Allow us to clear up any confusion: Thursday’s episode of “Elsbeth” was merely a season finale, and not a series finale. But you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking otherwise.
After all, the hour ended on a distinctly upbeat note, with the kind of positivity typically reserved for a show’s last episode. Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) had successfully solved another murder, she was briefly reunited with detective pal Kaya (Carra Patterson) in the process, and her son, Teddy (Ben Levi Ross), had gotten engaged. The episode closed with Elsbeth chatting about Broadway musicals with a passerby, and Elsbeth’s earnest question to the woman — “Isn’t it great to love things?” — served as the final line of dialogue.
According to showrunner Jonathan Tolins, the finale’s optimistic ending wasn’t born from any concern about the show’s fate. In fact, “Elsbeth” had already been renewed for Season 4 well before the finale was filmed, and it wouldn’t have been creatively risky to end Season 3 on a cliffhanger of some kind. Tolins and the “Elsbeth” writers, though, had a different approach in mind.
“We knew we were coming back, but we had already set the basic idea for the episode. We knew we wanted to do a musical episode again,” Tolins tells TVLine. “I’m very happy with the last line of the episode, which is the last line of the season. ‘Isn’t it great to love things?’ I think that’s something the character of Elsbeth gives the world — that you don’t have to be jaded and cynical, despite what’s going on.”
An unexpected reunion with work bestie Kaya, who was working undercover at the hotel where this week’s murder took place, certainly contributed to Elsbeth’s sunny mood. Thursday’s hour marked the second appearance in four episodes for former series regular Patterson, and Tolins is hopeful that she’ll pop up more frequently in the fourth season.
“It’s all to be worked out. We have to find out what works for her and what works for the network,” he shares. “We love Carra, and we love that character, and anytime we can have Elsbeth and Kaya together is always a good thing. They have a really magical connection.”
Tolins theorizes that Patterson will appear in Season 4 “more than she was on [the show] this year,” but acknowledges that “I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to have her back every episode. And while we miss her, it’s opened up the room for us to have a lot of wonderful new people on the show this season.”
