The second season of Elsbeth is winding down in the 2025 TV schedule, but the finale featuring the leading lady behind bars may just be spectacular enough to eclipse her catwalk experience from the Season 1 finale. The hit CBS drama recruited some of the biggest guest stars from the past 20+ episodes to encounter Elsbeth in prison, and the finale will include a musical number straight out of Chicago. When I spoke with star Carrie Preston and executive producer Jonathan Tolins about the finale, I got the scoop on what makes busy stars want to clear their schedules enough for Elsbeth.
The Season 2 finale, which airs on May 8 at 9 p.m. ET and streams next day with a Paramount+ subscription, is called “Ramen Holiday” and will stick Elsbeth in the same prison as some of the killers she put behind bars. One of those killers will be killed, making her situation all the stickier while her friends on the outside try to get her released. Of course, the list of killers was announced before news even broke that Elsbeth was going to prison, and it’s absolutely stacked with talent.
CBS revealed well over a month ago that Stephen Moyer – a.k.a. the very first Elsbeth killer guest star – would be back as theater director Alex Modarian, as well as Retta as matchmaker Margo Clarke, Gina Gershon as plastic surgeon Dr. Vanessa Holmes, Elizabeth Lail as tech CEO Quinn Powell, Arian Moayed as bar owner Joe Dillon, André De Shields as fashion designer Matteo Hart, Alyssa Milano as mafia princess Pupetta Del Ponte, and Mary-Louise Parker as Freya Frostad.
If you’re anything like me, it felt like a big deal that Elsbeth landed these stars the first time around, let alone recruited them to come back to fill out an ensemble of murderers later on! Jon Tolins opened up to CinemaBlend about the show’s approach to having the leading lady in prison for a very big, very musical, and very Elsbeth finale:
These finales are a challenge, because you do feel the pressure to do something special. Very early on, we thought it would be fun to do a murder in prison, and wouldn’t it be fun if we could get some of our previous guest stars to be prisoners? So that started right when we started working on Season 2, and it was something that was always like, ‘Well, that’ll be the finale.’ We didn’t know if we’d be able to convince anyone to come back, and it wasn’t until later that someone said, ‘Well, shouldn’t Elsbeth be a prisoner too?’ And we figured out, ‘Oh, let’s put her in jail to really go for it.’
Well, putting together a star-studded finale as ambitious as “Ramen Holiday” may not be easy, but it certainly seems to have helped that Tolins and the Elsbeth team started working on it so early in the planning process for Season 2. It may have been a little heartbreaking to see Elsbeth so sad at the end of the penultimate episode, but that heartbreak may be worth the pain it if the finale is as much fun as it seems from the promo. The showrunner went on:
We did want to do something special, and a lot of people have said, ‘Well, you have to do a musical number,’ and ‘Cell Block Tango’ felt like the natural thing. Also I did feel like Elizabeth in prison reminded me of Roxie Hart in prison in the film of Chicago, where she would have these visions of prisoners and musical numbers.
If you’ve seen the movie musical version of Chicago that starred Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta Jones, it’s easy to understand why “Cell Block Tango” starring the six merry murderesses of the Cook County jail was the perfect fit for the Elsbeth Season 2 finale. The preview reveals that the murderesses singing in the CBS version will be Retta’s Margo Clarke, Gina Gershon’s Vanessa Holmes, Alyssa Milano’s Pupetta Del Ponte, Elizabeth Lail’s Quinn Powers, and Mary-Louise Parker’s Freya Frostad.
So, what about Elsbeth makes actors who are big names in their own right want to come and then come back to the drama? Well, according to the EP, a lot of that has to do with Carrie Preston. He shared:
That’s what we were going for, and we were extremely lucky that so many people were willing to come back and manage to fit it into their schedules, and that’s because they want to work with Carrie again, and because we try so hard to make our show a place where the best actors want to come do a guest spot.
The Elsbeth team clearly is doing something right to keep on recruiting standout guest stars, and this musical prison event seems like a strong way to end Season 2. In case you missed the preview, take a look below:
Tune in to CBS on Thursday, May 8 at 9 p.m. ET for the Season 2 finale of Elsbeth, following the Season 4 finale of Ghosts at 8:30 p.m. ET. Fortunately, Carrie Preston and Jon Tolins’ show was renewed for Season 3 weeks ago. Whether or not the finale ends on a cliffhanger, the team will be back for more in the fall… except perhaps for Kaya. Check back with CinemaBlend for more from the star and showrunner after the finale, and stream the series via Paramount+.
