Screengrab
Diane Lockhart is not having a good week. And it looks even more like her marriage is about to crumble because of Kurt’s actions, which have spilled over into the firm putting pressure not only on Diane but Liz and Julius as well.
The problems all started with a new system in the office that allows everyone to communicate with everyone else more swiftly than email, sort of a Facebook Messenger type of system with a very annoying alert sound. Despite Kurt being cleared of all the charges the FBI wanted to bring against him, the associates (and perhaps some partners) just can’t let it go, especially since Julius took on his case, resulting in him being called some rather inappropriate names (I’m assuming the racially charged word used to describe Julius came from a Black associate as those are the ones we see in little snippets giving voice to the texts). They still see Kurt as a white supremacist and it is unseemly for a Black partner to represent such a man. Diane notes that they have clients who have done much worse to less reaction.
But Diane also continues to find herself in a pickle, not only having to defend her husband but learning through others at a conference for Black lawyers (who sent Diane to that?!) that he’s being courted for a job with, as Diane puts it, ‘the N.R. fucking A’. Kurt not telling her this drives a serious wedge between them, widening the chasm that had developed from the FBI case. On top of it all, she’s feeling even more pressure to leave the firm. She’s not really feeling support from Liz, reminding her of the fact that they were supposed to form a firm headed by women, but Liz is feeling the pressure to uphold her father’s legacy of a Black-owned law firm despite the fact that Diane’s billable hours surpass any of the other non-named partners. Liz simply wants Diane to step back from some of her managerial duties, but she doesn’t want her to leave.
Diane can clearly see where this is heading, and despite Kurt telling her to put this ‘race war’ at the office back in its bottle, he’s a bit fed up with her feeling of defeat, something he’s never seen in her before. The pressure of Kurt hiding his NRA job offer and the pressure at the office even has her conjuring up the ghost of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (a brilliant Elaine May) to give her advice. At first Diane tells the apparition that she’s just telling her what she wants to hear, so RBG lays it out to her — don’t let anyone force you out of a position when you’re good at what you do, and don’t allow it to happen if race is the only issue. As far as her relationship with Kurt, even though they have major political differences, as did RBG and Scalia, they can still find common ground over something. Scalia made Ginsburg laugh, and he made great pasta carbonara, so that was enough to offset their views on everything else. That at least helped Diane see that there was still value in her marriage, and she wants Kurt to accept the NRA job … so she can sue him. Which made them both laugh.
But her decision about the office is certainly going to come with some consequences. As she meets with all of her big money clients, she informs them that she’s stepping back from her day-to-day duties with them and she will be handing them over to another partner. She’ll still be the lead on their cases, but she just won’t be hand-holding them any longer. Every client says they are comfortable with her (and, honestly, some of them seem like rather shady customers) and don’t want to start over with someone new. Who can they talk to about this decision to shove Diane into the background? David Lee starts getting calls from his bosses about clients unhappy with a restructuring at Reddick & Lockhart, a restructuring he knows nothing about. Calling Liz and Diane into his office, Diane pretends she has no idea why they’re there, and Liz is furious when she finds out. Lee tells them there will be no changes at the office until STR Laurie says there are changes. Liz sees this as a power play on Diane’s part and tells Diane that she always had Liz’s support but now … she’s made a very big mistake. Meanwhile, Julius has had enough of the talking behind his back (the system allows people to log in anonymously so they can speak ‘freely’ without fear of repercussion) and asks Diane to form a new firm with him. She just cackles in his face. I don’t know Diane, it seems like a good option at this point. Take your big money clients, Marissa and run!
Screengrab
Liz also has her hands full with the Wackner court, which is now being sued by a defendant (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) in an intellectual property lawsuit after Wackner decided that he owed the defendant $3 million after incorporating a dance move she did on TikTok into a video game. The man, Mr. Vitar, signed a contract (on the back of a Chinese takeout menu) that he would abide by Wackner’s decision, but $3 million is too much. Liz tells Wackner to keep his mouth shut while in court and she can win the case. Vitar’s argument is that the woman in the video does not hold the rights to the dance she did, her friend who held the camera is the rights holder and Vitar paid him several thousand dollars. Liz’s argument is that this discredits the artist because there have been many instances of artists, usually people of color and women, who have been filmed performing their art. Is it the court’s decision that some random person filming them are the ones who get the credit for the work? This disproportionately affects these traditionally marginalized people and the decision should be rendered in her client’s favor because the defendant signed a contract.
Wackner asked Liz to put him on the stand and let the judge question him, and he actually gave her some very reasonable answers. But the defense lawyers kept dropping bombs on Liz’s case. First she was surprised to learn that Del Cooper was filming all of Wackner’s court antics for a TV show. She finds this highly irregular, assuming that he went after Wackner because she’s their lawyers. Del assured her that the meeting between them in the elevator was purely coincidental — which was saw was — and if it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else. Liz cooled down a bit, but in court there was another bomb dropped when she learned David Cord was the one funding Wackner’s court and that Cord also invested in a video game company that was a rival to Vitar’s, which made the whole case teeter on the bring of total failure, because Liz knew that Cord did not want to be forced to take the stand or have his financials investigated. He did not.
Vitar, however, found himself visited by some thugs who beat him savagely, breaking a leg and causing other injuries, forcing him to have a change of heart about the financial settlement, returning to Wacker’s court and settling his case for the agreed upon $3 million. Do we assume Mr. Cord was responsible for the attack on Mr. Vitar? And will this drag Wackner, Liz and Del further down a deep, dark hole?
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
Share this post
