ELSBETH Post-Mortem: Carra Patterson Reflects on Kaya’s Big Decision

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Thursday, April 25 episode of ELSBETH.]

With Captain Wagner (Wendell Pierce) asking Kaya (Carra Patterson) to keep an eye on Elsbeth (Carrie Preston)—who he suspected was looking into him—things got messy on the Thursday, April 25 episode of ELSBETH.

After they solved their case—with Elsbeth proving that Dr. Vanessa Holmes (Gina Gershon) faked key evidence for her “alibi”—Kaya questioned Elsbeth about a meeting she had secretly observed.

“I followed you to the park,” Kaya admitted.

“We shouldn’t be discussing this, you could be subpoenaed,” Elsbeth insisted.

“Captain Wagner believes that you’re looking into him, and I’m supposed to find out why,” Kaya said. “But I’m coming to you, my friend, instead. What’s going on?”

Reluctantly, Elsbeth filled her in: “The DOJ believes that Captain Wagner is taking kickbacks for blocking investigations.” 

Kaya was visibly shaken. “Since the academy, I have only ever worked under Captain Wagner,” she said. “Whole time, he has been nothing but kind, upstanding. Now I don’t know who I’m working for. What side I’m supposed to be on.”

Elsbeth offered a simple solution: “Be on the side of the truth.”

“And what is that?” Kaya asked. Elsbeth didn’t have an easy answer, but promised they’d figure it out together.

Of course, what neither woman knew was that things were even more complicated than they thought: There was another figure in play—who claimed to be Captain Wagner’s intermediary for bribes. 

But Kaya made a big move by confiding in Elsbeth versus following orders from her boss. “I think Kaya is just trying to follow her gut right now,” Patterson tells Give Me My Remote. “Because there are things that make both of them look like they shouldn’t be trusted, and I think she’s really trying to develop her own instincts. She wants to work her way up. She wants to be a detective. She wants to catch the bad guys. And now I think she’s being tested. I think she’s just kind of taking it moment to moment as she’s looking each of them in the eye. Do I believe what they’re saying? And am I on the side of what’s right?”

The prospect that Wagner could be dirty shakes the officer, Patterson admits. “Wagner is someone that she’s looked up to and respected,” she says. “I[‘ve] felt this way in life: You might know the right thing to do, but it still kind of scares the s— out of you at the same time. So I think she’s like, ‘Okay, I’m doing what’s right, I have no idea how I’m gonna play this.’ And I think there’s some scenes that come with Wagner where she’s just not really wanting to look him in the eye. How do you confront this person that you have all this respect for? And now that’s out the window. So I think she’s scared.”

Complicating matters is that Wagner and Kaya are navigating the realities and complications of being Black cops. “I definitely think that’s something that Kaya and Wagner are very aware of,” Patterson says. “I think they’re both highly intelligent people who are aware of the role that they play in this world. And we don’t really get to go into it overtly, but I can speak for myself that that is something that Kaya is—she’s trying to be the change that she wants to see and that there are good examples of people who respect people who want to protect people and who are on the side of truth. And so, as a Black woman, I think she’s trying her best to embody that and that influences why she’s willing to go against her superior if he’s looking suspicious.”

And while Elsbeth is very much on the case, Kaya may be more of a passive participant in the investigation into Wagner. “I think Kaya is very by the book,” Patterson says. “Elsbeth isn’t so by the book. So I think Kaya is not trying to take matters into her own hands just yet. She’s still kind of taking the clues as they come and following Elsbeth’s lead because Kaya doesn’t want to lose her own job. So she’s not letting Elsbeth lead her too far astray. But she is on the ride to see where it goes.”

Which, unfortunately, will also place her in the position of having to face Wagner knowing she has aligned herself with Elsbeth. “I will say Kaya is trying her hardest to be a good actress,” Patterson says with a laugh. “Now, it’s up to the viewer how much she succeeds. But I think she’s trying her best.”

And while much of the episode was serious, there was a light moment when Patterson and Preston had to film the sequence where Elsbeth tried to figure out if she—as a non-medical professional—could have committed the crime…and used Kaya as her test subject…and repeatedly poked her quasi-partner in the ribs.

Patterson, for her part, starts laughing as soon as the scene is brought up. “I remember reading that in the script, and I was like, ’Kaya gets on the table and [Elsbeth] pokes her rib?!’” she recalls. “Oh, it was honestly really easy because that’s one of those things that you don’t really have to act. I mean, honestly, it was like we were looking at our director, Nancy [Hower], like, ‘How big do you want us to go? Because if someone’s poking you in the rib…I am very ticklish. So I can be screaming.’” 

“That scene was at the end of the night, and I think we were all ready to have some fun,” she continues. “And it went by really quickly. So it was really easy, a really fun [one] to shoot because me and Carrie could just play off of each other. It was a good time.”

ELSBETH, Thursdays, 10/9c, CBS

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