There are few TV pleasures as reliable as the mad detective. It’s a trope as old as Arthur Conan Doyle: the skills required to deduce the devious ways of evildoers require one to be stranger than their peers, or ultimately cause them to become so. This can be misanthropic (Dr. Gregory House), endearingly annoying (the Psych boys), or a combination of both (Castle), but it is always good fuel for TV. Not only do you have a mystery to solve each episode, but you can also have fun watching regular people association with these characters – the weirder the better. And now they’re making a comeback. Adrian Monk, Charlie Cale, Detective Danner – names new and old to the wacky detective pantheon are popping up on TV, joined this week by a face terribly Known to some: Elsbeth Tascioni.
The star of Elsbeth, the new CBS show of the week, has a lot of lore. Played by Carrie Preston in what was initially a small role Elsbeth the breakout series from creators Robert and Michelle King The good womanElsbeth immediately made an impression on viewers and returned everywhere The good woman‘s run and the occasional spin-off/sequel series, The good fight. Elsbeth, absent-minded yet endlessly cunning, was one of its secret weapons The good woman-fresh, used sparingly but to great effect.
Much of this was down to Preston’s performance, taking on a character that could easily have been annoyingly quirky on paper, but was realized by Preston as a mischievous lawyer who disarmed people with her easily distracted nature before clotheslining them with tenacity. The nice thing about an Elsbeth Tascioni episode is that you know that she is 90% real and that 10% is putting on an act, but you never know which 10% was the act.
Photo: Elizabeth Fisher/CBS
However, as the star of her own show, Elsbeth reads a little differently. She moved from her native Chicago to New York City in her new role as an outside observer to an NYPD precinct after some legal trouble for the police department. Elsbeth cast the former lawyer as one Columbus-type detective. Just like that classic show (en Poker face, another recent imitator), each episode begins with a crime, and the mystery lies in how Elsbeth will solve it, by noticing things the police don’t see – or won’t. This is a sly piece of commentary in itself – the Kings have made imaginatively socially conscious TV procedurals their calling card over the years – building the show’s tension not just between Elsbeth and the perpetrator, but also between her and the stimulus from the police to close. solving cases not solving crimes.
In this context, Elsbeth plays the role of the sweetly annoying tourist, both in the literal sense of visiting New York City and in the more calculated sense of cunningly allowing the NYPD to think they are just a is a nuisance that must be tolerated, and not there. do a job. Like many King shows (Evil is a notable exception), Elsbeth is heading towards what is hopefully a deceptively simple beginning, settling into the procedural rhythms while slowly playing out a larger serial plot that hopefully takes the show somewhere bolder.
Photo: Elizabeth Fisher/CBS
This is all great stuff. However, if you are familiar with Elsbeth van The good woman or The good fightit’s a bit strange. Elsbeth files a bit of the edge of Elsbeth the lawyer, the more openly hostile aspect of the character that made her so compelling to watch. It comes with the territory of making a side character a main character – in the wings of The good woman/Fight, it’s possible to enjoy the fact that neither the audience nor the characters can quite figure out Elsbeth Tascioni. As a main character, however, that dynamic can be frustrating. More controversial is the specific context Elsbeth inserts his favorite character.
In The good woman And The good fightElsbeth Tascioni was the person good lawyers called when they were in trouble, even when they couldn’t get out of it. Overall, this meant the federal government went too far, as Elsbeth figured out how to thwart Treasury Department investigations or fraudulent wiretaps with the same bureaucracy the government used to corner its clients. Elsbeth was always a bit of an oddball, but she was a stranger who liked to do that to win; the harder that victory was, the better. Ultimately, this is the biggest challenge we face Elsbeth: What kind of victory is the show setting her up for, and will it be big enough to satisfy?
Elsbeth airs Thursdays at 10pm EST on CBS and is available to stream on Paramount Plus.