CBS' Elsbeth has been featuring famous guest stars from the very beginning, when True Blood's Stephen Moyer played the show's first killer. The show is still more than a month away from returning for Season 3 in the 2025 TV schedule, but some exciting celebrity guests have been announced, and I'm already looking forward to how Elsbeth will spin murderous stories for them.
That said, with the network revisiting the Valentine's Day episode that featured Ioan Gruffudd as somebody other than a killer, I find myself hoping that there are occasional exceptions to the rule of big guest stars as murderers.
Season 3's Celebrity Guest Stars (So Far)
The names for the first crop of guest stars were released with plenty of time to spare before the Season 3 premiere in October, so fans can at least have fun speculating for the time being.
Elsbeth was the first project announced for Stephen Colbert after the shocking cancellation of The Late Show, and he'll reportedly be playing the host of Way Late with Scotty Bristol, an in-universe talk show. Whether he's the killer, the victim, or just a CBS Easter egg that was in the works before the network cancelled his show, I'm excited to see Colbert back in a scripted project after so many years as a late night host.
According to TV Insider, Colbert will appear in the first episode, which evidently will include other big name guest stars. Fans can plan on seeing Amy Sedaris as Laurel Hammond, the executive producer of the talk show. Andy Richter plays the host's sidekick, Mickey Muntz, as what I can only assume is a nod to Richter's real-life status as a top talk show sidekick after years working with Conan O'Brien.
Lindsay Mendez plays Officer Grace Hackett, who could be a entertaining scene partner for Elsbeth as a cop/aspiring stand-up comic. I have to wonder if she'll be the leading lady's partner for the premiere, or stick around further into Season 3 to compensate for the loss of Carra Patterson's Kaya as a series regular. Patterson will also appear as a guest star in the third season.
And we're still not done! Arrested Development's David Cross will be a guest in the second half of the two-part Season 3 premiere. He plays Nolan, an insider trader recently released from prison, who decides to take hostages. As one does? The very Elsbethian twist is that the crisis goes down in a toy store.
Finally, Variety reports that Julia Fox is coming on board as a guest star to play a "grief influencer" after losing her husband and becoming a reality star. This being Elsbeth, I would not be shocked if Fox's character turns out to have had a hand in losing her husband, but only time will tell.
Celebrity Guest Stars Don't Have To Be Killers
Elsbeth casting celebrities and letting them have a good time playing killers has honestly been one of the most entertaining elements of the dramedy so far, even more so after executive producer Jonathan Tolins told us why "the best actors want to come do a guest spot." In fact, the Season 2 premiere with Nathan Lane's character being driven to murder because of the victim's poor opera etiquette was one of my favorite TV episodes of all of 2024, and Laurie Metcalfe playing a TV star who murdered her boss felt like more of a showcase for her talents than The Conners over on ABC.
But I also flash back to Episode 11 of Season 2, called "Tiny Town." It originally aired just before Valentine's Day and gave Elsbeth her first real romance of the series, and CBS scheduled a rerun of the episode for primetime on August 20.
Ioan Gruffudd was the big-name guest star of the week, playing the dreamy Angus Doyle. I spent most of the episode expecting some kind of twist reveal that Angus was involved in the murder of the week, so it was a fun surprise at the very end when his role really was to just sweep Elsbeth off her feet from afar (and then in person). A celebrity guest-starred without killing anybody in the cold open!
Am I on board with seeing most celebrity guests blend comedy with drama to flex their acting muscles and commit a little bit of murder on Elsbeth? 100%, and the novelty of seeing just who the show managed to recruit definitely hasn't worn off for me. I just won't mind the occasional episode subverting expectations and not having a famous face committing the main crime. Or an episode episode with a twist on motive, like the one that featured Jordana Brewster as a kind-hearted killer who did a legally bad thing as a good deed.
Season 3 of Elsbeth will premiere on Sunday, October 12 on CBS, then return to its usual Thursday night time slot starting on October 16. If you're in the mood for more of Carrie Preston's character in the meantime, you can find the first two seasons streaming with a Paramount+ subscription.
