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After a short, unplanned break, The Good Fight returns with a new episode that deepend the season’s biggest mystery, Memo 618, and may give us a clue to its origin. And, as indicated by the episode title, RBL’s new parent company has a serious HR matter with Adrian Boseman … and it’s not what you might think.
The DNC had previously hired RBL to handle their case for the president’s impeachment and they’ve come back to the firm not for legal assistance but for PR in an effort to improve their outreach to the Black community. A regular PR firm would be too leaky for the DNC so they’ve come back to RBL because, well, two of the three main partners are Black. And to help the DNC target their message, every Black employee is brought to the conference room to discuss what the major issues affecting them are.
It seems that there are a lot of issues and the meeting became very unfocused until reparations were brought up, and even then it felt like it was one side of the room against the other. Are descendants of slaves really entitled to reparations for work they didn’t do, or if their grandparents had actually been paid for their work would reparations represent an inheritance of sorts? The conversation got heated and Adrian tried to get everyone focused by quoting a former governor of Georgia who stated during an election campaign that he had two planks – n—–s and roads, and ‘I’m against the first and for the second.’ After the meeting, Luca is summoned upstairs to meet with HR because a complaint was filed against Adrian for using the N-word.
As more of the employees in the meeting were summoned, the issue devolved into a witch hunt with everyone assuming that one of the handful of White people in the room (for ‘diversity’) had to be responsible. Was it irascible attorney David Lee? The handsome new ‘spy’ from upstairs, Caleb Garlin (Hugh Dancy)? Maybe even the DNC rep, Frank Landau. One thing was for sure, Jay wasn’t about to let this matter pass and wanted to hash it out with the group. Turns out it was one of their own, Roslyn who, frankly, has always been a bit of a troublemaker around the office. But she, as a Black woman, felt offended by the word even though Adrian was quoting someone else, saying it violated the new parent company’s policies. She also threw in a ‘that you forced me to join’ suggesting that it wasn’t just the word that Roslyn was offended by but the fact that they have new corporate overlords … who haven’t yet come through with the pay bumps everyone was promised. But now that Jay has called out the ‘whistleblower’ she’s calling that intimidation and certainly could cause more problems with the man upstairs. In the end, and after everyone was forced to attend a sensitivity training class, the whole thing ended up being such a flustercluck that the DNC decided maybe they should take their business elsewhere.
Perhaps that will end up being a good thing for RBL because their business somehow came to the attention of Gavin Firth. Is the work being done with the DNC now a continuation of old business or new business, because if it’s new business it affects how the two companies will bill. Old business is billed 60-40 in favor of RBL and vice versa for new business in favor of STR Laurie. Firth, however, was not supposed to be looking into RBL’s finances for two years as a show of good faith and trust, so now Adrian, Liz and Diane have to figure out who the spy is … and all fingers point to Caleb so they send Marissa to bait him with false information to see if it comes back to them. Caleb even told Marissa he thinks he was sent there to spy on them and is surprised with the information she gives him about taking the DNC job on a pro bono basis. Caleb comes back to Marissa with the news that the DNC rep Frank Landau was the one who told Firth about his new business with RBL … which they still claim is old business. Nothing there was really settled but Liz had a chat with Caleb and learned all he really wanted was second chair on a case so he could learn.
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Diane found herself scrambling after Judge Julius’ stay order for her client’s diner was disregarded and the place was torn down. But … there is no order anywhere in the system, not in RBL’s system, not in the court’s system. Hoping to get more information out of Julius, Diane sends Marissa to see what she can get since she helped Julius get his judgeship and he can’t find the case either. Enter Diane and the two of them want to know who got to Julius and what is Memo 618. Flustered, Julius told them to ask Adrian’s girlfriend but they have no idea who that is, forcing Adrian to reveal his relationship with a judge … not that there’s anything wrong with that … but he wouldn’t reveal the name.
But the ever crafty Diane brought her case back to court because … there is no case on the record so this is the first time it’s being heard, and now Diane has the benefit of the diner having already been torn down to strengthen her case. The other side can’t fight her because they have no docket number to prove the case had already been tried so it moves forward with Judge Hazelwood, whom Diane still doesn’t realize is Adrian’s girlfriend. But in the midst of Diane questioning her client, a man entered the room, approached the bench and handed Hazelwood an envelope. Reflected in her glasses was Memo 618, and suddenly her demeanor changed, sustaining the plaintiff’s lawyer on a matter of establishing Diane’s case, threating Diane with contempt as she tried to push the issue of Memo 618, and putting the court into recess until she’s ready to return.
More mystified by what’s going on, Diane attempts to get information about Memo 618 from a law website and every time she enters the question ‘What is Memo 618’, a message pops up that her account is suspended for violating the site’s terms of service. She asks Jay to look into it, and the same thing happens to him. He comes to Diane the next day and shows her that her original question on the Reddit-like site is still there and he was able to access it from his home WiFi. It’s the office WiFi that keeps blocking the request but it’s not RBL doing it, it’s coming from upstairs.
So what is Memo 618 and why does it frighten anyone who receives it, and what does STR Laurie and Gavin Firth have to do with it? Only time will tell.
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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