Screengrab
I’m not sure that the May Sweeps casting stunts apply to streaming TV series, but if they do The Good Fight pulled out all the stops this week with guest stars ranging from Alan Alda and Jane Curtin to John Cameron Mitchell and Andrea Anders … with a second go-round for Downton Abbey star Gary Carr playing a version of himself (and his little plot twist may force him to make some real life proclamations). The only person still MIA is Rose Leslie’s Maia. Did her closing the door in Lucca’s face mean she was closing the door on this show? Her little joke when her husband Kit Harington hosted SNL made it seem like both of them are currently unemployed … although the preview for next week’s episode does show that she will be back (even if it’s the next to last episode of the season).
This week’s episode picked up where things left off after the previous episode with Diane’s Book Club introducing a virus into voting machines to flip votes to Democrat to ‘correct’ for the votes that were flipped to Republican in the last election. It all seemed like a good plan until someone delivered a note warning Diane to stop because ‘they’ know about the hack. Who ‘they’ are was never determined and it took a while to find out who left the note, but Diane assumed it was someone in the group. Especially after one of the members who disagreed with hacking the machines produced a text from former leader Valerie … who is still in prison for identity theft and has no way to communicate via text (of course, Diane pulled the same stunt to keep the group moving forward). And that was just the start to Diane’s bad week as she was removed from a case of ChumHum vs Felix Staples for having already been involved with a previous Staples case.
The Staples case was entertaining as he was alleging financial injury due to his site being pulled from the ChumHum search engine due to his hateful speech (and remember, Staples is a thinly veiled version of right wing pundit Milo Yiannopoulos who was recently one of a group of ‘extremists’ deemed to be a ‘dangerous individual’ by Facebook and banned from the site). But with Alan Alda’s Solomon Waltzer back as his lawyer, it turns out the case isn’t even really about Staples’ free speech. Of course Staples tries to manipulate not only Diane but ChumHum for millions of dollars, but the real point was to expose ChumHum’s cooperation with the Chinese government by producing a version of their system with an algorithm that blocks ‘offensive’ or illegal language (to the Chinese government) that the CEO of ChumHum, Sheryl Lamore, denies was ever used outside of China. But having that information exposed in the courtroom, regardless of how it was or wasn’t used against Staples, is enough for the Reddick team to agree to a settlement of the $9.5 million Staples suggested to Diane.
Screengrab
Of course it’s not that simple as more information comes out as to how the Chinese government used the data gathered from ChumHum to arrest and incarcerate ‘insurgents’ (mostly immigrants who did not want to be forced to adhere to Chinese political or religious beliefs) for ‘reeducation’. (And there was an interesting moment where the episode was going to do one their animated shorts but the content was claimed to have been censored by CBS.) The settlement offer, which Staples denied by claiming anyone can doctor audio (Diane recorded the conversation), was set at a firm $26 million. The ChumHum team was willing to go for $20 million and set up a committee to better police these activities — with Waltzer suggesting he be a part of that committee — but they ultimately had to go for the full $26 million. With that settled, Adrian and Liz need to come clean with Lamore about the recent sexual misconduct issues with Carl Reddick. ChumHum is the firm’s biggest client, and they need to let her know about this before they go public because of ChumHum’s zero tolerance policy on sexual harassment. I’m not sure why something from the past would have an effect on the present relationship with ChumHum, but by the looks of things, it could very seriously impact their business if the ChumHum Board decides to move their business to a new firm.
As for Gary Carr, he’s still observing Lucca and they really seem to have a thing going on. But he seems to be more serious about it than she is, going on an interview show and mentioning how coming to the US has changed him, particularly a certain person who has had a deep impact on his life. When Lucca tries to diffuse the situation by letting him down easily, he explains that the person who has change his life is L. Ron Hubbard. Carr has become a Scientologist! That was a big surprise to Lucca … and I’m betting people will now be questioning Carr as to his own relationship to Scientology.
Screengrab
Now we all know Diane Lockhart is a strong woman who can stand on her own two feet and fight her own battles. So it may rub some people the wrong way that she was literally saved by husband Kurt this week … without her knowledge. After receiving the note warning her about the hack — which Kurt read — he set up a security camera at the door to hopefully catch the person who left the note if they return. And the person did, and Kurt was able to get a partial license plate, but more importantly see a sticker that was on all government issued vehicles. And the person in question was NSA employee Stephen Dinovera (who we saw a few episodes back listening in on Diane’s phone conversations). When Kurt made a call to their home phone, from the living room, knowing Dinovera would be listening and mentioning him by name, it freaked the guy out so much that he started deleting all the files he had on Diane.
But Kurt was able to confront him and Stephen spilled all the beans about Diane’s group’s voting machine hack which lead Kurt to call in a favor with someone on the election committee to pull those specific machines from use claiming there would be a different machine used. The Book Club still thinks they have a mole within the group — and Diane is actually the unwitting government operative — and are disappointed to learn the voting machines have been pulled, basically putting them back at the starting point with their effort to swing the election. For Diane it was a way out. Liz had already ‘taken a break’ and didn’t want to get any deeper involved after the hack was discovered, and now Diane is out, telling Kurt that she’s handled the issue and everything is okay. Kurt, the dutiful husband, let her believe that.
It was a lively show with a great guest cast, including Jane Curtain making her debut as a judge, but it’s hard to believe there are only two episodes left this season. I also enjoyed the spoofs of paid presidential supporters Diamond and Silk (Leather and Lace on the show), and how Gary’s suggestions to Lucca really got in her head. It will be interesting now to see how Maia’s story plays out and if this is the end of the line for her.
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
Share this post
