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Elsbeth Tascioni, everyone’s favorite offbeat lawyer, makes a memorable return on the recently-renewed The Good Wife.
In Sunday’s episode, “A Few Words,” Alicia turns to the past in preparation for a keynote address at the American Bar Association conference. But she and Cary are also forced to compete against Diane and Will, as well as other parties, to align with a powerful New York lawyer.
“Elsbeth is being brought in to deal with a very sticky situation,” Carrie Preston tells The Hollywood Reporter. “In this case, it’s one of the bigger things she’s going to have to try to get Will Gardner and the Florricks out of. It does not disappoint in the high stakes of the situation.”
VIDEO: ‘Good Wife’ Season 5 Promo: Scandals, Battles and ‘Most Shocking Moment Ever’
Elsbeth, whom Will and Diane first come across at the conference, continues her streak of comedic entrances and the Lockhart Gardner (sorry, LG) partners have a moment of clarity amidst Elsbeth’s freneticism as they look to move past the legal dilemma they potentially find themselves in over Governor Peter Florrick’s stuffed ballot box.
“It’s always out of left field, her approach, but she has a pretty good track record and a pretty great result record that even Diane, who’s always very skeptical about Elsbeth, agrees that this is the way to go. What else do they have to lose?” Preston says. “It’s definitely a Columbo situation where she’s coming at it differently. She’s a much more creative thinker and she has the brain skills that even she herself doesn’t understand or knows how to employ them.”
The installment, which CBS has been touting as part of a major three-episode event, is flashback-heavy, something Preston — as a fan of the show — was intrigued by. (The episode fills in the blanks of past events, featuring moments that weren’t seen mixed in with those that were.)
“It was very, very interesting to read and it was reminiscent of that episode earlier in the season where they were flashing back and forth between Will and Alicia’s relationship was good to where Will and Alicia’s relationship is now,” says Preston, who also returns to Person of Interest later in the season.
STORY: Michael J. Fox Returning to ‘The Good Wife’
One eye-raising moment comes in the form of a funny moment between Elsbeth and a man dressed in a stuffed bear suit outside the law conference — and things get heated after the man makes an anti-Semitic remark at Elsbeth’s expense.
“I was surprised that they kept in the whole exchange between Elsbeth and the anti-Semitic bear in the beginning [of the episode],” she says with a laugh. “I was so shocked that they kept that because when I read it on the page, I thought, ‘Oh my god they’re never going to keep this.’ And then when we went to shoot it, I asked and said, ‘Are you really going to keep this?’ And they said, ‘Yeah yeah, we’re going to keep this.’ “
“Even when we shot it, you don’t see the bear’s mouth moving so they can substitute any line they wanted. And apparently they still kept it. I thought it was a really wonderful thing to have to handle how Elsbeth deals with the anti-Semitic bear,” adds Preston, who shared that Elsbeth has another funny scene where she shows off her terrible singing chops.
Watch a preview from Sunday’s episode below.
The Good Wife airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on CBS.
Email: Philiana.Ng@THR.com
Twitter: @insidethetube
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