‘Elsbeth’ Star Carrie Preston Mourns Kaya’s Exit: ‘It’s Going to Hurt Not Having Her Around All the Time’

This article contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of “Elsbeth”

In the Season 2 finale of “Elsbeth,” the title character (Carrie Preston) wound up in jail, where she not only had to jazz up her prison uniform and solve the murder of one of her fellow prisoners, but possibly miss seeing Kaya (Carra Patterson) before she left for her new task force assignment.

Happily, Elsbeth smokes out the murderer and is freed in time to wish Kaya farewell and good luck in Washington, D.C.

Ahead of the finale, TheWrap spoke to Preston and showrunner Jonathan Tolins about saying goodbye — for now — to one of the show’s original characters and how they pulled off that dazzling cell block dance homage to “Chicago” with guest stars Retta, Gina Gershon, Elizabeth Lail, Mary-Louise Parker and Alyssa Milano.

TheWrap: Kaya is now a full-fledged detective and she’s leaving on a new assignment. Will we see her again? 

Jonathan Tolins: Yes, she is not leaving the world of the show. She’s just not going to be there every day. She’ll be coming back as a guest star, and we love her and the character, and we’ll have her as often as we can.

It’s just a shift for the character and for her. Rest assured, Kaya is still part of the “Elsbeth” world.

Carrie, it’s been hard all season for Elsbeth to let go of her mentorship of Kaya and let her fly on her own.

Carrie Preston: She is slowly seeing this woman that she loves and admires and mentors has a dream of becoming a detective, and Elsbeth wants to see her continue to shine and to fly. And that’s such a beautiful thing. Yes, it’s going to hurt to not have her around all the time, but Elsbeth wishes her nothing but success and love and happiness over her own wishes to have her there all the time. 

Will we see more of Officer Reynolds (b) or Officer Chandler (Ethan Slater) stepping in to help Elsbeth on cases now that Kaya’s gone?

Tolins: We’re not going to try to force any character into the exact role that Kaya had in Elsbeth’s life. We’ll probably introduce some more uniformed officers, the way we have a whole bunch of detectives that pop up in different episodes.

One of the great things about doing 20 episodes in a season is that you don’t have to figure everything out before you start shooting. We get to organically respond to what is happening on the show and what we want to see more of. It’s a real luxury, a great thing about the old model that we are lucky enough to be using.

Was the casting all season leading up to the big musical number in the finale? Making sure you had actors who could sing and dance?

Tolins: Not at all. We’re so busy making 20 episodes, you’re always just looking at the thing right in front of you, and it’s very hard to think, in 15 episodes, we’re going to need someone to sing and dance.

The good thing about “Cell Block Tango” is there’s really not that much singing. So much of it is the monologue and then the “he had it coming” section. Everybody on our show can sing, pretty much. There’s a lot of theater people, and a lot of people with musical experience. 

As I started writing the script, I had several slots of different characters depending on whose schedule was going to shake out. So it was a crazy puzzle right up to the end, and I’m just amazed we pulled it off.

Carrie, what was it like having all those guest stars in one episode … and then do a musical number on top of it?

Preston: It was like the best birthday party I could ever throw for myself, to have all these people that I forged these wonderful relationships with coming back. A lot of them said yes without even reading the script.

And then when they read the script, they were like, “Oh my god.” I got a text from Alyssa Milano, and she was like, “Oh my God, this finale. I’m dying. I can’t wait.” She did Broadway in “Chicago” as Roxie Hart. She was thrilled to be able to be in that world again, and hang out with all these incredible actors. Everyone got along extremely well. Some people knew each other. Some people didn’t. I deliberately over-prepared so that I would have time to hang out and kiki with them. It was a delight. 

It was so Elsbeth-coded with all the bright colors. It did remind me a little bit of the Hugh Grant number in “Paddington 2.” Was that in your mind? 

Tolins: I definitely had seen that. I love it, “Listen to the Rain on the Roof” from “Follies.” That was one of the great Easter eggs of any movie ever. We weren’t trying to repeat it, but we did absolutely know that that was another prison musical number on a staircase.

When do you go back into production for Season 3? 

Tolins: We will start writing in three weeks and I believe we’ll start shooting our first episode in July. 

Seasons 1 and 2 of “Elsbeth” are now streaming on Paramount+.

The post ‘Elsbeth’ Star Carrie Preston Mourns Kaya’s Exit: ‘It’s Going to Hurt Not Having Her Around All the Time’ appeared first on TheWrap.