The Big Picture

• The CBS series 'Elsbeth' sets itself apart by showing who commits the crime at the start of each episode, focusing on Elsbeth's brilliant mind putting the puzzle together.
• Co-creators Robert & Michelle King wanted the show to stand alone and be accessible to all, even those unfamiliar with 'The Good Wife' and 'The Good Fight.'
• Elsbeth stars Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tascioni and features Wendell Pierce as Captain Wagner, the perfect foil for the quirky character.

From co-creators/executive producers Robert & Michelle King and showrunner Jonathan Tolins, the CBS series Elsbeth follows Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston), a fan favorite character from The Good Wife and The Good Fight, as she finds herself transplanted to New York City, lending her unique observations as an attorney to the NYPD. As she works alongside Officer Kaya Blanke (Carra Patterson), she’s actually secretly investigating Captain C.W. Wagner (Wendell Pierce). And Elsbeth is so good at her job that Wagner becomes suspicious of what she’s really up to, keeping his eye on her in return.

One thing that sets Elsbeth apart from other crime shows is the fact that you see who commits the crime as it happens, at the start of each episode. Instead of focusing on the whodunit, the fun comes from watching the often-underestimated Elsbeth and her brilliant mind put all the pieces of the puzzle together and experiencing the joy she finds in the little things in life.

During this interview with Collider, the Kings talked about wanting to create a show for Elsbeth that was accessible on its own, why they never anticipated that the character would ultimately be around as long as she has, how watching Columbo during COVID inspired this series, whether Elsbeth cares about how people perceive her, the chances of ever seeing any The Good Wife or The Good Fight characters make an appearance, what they most enjoy about what Preston brings to the character, and why Pierce is the perfect foil for her. They also gave a little sneak peek into what fans can expect from the upcoming fourth season of Evil.

Can You Watch 'Elsbeth' if You've Never Seen 'The Good Wife' or 'The Good Fight'?

Collider: This is one of my favorite characters that you guys have created, so I’m happy that we get to see more of her. She’s just so fantastic. This really is such an interesting show because it’s not really a spin-off of The Good Wife or The Good Fight. Did you intentionally want to make a show that feels very accessible to all audiences, whether you’ve seen anything in this world before or not? Was it really important to establish Elsbeth’s world in a way that didn’t make the viewer feel like they were missing anything?

MICHELLE KING: You’ve nailed it exactly. It really absolutely is meant to be its own show and people do not need to have watched The Good Wife or The Good Fight to find her accessible, right from the top.

ROBERT KING: It’s funny, CBS does testing of these shows, and they had focus groups of females and males separated out, and maybe it’s not very flattering, but it was surprising how few people knew of either The Good Wife or The Good Fight, and they watched it and still enjoyed it, which was important for testing the product with CBS. It was really good because it was built that way.

MICHELLE: It was also encouraging to us.

When you originally conceived of the character, was she someone you thought you were just bringing on for an episode of a show or did you always know that it would be more than that?

MICHELLE: No, she was initially the attorney for Chris Noth’s character when he was in prison. It was very much a function of the plot. We certainly didn’t anticipate the chance to use her for so many seasons.

ROBERT: We didn’t even put her in Season 2 of The Good Wife. We thought it was three [episodes] and done. And then, there was an episode in the third season where it was like, “Well, maybe she goes to an odd lawyer again. Here’s Elsbeth. Why not? Elsbeth is such a cool character.” It’s funny, on that show, you would lose track of characters either because the actor became unavailable or we didn’t need that type of character anymore, but Elsbeth was just so cool.

The Inspiration for 'Elsbeth' Came From Watching Episodes of 'Columbo'

At what point did you decide that you wanted to continue this world, and at the same time, did you know that it would be with Elsbeth? Was that always the character that you wanted to follow next?

