‘Elsbeth’ Showrunner Jonathan Tolins Breaks Down Season 3 Premiere and Reveals What’s Next (Exclusive)

Elsbeth Season 3 finally premiered on Sunday, and showrunner Jonathan Tolins broke down the episode with PopCulture.com.

In “Yes, And…,” Stephen Colbert’s late-night talk show host Scotty Bristol met an untimely end thanks to Amy Sedaris’ character, who is his head writer.

The episode was a fun way to kick off Season 3, even if it meant seeing Colbert die at the hands of a paper shredder. On top of that, though, Andy Richter’s character, who is Scotty’s sidekick and husband of Sedaris’ Laurel, had a surprising twist, while fans met a new police officer played by Lindsay Mendez. But don’t think you’ve seen the last of Carra Patterson’s Kaya Blanke, as Tolins also spoke about what’s on the docket for her, and much more. Take a look at what he had to say about the premiere episode and what’s coming up. (Interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

PC: In the episode, we find out that Elsbeth had just gotten back from visiting Angus, and it wasn’t exactly what she thought it would be. Are there plans to bring Ioan [Gruffudd] back at all?

Tolins: There are hopes. That’s all I can say.

PC: Also in the episode, the NYPD is dealing with budget cuts, but it’s not exactly huge, at least for now. They are without some certain essentials, which Elsbeth eventually brings into the fold at the end with all the accessories from Way Late. Will this continue as the season goes on and having Connor and Wagner especially deal with the fallout of it?

Tolins: It’s funny. You’re not the first person to ask this after seeing the premiere. I will say we never thought we would end up focusing that much on budget cuts. To us, it was something that sort of acknowledged the atmosphere in the world today and questions about public money and having to do with less, and all those issues, putting pressure on our characters, which is always a good thing. But I can say this, so this season will not be the budget cut season.

I remember there was a season of The Good Fight, and this is my first season working on it, where Robert King, he’s joked about this. That his first idea was to do the whole season focused on tort reform. And then we all realized that was a deeply unsexy thing to talk about. So, budget cuts are in the air, but I don’t know if it’ll be something that really rises to the floor that often.

PC: Since Stephen wanted to play a corpse on the show, what did he think of how his character was killed?

Tolins: He was nothing but lovely about the script, and he said the same thing to me that he said to Carrie [Preston] on his show last week. He said that the people are gonna think the writers of this show have the biggest balls and joke precision. I do know, actually, I did talk to someone. I met with a writer who works on Colbert’s show, and this writer said that he had such fun coming in and telling the writers of his show about the murder that we do on our show that it’s a shredder where the writers’ material goes in that that’s what killed him. He seems to delight in it.

PC: The episode also brought another surprising death. Andy Richter’s Mickey has a heart attack after finding out what really happened. How did you pitch that to him?

Tolins: Andy just got the whole script when he accepted the offer. So he knew. I’m gonna say I have to give credit to one of our wonderful writers, Eric Randall. We broke that story oddly in, like, two days. We were just coming together when we were starting. We just fell into place. But, we were trying to figure out what’s gonna be the big sort of surprise going in at that point, and Eric said, “What if Mickey just dies?”

And it was the perfect placement of something new, just throwing everything in. It was great because we realized we also had set it up. The whole plot is really predicated on the fact that Mickey has all these heart problems, and then the stress of Scotty’s murder, and what he might be realizing about Laurel, kills him at that point. I love that. I love when a big surprise comes that we didn’t see coming. There’s no surprises for the writer. There’s no surprises for the reader. That’s always a joy when someone in the writers’ room says something and we all go, “Oh my god.” Like, we had thought of that. And then that feeling, we go, “Oh my god.” Then the viewer is gonna go, “Oh my god.” And, so we jump at it. Andy was lovely. Andy, he was a really wonderful actor.

PC: How was it seeing the dynamic between Andy, Amy, and Stephen, considering how their characters are on screen?

Tolins: Well, I mean, the one thing that was really awkward for them was when Laurel kind of seduces Scotty. And actually, Colbert talked about this on his show, saying they’re like brother and sister. They’ve known each other so long. So that was very, very difficult for them. They do a beautiful job. That should seem as quite moving, actually. I mean, it was just wonderful to see these comedy legends who have known each other so long and just be around each other.

At one point, actually, I was standing with Stephen in between takes of the scene in the green room, and he was waiting to make his entrance to the door. And I said to him, “This is blowing my mind.” And he said to me, “Me too.” Not only was it working with Amy after all this time, but also we had created this sort of fun house mirror world of those offices. That’s all our set decorating and all that, and it just felt like you had stepped into this alternate universe of this actual show. So it was great.

PC: Could we be seeing more of Lindsay’s character, especially since Elsbeth doesn’t really have a partner?

Tolins: She definitely comes back a number of times. We thought she was terrific in the premiere, and she and Elsbeth have terrific chemistry. And I will say also that everybody loves her on set, and she’s just terrific, generative to have in the Elsbeth family. Actually, she’s back in Episode 3 to start.

PC: It’s revealed that Kaya has passed her training and is officially undercover. Elsbeth was talking to Cameron, and she found out. With Kaya gone, could we be seeing more interactions between Elsbeth and Cameron?

Tolins: We love Cameron. We didn’t wanna have him disappear when Kaya went off on her undercover. All I’ll say is when we need a medical examiner, Cameron’s the first person we call. And we love having him as part of the show. Again, part of the only frustration in my job is that we have created so many terrific supporting characters, but they’re so terrific, they’re very popular and busy actors.

And so we can’t always get them when we want them. I’m not saying specifically about Sullivan [Jones], the actor who plays Cameron. But just that, a lot of times, a story comes up. It’s, “Oh, this would be great to use,” and then we can’t get them because they’re busy doing something else, because we don’t have everybody under a long-term contract. I wish we did, but we don’t.

PC: Going off of that, actually, have you started plotting any returns for Kaya at all?

Tolins: Oh, yes. You will see Kaya. You’ll see her pretty soon.

PC: Was there a particular storyline that you were excited to expand on for Season 3 or maybe even explore for the first time?

Tolins: I mean, we are doing a sort of long arc that involves politics, but not the way you’d see it on The Good Wife. But it’s something that brings up the questions about honesty and how much does truth matter. These are real questions for all of us living in the world today, but particularly for Elsbeth, because remember what she said in the pilot was that she would now want it to be on the side of the truth. And we wanted to look at, “Well, how hard is it to stick to that always?”

Things happen in life where it’s not always so easy to just say, “Well, I’m just messing through truth.” And it affects relationships and deeper issues of where do you draw your personal red line? So we’re having a really good time talking about that and putting that in the story.

New episodes of Elsbeth will go back to its Thursday at 10 p.m. ET slot on CBS starting Oct. 16.