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Every year since The Good Fight premiered, I have watched the Emmy Awards nominations roll out and have always been baffled as to why the show gets no love whatsoever considering the mothership, The Good Wife, was an Emmy darling. Is it because the show is on a streaming service? Is it too political for Emmy voters? They love Christine Baranski, bestowing her with six nominations for her work on The Good Wife alone (out of 15 total nominations), yet have completely snubbed her for the spin-off. The Good Wife received a total 43 nominations and five Emmy wins during its run, while The Good Fight has received two nominations in four seasons … and both of those were for music! No acting, no writing, no directing. It’s amazing to see such a great show be so snubbed.
This week’s episode again shows off the great writing and acting skills on display, balancing a bit of the absurd with the sublime. When I first heard about this season long story arc involving Mandy Patinkin as a judge with an imaginary court, I thought they had really jumped the shark at this point. But I was completely surprised because … it works in this world that is still recovering from the COVID pandemic, as well as a world where Riddick, Lockhart and Associates is still in a bit of turmoil months after Adrian’s departure and the Board wants to know when and who his replacement will be. Liz just doesn’t seem to be ready, willing or able to deal with this, and Diane is questioning her place as a named partner at a firm that is supposed to be an African-American law firm (she still seems to have a problem saying ‘Black law firm’ as Liz told her last week). And Kurt isn’t much help in soothing Diane’s concerns, suggesting that there’s just too much emphasis on racial equality (I know Kurt is a right-leaning guy but he’s being written even more so than he used to be and it’s a little off-putting).
But life goes on at the firm and a flood of new associates have arrived and are being assigned mentors, among them Marissa and newcomer Carmen Moyo (new regular Charmaine Bingwa). Marissa gets assigned to a case involving a teacher who tried to keep kids educated during the pandemic who is being sued for a refund by a parent claiming the teacher was instilling her child with liberal bias, making them watch Parasite. Even worse, her daughter called her a ‘Karen’. The problem is they can’t find the courtroom or the judge in Circuit Court 9. A guard looks closer at the summons and sees that it says Court 9 3/4, a ‘Harry Potter’ reference but no one knows what it means. Marissa starts to see signs for that court and discovers it’s in the storage room of a copy shop. It’s a real life version of The People’s Court.
Already late, and with the lawyer not willing to follow Marissa on what seems like a wild goose chase, Judge Hal Wackner insists that Marissa argue the case … or they lose. It doesn’t matter that she’s not a lawyer because this isn’t a real court. Proceed. Marissa tries to stall and the client urges her to continue so they don’t lose, and they finally get Diane on the phone to tell her what’s going on. Arriving, she can’t believe what she’s seeing, and she can’t believe another lawyer, William Schultz (Danny Burstein), is playing along. His thoughts are that as long as both parties agree this is arbitration, they’re going to go with it. Diane reluctantly agrees and begins to argue the case, but Judge Wackner insists that Marissa be the one to lead the questioning.
This whole situation could have been completely absurd and unbelievable, but it all came together wonderfully. If nothing else, it proves once again that The Good Fight has a gold mine in Sarah Steele. She has always made Marissa someone you’d want to be friends with, and she makes her someone you want to see succeed. She had to fight to prove herself as an investigator, and now right out the box she impresses Diane with her skills at questioning and cross-examination. She was also able to get just enough information to get the plaintiff and defendant to air their grievances — highly unusual in a real court, but Wackner encouraged it — which proved the teacher did nothing wrong, and it was the mother who had been inviting all of the kids from the class to sleepovers during the pandemic. That was enough for Wackner to rule in favor of the defendant … but just go easy on the leftie stuff. The question now is, how will this affect Marissa’s position at the firm? Because she’s not the only associate to overstep her bounds this week.
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Carmen is assigned to observe with another lawyer as they visit a client in prison, Oscar Rivi (Tony Plana), a dangerous murderer. But the lawyer’s ID has expired — he couldn’t get it renewed during the pandemic — and the prison guards won’t let him in to see his client. Carmen says she’ll do it because all she has to do is sit and listen. He is relucatant to let her go, for her own safety, but she does and meets Rivi and his interpreter. Rivi isn’t pleased with this new lawyer, who isn’t even a lawyer, but she tells him she’s there to listen to him. Through his interpreter he complains about the wifi — the white inmates get better service, he claims — and the terrible food, which upsets his stomach.
