CBS is bringing back its premier pink-clad detective once again. Amid a massive wave of renewals at the network, Elsbeth has been picked up for a fourth season, meaning more fabulous outfits and murder mysteries to solve for Carrie Preston’s Elsbeth Tascioni. The news comes amid The Good Wife spin-off’s midseason break, though there’s only about a month left until Season 3 resumes on February 26. With both the colorful procedural and its lead-in, Matlock, now locked in for new episodes, CBS has ensured that the dynamic duo of its acclaimed Thursday night block is going nowhere for the time being.
A renewal for Elsbeth is no shock, considering that, while its ratings haven’t been quite as strong as past seasons, it’s been a Paramount+ juggernaut. For three seasons, the cozy mystery series has followed the always upbeat mother and former attorney to New York City to begin a new career as an investigator for the NYPD under Captain Charles Wallace (C. W.) Wagner (Wendell Pierce). She’s been tasked with taking down the city’s criminal masterminds in cases that have involved everything from corrupt judges to the mafia, tyrannical talk show hosts, strict nuns, and more. With each season, the show only continues to draw in more big-name stars to play its assortment of crooks, victims, and other colorful characters, too.
Season 3 has been more of the same for the procedural, but with some new wrinkles. This round of episodes opened with a special CBS crossover of sorts, bringing in The Late Show host Stephen Colbert to play Elsbeth’s more detestable Scottie Bristol, who winds up on the wrong end of a paper shredder. Since then, Elsbeth has met a new beau in mayoral candidate Alec Bloom (Ivan Hernandez), found closure after the death of Judge Crawford (Michael Emerson) in Season 2, and seen her son Teddy (Ben Levi Ross) start a new investigative journalism job that starts to intersect with his mother’s line of work. Before the break, the show had one final holiday-themed case involving Andrew Rannells to unpack, though it also sowed the seeds for what’s to come by revealing that Teddy’s digging into Bloom revealed some troubling holes in the backstory he continually touts.
‘Elsbeth’ Season 3’s Guest List Brought Another ‘The Good Wife’ Universe Reunion
The guest list, as always, has been packed for the latest run of the Robert and Michelle King-created spin-off. Elsbeth Season 3 has thus far welcomed, in addition to Colbert and Rannells, Lindsey Normington, Jaime Pressly, Andy Richter, Tony Hale, Dianne Wiest, Lois Smith, William Jackson Harper, Annaleigh Ashford, Amy Sedaris, and Lindsay Mendez, among others. However, the biggest addition for fans of the larger Good Wife universe was undoubtedly Sarah Steele, who reprised her role as old friend and former private investigator Marissa Gold from both the mothership series and The Good Fight. Now following in her father Eli’s footsteps, she’s pivoted her career and become the campaign manager for Bloom, setting her up for more run-ins with Elsbeth when the show returns.
