Some spoilers ahead for Season 4, Episode 2 of Elsbeth, “Death of a Playwright,” streaming now with a Paramount+ subscription.
Elsbeth is officially in its fourth season on the 2026 TV schedule, and fans have definitely been in for a ride. Between the murder mysteries, Elsbeth’s insane number of bags and over-the-top outfits, the incredible guest stars, and more, the series has been entertaining from the start. What some fans may not know is that Elsbeth was actually inspired by a classic crime series. Though there’s one big difference, as the showrunner told me.
While Elsbeth is a spinoff of The Good Wife, the series actually draws inspiration from Columbo. How do you figure it? Both start off episodes showing the crime and the perpetrator, and both follow their respective titular characters then finding evidence to support each case. It's a cat-and-mouse game that's hard to do right, and both Elsbeth and Columbo do it well.
So, now we know Elsbeth is almost as much of a Columbo spinoff as a Good Wife spinoff, I was curious about what the showrunner thinks about the comparison. Jonathan Tolins confirmed the original model was the ‘70s detective series, but he told CinemaBlend there’s something Columbo never touched on that they made a concerted effort to address on Elsbeth.
It's fun because the original model for our show was Columbo, and Columbo never went into the personal life of Columbo. In fact, it was a running gag that he would always mention his wife, Mrs. Columbo, and you never saw her until she got her own series later.
Mrs. Columbo is one of many TV characters we never saw during Columbo's run, but when it comes to Elsbeth's love life, that's been a whole different story. We've heard about her relationship with her ex-husband, we've seen her going on some really interesting dates (including with Ioan Gruffudd's delightful Scottish character), and now the series might be building something between Elsbeth and Detective Smullen. Even though it’s fun to see Elsbeth mirror Columbo at times, and see Carrie Preston’s beloved character really focus on solving a case, Season 4 is going to be digging way deeper into her personal life.
The Season 3 finale saw her son Teddy getting engaged, and now that he and his fiancé, Roy, have set a date, Elsbeth is taking on more mother-of-the-groom duties. Her personal life is front and center, and that can make writing the show quite challenging, as the showrunner explained:
We made the decision early on that our relationship with this character is such that we want to get to know her life. It's always a bit of a dance because we have 43 minutes and we do a case in every episode.
I always love when a show digs deeper into a character, especially when there still isn’t much known about them at the start. Elsbeth Tascioni was first introduced on The Good Wife and was also on The Good Fight, but as her own show has progressed, we’ve been learning more about her. We were introduced to her son, and now we’ll soon be meeting her mother. The end of last week’s episode, “Death of a Playwright,” saw Elsbeth getting a phone call from her mom, and it seems there will be some intrigue with this storyline as well.
Tolins also teased an upcoming episode that will include more preparations for the wedding. Of course, this means meeting more of the family on both sides. Elsbeth will get more involved, and so will Roy’s parents. Not surprisingly, though, not everything will go the way it should:
And so keeping all these characters and these personal stories alive is complicated. But we do find that we all fell in love with Teddy and with Roy, and seeing Elsbeth as a mother is a really fun part of her character. So yes, there will be a lot this season about preparations for that wedding. In Episode 4, we meet Roy's parents, which of course intersects with a murder investigation. I don't want to tell you exactly how many episodes it's going to be in, but it will be a through line through season in fun, unexpected ways. And also that a lot of that story will involve Elsbeth's mother, played by Christine Ebersole, who's wonderful in the part.
I’m excited to see what comes out of this wedding, especially since it means we’ll be seeing more of Elsbeth’s family and personal life...something that was rare or never happened on Columbo.
There’s no telling what will happen, but there is clearly a lot to look forward to. New episodes of Elsbeth air on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on CBS, streaming the next day on Paramount+.
