How ‘Elsbeth’ Became TV’s Kookiest, Greatest Success Story

The CBS procedural’s leading lady, a lawyer-turned-investigator named Elsbeth Tascioni, played by Carrie Preston , is an accidentally peacock of clashing patterns and textures, who makes an impression in every room not just because of her wardrobe, but for unapologetically thinking so far outside the box that her colleagues forget where the box was even located in the first place.

It’s a drama series spun off from The Good Fight , itself spun off from The Good Wife , for which Preston won an Emmy Award for her portrayal of the kooky, brilliant mystery solver, who sees the world as differently as she exists in it.

While those series were lauded for the searing, urgent way they ripped storylines from real news headlines—to the point that audiences wondered whether the writers of The Good Fight were clairvoyant about what was going to happen in the political world— Elsbeth is a throwback. And not just to the acronym scramble of NCIS: Law & Order: SVU: Chicago: 9-1-1 procedural drama series that have metastasized across television. We’re talking about a throwback to TV’s bread and butter from decades ago: Columbo. The Rockford Files. Magnum P.I.

“Somebody tweeted, ‘ Murder She Wrote gays, Elsbeth is for us,’” Preston tells The Daily Beast’s Obsessed. “Brilliant. They know what we’re trying to do.”

We’re chatting with Preston and Elsbeth ’s showrunner, Jonathan Tolins, at the Television Critics Association press tour, a victory lap that’s doubling as a starting gun for their surprise hit show.

Season 1 was a ratings blockbuster for CBS, a rare breakout success made all the remarkable for being launched around a fortysomething, decidedly unconventional female lead in lieu of tried-and-true bankable star. The show’s mystery-of-the-week format—a murder is depicted in the opening minutes of the episode, and the rest of the running time is spent tracking Elsbeth piece together a suspect and motive—continues in Season 2 now that Elsbeth and her peculiar style of working is fully embraced by the police department she had been assigned to monitor.

“We’re comfort food in the old Columbo kind of format,” Tolins says. “There is a ritualistic comfort in that you know that it’s going to play out, you’re going to catch a killer, and all that. But I’m amazed how much we’ve been allowed to really pursue the things that the writer’s room finds interesting and funny and quirky, and we slip in writing about so many different things in this procedural that you wouldn’t expect to find in a procedural.”

Thursday night’s Season 2 premiere finds Elsbeth trying to figure out who killed someone for using their phone too much at the opera. Both Preston and Tolins giggle at the suggestion that Patti LuPone might be the basis for the suspect; the perp is actually played by Nathan Lane—another in a long line of guest stars from the New York theater world who have come through and killed on Elsbeth .

There was no guarantee that the Elsbeth gamble was going to pay off. Elsbeth is a character whose eccentricities endeared audiences in scene-stealing small doses on The Good Wife and The Good Fight . The Elsbeth pilot got great mileage out of characters being amused and often unmoored by her off-kilter presence and unique work tactics. But could that sustain full seasons of a procedural drama, with the oddball supporting character now elevated to a lead?

“She was a side dish, and now she’s being moved to the center of the plate,” Tolins says. “A quirky side character, if you focus on them too much, it could curdle. It could feel not entertaining. I was always very conscious of really feeling like, what is too much? What feels right? Fortunately, Carrie plays everything honestly and with real emotion and with intelligence. So it was never just shtick, but I’m always concerned. I’m always making sure that it feels just in that pocket where it’s her and the fun of her and the silliness of her, but also the intelligence of her and the warmth of her.”

For Preston, whose TV career included long runs playing supportive best friends to the lead character on shows like True Blood and Claws , this also marked the first time being at the top of the call sheet and anchoring a series—a challenge with its own pressures when you’re not playing a character that everyone describes as a little bizarre, who takes some getting used to.

“I’m in a new position as a lead of a TV show,” Preston says. “I’ve always been the supportive player, happily, so all those things have really gone hand in hand in a productive way, I think. Elsbeth had some up and down challenges last season [at the police department]. She took to the job not like a fish out of water, but like a fish in water. But people wanted to treat her like a fish out of water.”

At the end of Season 1, Elsbeth’s confidence wavers when she’s unable to solve a case and is nearly pushed out of her job. At the beginning of Season 2, it’s a relief to see that she’s gotten her groove back—unique to her as that groove may be.

“I like that this is a single woman. The most she’s got is a friend and a dog, but she’s attached to her life,” Preston says. “She’s attached to this work, and she really wanted this to continue.The threat of that being taken away is, I think, never going to quite go away. And it’s always good to have conflict.”

It’s been a pleasant surprise for both Preston and Tolins that viewers who have come up to them talk not just about enjoying Elsbeth as comedic relief. They have an emotional reaction to the show, particularly the way Elsbeth sees the world. Her oddness isn’t portrayed with cynicism. She encounters every challenge and interaction with earnestness and enthusiasm. She’s a Chicago transplant in New York who views the city, its sights, and its people with an almost moving sense of wonder.

A New Yorker myself, it’s changed how I look at the city where I live. Preston says playing Elsbeth has done the same for her.

“I’ve lived in New York for over 30 years, and I don’t look up,” she says. “I look up now, you know? I mean, I really do. I mean that literally, but also just metaphorically. I really am taking the time to take in what that great city has to offer.”

The city itself, then, is its own character. Elsbeth arrives in the pilot via a red doubledecker sightseeing bus to the iconic fountain at Lincoln Center. A memorable case in Season 1 unfolded at the running shows during New York Fashion Week. The Season 2 premiere transports viewers to the Metropolitan Opera House.

Preston and Tolins fantasize about locations where they could set future episodes, like the raised pathways of the High Line or the Natural History Museum. Of course, the nature of the series complicates things.

“You call a location and say we want to shoot a CBS show there, and they go. ‘Oh, sure, wonderful. What’s it about?’” Tolins says, laughing. “‘Well, there’s a murder that takes place…’ Suddenly they become less enthusiastic.”

Requests to film at Arthur Ashe Stadium, where the U.S. Open takes place, and the Juilliard School for performing arts—Preston’s alma mater—were met with conversations just like that. Luckily, Tolins says, “every place in New York is special”—a very Elsbethian way of looking at things.

“I also have noticed, I will actually say things to people, like if I see somebody who looks great, I’ll just say, ‘Wow, you really look amazing. I love that outfit,’ in a way that I wouldn’t have done before,” Preston says. “This character, she’s n rubbing off on me in the best way. I think we should all have a little bit of Elsbeth in us.”

“I’m amazed how often people say to me, she is what we need right now,” Tolins says. “There’s a kind of warmth and joy that she brings to the world that people are craving.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.