This content includes minor spoilers for the third season’s inaugural episode of Elsbeth.
Robert and Michelle King, the minds behind The Good Wife and its subsequent series, The Good Fight and Elsbeth, among various other productions, are renowned for their foresight. They have reportedly anticipated numerous events, from to , and an installment of The Good Fight concerning Chinese censorship was even .
Consequently, it is unsurprising that the third season debut of Elsbeth, scheduled for broadcast on CBS on October 12th and then moving to its regular Thursday evening slot on October 16th, addresses the recent contentious issues within late-night talk shows. This particular episode features , the host of CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, portraying a notoriously difficult late-night personality, echoing the fictionalized version of himself he once played on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
In this iteration, Colbert embodies Scotty Bristol, the tyrannical boss of Way Late With Scotty Bristol, who routinely chastises his writing staff, led by a producer portrayed by Amy Sedaris. Scotty, along with Sedaris’s character Laurel, and her spouse, Mickey (Andy Richter), were all members of an improvisational comedy group in their youth. Laurel exploits this shared past to ensnare and ultimately murder Scotty after he refuses to give Mickey leave for his health concerns.
This timely episode premieres roughly three months after the announcement that would conclude after its current season, slated to end in May 2026. This termination followed Colbert’s remarks on his July 14th broadcast, where he characterized CBS’s parent company, Paramount’s, settlement of a $16 million lawsuit with President Donald Trump as a “big fat bribe.” Paramount required regulatory consent from the Federal Communications Commission to proceed with its merger with Skydance.
Adding to the tumult in late-night television, following the assassination of conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk on September 10th, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s program, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, was for six days after his commentary on Kirk’s demise.
While Colbert’s cancellation was characterized as a , Kimmel’s suspension underscored the establishment of a concerning precedent regarding political censorship.
Carrie Preston, the show’s star who portrays the titular Elsbeth Tascioni—an eccentric attorney from The Good Wife and Fight who transforms into an internal investigator assigned to oversee the New York Police Department and demonstrates an extraordinary talent for solving homicides—stated that the inaugural episode was shot merely a week after the cancellation of The Late Show was publicized.
“It appears your writers possess immense audacity to feature me and then kill me off,” Colbert on the September 25th episode of The Late Show, where Preston was a guest. “To do it twice in one week—I’m perfectly fine!”
Although the episode refrains from addressing government censorship, instead adopting the congenial tone characteristic of the series, Elsbeth nonetheless satirizes the contemporary political atmosphere. For instance, when Way Late is interrupted due to Bristol’s murder, Elsbeth humorously quips, “Oh no, what happened? Is it Greenland?,” alluding to President Trump’s interest in acquiring the European island.
The fiercely competitive, if you will, aspect of comedy is also highlighted, as multiple characters—among them a detective portrayed by Merrily We Roll Along’s Lindsay Mendez, who also performs stand-up—express astonishment, uttering “this business” as progressively questionable workplace behaviors, such as joke theft and harassment of new employees, are revealed during the episode.
“It constitutes a hostile work environment, yet we are all profoundly thankful to be employed,” a comedy writer remarks, delivering what could be considered the episode’s most insightful line.
