Wendell Pierce as Captain Wagner and Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tascioni in ELSBETH – Season 3 – “Catch and Kill” | ©2026 CBS/Michael Parmelee

CBS’s ELSBETH is renewed for a fourth season, with Season 3’s finale airing Thursday, May 21, with all episodes then streaming on Paramount+.

Created by Michelle King & Robert King, ELSBETH is a spinoff of THE GOOD WIFE and the GOOD FIGHT, centering on Elsbeth Tascioni, played by Carrie Preston. On the previous two series, Elsbeth was a recurring character, a quirky Chicago lawyer. Preston won a Guest Actress Emmy for THE GOOD WIFE.

ELSBETH finds our protagonist in New York City, working with the NYPD. In theory, Elsbeth is there to oversee the Consent Decree, making sure that the police are complying with the laws that govern them. In practice, Elsbeth actually spends most of her time helping the detectives solve homicide cases.

Although there are many other recurring characters, the lone series regular other than Preston is Wendell Pierce as Police Captain C.W. Wagner. Wagner started off unsettled by Elsbeth’s eccentricity – to say nothing of his discovery that she had been sent to spy on him by the Powers That Be in a case that arced across the whole of ELSBETH’s first season. It turned out that Wagner had been framed and Elsbeth helped exonerate him and catch the guilty party, but it took a while in Season 2 for trust to be restored.

Pierce is a prolific actor in stage, film and television, as well as being a trombonist. On the big screen, he is Perry White in the new SUPERMAN film franchise and appeared in features including CASUALTIES OF WAR, A RAGE IN HARLEM, MALCOLM X, WAITING TO EXHALE, SLEEPERS, RAY, GET ON THE BUS, THE FIGHTING TEMPTATIONS, SELMA, and THUNDERBOLTS*.

On TV, Pierce has been a series regular in JACK RYAN, THE WIRE, TREME, THE MICHAEL J. FOX SHOW, the reboot of THE ODD COUPLE, CURSED, and THE GREGORY HINES SHOW, had arcs on SUITS, RAY DONOVAN, POWER BOOK III: RAISING KANAN, CHICAGO P.D., and played U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the 2016 HBO telefilm CONFIRMATION.

When CBS has a Q&A session for ELSBETH as part of the Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour, Pierce is on the panel. Later, at a party thrown by CBS for the TCA, Pierce sits down for further discussion.

On the panel, Pierce praises Preston and Elsbeth herself. “You see her bring out humanity in all the characters, and I love that because it’s multifaceted. It’s one of the things that brings people together and makes [ELSBETH] unique … We start to look at how people will rationalize bad behavior and try to fin the better angels in ourselves. And at the end of the evening, you see the juxtaposition of those two parts of our humanity, and you learn something from that journey.

“And Carrie inspires me as well. Because as an actor, I just want to recognize the skill level that I get to witness on a regular basis now, of the detailed work that Carrie does with this character and has made it iconic.

“And what makes something iconic or classic, it speaks across time and space and people, wherever you are … And that’s the thing that Carrie brings to it. I dare say, I get to watch her do work on level of a Mary Tyler Moore, a Carol Burnett, and a Lucille Ball. And with the wonderful writing that the producers and writers are creating, I get to see this palette that she gets to work with every week, and I get to play with as another actor.

“So, I am enjoying that, and I just wanted to make sure to put that out there in the world and on the record.”

In the one-on-one follow-up interview, Pierce explains what he knew about Captain Wagner when he first became involved with ELSBETH.

“I knew almost everything. I didn’t know exactly how it would end up. I was wondering if, at one point, they were going to make it real that I had done something in the past. They said that she was there to investigate me. So, I knew that much.”

One of the main reasons Pierce wanted to do ELSBETH was to play opposite Preston. He then found out that he and Preston had been on the same project together once before. “Carrie reminded me that, twenty years ago, we did a BBC Radio play called TRADITION. I was doing THE WIRE at the time. I was so excited about doing a BBC Radio play. I didn’t have any scenes with her, but I remember doing the play with her.”

Pierce didn’t have a say in the casting of Gloria Reuben (Jeanie Boulet on ER) in her recurring role as Wagner’s elegant wife Claudia, but “I was pleased with the choice,” he laughs. “I’m a fan of Gloria’s. I’ve known Gloria for years.”

Reuben left ER for several seasons in order to go on tour as a backup performer for Tina Turner. Pierce got to see them live. “It was great.”

