Real life husband and wife duo Michael Emerson and Carrie Preston are taking on a new challenge in the latest episodes of CBS’ Elsbeth: hating each other.
After 26 years of marriage and a handful of times working together in the past — including on Person of Interest where Preston played the love interest of her husband’s character — the actor and actress are going head-to-head in Thursday’s episode, “One Angry Woman.”
For the CBS dramedy, Preston revisits her role as Elsbeth Tascioni from The Good Wife and The Good Fight, both created by Robert and Michelle King. In the new installment, Emerson joins as Milton Crawford, a corrupt and spurious judge who Elsbeth tussles with during a jury duty shift. When it was first announced in October that Emerson would be joining the cast in a recurring role for Season 2, the actor’s character was described as “a haughty, soft-spoken and bespectacled man” who “sees his place in the nation’s elite as a birthright.” Given that Preston’s character is an eccentric lawyer and a morally upstanding individual — each episode sees her bringing a criminal to justice using the old Columbo method where the audience knows the guilty party before the investigator does — it’s clear that Elsbeth and Milton are not going to be besties. And they definitely are not going to be romantic paramours, which is a dynamic they know well on and off-screen.
“Usually, we play love interests,” Preston told Decider with a laugh while discussing the new episode with her husband. “We don’t play adversaries.”
“We’ve always been tender and sweet on one another anytime we’ve played opposite each other,” added Emerson. “This is unusual for it to be a battle and so dangerous and sinister.”
Dangerous and sinister to say the least.
One scene from “One Angry Woman” includes the characters exchanging heated words and questioning each other’s motives. The public showdown also sets up an epic battle for the show’s sophomore season, leaving us to wonder if Elsbeth has finally found a worthy foe.
Unsurprisingly since both actors are Emmy Award winners — Preston for playing Elsbeth on The Good Wife and Emerson for his role as Ben Linus on Lost — it would be hard to tell that the two don’t really dislike each other if you only watched this episode. While it was a foreign concept for them to pretend they hate the other person, it may have actually been easier than fans would think. The pair told Decider that starring opposite their partner in contempt-filled scenes gave them agency to take risks and not worry about the consequences.
“Those scenes are more fun to play no matter who you’re playing with. Then to add that it’s someone that I know and trust and have a history with, you feel more creative freedom with that,” Preston said. “I don’t have to worry, ‘What is this guy going to think if I throw some curveball at him?’ We didn’t have that problem.”
“When there’s danger in the air, it’s like oxygen to an actor,” added Emerson. “That’s when you can kind of slow down and savor that. Danger and innuendo of the scene, all the signaling and subtext-ing that’s going on.”
So, was it as intense off-screen as their on-screen moments? Not even close, they say. As actors, they reveled in turning up the heat for their scenes and then flipping it off like a switch.
“We were laughing and joking between takes,” Preston shared, adding that their comfortability with each other only helped to deliver the “juicy stuff” for fans.
And the juicy stuff will keep coming. Though CBS has yet to confirm how many episodes Emerson will appear in, we do know that he will be back and getting under Elsbeth’s skin (and vice versa) in future chapters. Emerson and Preston kept it tight-lipped on where exactly their complicated dynamic will go but promised that Elsbeth and Milton are keeping an eye out for the other person. It will be a rematch fans won’t want to miss, that’s for sure.
Emerson’s first episode of Elsbeth airs Thursday, Dec. 12 at 10 p.m. ET. If you can’t catch this crossover event, new episodes stream the next day on Paramount+.