Christine Baranski reprises role in ‘The Good Fight'
One needn’t always perk up at the words “But wait, there’s more!” which is why it might have seemed as if we’d had our fill of the fictional Chicago law firms, courtrooms and political squabbles seen in seven seasons of Robert and Michelle King’s hit CBS drama “The Good Wife.” Even the most faithful watchers were ready to move on.
But what do we know? With remarkable turnaround, the Kings and their collaborators have delivered a spinoff drama, “The Good Fight,” which, in its first two episodes, proves to be a more-than-worthy successor, with the potential to surpass the original. That’s the good news. The bad news? “The Good Fight” will only be available through CBS All Access, the network’s subscription streaming site.
Set a year or so after “The Good Wife’s” slaptastic finale, we catch up with Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) at the top of her game. Her law firm, Lockhart Gardner, has merged with two other firms, creating a top-heavy mumbo-jumbo of partners. Sensing it’s a good time to retire and get away from her displeasure at Donald Trump’s election win, Diane is shopping for a country villa in France while she works toward a settlement in her last case, representing the city in a police brutality case.
Then her world falls apart. A lifelong friend, Henry Rindell (Paul Guilfoyle), a prominent investor who manages Diane’s personal fortune, is arrested and accused of running a Bernard Madoff-like Ponzi scheme. Learning that she’s broke, Diane blurts out the f-word with the thrilling emotion of a character who is no longer on broadcast TV.
Diane asks for her job back, but she’s shown the door. Baranski, of course, is a force all her own; fans will enjoy watching Diane pick herself up and start anew. Her rescuer comes in the form of Adrian Boseman (Delroy Lindo), Diane’s opposing attorney on the police brutality case and a partner at a law firm that prides itself on its all-black staff. Convincing his colleagues — among them Diane’s former employee, Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo) — that she would be a strong “diversity hire,” Lindo makes Diane a junior partner.
As we get back to the courtroom, a host of familiar judges and attorneys from “The Good Wife” universe begin to reappear.
Still, the show is by no means a retread. There are shifts in storytelling and core values that are different from “The Good Wife” and make judicious use of new freedoms to be a little more risque. Most notable is the way “The Good Fight” becomes an intriguing drama about life at a minority-owned law firm, where the money, clients and a sense of justice are not as easily won as they were at Diane’s old job.