‘He’s Got a Lot of Power’: ‘Elsbeth’ Star Carrie Preston on Michael Emerson’s Surprising Judge Twist (Exclusive)

Michael Emerson made his long-awaited debut on Elsbeth in tonight’s episode, and Carrie Preston spoke to PopCulture.com about that twist and what could be coming next. In “One Angry Woman,” Elsbeth was summoned to jury duty for a murder trial, with Emerson’s Judge Milton Crawford overseeing it. The only problem is that Judge Crawford was the true murderer in that very trial, and the defendant, the victim’s wife, was being framed.

Throughout the trial, Elsbeth had some fun banter with Judge Crawford, who was a pretty tough judge, regardless of the truth, and Preston praised the “terrific” writing when it came to their dynamic. “There were a lot of layers to it, there was a lot of subtext to it,” she said. “Saying one thing, but you’re playing another. There are levels of breadth in there; there’s the level of some kind of odd respect in there. You see how his character realizes that he should have never let her stay on that jury. We underestimate her like everyone around her. All those things are really fun to play, and they add a lot of texture to it.”

While the wife was found not guilty, Elsbeth wasn’t so sure that it was all over as she started to suspect Judge Crawford because of one small detail that was mentioned during the trial. She even put his picture up on her bulletin board, meaning that this is not done. With Emerson appearing in a number of episodes, the storyline will be continuing, and Preston said that Judge Crawford has “a lot of power, and it’s formidable, and it’s gonna be hard for Elsbeth to topple or penetrate. But she’s pretty tenacious, and there’s a picture of him on her bulletin board. Let’s put it that way.”

This isn’t the first time that Carrie Preston and Michael Emerson have worked together throughout their 26-year marriage, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t still enjoy it. Preston praised her husband, saying that he is “such a brilliant actor. So he’s very precise. I like to think that we work in the same way. We come at it with the same level of precision. But there’s also a fluidity there. So, we didn’t rehearse the character. We didn’t go through the scene. We didn’t even talk through it because we just wanted to show up on the day we were doing the scenes and then play them like you would with any other guest star on the show. That made it fun. And to be surprised by each other is really lovely, to look at your spouse and not think about them as your spouse but as this character.”

As of now, there isn’t a set number of episodes that Emerson will be appearing in, but it’s clear that there will be much more on the way from him and there’s no telling just how this storyline will turn out. The fall finale of Elsbeth premieres Thursday, Dec. 19 at 10 p.m. ET on CBS.