ELSBETH Post-Mortem: Michael Emerson on Crawford's 'Satisfying' Final Episode - Give Me My Remote : Give Me My Remote

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ELSBETH Post-Mortem: Michael Emerson on Crawford’s ‘Satisfying’ Final Episode

April 24, 2025 by  

ELSBETH Crawford dies

“I Know What You Did Thirty-Three Summers Ago” – As Judge Milton Crawford (Michael Emerson) inches closer to becoming a federal judge, Elsbeth searches his past to prove he’s a murderer before it’s too late, but Elsbeth’s attempts to take Crawford down puts everyone around her in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Teddy considers following in his mother’s professional footsteps, on the CBS original series ELSBETH, Thursday, April 24 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ (live and on demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the episode airs)* Pictured (L-R): Meredith Holzman as Delia, Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tascioni, and Michael Emerson as Judge Milton Crawford Photo: Michael Parmelee/CBS ©2025 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Thursday, April 24 episode of ELSBETH.]

ELSBETH’s Milton Crawford (Michael Emerson) met a brutal end on the Thursday, April 24 episode of the CBS drama.

After engaging in a cat-and-mouse chase with Elsbeth (Carrie Preston), the judge thought he had finally got one over on her: He made vital evidence disappear, which cleared the way for his federal appointment.

“You think you’ve gotten away with it, but you’re sorely mistaken, mark my words,” Elsbeth promised when she confronted him.

But Crawford was smug, noting he was “always a step ahead.” In fact, Crawford was so confident Elsbeth would never be able to catch him, that he laid out a whole hypothetical chain of events—from the initial murder, back when he was young, to the death of Andy, the more recent homicide that was done to take care of the witness/clean up the final loose thread—about how it may have happened and why he’d never be caught.

“Face it, Ms. Tascioni—you lost,” he said.

He acknowledged his own shortcomings, though, while also noting that he knew she wouldn’t let her quest to take him down go. “I admit, that first day in court, I underestimated you,” he admitted. “You’re clever, but so naive. You still think that the world marches inexorably towards righteousness. But it doesn’t. The world rewards might. And I am a mighty man, indeed.”

Someone called Crawford’s name and he tried to brush them off, saying he wouldn’t be taking questions until after the hearing—and he was shot point-blank by Delia (Meredith Holzman), whom Crawford had framed for Andy’s death. (Delia’s murder trial was how Elsbeth—who was assigned jury duty—first got into Crawford’s orbit.)

“I never expected to go any longer than this season, although I think there [were conversations]…I think everybody’s very happy with our first episode, and maybe some people thought, ‘Well, hey, it might be fun if we kept this guy around, so that we could have this kind of overarching, ongoing competition,’” Emerson tells Give Me My Remote of his exit from the show. “But I think the plan they settled on, to let it be this sort of a long-form, one single episode, spread out over four—I think that turned out to be a nice device. And it’s nice to have so satisfying an ending to that compelling relationship.”

Though Crawford didn’t get to live out his ambitious dreams, he did get an unconventional win: He died looking like a martyr; an apparent victim of an outraged defendant. As of now, his name remains untouched and his crimes remain hidden.

“I’m sure it would please him,” Emerson admits. “On some level, he thinks of himself as a man of honor, a man to be looked up to. A man to be revered, a man to name things after. I’m sure he fantasized about that, having a bridge named after him, a lawyer’s lounge at the courthouse, or something. He wants those kinds of recognition, so it would be maybe some compensation for him, in the afterlife, if he saw how it was being played out.”

Prior to Crawford’s death, Emerson got one of the biggest scenes of his arc, as the judge laid out all of the reasons how and why he outsmarted Elsbeth.

“That scene was supposed to be a longer, slower scene—we were to go down that long hallway and then make a turn and go down another long hallway, but we played the scene a little more urgently than, I think, was originally planned,” he reveals. “And it turned out that we could get it in a more compressed way. And that he, in taking this victory lap, or having this day of celebration, can just stop her and crow at her about how he’s won…He thinks he’s won so completely that he can even, in effect, confess to her, because she can’t do a damn thing about it.” 

“It’s great hubris; it’s Greek,” Emerson continues. “And it sets up the fall so perfectly. It was an actor’s dream to know how the scene is going to end, but to have your character play the opposite reality of it for the bulk of the scene.”

ELSBETH Crawford dies

“I Know What You Did Thirty-Three Summers Ago” – As Judge Milton Crawford (Michael Emerson) inches closer to becoming a federal judge, Elsbeth searches his past to prove he’s a murderer before it’s too late, but Elsbeth’s attempts to take Crawford down puts everyone around her in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Teddy considers following in his mother’s professional footsteps, on the CBS original series ELSBETH, Thursday, April 24 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ (live and on demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the episode airs)*
Pictured (L-R): Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tascioni and Michael Emerson as Judge Milton Crawford
Photo: Michael Parmelee/CBS ©2025 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Emerson also relished playing opposite Preston, his real-life wife, something he’s done frequently—but normally in a more friendly capacity.

“It was fun to have it work so well, to play against her,” he says. “I mean, it shouldn’t be surprising, but it was surprisingly good. We play well together. And it’s like she’s hardly even there as the wife I know. We’re both in our professional head space when the camera’s rolling. And I’m just thinking, here’s this other performer, this adversary, is sending me signals, and I have to return fire. Or they’re playing music that I must either harmonize with or play against.”

“It becomes a kind of technical undertaking where it’s just you and your actor instincts,” Emerson continues. “Or you could call them musical or psychological or something. But it was that of a high order. And it’s the thing I like best doing as an actor, is getting lost in high stakes exchanges like I have with her on this show.”

After getting to portray a number of on-screen deaths throughout the years, Emerson was giddy about how Crawford went out, too.

“Oh, it was good,” he praises. “It was fun and fast and easy. It wasn’t a lot of gnashing of teeth and groaning or crawling through broken glass or anything like that. It was just like a huge, huge surprise, and then slowly sinking to the cold concrete steps. It didn’t take too much. Not a lot of acting required. I loved it.”

ELSBETH, Thursdays, 9/8c, CBS

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