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This week’s episode of The Good Fight had everything that makes this such a great series: callbacks, comedy and heart-pounding drama. The first half of the episode was actually quite funny and then … things too a real turn. Have you ever seen the movie The Frighteners? It’s was kind of like that, going from comedy to horror, catching the audience by surprise.
Here, the comedy came in the form of a lawsuit a client of RBL wanted to file to stop a play from continuing. Titled ‘C**cksucker in Chains’ (according to Adrian the asterisks makes it classy), the play contained many details of a divorce case handled by the firm but who could have access to know every minute detail of the divorce? Some digging by Lucca finds that the play’s author, Jumaane Jenkins is actually Alan North, an associate at the firm who had been fired for drug use last season (the charges were never proven). So North, or Jenkins, has an axe to grind with RBL and he’s put it out there for the world to see.
Initially Adrian wanted the case dropped because it’s satire but after seeing how the play not only used details from the divorce case, it also satirized Adrian, Liz and Diane. Coupled with the fact that the writer was a former employee, that opens the firm up to a lawsuit from the client so Adrian is intent on getting the client to not just settle on having the details of the divorce changed in the play, Adrian talks him into moving forward with shutting it down altogether. Even Liz thinks they should drop the case, but after a talk back where Jenkins says his character was ‘based on’ someone and a verbal encounter with an audience member goes viral, the show is attracting more notice, possibly exposing the private citizen client to unwanted attention, everyone is on board to shut the play down.
But would they win a case in which the playwright claims the characters are conglomerations of various people he’s known and not specifically Adrian, Liz and Diane? With Marissa posing as an aspiring playwright, she visits the group that Jenkins was a member of and no one there likes him. In fact, they thought his play was hot trash and most of them helped rewrite it … without a single mention in the Playbill. One of the group members still had the original drafts of the play in a box labeled ‘Fraud’ and he gave them to Marissa so she could study how a play is constructed. With the firm now pursuing the case and Liz taking over for Adrian, she gives Caleb the second chair he’d asked for. And reading through the drafts, they discovered a couple of things: Jenkins wrote the original drafts using the real names of his former employers, and Liza and Caleb found a spark between them after reading some of Jenkins’ highly charged dialog. This may be another HR nightmare for RBL. Presenting the evidence to Jenkins, he was able to turn it around on them telling the client that while he was willing to make the changes to the script, Adrian Boseman was pushing the case forward for his own agenda. The client pulled Adrian aside and decided to settle.
But we also learned a little more about Caleb and his superpower: a photographic memory. Not only was he able to quote Jenkins’ own words back to him, he was able to help Diane track down another case with a missing docket number and client name because he worked on the case with Bryan Kneef, a lawyer ‘upstairs’ and the man who has been blocking Diane’s Wifi when she attempts to research Memo 618. Diane marches herself upstairs to confront Kneef and is told she’s been expected. There she encounters Colin Firth and the rest of his law team. Kneef admits to blocking Diane’s Wifi but he says it’s because she’s try to poach his client. She denies doing any such thing and Firth insists that Kneef stop blocking her Wifi (it’s not really made clear how he’s able to do that).
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But Caleb knows the details of the case which involves lawyer Gabriel Kovac, who was trying a wrongful death case that was put into recess and the judge never returned. The lawyer he was going against was Kneef. And now Kovac’s client is suing him for not proceeding with the case or making an appeal but he had nothing to appeal because a decision was never rendered. Diane takes Kovac on as a client and sets up a deposition, subpoenaing Kneef. More than an uncooperative witness, Kneef is downright hostile, answering Diane’s questions with ‘your ass’. His behavior is appalling but when Diane mentions Memo 618 the mood goes decidedly darker with the suggestion of a threat of physical violence coming to Diane if she pursues Memo 618.
The light mood of the episode abruptly shifts as Diane is met in the lobby by Firth who wants to know why she’s taken on Kovac as a client. Diane very succinctly explains that we now seem to live in a world where the rich and powerful can ignore a subpoena without consequence, but if it was her or Firth or anyone else, they’d be in prison. Firth appears shocked by Kneef’s behavior and claims to have no idea what Memo 618 is, telling Diane that sometimes he doesn’t know what’s going on within his own firm. He seems sincere but is he? He then goes to advise Lucca to fly to St. Lucia to help Bianca Skye with a real estate purchase. Lucca tells him there is no sale, Bianca is just lonely and wants a friend (she’s been calling and texting Lucca to come visit). Firth tells her a story about his ten years as legal council with Marlon Brando on his island, and there was never any legal cases to deal with, Firth just made Brando laugh once at a party. He wants Lucca to go be a friend to one of their biggest clients even if she’s feeling prostituted.
With Liz and Caleb attempting not to be awkward, Diane is finding her love life with Kurt suddenly awkward. After seeing Jenkins’ play in which Diane is depicted as a dominatrix whom Adrian desires, she and Kurt had sex like it was their first time. But Kurt suddenly grew distant, and not even dressing in a similar dominatrix outfit helped. After a conversation (in her head) with her stage persona (Liz had a similar conversation with her stage persona before hitting the sheets with Caleb), Diane came to the conclusion that Kurt didn’t want that stage version of Diane, he just wanted her. And after a very strange encounter with a man in his office who also made a veiled threat if Diane didn’t stop looking into federal business, Kurt just wanted to keep her safe. Diane agreed that she would stop looking into Memo 618 … and then she donned that dominatrix gear with a cowboy hat and a rifle … and that was all it took to get Kurt’s motor running.
This was a great episode that contrasted the light and the dark in the storytelling but now there is a definite sense of dread hanging over the rest of the season.
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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