Elsbeth EPs on Premiere’s Good Wife References and Whether Alicia Will Appear — Plus, Grade It!
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The Good Wife fan favorite Elsbeth solved a murder in the debut of her own show, but can she solve the mystery of whether any of her former Chicago pals will visit the spinoff?
Thursday’s series premiere finds Elsbeth Tascioni (played by Carrie Preston) venturing to New York City to act as an outside observer of the NYPD for a year because of a wrongful arrest lawsuit. The quirky attorney, however, gets involved in the current suicide investigation and notices some discrepancies — as in it’s actually a murder. Captain Wagner (Jack Ryan’s Wendell Pierce) isn’t thrilled with Elsbeth’s meddling, so he calls his contact at the U.S. Department of Justice about the other lawyer that was mentioned for the position.
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“Cary Agos. Tough lawyer, but I don’t think you’ll like him as much,” the DOJ agent says. “Try Elsbeth out for one week. She’ll grow on you.”
Matt Czuchry’s Good Wife character is mentioned again when Wagner threatens to call Cary if Elsbeth doesn’t stop harassing the theater director (guest star Stephen Moyer) whom she thinks is the murderer. (Because we saw him commit the crime at the top of the episode, we know she’s right. This is isn’t a “Whodunit?” show, but a “Howdunit?” which is what Elsbeth has to figure out/prove to Wagner.)
“You know Cary?” Wagner asks, to which Elsbeth replies, “Yes, from Chicago.”
“You know he’s good,” Wagner adds, suggesting to Elsbeth that she can easily be replaced.
Ultimately, Elsbeth proves that Moyer’s alter ego is the bad guy and wins over Wagner, who asks her how this relationship between her and the department is going to work moving forward.
“You want me? You don’t want Cary Agos?” a touched Elsbeth remarks. (Little does Wagner know, Elsbeth’s actually been sent by the DOJ to keep an eye on him for corruption.)
Elsbeth: 10 Good Wife and Good Fight Characters Who Need to Visit Spinoff
So now that Cary’s name has officially been dropped multiple times, can Elsbeth viewers expect to see Czuchry or any other familiar faces from the Good Wife/Good Fight universe pay a visit to the offshoot?
“We think about our friends in Chicago, but it’s not our expectation that they’re traveling to New York anytime soon,” The Good Wife and Elsbeth co-creator Michelle King said during a virtual panel. “Elsbeth is on her own in New York, which is kind of part of the fun, that she’s enjoying it and enjoying it on her own.”
But what about Alicia Florrick, who — as Eli Gold revealed during The Good Fight‘s final season — has relocated to New York City, where she has started her own law firm?
King acknowledged that Julianne Margulies’ character is already in the Big Apple. “She’s not, however, working with the NYPD, solving crimes,” King noted.
Added co-creator Robert King with a laugh: “We’ll check in with her when she kills someone.”
Not relying on cameos from franchise vets reinforces the idea that Elsbeth is as much a standalone series as it is a spinoff.
“This is decidedly not The Good Wife, not The Good Fight. It’s its own world. It’s lighter, it’s comedic in nature,” Preston said. “You’ve got this Case of the Week, and it’s dealing with crime and not politics. So we have a bunch of different new things. So it’s the same woman, but you don’t have to have watched those shows to dive into this show.”
What did you think of Elsbeth’s NYC debut? Grade it below, then hit the comments!
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