Carmen surprises him when she responds to him in Spanish, and tells him that he can dismiss his interpreter since she can communicate with him. The interpreter is not amused when he’s dismissed, but Rivi is very impressed with Carmen’s confidence. But there seems to be a lot more to Carmen than meets the eye. She tells Rivi she knows there is someone else incarcerated that Rivi is familiar with, and before you know it she’s visiting the other inmate, hinting that he knows more about the murder Rivi was convicted for and that perhaps Rivi was innocent and this other guy is the guilty party. She throws in something about being a good Christian — that came out of nowhere — but before he could respond she said she didn’t want to hear his confession, that was something he’d have to deal with on his own.
At the office, Liz gets a call from Charles Lester (returning guest Wallace Shawn), who is Rivi’s manager and attorney, informing Liz that his client now only wants Carmen Moyo to handle his case. He never liked the other guy anyway. Liz is taken aback by this request, or demand, since Carmen has been at the firm for two days and isn’t an attorney, but Lester suggests if this demand isn’t me they’ll be having a very different conversation. Liz agrees, but then she pulls Carmen into her office to try to figure out what’s going on. Carmen plays dumb, saying she’s just trying to do the best job for the firm because she likes it there … but I don’t trust her. When Liza was asking the new associates which cases they wanted to assist on, no one raised their hand for the Rivi case (Liz noted how they all seemed to be very aware of the cases they were eager to volunteer for, and the one no one wanted) which left Carmen the lone volunteer. Carmen could have very easily not be assigned the case, but it worked in her favor and I’m sure she has some ulterior motives.
In court, Carmen was allowed to present a sworn statement from the other inmate admitting he was the one who committed the murder Rivi was accused and convicted of, but the judge doesn’t seem to be buying any of it. He’s agreed to look over all of the new information but he called Carmen to the bench to have a few words with her, almost a bit condescending because she’s new to this profession, warning her to not let someone like Oscar Rivi take advantage of her. Carmen keeps playing innocent, but I still sense there is something going on behind those eyes. Liz seems to suspect something as well, informing Carmen that she will be Carmen’s mentor moving forward. Liz definitely suspects something.
Wrapping up a loose end from Season 4 that never got to play out when the last three episodes were ditched when production shut down, we get a quick return — via Zoom — of Caleb Garlin, the new attorney at the firm who Liz slept with. As they’re trying to fill some spots at the firm, the headhunter suggested Caleb because he was someone already familiar with them. Diane could feel the awkwardness between them during the call, and luckily had to leave the room to take another call. Caleb is in Santa Barbara where he quarantined with his family, and even he knows this is incredibly awkward. If he gets the position, he said they could agree to pretend they never slept together. Liz said okay, but when it finally came down to making a decision from the two choices they had, Liz chose …
Julius. It didn’t matter that he was convicted of bribery — and that he was pardoned by the former guy (and it didn’t cost him a thing financially) — he was willing to work cheap because he needs the job. Liz and Diane both like Julius, Diane stood by him during the whole Memo 618 bribery charges, and he’s practically family. And with that settled, there’s still the question of naming a new partner. Diane insists that as a Black law firm, Liz should have Adrian’s corner office, and they need to name a Black partner. Diane also knows the optics of the situation and asks for Liz’s assurance that she won’t be pushed out of her own named partnership. Liz said she would not … but she didn’t sound convincing.
This was a terrific episode with such sharp writing and acting that I didn’t want it to end. That’s the mark of excellence, to keep your audience wanting more. I can’t wait to see what next week holds, to see what happens with Marissa and Carmen. Carmen is definitely an intriguing new character who is obviously meant to fill the gap left by the departure of Lucca, but she couldn’t be more different which is a good thing. Adding a carbon copy of Lucca would have just been pandering and now the writers and producers are going to challenge our expectations who just who Carmen Moyo is. Great job!
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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