Why ‘Elsbeth’ Isn’t a Whodunnit
Preview
The Elsbeth premiere set the stage for what the series will be, both in terms of the cases and the ongoing mystery of what has brought the titular character (Carrie Preston) to New York: to investigate Captain Wagner (Wendell Pierce) for possible corruption.
Right from the start, we knew that Stephen Moyer, Preston’s True Blood costar, was playing the killer, allowing for a fun cat-and-mouse game between their characters. “That structure will continue,” co-creator Michelle King tells TV Insider. “We’re not a big fan of whodunnits in general,” adds co-creator Robert King. Instead, “it’s a, how does she figure it out?” according to Michelle.
But as part of that, there will be some questions. “There’s whodunnits within how do you figure it out? There might be something that ends a little more tentatively than you thought—or not ends, but it might be in the middle like, wait a minute, did that person have an accomplice?” adds Robert. “It allows you to use all the tools of fun mystery solving, if you don’t have the expected Agatha Christie whodunnit, because that’s just a puzzle. What you want is something that is a little more complicated than a puzzle.”
While the show does begin with a murder, and the following three will have the same crime, “there are so many different shades of murder,” Robert points out. “There’s the accidental murder. There’s the murder for revenge. My guess is where things will move is there’ll be more variety in what the crime is and a crime where there’s a surviving victim, but you’re wondering if the victim’s in on another crime because the way the structure is where you see the bad act happening and then you deconstruct what the opening is through Carrie’s eyes. I think that leaves a lot more open options open than murder.”
At least as the series begins, the cases will be standalone, mainly because it’s built around a strong guest star, with only three regulars (Preston, Pierce, and Carra Patterson‘s Officer Kaya Blanke) and other detectives and officers coming in. And with Elsbeth Tascioni ostensibly with the NYPD to observe them, she’s going to the crime scenes. “She loves it because she’s getting to really see from the perspective of the actual crime, instead of just researching it all later. She had never been on a crime scene that quickly afterwards or even at all,” says Preston. “So I think the whole new world that she’s in is firing her up and making her brain whirl and twirl even more than it was in the legal world.”
But because she’s involved in these cases in a way she hasn’t been in the past, we have to wonder: How long will it be before she gets herself into a dangerous situation? “Well, she is playing with fire when she is so easily able to find a clue that is pointing towards somebody who murdered someone,” Preston laughs. “So she is playing with fire, but we’ll see how if and when she gets burned.”
As it is now, Elsbeth pretty much has one person on her side in the NYPD, Blanke, who followed her instincts in the premiere. “It’s fun to see Elsbeth with a girlfriend, to see her trying to make a friend in Officer Blanke,” says Preston. “And hopefully we’ll have some scenarios where we see them outside of work. But it is, in the same way that Good Wife and Good Fight were, a show that is going to center around whatever the murder is or whatever the case is. And so we’ll get to see how she leans on Officer Blanke because Elsbeth is not being hired to be a detective, so she’s already stepping over the line, so to speak. She needs somebody from the inside to help her do this job. She just can’t help herself when she walks onto a crime scene and she sees something that no one else is seeing. And so I think that would be fun to see how she leans on Officer Blanke.”
Preston did direct two episodes of The Good Fight, but could she step behind the camera for Elsbeth? Not in the first season, according to Michelle, due to scheduling.
But if she does, “I would definitely take inspiration from what Robert King did as a director in the pilot because he was able to tell the story with the camera in a way that was a little unorthodox in the same way that Elsbeth is. He really did some fun things with their perspective. You kind of see the world through Elsbeth’s eyes, and he did a lot of fluid camera moves that went along with the movement of the actors. And it was something that you don’t normally see in these episodic procedurals,” Preston explains.
But right now, “I’m just so excited to be in this situation where I’m being given and trusted with a lot of screen time as an actor that I’m happy also just to do the best job that I can as the character that the show is now centered around,” she adds.
With two Kings productions filming in and set in New York—Elsbeth and Evil (returning for its fourth and final season in May on Paramount+)—what are the chances of any sort of crossover? After all, Preston and Michael Emerson (who plays Leland on Evil) are married and it would be great to see them onscreen together again.
“It’s interesting because Evil, late in the season, does touch upon the law and courtroom,” Robert King shares. “And Carrie Preston is this amazing director. I know all bets are off on that because Michael Emerson and Carrie have worked together before on Person of Interest. To have them back would be so much fun.” Can’t you just imagine Emerson playing a killer Elsbeth goes after? That could be fun to have her get in some trouble, too…
Elsbeth, Thursdays, 10/9c, CBS
