Elsbeth's Carrie Preston, EP Talk Finale's 'Crazy,' Star-Studded Musical Number And Filling The Kaya Void
Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Elsbeth Season 2 finale. Proceed at your own risk!
Leave it to Elsbeth to solve a murder while behind bars.
In Thursday's season finale, the titular lawyer found herself in the same detention center as several of the killers she helped put away, who once again became murder suspects when theater director Alex Modarian (guest star Stephen Moyer) was found dead. Among the potential culprits: elite matchmaker Margo Clarke (Retta), plastic surgeon Dr. Vanessa Holmes (Gina Gershon), tech CEO Quinn Powell (Elizabeth Lail), former mafia princess Pupetta Del Ponte (Alyssa Milano) and decluttering guru Freya Frostad (Mary-Louise Parker). The men's ward also housed cocktail bar owner Joe Dillon (Arian Moayed) and fashion designer Matteo Hart (André De Shields).
Elsbeth's imaginative brain dreamed up a big musical number in which the women channeled Chicago's "Cell Block Tango," proclaiming that "he had it coming" — but it was actually the warden (Donna Lynne Champlin) who killed Alex because he was going to meet with the DA to trade information about the black market she runs to get himself transferred.
On the outside, Captain Wagner and Kaya worked to free Elsbeth, ultimately getting Judge Dousant to release her after they discovered that he took his mistress, Chloe, to a junket. Elsbeth made it back to the precinct in time to give an emotional toast at Kaya's goodbye party. (Her portrayer Carra Patterson will be a guest star next season as Kaya joins a Washington, D.C.-based task force.)
Elsbeth admitted to questioning recently if she should give up and go someplace else, but while Kaya's going where she's needed, "I think this is where I'm needed, with all of you," she declared.
Below, showrunner Jonathan Tolins and star Carrie Preston talk about what it took to bring back so many characters and to stage a musical performance. They also weigh in on Elsbeth's future at the precinct and how the show will fill the void left by Kaya's departure.
TVLINE | What inspired the idea for this "Cell Block Tango" sequence and this Murderers' Row of guest stars? What made you want to do that?
JONATHAN TOLINS | I'm just a big theater queen. Someone suggested doing a murder in prison and then we said, "Well, we have all these people who should be in prison now, and maybe we can get some of them to come back," and then I just said, "Well, let's get a bunch of them to do 'Cell Block Tango,' hahaha," and then we just said, "But wait, let's see if we can make that happen," and it was something that was said at the very, very beginning of the season. It was always the goal of the finale, and my first meeting to talk with CBS about our plans for the new season, I mentioned it. Everyone loved it. So we thought, "OK, we're going to try." Of course, you're so busy making 20 episodes. You don't really get planning until you're shooting 18... and there were so many moving parts. I mean, just finding out who was available and interested in coming back, and getting the rights to the song from Chicago and writing a new version that could be approved, specifically because they have to know every word before they'll give approval. It was a scramble. It was crazy. It also was happening while I was in rehearsal for a musical that my husband and I wrote at the Paper Mill Playhouse that closed last Sunday. All of this made it a very Mickey and Judy Let's Put on a Show, you know. We built our own prison set, and we thought maybe we'd get like four or five people to come back. We got eight people willing to come back and able to with their schedule. So in the end, it was like a big party, a big blowout to finish the season, and we were all very excited.
TVLINE | With the guest stars, how did you decide who to reach out to? Was it about reaching out to everyone to see who was available? Or did you seek out people who you knew had singing ability?
TOLINS | We didn't think about singing ability because I, basically, think everybody can sing. We cast a wide net just to find out who was even possible. We did try to lean toward people who we haven't seen in a while. Like, we didn't go to David Alan Grier or Billy Magnussen, people who were right before this episode because we wanted to get more of the sort of shock of, "Oh, my God, that person from Season 1 or early Season 2..." We did start putting together a story. How would this person bring their specific character and their skillset to the plotting of this story? We know we wanted Pupetta, Alyssa Milano, because of her mafia connections, that someone in her family had been imprisoned before. That was something that helped us unlock some of the story. So things like that, and we just kept chipping away at it. I did write an outline that included many scenes that were not shot, that was if this person were in it, this would be their part in the case. But ultimately, it worked out, mathematically, just about right, timing-wise.
