[Warning; The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 11, “Tiny Town.”]
Put a little love in your heart, Elsbeth Tascioni! OK, the Elsbeth heroine is full of love, but not in the romantic sense in The Good Wife spinoff so far. That changed in the show’s first Valentine’s Day-themed episode on Thursday, February 13 when Fantastic Four‘s Ioan Gruffudd guest starred as Carrie Preston‘s new onscreen love interest. Kaya (Carra Patterson) also saw sparks fly with roomie Cameron (The Gilded Age‘s Sullivan Jones), but the episode wasn’t all heart eyes and smiles.
This week’s guest of the week was a love interest, which made the murderer’s identity not as primary to the plot. But what stood out about this villain is the fact that he was dangerously close to killing Elsbeth. The danger was first introduced when Gruffudd’s Angus witnessed a New York City murder from all the way in his Scottish seaside town thanks to a live video feed in both cities called “The Iris.” One large video screen was set up in each city, and their digital connection made them look like a portal into another world. This is how Angus saw a woman get murdered, and it’s how he met Elsbeth, with whom he was instantly smitten. And as for Elsbeth, she was instantly intrigued by the dreamy musician. Their check-ins at The Iris allowed them to figure out this murder’s puzzle and get to know each other on a personal level. Every Iris encounter left both of them wanting more.
When Elsbeth finally found the killer (an employee of a high-end parfumerie trying to keep deadly secrets), he lunged in for the kill and was almost successful. Thankfully, he was thwarted just in time thanks to a tip from Angus. The episode ended with a huge romantic gesture from the Scot, who flew to New York out of a need to meet Elsbeth in person. The found each other at The Iris, where Angus serenaded the smitten Elsbeth.
Even with the brush with danger prior to their meeting, Preston tells TV Insider that this romantic meet-cute was perfectly timed. Here, she breaks down the episode and what’s ahead when her real-life husband, Michael Emerson, returns next week with guest stars Matthew Broderick and his own son, James Wilkie Broderick.
Why was now a great time to introduce a love story for Elsbeth?
Carrie Preston: Jonathan Tolins, our showrunner, and all of the writers really wanted to make sure that we built the world of Elsbeth around her as a woman reinventing herself in this new career, this new life that she finds herself in New York City, and that she doesn’t really need a romantic relationship in order to succeed at that. And so I think having a season and a half under their belts, they thought, “OK, let’s maybe, for the Valentine’s Day episode, see what that would be.” In the wonderful fashion of our show, they do it in such an unconventional way with this portal screen, with this person that she meets who is thousands of miles away in another country, in another time zone, and in another type of life. That was very clever of them to honor the show’s eccentricities in her love life as well.
Michael Parmelee / CBS
How did you film those portal scenes?
It was fascinating how we had to do that because his world is Scotland, my world is New York, so we actually had to do all of those scenes and twice. His side, the Scotland side, we shot that first. So we did all of his stuff on a location where it was in New York, but we have an incredible production design and made it look like tiny town in Scotland. And there was essentially what looked like a very big empty frame. We rehearsed it where we got to do the scenes together, no cameras around where we really got to get the flow of the scene, work together, work with our brilliant director, Robert King. And Ioan came just totally prepared and game and ready to go.
Once we got it all down rehearsal-wise, then the cameras came in. He had to act with the camera. I was behind the camera throwing my lines out, but he couldn’t look at me because the eyeline had to look like he was looking at a camera. And so he had to do that without really ever seeing me again after we had rehearsed. And then a week later, we did all of those scenes turned around on me in the same fashion. We also had some times where we had to put a green screen up, and then things are added in post to make it look seamless in the editing. But when you have a great actor like that, those kinds of things are challenges that we’re used to. We had dreamy writing, and we had wonderful collaborators. So I think it made it easy and fun.
Was Elsbeth really looking for love when Angus came around, or is this just a nice surprise?
Oh, I think it’s a very nice surprise. I think she has been fully happy being with herself, her dog, her career, and her son back in her life in a more meaningful way than in recent years. That’s been plenty for her. I don’t think she’s been sitting around pining. Elsbeth’s not somebody who pines for anything. She’s always so fully engaged in life and lives such a curious, open life that she’s not feeling the lack of something. But it made her open to meet him and felt immediate spark with this person and knew that he felt the same. And so, where do you go from there? And then they had this shared bond over solving this case together.
