The only Elsbeth Season 2 recap you need before the third chapter premieres this October

Elsbeth Season 2 premiered on CBS on October 17, 2024, featuring the exciting return of television's favorite and vibrant attorney Elsbeth Tascioni, played by actress Carrie Preston. The show is a spin-off of The Good Wife (2009–2016) and The Good Fight (2017–2022), and Preston reprised her titular character from the show, who is an attorney working with the NYPD.

Elsbeth Season 2 continued to feature many interesting murder mysteries with 'reverse whodunit' and 'howcatchem'. The season featured storylines of corruption in the NYPD, which left Elsbeth questioning the legal system and the institution of justice. The show will continue Elsbeth's fight for justice in Elsbeth Season 3, scheduled to release on CBS on October 12, 2025.

But before the new season drops, here is the ultimate Elsbeth Season 2 recap to prepare you for the upcoming season.

An overview and recap of Elsbeth Season 2

Elsbeth Season 2 brought the familiar structure of a 'case of the week' for our favorite attorney, who found herself in more intriguing mysteries with cunning perpetrators.

As seen in the Season 1 finale, Elsbeth was sent to New York by the Department of Justice to investigate Captain Wagner, who was accused of corrupt behaviour. As the investigation wrapped up, Wagner introduced Lieutenant Connor as a replacement for the corrupt Lieutenant Noonan. Here are the major highlights from the sophomore season:

NYPD officer Kaya Blanke rises through the ranks in Elsbeth Season 2

Officer Kaya Blanke is one of the most heartwarming characters in the show, who showed perfect balance between her professional and personal lives in Season 2. While she continued to remain a loyal and trusted friend to Elsbeth in Season 2, she rose through the ranks in the NYPD and was finally promoted to detective in the sophomore season. Fans of Elsbeth and Blanke were certainly happy that the duo was heading towards a permanent professional partnership until the Elsbeth Season 2 finale shifted gears.

In the final episodes, Kaya Blanke was again promoted to head a special task force, training for which began immediately in Washington, D.C. This was certainly good news for Blanke, but it also marked an end to her partnership with her best friend. The season ended with a farewell party for Blanke, where Elsbeth tearfully bid her friend goodbye. The Elsbeth Season 2 finale also marked actress Carra Patterson‘s final episode as a series regular, and she will only appear in guest appearances and cameos in Elsbeth Season 3.

All about Judge Crawford in Elsbeth Season 2

Another important storyline featured in Elsbeth Season 2, which directly affected Elsbeth, was Judge Milton Crawford's complex tale of corruption, deceit, and murder. Through a flashback to the 1990s, we learned that Judge Crawford committed his first murder of a woman who rejected his advances. This initiated a string of corrupt behaviour on Crawford's part, which directly polluted the legal system under his leadership.

In the present timeline, after Crawford murdered Andy Mertens, a key witness in his 1990s murder case, Elsbeth becomes directly involved in his storyline. Since the attorney was serving on the jury, she became suspicious of Crawford and started gathering evidence against him. However, before Elsbeth and her team could present their gathered evidence against Crawford, he was murdered on the courthouse steps by Delia Bates, a woman wrongfully accused by Crawford.

Crawford's murder landed Elsbeth in jail in Elsbeth Season 2

While Crawford's murder ended his reign of terror and provided justice to his many victims, he was made into a fallen martyr by his friend Judge Edwin Dousant. As Crawford's death gained attention in the media and people mourned the death of a 'legal' pioneer, Elsbeth was framed for harassment because of her proximity to his murder. Her involvement in the Crawford storyline landed her in jail in the Elsbeth Season 2 finale, where she met many familiar faces.

However, the Season 2 finale established that our attorney continues her streak of justice wherever she goes, as she solved a murder mystery even in prison. The Elsbeth Season 2 finale featured an unconventional murder mystery of Alex Modarian, one of the prison inmates who was secretly running a Black market. The titular attorney rightly deciphered that Alex was in cahoots with the prison warden, Mama Martin, who killed him because he was about to expose her to the DA.

Elsbeth Season 3 will continue to investigate corruption in the legal system

After Elsbeth solved this interesting murder mystery, she was rescued from prison by Wagner and Chandler. She rushed to attend her best friend's farewell party, and both Kaya and Elsbeth said their tearful goodbyes to each other.

While Elsbeth Season 2 did not end on a shocking cliffhanger, it left many loose threads for our attorney for the upcoming season. Since the sophomore season featured corruption in the NYPD, the upcoming season will continue this investigation. While Crawford is silenced for now, the world still remembers him as a martyr, and the titular attorney will take it upon herself to change the narrative around people like Crawford and Edwin Dousant. This suggests that the show is gradually moving from its light-hearted comedic streak to more serious issues.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Carrie Preston even teased the dangerous path for her character in Season 3:

“The truth matters, and the point is to try to pursue it, even if you don’t always get it. Sometimes when you’re faced with a lot of things that feel out of your control, the default mode is to just give up or be apathetic or complacent. That’s not what these characters are about. And I love that. I think it’s galvanizing.”

Additionally, Elsbeth will also get a new partner in the upcoming season after Kaya's promotion in Season 2, hinting at evolving professional and personal relationships for the titular attorney.

Elsbeth Season 3 will premiere on CBS on October 12, 2025.