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The Good Fight is still keeping track of the number of days Trump has been in office and how his presence has an effect on the show’s characters. In particular this week, how the Trump Effect plays into the trial of Maia Rindell. Not that it really has any impact on the trial but it seems the defense and the prosecution know the judge’s politcal leanings — definitely anti-Trump — and try to use that to their advantage to either delay or move the proceedings ahead. The ploys, however, don’t work for the prosecution particularly when they try to bring up the practice of nepotism and how the firm Maia works for should not be representing her, especially now that a former federal attorney is now a named partner at said firm. But the judge (played by guest Denis O’Hare) is well aware that Lucca has been working on the case long before Liz Reddick joined the firm so he allows things to proceed.
Of course having Liz at Reddick, Boseman and Lockhart (name change!) also helps Lucca with her case. She can’t actually share any information she has, as she was the original prosecutor on the case (which was dumped in Colin Morrello’s lap — awkward), but she’s bitter enough with the way she left or was pushed out of her job to give Diane just enough information to relay to Maia to relay to Lucca. And she’s going to enjoy destroying the fed’s case.
A key piece of the prosecution that Liz told Diane was that they had a surprise witness but she couldn’t say who. Next thing we know, Maia’s girlfriend Amy is brought in to testify against her and what she says is devastating, not only to the court but to their relationship, implying that after turning down Amy’s father’s money and asked if there was something wrong, Maia nodded that there was suggesting she knew her father was running a Ponzi scheme. Maia denied even nodding yes but it certainly didn’t look good. But … Amy was not the surprise witness. When Diane told Liz that the ‘surprise witness’ was on the stand, Liz said that wasn’t possible. If not Amy, then who? Not being able to say who, Liz wrote in the sawdust on her desk (convenient new office construction) ‘YOU!’
But why Diane? Because she drew up the papers to make the Rindell Foundation a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization. She also drew up an addendum that allowed Henry Rindell to move funds from his business to the foundation without setting off any red flags. The prosecution alleged that since Maia was the one who ordered Diane to draw up the addendum, that she knew what was going on particularly since the Foundation had spent exactly zero dollars towards its mission statement. But knowing Diane was the surprise witness, Lucca was prepared with similar addendums from other non-profits, including one on whose Board the judge sat which also had spent none of its funds on its mission statement. The judge admitted that his Board had only met once in six years and he wouldn’t know one way or another if any of the money had been used illegally. Score one for the defense. But the prosecution had another surprise up its sleeve … Maia’s mother was the next surprise witness. No one saw that coming.
In the meantime, Maia got Marissa to do some private investigating to track down the woman in the photo the prosecution gave them, the one of the woman she believed was her former tennis coach withdrawing her father’s money in Dubai. Turns out they had another picture of her withdrawing more funds in Italy. Marissa proved her skills by finding the woman’s sister and pretending to be the parent of a child at a birthday party. Casually asking if her sister was a tennis coach and getting the confirmation, Marissa asked her to ask her sister to call a number for a burner phone because her ‘girlfriend’ Maia needed to speak to her sister and find out where her father was.
The plan actually worked and during Diane’s questioning, Rosalie called the number. She tried to make some small talk with Maia but Maia implored her to ask her father to call her because she needed something from him so she could avoid a five year prison sentence. Giving Rosalie another number to call, another burner phone that could not be tracked, it became a waiting game to see if he would actually call.
But it was Lenore Rindell’s turn on the stand. Knowing she was scheduled to appear gave Diane a chance to speak with her when it was clear no one knew what she could possibly say for the prosecution. Of course, it was highly unorthodox for Diane to do such a thing, especially since Lenore was looking at a judgment of time served instead of eight years in exchange for her testimony against her daughter. Cleverly, we were not shown the chat Diane and Lenore had, simply made to wait to see what she would say on the stand. When asked if she ever told her daughter specifically on July 6 that if anyone knew what her father was up to they’d all go to jail, Lenore feigned ignorance, insisting that someone must have misheard what she said, claiming she was talking about going on vacation to Vail. Knowing that her reduced sentence hinged on her testimony, Lenore refused to admit to anything else, and it was pretty clear everyone knew she was lying, putting her daughter’s well-being above her own (she had already served two months of her eight years).
But the day and time had approached for Henry to call Maia and the appointed time had passed, by a minute. Maia said that one thing Henry never was was late and assumed he was not going to call. And then the phone lit up. Maia told him that she needed to know where he was, and that he had to turn himself in to get Lenore out of jail (a ploy since her non-testimony certainly was not going to make the deal valid?) and keep Maia from going to jail. Henry wrestled with this decision but it seemed like he was more concerned about what the feds would do to him than what they’re doing to his family. Maia reminded Henry that when she was a child and broke her arm, he said he would do anything he could to take her pain away. Now, he could turn himself in and keep that promise.
And then we were given another surprise — Lucca and Colin were actually listening in on the call and it was being traced, and just before Henry was about to hang up, a swarm of Italian police officers descended on Henry’s home. Listening to all the commotion on the other end, Maia simply said, ‘Bye, dad and hung up. Wow! That was some pretty amazing television, and hopefully this puts an end to the case against Maia so she can get back to work. But will there be any residual issues with her clients moving forward?
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In the ‘Kill All Lawyers’ subplot, another lawyer was murdered and Liz suggested that the deceased’s clients were going to need representation. Seeming a little ghoulish to the others at the firm, Liz had one client in particular in mind. One who was going to need representation immediately because of a pending federal case that she has knowledge of (she got the client). It’s going to be interesting to see how far Liz can go with this ‘insider information’ before she pushed the boundaries far enough to get her disbarred. But Liz seems to have something else up her sleeve. Asking Diane to join her for drinks at a local bar, the two seem to be having a great time together, laughing and carrying on about past cases, but after a few drinks the mood turned dour with Diane becoming particularly introspective about the darkness of the soul. Liz relays the information to Adrian (the two are actually getting along swimmingly after last week’s head-butting) that Diane is seriously distrubed about the murders and is thinking of retiring so they should start considering a new partner. Diane didn’t really indicate her retirement, so what exactly is Liz up to? Especially since Diane was the one who suggested they bring her into the firm?
Curious.
What did you think of this episode? Is Maia in the clear? Is Diane in danger? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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