Screengrab
It’s the penulitmate episode of The Good Fight leading up to the season finale, and the episode “Self Condemned” gets back to the season’s two major plotlines: the firm’s focus on police brutality cases and the Rindell scandal.
Both stories are evenly split throughout the episode, but the Rindell scandal is the most important as we head towards the finale. This week Maia is summoned to appear for a proffer session with FBI Agent Madeline Starkey (guest Jane Lynch), which is basically an opportunity for Maia to reveal anything and everything she knows about her father’s Ponzi scheme without fear of prosecution. Unless she lies, and then all cards are off the table.
But you have to wonder while all this is going on if Maia isn’t being completely set up to be prosecuted, despite the best efforts of her counsel Lucca. Starkey tries to lull both women in with a box of chocolates given to her by her husband. Except, as Lucca learns, Starkey is not married. So if she’s going to lie to them about something as trivial as candy, how can they be certain she won’t lie about any of the questions she’s putting forth to Maia.
And the questioning is taxing, asking Maia to remember exact details of events that happened seven or eight years ago, like doctors appointments and when her uncle Jax was at their house. The questions are all formed in such a way as to trigger a very vivid memory in Maia’s head, but when Maia sees the event and tells Starkey the details, it turns out nothing she’s remembering is true. She didn’t go to an appointment with her mother (because her mother was cavorting with Jax), or she did go but she couldn’t have been home at the time she claimed, and that her memory of Jax being at their home was also false.
It’s more than a bit frustrating for Maia, and even more worrisome for Lucca who believes Starkey is trying to entrap her client. It also leaves the viewers wondering how much Maia actually knew about the Ponzi scheme. At one point the subject of her girlfriend comes up and Maia’s birthday party at which Diane Lockhart was a guest — it all seems to come back around to Diane. Starkey wanted to know what kind of advice Diane offered Maia’s parents, and why, later, did Maia not tell her father about her girlfriend’s parents wanting to invest with him? For Starkey, that seems to be the incontrovertible proof that Maia knew exactly what was going on and she didn’t want to get her girlfriend’s family mixed up in it, possibly losing all their money and destroying her relationship.
Starkey’s piéce de resistance was Maia’s own signature on the paperwork making her a member of the foundation that was set up to launder money. Maia said she believed it was a foundation to buy mosquito netting for children in Africa, but Starkey wonders why the Board has met only one time in the last seven years. When pressed again about her girlfriend’s parents, Maia flat out tells Starkey that she didn’t want to mix business and love … which Starkey decides is a lit and recommends prosecution for Maia. So is Maia guilty?
Screengrab
The secondary story gave Adrian Boseman the golden ticket he’s been waiting for when another police brutality vicitm is brought to his attention. Adrian brings Diane with him to the police station to meet the alleged victim and when it turns out not to be a young black man but rather someone from The Good Wife past, Colin Sweeney (Dylan Baker), Boseman thinks all is lost in finally getting Officer Thoreau off the force.
Sweeney’s personality does not help matters (he’s quite a bit annoying and entitled), and a game of cat and mouse in the courtroom puts the whole case at jeopardy. In one minute, Thoreau claims Sweeney punched him in the face first, but Adrian connects his injuries to a sparring match at the gym. Then Sweeney’s mistress is brought in and he thinks everything is home free until she testifies that Sweeney did assault the cop first.
But why would she do that? Because they were on their way to a “chem sex” party, and she tossed some illegal drugs out the window before Sweeney pulled over. She feared her passport and visa would be revoked. But the drugs were a key component of the case as someone who had been following Sweeney to the party could testify to Sweeney’s innocence. But he refused. But Sweeney was trying to buy his way into a German ambassadorship and Diane and Adrian managed to win their case and get Thoreau kicked off the force, setting up a lawsuit against the county. But Sweeney wants no part of it as he’s now hoping to use his money to get him the Vatican ambassadorship. A lawsuit simply would not look good.
What remains for the season finale with the police brutality issue is unknown. Now that they’ve gotten their main culprit off the force, is there anywhere else for them to go with this? The biggest issue, of course, will be the Rindell scandal and hopefully we’ll get to see Riddick, Boseman & Kolstad come out in full force to defend Maia. But will it wrap up by the end of the episode? The season was completed, presumably, before CBS All Access announced the renewal, so it will be interesting to see if they wrap it up or leave some threads dangling for season two.
Share this post
