It’s not easy to pull a fast one on Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston) in CBS‘s Elsbeth. The lawyer-turned-NYPD consent decree monitor notices every tiny detail in high-stakes murder cases. When she’s on the case, killers don’t walk free. But Elsbeth will dig into its heroine’s “blind spots” when Season 3 returns, according to Preston.
Elsbeth returns on Thursday, February 26, at 10/9c on CBS (it’s already been renewed for Season 4). In the midseason premiere, titled “Ol’ Man Liver,” Elsbeth battles a wealthy biohacker (Hamish Linklater) who will do anything to stay young, including an extreme diet, vigorous exercise, and murder. Her political journalist son, Teddy (Ben Levi Ross), will run into a career snag involving his investigation of mayoral candidate Alec Bloom (Ivan Hernandez), whom Elsbeth has been dating.
Teddy discovered holes in Alec’s story about an unhoused man he once helped, as well as his proclaimed history of being unhoused in his own childhood, in December’s midseason finale. This investigation will continue to cause problems for Teddy and Elsbeth in the midseason premiere.
Preston tells TV Insider that Elsbeth won’t believe her son’s hunch about Alec.
“Teddy is definitely Elsbeth’s son, and so he is not afraid to keep digging about things and get down to the bottom of something,” Preston tells TV Insider. “He has a sneaking suspicion [that] there’s something not quite right about Alec Bloom, whom Elsbeth is dating. And so there’s a question there. Is he making things up? Is what we’re seeing on the surface real? What’s politics, what isn’t? It gets a little bit tense because Elsbeth is not willing to see that and doesn’t believe her son. So there is a little bit of tension there. The heart and the head maybe aren’t speaking to each other.”
Why doesn’t Elsbeth believe Teddy?
“Because she hasn’t seen that, and she’s the most perceptive person,” Preston says. “She trusts her own sense of perception. She trusts because she’s got such a keen observational gift, and that’s what’s gotten her where she is as a lawyer, and now as a detective, that’s not really a detective. She trusts her own instincts, and she’s not believing it.”
If Alec did overinflate his backstory for his campaign, run by Marissa Gold (Sarah Steele) from The Good Fight, Preston says Elsbeth might sympathize with that.
Michael Parmelee / CBS
“She understands the world of politics more than most, having been involved with it and having, from her Chicago days, defended a lot of politicians,” Preston explains. “And so she understands the cutthroat world of politics as well.”
Related‘Elsbeth’: First Look at Steve Buscemi, J. Smith-Cameron & Jeff Hiller (VIDEO)
Is there a degree to which, consciously or unconsciously, Elsbeth doesn’t believe that anyone could be as perceptive as her, including even her own son?
“Yeah, everybody has their own blind spots,” Preston says. “Sometimes you cannot see your own flaws, or your own abilities, you can’t see that they might not be as strong as you think they are.”
Elsbeth isn’t the kind of person who can’t admit when she’s wrong, however. She may struggle to realize that she can miss some key details in important cases, especially when they pertain to her personal life. But Preston says that this is “something that she questions and she has to look at” in Season 3’s second half.
“The thing that’s great about Elsbeth is that she will look at herself, she will admit she’s vulnerable,” Preston notes. “She’ll admit when she’s upset about something or when something is bothering her. She has a lot of access to that. And that’s an enviable trait because that takes discipline. It’s very easy to walk around with blinders on and not really see what’s happening. Elsbeth sees everything, including herself, painful or not.”
Her ability to spot every tiny detail is the result of self-preservation, Preston says.
Carrie Preston and Hamish Linklater in Elsbeth Season 3 midseason premiere (Michael Parmelee / CBS)
“Somebody as brilliant as she is has had to learn how to protect herself. When you’re that open, things can come at you,” says Preston. “That’s where her mind comes in. Her brain is incredibly adept at that, at seeing and also protecting.”
Elsbeth’s other main struggle this season is the continued effort to evolve in Kaya’s (Carra Patterson) absence.
“It’s been tough for her to not have her best friend, who was a rock and an anchor for her, but she’s making new friends,” Preston shares. “She makes a New Year’s resolution: I’m going to make new friends. [She’s] going to try not to fill the shoes of Kaya because that can’t be, but add more people into her life, have more of a social life, put herself out there, more dates, and all of these things that maybe she wouldn’t have really thought about before. She was comfortable with what she was doing alone.”
Of course, the cases of the week are still Elsbeth‘s main events.
“The struggles are more about the cases,” Preston says. “She’s so singularly focused on whatever the case is that’s in front of her. That’s what fuels her and feeds her and keeps her going. And each week we see her, it’s a new set of problems. Solving those problems is the gas that keeps her on the road.”
Elsbeth Season 3, Returns Thursday, February 26, 10/9c, CBS
More Headlines:
‘Ghosts’: When Does Season 5 Return? Everything We Know So Far‘Elsbeth’: Carrie Preston Teases ‘Blind Spots’ With Teddy & Alec in Season 3 ReturnHow Did ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’ Season 1 End? What to Remember Before Season 2When Does ‘Anna Pigeon’ Premiere? See Teaser for Tracy Spiridakos Drama (VIDEO)Alysa Liu Drops F-Bomb Live After Olympic Free Skate — Fans React
FOX41 Yakima©FOX11 TriCities©