I mean, what extreme luck that she sees this handsome, Scottish, dreamy man through a portal, and he just happens to have so many shared interests with her. You literally wrote it, but you can’t write that kind of stuff. It’s perfect.
It’s perfect, yes. And then it’s the Valentine’s Day episode, so you do want a little heart-melting moment on a Valentine’s Day episode.
Michael Parmelee / CBS
It honestly couldn’t be more perfectly timed after this Van Ness divorce scandal. She deserves some levity after this really serious stuff that went down.
Yes, yes, because there’s more serious stuff coming up. So it was a nice little pause in all the stress. [Laughs]
Angus does this big romantic gesture at the end by showing up in New York. What else makes Elsbeth swoon?
I would say things like [Angus’ grand gesture]. The unexpected makes her swoon, somebody who notices things about her that maybe other people overlook. He notices details about her. He’s interested in her thoughts on a thing or a fashion choice that she’s made, and things like that don’t happen all the time to her. So I think that is also attractive.
It makes sense to me that she would be attracted to a musician or just an artist in general, but what is your take on that? What is the draw?
She loves anybody who can create, who knows how to make something out of nothing. She’s enamored, as we’ve seen in the past, or at least I try to imbue her with that in all the scenes that I play, with anybody that has any kind of talent, because her talents are intellectual. So when she sees an artistic talent, I think she thinks of them as gods and goddesses and rock stars and just this unattainable thing to be worshiped and treasured because the art feeds her. She has such full receptors. She walks around with her nerves all out front, and so she’s ready to receive anything. And so if it’s an artist, forget it. She feels like they have a connection with the universe, and she wants to know what that feels like.
There’s a scene where she’s kind of longing for Scotland while listening to Angus’s music. Is she, after this Van Ness scandal and amid this ongoing rivalry with Judge Crawford, maybe looking for an escape, or is she just looking for maybe easier times?
Elsbeth’s not somebody who ever wants to really escape. If there’s a challenge, she meets it head on and then goes further. I think that feeds her and drives her. But the heart wants what it wants, and whatever goes on and crackles inside of your body when you have a romantic connection with somebody is often uncontrollable. So the fact that he’s so far away and there’s that moment where she’s pining for him, I think it’s just more, “I can’t meet this head on because it’s logistically impossible.” And that’s why it’s so lovely what happens at the end of the episode.
Carrie Preston and Michael Emerson in ‘Elsbeth’ Season 2 Episode 12 (CBS)
In next week’s episode, Ben Levi Ross will be back as Elsbeth’s son, Teddy. Your husband, Michael Emerson, will be back as Judge Crawford, and then you have Matthew Broderick and his son guest starring in the episode. It’s a family affair on every level. What else makes the episode a standout?
Matthew Broderick. Having him, somebody who I’ve watched my whole life on screen, standing in front of me doing a scene with me was one of those pinch-me moments. He couldn’t have been more lovely, relaxed, happy to be there, open to things, self-deprecating in a very charming way, obviously extremely comfortable on-camera. And then watching him with his son on set was so beautiful, really. His son [James Wilkie Broderick] could not have been more adorable and more happy to be there on set. And I loved that this is a child of two very big stars [Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker], this kid was not at all jaded, which means to me, his parents did a really wonderful job of maybe keeping him from the world of filmmaking long enough for him to really train and start to find an interest because he wants to do it. It seemed like that to me, just watching them, and that was just lovely to see. And to see Matthew’s pride in his son, it was a moving thing to watch.
To talk about the Valentine’s Day episode’s more serious moments, Elsbeth is nearly attacked in it. And then, of course, Judge Crawford is still out to get her. Are things going to get more dangerous for her?
Judge Crawford is a formidable foe. That’s why the writers couldn’t wrap him up in one episode. He has power that reaches beyond anything that Elsbeth’s ever gone up against, and she’s gone up against some pretty powerful people as a lawyer in the past in Chicago. So this is a whole new level. That just raises the stakes for her and for everyone else around her, and so you’ll continue to see that ratchet up.
And with double the episodes in this season from Season 1, you have more chances to do themed episodes like this. Are there any themed episodes you’re really keen to do?
Well, we did Christmas this year, so maybe if we’re lucky enough to get a Season 3, we could do a Thanksgiving one. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday just as a person, so I think it would be fun to see, because Elsbeth is so full of gratitude. This could be a wonderful opportunity to open her heart up even more.
Elsbeth, Thursdays 10/9c, CBS
