Elsbeth EP Promises 'We'll Still Honor Female Friendship As Major Part Of This Show' Following Kaya's Departure

Elsbeth is losing not only a colleague, but also one of her closest friends following the recent news that co-star Carra Patterson will not return as a series regular next season.

As reported by our sister site Deadline, the actress will appear in a guest-star capacity in Season 3 as her character, Detective Kaya Blanke, moves on to a new career opportunity. In this week's episode, Kaya received an offer to join a special law enforcement task force that will require training in Washington, D.C., as well as undercover work, taking her away from New York. Kaya was hesitant, at first, to leave behind her current job, but Captain Wagner encouraged her not to pass up a possible once-in-a-lifetime professional opportunity.

"Kaya is still such an important part of the show and is not leaving the world of the show. She will be back. We love her and love the character, and she'll be back as often we can have her," showrunner Jonathan Tolins reassures TVLine, echoing his statements to Deadline. But there's still plenty of concern and disappointment from fans who are worried about losing the friendship between Elsbeth and Kaya, which has been one of the CBS drama's strongest elements.

"I would say in addition to making the show, we are fans of the show and love the show," Tolins says in response to the viewer reaction, "and we have all the same feelings, and we're going to keep trying to preserve and honor what we've done so far and to keep all those feelings going forward. ... Female friendship is very important to our show, and I think we will still honor female friendship as a major part of this show, even though we'll be seeing a little less of Kaya."

Meanwhile, Kaya's new journey presents an opportunity to "open up some wonderful stories" for the series' titular lawyer, star Carrie Preston tells TVLine, adding that working with Patterson is "such a gift."

"But what I love about our show is that we don't get too comfortable in anything, and so we enjoy those moments together [between Elsbeth, Kaya and Wagner] when we have them, and we will continue to enjoy them more when we get them, and we'll probably appreciate them even more because we won't be getting them every day," the actress shares. "So I think it's an opportunity to really enrich the character and the storylines, to have a fresh new take on what Elsbeth is like when she doesn't have someone like Kaya to lean on. How is she going to walk onto a crime scene without her? What's that going to look like?"

For Tolins, Kaya's task-force job represents the culmination of a two-season arc for the officer, who wanted to be a detective from the very beginning.

"We are also excited that we got to see this character achieve her dream and to overcome some obstacles to getting there," Tolins says, "and the relationship between Elsbeth and Kaya is one that is always so supportive, and Elsbeth supporting Kaya in this new adventure she's going on, it all feels really good for these characters."

Adds Preston: "They so brilliantly and deftly just took [Kaya] to this place where it became a natural thing for her to be elevated and promoted. And it's just the structure of our show [that] Elsbeth doesn't work with the same detective on every case. And so, we came to this point, as well, story-wise, where Kaya needed to fly and echo, in some ways, what Elsbeth has been doing, which is reinventing herself. And so, we have this wonderful little parallel now between what Kaya is doing and what Elsbeth is continuing to do."

Elsbeth fans, are you feeling a little bit better about the Kaya/Patterson news now? Hit the comments!