ROBERT: Everybody probably did a lot of rethinking over the pandemic, but one of the things we were rethinking was that we were set to watch all these serialized shows we had never caught. And then, as we sat down, we were like, “What do we really wanna watch? Let’s put on another Columbo.” And so, we watched Columbo, a show that went off the air in the eighties maybe, and there was just something so fun and gripping about one character and a really witty structure. And then, we thought, “Well, that’s Carrie [Preston].”

MICHELLE: “That’s Elsbeth, the most intuitive person in the room.” So, it wasn’t really thinking in terms of, “Oh, let’s continue The Good Wife and The Good Fight world." It was very much, “Oh, how fun would it be to do a Columbo-like investigative show with Elsbeth Tascioni?”

ROBERT: Not only is Elsbeth underestimated by everybody because she’s quirky, but she’s also underestimated because she’s a woman. What’s funny, in our minds, is in New York, her Midwestern sweetness, all her tote bags, being on the hip-hop tour of New York, seem like a very funny contrast between all these pretentious people. One of the best movies ever is still A Night at the Opera with how the Marx Brothers worked best against the establishment of the opera world, and I think Elsbeth has an element of that.

This is such a great character combined with such a great performance that it’s hard to know where the character ends and the actor begins, and what comes from the writing versus what comes from the performance. When you write for her, do you see the details like all the bags she’s picking up and putting down and things like that, or does some of that come from Carrie having played her for so long?

MICHELLE: We all inspire each other. In terms of the bags and the wardrobe, that’s Dan Lawson.

ROBERT: That’s Dan Lawson’s inspiration, who we rely on for so much of the character work. And then, Carrie did a reading and when it was over, it was like, “That’s Elsbeth. She’s talking like Elsbeth again.” That’s kind of who she is, too.

Do you feel like Elsbeth is very aware of how people perceive her? Is that something that matters to her? Is that something she can use to her advantage?

MICHELLE: She doesn’t care about how other people perceive her. She’s very confident in her own quirkiness and it’s not an act. She genuinely goes through the world with wonderment, and I don’t think she’s especially interested in the impact she has on others.

ROBERT: The one word for me is genuine. She’s genuine, and that’s one of her best defense mechanisms, or the best way she sneaks under people’s guardrails. She’s able to get under their skin, which was Peter Falk in Colombo, too. There was something pure there, and I think there’s something pure about Elsbeth, too.

Will We Ever See Any Familiar Characters Make an Appearance on 'Elsbeth'?

We got to hear Cary Agos (Matt Czuchry) mentioned in the pilot. Will we hear about or maybe even see any other previous characters? Do you hope to bring anyone over as a guest, at any point, or is that not something that you think of for this show?

MICHELLE: It’s not. The show is not designed that way. It’s set in a different city. It’s an investigative show instead of a legal show. So, I don’t anticipate that you’re gonna be seeing a lot of those characters. One never says never, but that’s not how the show is designed.

ROBERT: I think our worry is that because Elsbeth has a different tone than The Good Wife and The Good Fight, if you bring in a character from there, does it actually break the fiction a little bit? There’s an old Christopher Reeve movie (Somewhere in Time) where he goes to the past because he’s fallen in love with the photo, and then he sees an Abraham Lincoln penny, which was not from that decade, and the whole fiction of the world just disintegrates, and he’s in the present. There’s an element of that, if you suddenly put Julianna [Margulies’] character in there.

On a fun and silly note, two of my favorite characters from your shows are Elsbeth and Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson). When I said that to Carrie Preston, she said that she would definitely be curious to see what a crossover with those characters might look like. Is that something you’ve ever thought about? Is there any world that we could ever see that?

ROBERT: Carrie Preston is an amazing director, who we’ve had shoot our shows Your Honor and The Good Fight. She has not directed Evil yet. That’s probably the way to slowly move into it, to try to get her to direct her husband in Evil.

MICHELLE: My sense is that Elsbeth would triumph.

I feel like he would have no idea how to handle her.

ROBERT: I think he’d be frustrated.