TVLINE | Carrie, what was it like for you to shoot and to witness all these people together, performing this musical number? And were you sad you didn't get to sing?
CARRIE PRESTON | It was the best. It was like my wedding day or something, to have all these people — some of them didn't know each other, but I knew them all — show up for this wonderful reunion. I wasn't sad that I didn't get to sing. I have plenty of things to do on the show. I was very happy, actually, to sit back and let all of these incredibly capable actors take the reins. I'm used to being the one who has to drive all these scenes, and so, that was just a delight for me to sit back and, especially, watch the scene where they're rehearsing the play and to see Elizabeth Lail doing her Quinn's impersonation of Elsbeth. That was hilarious and fun and funny. And then, of course the dance... I wasn't privy to any of the rehearsals. So when I showed up to shoot the scene, I was seeing all that choreography for the first time, as well. So that was like Christmas morning, and everybody was so excited. Jon was saying it was like Mickey and Judy and Let's Put on a Show, and I just was the one that got to be the audience for that and loved it.
TOLINS | Someone who got to see the episode asked me a few days ago, "Well, did you use green screen?" because they couldn't believe we actually had all those people in the same place at the same time. It was a little bit like walking into the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, where you're looking around and saying, "Oh, my God, they're all here."
TVLINE | I really loved seeing Donna Lynne Champlin from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend as the warden, but I was disappointed that she didn't get to sing because she's so great.
TOLINS | I know, I know. Can't have everything. I actually cast her because I loved her so much in The Perfect Couple as the cop, and she's great in those kind of dry, working woman parts.
TVLINE | A guest star that I think fans responded to this season was Jordana Brewster's character. Was there any thought about getting her back for this finale?
TOLINS | We had trouble believing Chloe would do a day of jail because of who her clients are. [Preston laughs] It just didn't seem like that was in the cards. But we did honor her by making her the key to the plot with Judge Dousant.
TVLINE | Will we see anybody move in to fill the void left by Kaya's departure? Anybody going to become a series regular or a new character coming in?
TOLINS | I'm just very adamant that I don't want to just try to [be] like, "That's the new Kaya." I want to sort of organically respond and experiment and see how things develop and feel right. We certainly want Elsbeth to have meaningful relationships and friendships, but I don't want it to be like we're switching our Darrin Stephens on Bewitched, you know?
TVLINE | Toward the end of the episode, Elsbeth is toasting Kaya and she says, "I need to be here." Why do you think it's important for her to stay at the precinct, stay in New York, when she's been through so much these last couple of episodes and has really good reasons for possibly moving on?
TOLINS | Since the show started, I've been struck by how often people say, "Elsbeth is just what we need right now." Like, I think that her brand of positivity and enthusiasm mixed with smarts and kindness is needed. I think it's fair to say that the whole world is struggling with what kind of world do we want to have, and we need people like Elsbeth, and I wanted to honor that feeling that people have been telling me that they have, that this is something that is really something that we need, and so, she feels it. She feels it, that she's not going to give up, she's going to keep fighting for her truth and kindness and friendship, and she's not going anywhere. She's sticking around, and that's what I wanted her to be able to say.
TVLINE | Carrie, your character has been through so much, particularly in the second half of the season. What do you think she's going to take away from her experiences this season and this finale as you move into Season 3?
PRESTON | She's a tenacious person. She also allows herself to sit in her feelings and let them be. She might not talk about them out loud, but she's going to experience them and let those things inform her next choices and lets herself be vulnerable in situations, and that's beautiful. I think she's going to have this moment where she has a crisis of faith about the justice system but overcomes it and doubles down on her original mission, which is to find truth and find justice and to have atonement and to right some wrongs of her past, and I think she'll continue to do that as she moves forward.
Elsbeth fans, what did you think of the season ender? Grade it below, then hit the comments!