No longer a side character, 'Elsbeth' comes into focus. But don't call it a spinoff

With a brief appearance, clocking in at less than three minutes of screen time, Elsbeth Tascioni gave main character energy from the start — even if it was unknown to the actor playing her, or the writers who created her.

Late in the first season of "The Good Wife," the CBS legal drama that premiered in 2009 and revolved around the spouse (Julianna Margulies) of a disgraced Chicago politician trying to rebuild her life, former Cook County State's Attorney Peter Florrick (played by Chris Noth) is under house arrest on corruption charges. When he sets off an electronic monitoring alarm by briefly leaving home, his lawyer's partner, Elsbeth, arrives — seemingly out of nowhere and with the perfectly random observation: "these are beautiful bookcases" — to fend off the police. With her clever questioning, foolishly dismissed as naivete, and bizarrely specific knowledge