscape Over the Years

Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tascioni in a pink jacket and white blouse with a big bow in Season 2 of Elsbeth

I'm very excited for that. Michelle and Robert, what has it been like for the both of you to shepherd so many incredible series on TV over the years?

MICHELLE KING: The answer can only be great, right? Wouldn't it be terrible to say, “Oh, it's been awful!”

I feel like the shows that you’ve shepherded have also helped to uplift television as a whole because there are so many actors who are being employed, so many writers being employed. It really feels like the shows that you have brought to screen have been a mainstay and have had a really tangible impact.

MICHELLE KING: I'll just speak for myself. If there's any talent, it's been finding great writers and great actors. We have worked with incredible teams.

ROBERT KING: I think, also, because we shoot all the shows we've done in New York. You feel good about a lot of Broadway actors who actually can get healthcare and can work and make money coming to our show and then enreach our show. I don't think we went into the The Good Wife thinking we were gonna have a continuing guest cast, but then you have these amazing guest actors coming, and you go, “That was so fun. Let's bring them back in Episode 8, 12...” And I think John’s continuing that in Elsbeth, which is really good because it's also a little bit like a family. You don't wanna see someone go. You wanna see them back again, and they come back, and they kill somebody else. It’s perfect.

Then down the line, they get a spin-off!

ROBERT KING: They get a spin-off! [Laughs] Yes, you're right because Carrie Preston was one of those guest stars. She did such a bang-up job the first time I was like, “Oh my god, we need to find reasons to bring her back. Someone lost a wallet in the office. Now, Carrie has to come back and find it.”

I love that. I did want to ask you about Evil . I feel like you've talked about that at length, but even if there isn't a continuation of the series as we know it, do you see it shifting into other mediums? There's such a world of Audible there's a world of books. There's so much that you can still play with.

MICHELLE KING: I think creatively, we're not done with those characters in that world, so it would be lovely if there were an opportunity.

ROBERT KING: We said online that if CBS doesn't wanna do it or Netflix, we're doing it as puppet shows at home. And we have. We created the puppets. We just do it. Every week, we continue our story. So, that'll be it instead of Audible, probably.

New episodes of Elsbeth air every Thursday on CBS, and next-day on Paramount+.