How far ahead have you thought about this show? Do you take it a season at a time? Have you thought about a few seasons?

ROBERT: I believe (showrunner) John Tolins has plotted out what’s going on with Wendell [Pierce]’s character, Captain Wagner. He’s the closest we have to a continuing story. The Good Wife and The Good Fight were probably 50% case and 50% continuing story. This is a little more case-focused because the guests are usually so excellent on their own and fascinating that you’re probably gonna be taken up with the case. But I don’t think shows end up where you think when they start. You think it’s one thing, and then as you’re going through it, you realize, “No, we’re missing an opportunity if we don’t pursue this.”

Because Elsbeth is set to be there for a year, I figured there was a plan in place for what could come after that.

MICHELLE: We’ve set up the beginning of the race, which in my head is downhill, and then you’ll see where the marbles go.

Carrie Preston Brings Humor and Genuineness to Her Role on 'Elsbeth'

What do you most enjoy about what Carrie Preston brings to this character, and what do you think audiences will most enjoy about what they’ll get to see with her in this series that they wouldn’t have gotten to see previously?

MICHELLE: What I enjoy most is the humor and the genuineness. There’s a lack of sarcasm with Elsbeth, which I appreciate. I feel like she makes the world just a little bit better, even as she’s looking for the truth. There’s pleasure in the comedy of that.

ROBERT: She does it more in these episodes because she has more time, but I like it when Carrie is trying to think something through, and you can see on her face these Tinker toys in her mind, reassembling themselves in different ways. Carrie is amazingly good at the physical comedy of that. TV has always bowed away from physical comedy, probably since Lucille Ball.

MICHELLE: It’s because most people can’t do it. She’s gifted.

ROBERT: It’s also very difficult because writers’ rooms tend to be about talking and the written word. To have an actress that is willing to play with the frame, like the way she leans into the side of the frame, is fun. I don’t even think in streaming you get it as much as you want it.

What makes Wendell Pierce the perfect foil for her?

MICHELLE: We’ve wanted to work with Wendell forever. He makes the perfect foil for Elsbeth, but we would have found a way to make him the perfect something for any show because he is that magnificent. He also has such a deadpan humor and a dry wit and an intelligence that make him the perfect foil and police captain here.

ROBERTL: When you’re looking for a comic duo, you’re always looking for someone who goes off the rails, and then someone who is the rails. And what you have in Wendell is someone who is the rails. John talks about Lou Grant with that character, and I think that’s an apt comparison.

'Evil' Season 4 Will Be Even More Creepy Than Usual (Which Says A Lot)

We’ve gotten to see a glimpse into Season 4 of Evil and the description said that it was going to be spookier and weirder, which seems like that’s just a given with every season of that show. After what you did to us with Season 3, what would you say to tease what fans can expect from Season 4? Will it be ever spookier and ever weirder?

ROBERT: Yeah. The biggest key is probably the birth of this baby, which is the product of Kristen’s egg and Leland’s sperm. Whenever I return to the world, I feel like a nut even explaining it. It’s about how much a baby is truly innocent, and how much they are a combination of their genetic structure. That is the pretentious way to put it. The comic way to put it is, what is Leland like with a newborn baby, with a baby monitor, and with diaper genies? It took us back to when we were raising our daughter. It almost doesn’t matter if the baby is the anti-Christ or not because they’re just as hard to deal with. That’s the comic element. It’s spookier because Sister Andrea is going to fight many more demons. We just love Andrea Martin and what she does with the character. She’s our window into the monsters and the demon world that the normal characters don’t see happening around them, and they’re scarier. Joel [Harlow], who does our creatures, is just outdoing himself. It will have much more creepiness. It’s not the jump scares quality of monsters, but that unnerving feeling of, am I seeing a monster in that corner or is it just a dark corner?

Elsbeth airs on Thursday nights on CBS and is available to stream at Paramount+. Check out the trailer:

Watch on Paramount+