ELSBETH Post-Mortem: Elsbeth is Shocked with an Emotional Reunion

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Thursday, December 5 episode of ELSBETH.]

Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) was feeling anything but jolly in the Thursday, December 5 episode of ELSBETH, “Gold, Frankincense, and Murder,” as she faced the prospect of spending the holidays alone.

But Kaya (Carra Patterson) and Wagner (Wendell Pierce) had a surprise in store for their friend: Teddy (Ben Levi Ross), Elsbeth’s son, popped up, dressed in full Santa gear.

Though Elsbeth had mentioned her son briefly during her tenure in the larger GOOD WIFE universe, Ross’ debut marked the first time the character had actually been seen on-screen.

And this is just the start of the show’s exploration of the mother-son dynamic: Ross, who has largely been working on stage (including DEAR EVAN HANSEN), will appear in multiple episodes of the show’s sophomore season.

“I auditioned for the show and when I got to meet Carrie and Jonathan Tolins, our showrunner, in our chemistry read, I was like, ‘Oh, this is such a natural dynamic for me, just between the two of us,’” Ross tells Give Me My Remote. “I think after I left that room, I felt really good about it and really excited about the show. And I loved the show. And I’ve also had some friends on it—like, Micaela Diamond is a very good friend of mine. So I [also] have watched friends of mine on the show and knew that…it’s a really smart, character-driven show that you don’t really see a lot of in this sort of format. So that was really exciting for me.”

Given his love of the show, he acknowledges now being on it is “the most fun thing.”

“There’s something kind of surreal about it,” Ross says. “When you’ve been watching a show and you know the character. It’s delicious as an actor, to be able to think on what this person’s child would be like, and then be able to to fulfill that. There’s always that sort of TRUMAN SHOW moment where you’re like, ‘I’ve been watching you on TV for so long, and now jumping in, and we’re here.’ But it’s been really, really easy and fun and natural.”

The actor also delighted in Teddy’s unconventional reveal. “It feels very fitting for the show to just be in full Santa garb,” Ross says with a laugh. “It was the full get up. And it was so fun. It was a very interesting introduction to the other actors on set, to just be like, ‘Hi, it’s me under here. I’m going to be working with you guys for a while.’”

“I had a costume fitting, and our costume designer was pulling sort of like normal Teddy clothes, and then was like, ‘But we have to do the Santa fit first,’” he continues. “And [it] was getting into the specifics of, like, what color red, what beard.”

Ross was a little over his head in picking the right Santa costume for a very specific reason. “I am a hundred percent Jewish, so this is brand new for me,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve not been to a SantaCon. This was new…I don’t really have the image too clearly in my head of what exactly is going on in the face, but we knew there had to be a beard for a reveal.”

Speaking of reveals, with so much about Teddy still unknown to viewers, the actor has his own curiosity about what kind of man Elsbeth’s son is.

“I think the thing that I was curious about was why or how they converge and diverge personality-wise,” he says. “Elsbeth is such a specific personality, and she’s got these very specific quirks. And I think the intention was not to have Teddy be an exact replica of her, but to really see what he did get from her; what rubbed off on him in his childhood. And I think we’re still sort of exploring that as we continue to shoot and as we get to know Teddy a little bit.”

ELSBETH, Thursdays, 10/9c, CBS

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