Carrie Preston and husband Michael Emerson‘s long-awaited reunion on Elsbeth is far from friendly.
In Us Weekly‘s exclusive clip from the Thursday, April 24, episode of the hit CBS series, Elsbeth (Preston) is cornered at the subway station by Judge Crawford (Emerson), who she assumed was “following” her.
“Tell me, did you have a relaxing trip to the Cape?” he asked Elsbeth, who called the getaway “lovely and very informative,” adding, “For example, did you know that Andy worked at the yacht club your family belongs to?”
While Crawford called it “a small world,” Elsbeth couldn’t help but agree. “Feeling smaller and smaller with every passing second,” she noted. “And yet, you didn’t recuse yourself from Andy’s case.”
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Crawford didn’t budge though about his unexpected connection to Andy’s case. He was visibly affected when Elsbeth brought up another murder.
“Well who could forget that tragic accident? The club had to shut down the pool,” Crawford recalled, to which Elsbeth replied, “A tragic accident. I guess you never know when danger is lurking.”
Judge Crawford was originally introduced earlier this season when Elsbeth ended up on jury duty. She initially tried her best to get out of sitting for the case but changed her mind once she started to question Judge Crawford’s intentions.
Elsbeth was able to get the woman accused of Andy’s murder — his girlfriend — acquitted. But her investigation into Crawford created complications for Elsbeth and those in her inner circle.
“Elsbeth is on the jury in a murder trial where the proceedings seem questionable. Can she go head-to-head with the judge and bring order to the court?” Preston, 57, and Emerson, 70, said in an exclusive statement to Us in December 2024. “We’ve had so much fun waking up together and going off to work playing these courtroom adversaries on Elsbeth! It’s a tremendous battle of wits with life and death in the balance. Then we get to go back home and snuggle it off.”
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The couple, who have worked together many times since tying the knot in 1998, hinted at the outcome of the case.
“She’s not going to jump to conclusions, but he is definitely involved,” Preston told TV Insider at the time about Elsbeth’s eventual reunion with the judge after he let a key detail of the murder slip. Emerson also weighed in, adding, “It’s a very small slip and it comes from hubris. He thinks he’s on top of it. So much so that he lets his guard down for a second. He’s careless just for a second.”
Thursday’s episode comes ahead of a star-studded season finale. According to the official synopsis, Crawford and Elsbeth’s reunion comes as “Crawford inches closer to becoming a federal judge, Elsbeth scours his past to prove he’s a murderer before it’s too late, but her attempts to take him down put everyone around her in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Teddy considers following in his mother’s professional footsteps.”
Elsbeth airs on CBS Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Paramount+.