Pierce’s describes his own musical status as being “a big jazz-head from New Orleans. If anything, I did a show called TREME, back in the day. That’s a show I’d like to revisit, and actually get my musical chops up on that if I could.”

There’s a scene in ELSBETH Season 1, Episode 4, “Love Knocked Off,” where Wagner and Gloria are talking in bed, and it hits him that Elsbeth may be investigating him. How was that written in the script?

“It was written as, ‘He comes to the realization of what’s really happening.’ I talked to the director [Rosemary Rodriguez], and said, ‘How are you going to do it?’ She explained that pushing shot, that tracking shot [that comes in for a closeup of Wagner]. So, when the camera was tracking in, I knew I would get the epiphany.”

How does Pierce see Wagner as a person? “I think he’s ambitious. I see him as wanting to be commissioner one day. He came up through the ranks and is very aware of how he’s being perceived as he moves up, and so, that’s the push and pull of his relationship with Elsbeth. Her expertise is something he wants. It inspires him, that’s what he latches onto, and that’s why he keeps her around. But then there’s everything else that gets under his skin with her. That gives him something to work through.”

As for ELSBETH’s COLUMBO-esque style of beginning most weekly installments showing us the (non-gory) murder and then the investigation, “I loved the whole format of the thriller right at the beginning of each episode. It takes you on a ride. It reminds me of Agatha Christie, and KNIVES OUT and things like that.”

While Elsbeth has cleared Wagner, newly-elected NYPD Superintendent Cyrus Tully (Campbell Scott) looms as a new antagonist for both the captain and his consent decree enforcer. This is likely to reveal more of Wagner’s past.

All the characters, Pierce says, “have to deal with something from our past. And that’s what I like. Because that builds character. And that gives us something to sink our teeth into.”

Unlike some productions set in the Big Apple that actually shoot somewhere else, ELSBETH is made on location in New York City. Pierce loves this.

“It’s New York. They say, ‘You need a ride home?’ You say, ‘No.’ For me, it’s always music. ‘I’m going to that jazz club right over there, I’m going to hang out over here and have a nice meal over here,’ and of course, see some art. Always, when we’re shooting on Fifth Avenue, on breaks, I’m like, ‘I’m going to the Met.’ In summertime, it’s great. I’m going to the Met and I get to hear music on the Terrace.

“There’s no place like New York. Whatever your heart’s desire, whatever your whim is, that’s the best thing about shooting in New York – you’re going to be satisfied. And now with the tax credits, there’s so much more production. They woke up to that, and hopefully California does that more, so L.A. doesn’t have to lose so much production.”

Pierce says that he’s had a lot of fun playing Perry White and made a point of watching the Perry Whites who came before him. “Oh, I’ve seen them all, from the original to the film – Laurence Fishburne actually played Perry [in the Zack Snyder films], and Michael McKeen from SMALLVILLE, I’ve watched them all. I’m not a big comics fan, but for this, man, the fandom is so strong that I said, ‘I’d better be on my Ps and Qs,’ so I did my research for it.”

Another film Pierce did a lot of research for was CONFIRMATION. While that depicted the controversy around Thomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court, the Justice has been in the news even more in the ensuing years. Did Pierce have any idea this might be coming when he played Thomas?

“None whatsoever. I tried, when I did CONFIRMATION, to meet with him. I couldn’t get a meeting with him. We actually have a lot in common. I grew up in the South, Black, working-class, Catholic, grandparents had a farm, just like he was rural, from the Savannah area, and actually liberal politics until he got out of law school from Yale. When he couldn’t get a job, he felt it was because he had an Affirmative Action degree, and that’s where our politics separated. But I wanted to meet him, because we had so much in common, I thought. And now, when I see what’s being done, it’s interesting. That’s a character I would love to go back to.”

Does Pierce have any preference between playing somebody who is in charge like Wagner, or somebody who is answerable to somebody else who is in charge, or who is off on his own?

“No, you just want good writing, something to play. Because whether you’re in charge or not in charge, it’s what’s the thing that drives you? And when you’re not in charge, it drives you to get to a position of power. When you are in charge, you want to be better. You want to hold onto that position of power.”

Asked what he’d most like people to know about ELSBETH, Pierce replies, “Every week, wonderful guest stars. It’s like a small movie of the week.”

Follow us on Twitter at ASSIGNMENT X
Like us on Facebook at ASSIGNMENT X

Article Source: Assignment X
Article: Exclusive Interview: ELSBETH star Wendell Pierce gives the scoop on Season 3 of the CBS series

Related Posts: