Elsbeth pulled off another subtle dig by seemingly poking fun at Elon Musk with a joke about erectile dysfunction.
During the Thursday, April 23, episode of the hit CBS series, Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) was investigating a wealth therapist (Constance Wu) suspected of using patient secrets for insider trading who becomes the focus of a murder investigation. Elsbeth called Dr. Mallory Ryan (Wu) in to question a detail about her personal patient logs.
“This is a September 2024 entry about a patient — name redacted — who experienced prolonged erectile dysfunction in the aftermath of Space X’s failure to launch,” Elsbeth asked Mallory. “Power of suggestion, I guess?”
Mallory clarified that it was “a traumatic event for many high network men” but Musk founded the company in 2002. This isn’t the first time the show has found unique ways to mention real people with past episodes taking playful aim at Jordon Hudson, Bill Belichick, Leonardo DiCaprio and more.
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Thursday’s episode also stood out because of Kaya’s (Carra Patterson) return. Since Elsbeth premiered, Preston’s title character has been working alongside Patterson’s Kaya to solve cases in New York City. Season 2, which concluded in May 2025, ended with Patterson departing the show as a series regular.
The show explained Kaya’s absence by revealing she was on an undercover assignment in Washington D.C.
“I was concerned when Carra needed to go and what we were going to do without her,” Preston, 58, told Us Weekly exclusively in February. “But what ended up happening was we brought on Lindsay Mendez, B, Ethan Slater and we brought all these wonderful characters.”
The shakeup allowed the show’s writers to get creative.
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“[It brought] change, growth, conflict, loss and all of those things are enriching for any character. Our show for the first couple of seasons was also very much a romance where these two women were very much connected and they were so different and yet found this incredible common ground through their work together,” Preston told Us. “That doesn’t go away. So the longing for that — for her best friend — and to be with her has created some really fun and deep and touching scene work.”
The actress continued: “When Kaya does come back then we get to see that reunion. We get to see them fall back into where they were, but both of them have experienced things apart that they can bring to the friendship. It’s been interesting, and the writers have done such a beautiful job of not trying to fill the shoes of Kaya because you can’t, but instead bringing in different sidekicks for Elsbeth and seeing her have relationships with those people and those are different than what she has with Kaya. All of those things are doing nothing but making it a richer tapestry for the actors and hopefully for the audience.”
The newest episode, however, hinted that Kaya could be back for good again.
Elsbeth airs on CBS Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Paramount+.
