“Elsbeth” star Carrie Preston and showrunner dive into season 2 finale’s musical number and sad goodbye

Key Points

• Elsbeth showrunner shares how that Chicago musical number made its way into the season 2 finale.

• Carrie Preston and Jonathan Tolins discuss Carra Patterson’s exit as original character Kaya Blanke.

• Elsbeth boss aims to get Captain Wagner (Wendell Pierce) out from behind his desk more next season.

This article contains spoilers about the Elsbeth season 2 finale.

Elsbeth Tascioni’s (Carrie Preston) time in the slammer was memorable. Musical, even.

Midtown Detention Center was the setting of the Elsbeth season 2 finale — and the final murder of the season. Elsbeth winds up in jail for harassment, finding herself surrounded by a slew of murderers she previously put away. When Alex Modarian (Stephen Moyer) is killed, she has to solve a mystery while incarcerated. While her allies on the outside are trying to secure her release, the eccentric lawyer-turned-investigator brings viewers into her own mind to work out who Alex’s murderer is. Elsbeth’s mind turns out to be quite a musical place, as she imagines all of her suspects performing “Cell Block Tango” from Chicago.

Elsbeth solves the crime and gets her freedom just in time to say goodbye to her bestie Kaya Blanke (Carra Patterson), who is leaving for a prestigious task force training in Washington D.C. But don’t worry — Patterson will return as a guest star next season.

We spoke to Preston and showrunner Jonathan Tolins about the cameo-filled, musical season 2 finale, saying goodbye to Kaya, and what’s in store for next season.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did you manage to bring all of those guest stars back?

JONATHAN TOLINS: It was a little bit of schedule Jenga. Early on, one of the people we knew we wanted was Alyssa Milano because of her character’s Mafia ties. She had family members in the same prison, which was useful to us to build the cast. We leaned on people from season 1 and earlier this year, so we didn’t go to people who were on most recently. I guess Mary Louise Parker may have been the most recent. I started writing the script without knowing exactly who we’d have. We thought we’d get four or five, and we ended up with eight people. We pulled it out. It was a crazy thing to try to do; when we started we didn’t know if anybody would come back. I’m amazed that it all came together.

What was it like to reunite with all those actors? Especially Stephen Moyer, given that it brings us back to the very beginning?

CARRIE PRESTON: Stephen and I have a history because we were on True Blood together. Even after the pilot, we started dreaming about Elsbeth visiting Alex Modarian in prison. We did not dream that it would be to solve his murder. We were thrilled, no matter what, that we got to reunite that way.

I have forged relationships with all of the other guests that came back, so it was like my wedding or something to have all those people there. Like a party for me. These are very busy, in-demand actors that made time in their schedule to not only do it but to learn a musical number. It really was touching.

Why did you decide to include the musical number in the episode?

TOLINS: We started with a joke in the writers room. We originally thought we’d do a story set in a prison and maybe use some of the people from past episodes. Then someone, I think [Elsbeth writer] Eric Randall, said we should really go for it and have Elsbeth be in prison. We found a way to get her there that felt organic and actually built on the Judge Crawford (Michael Emerson) story.

The original idea was “Cell Block Tango,” where each of them is talking about their own case from their previous episode. Then we decided to do it like a regular episode where there is a murder to be solved and they’re all suspects in it. I’m a big musical theater guy, so the fun for me was getting to rewrite “Cell Block Tango” with these specific characters and try to evoke the style and rhythm of the original monologues in that song.

What was it like to film that fantastic musical number?

PRESTON: It was thrilling. The whole time that all the actors were rehearsing, separately, I would be shooting something and they would be across on another stage. For me, it was the build up to opening night because I wasn’t a part of that. I just showed up on the day. [Susan Misner], the choreographer, was like “Carrie, why don’t you just jump in and do something?” so we worked something out for me to do so i’m not disappearing when the musical number is happening. They worked really hard and it pays off.

The musical number takes us into Elsbeth’s head. What did you want to reveal about the way her mind works?

TOLINS: We know she has a history of loving musicals. It’s also a bit of a homage to the film Chicago. Elsbeth is Roxy Hart in prison and this is how she would process what’s going on. I guess it’s our first dream sequence we’ve ever done on the show. We also have this weird Chicago thing going on, because in season 1 Elsbeth solved a murder by getting Keegan-Michael Key to dance the “Hot Honey Rag.”

What does Wagner fighting to get Elsbeth out of prison say about how far they have come in two seasons?

TOLINS: It’s hard to keep people against Elsbeth, because if they’re a decent character they’re going to fall in love with her eventually. One of the things you saw in the finale is having Captain Wagner out in the field. We’re going to look for more opportunities to get him out of his office, which is really fun, and create new opportunities for that partnership to evolve and grow.

PRESTON: Great television, great stories need conflict. We had that conflict, which was very fun to play in season 1. You don’t want that to go on forever, and it was more interesting to see them come to this place where the truth came out and we got to see how they dealt with that. Wendell and I talked a lot about that as we went along. But because it’s Wendell Pierce, one of the finest actors of any generation, I just show up and let him do his thing and trust that it’s going to take me to new places. It always does.

What can you say about Kaya’s exit?

TOLINS: Well, I don’t want to speak for Carra [Patterson]. The character has gotten a promotion and is achieving this new dream. She is not leaving the world of the show. We just won’t be seeing her every day. We love her, and we’re going to have her on as much as possible.

How does Carra’s exit as a series regular change the shape of Elsbeth next season? Are you looking at adding new characters?

TOLINS: A lot of this is TBD, but one thing I will say is we’re certainly not going to try to shoehorn someone else into the role Kaya had in Elsbeth’s life. It was so special and organic. We have a lovely group of actors who appear periodically on the show and we’re going to keep meeting new people. Elsbeth will have more friendships in the future and we’ll see what happens.

Ethan Slater shows up again as Officer Reese Chandler. Could we be seeing more of him?

TOLINS: With the shift we’re making with Kaya, we started thinking about our uniformed officers and the way we use our detectives with different ones appearing in different episodes. We’re very fortunate that they’re great actors who are willing to come back. We’re very blessed, because we’re shooting in New York with this incredible acting pool. With Ethan, we wrote this character, he auditioned, and we love him. We want to use him as much as we can.

She’ll be back of course, but Carrie, what will you miss about working with Carra as often as you have?

PRESTON: I love Carra. I loved her the minute I met her and loved developing this relationship between Kaya and Elsbeth. Elsbeth depended on her to be [her] emotional touchstone. For a character to grow, she has to have challenges and she has to have new experiences, so having to let go of the day-to-day with Kaya is going to be a very interesting journey and it’ll be exciting when Kaya comes back to see how Elsbeth reacts to that. I’m imagining it’s going to be with a great amount of joy. I’m excited about the whole thing as far as how it’s going to help the story grow.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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