Balancing the scales of justice
After winning over fans in The Good Wife, Cush Jumbo returned in the spinoff, The Good Fight. And she’s back in the second season, writes Debashine Thangevelo
HER CHUTZPAH as Lucca Quinn in the final season of The Good Wife, saw Cush Jumbo becoming a firm favourite with TV buffs. Before fans could bemoan her disappearance from the small screen when the series ended, they received great news - she was cast in the spinoff series, The Good Fight.
Co-created by Robert and Michelle
King along with Phil Alden Robinson, the series attracted the same attention as its predecessor.
The British actress, 32, is grateful for the break. In The Good Fight, she is an associate working with Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) and Maia Rindell (Rose Leslie) at Reddick, Boseman & Lockhart.
On returning in the second season, she shares, “So exciting, we are all thrilled to be back for our second season. Yeah, couldn’t come quick enough.”
Of the reaction to the first season, she reflects, “I was back in London for the summer. So, the show was kind of still going when I got back, and I was getting live reaction to it. And, of course, there it was going – moving forward again, which is kind of a network channel there, a lot of people watching it, lots of international reaction from all the different territories. Just that people really loved the season. And I felt like we really hit a stride in the middle of it. So, yeah, it’s all been mostly good.”
As for how it ended, Jumbo notes, “None of us really knew how the final episode was panning out until the week we shot it. And I think when we read it, we were kind of like, ‘We thought we were out of it. We thought we’d escaped, and we hadn’t’. So even watching it over the summer again, the feeling that you get when she opens that door is kind of, yeah, and then it ends.”
Commenting on Maia’s journey, she offers, “I just can’t bear any more horrible flashbacks of poor Maia. I want her to be able to separate herself from her corrupt family and move on.”
Looking at where things stand with Lucca and Colin, she says, “Colin really, really messed with her head. I don’t think he meant to, but we saw Lucca getting close to him, not wanting to get close to him, but getting close to him. Colin and Lucca are still apart, but it’s unresolved.”
On what she loves about her character, she admits, “One of the things that I discovered last season, something that I really love about Lucca, is that she’s a fixer.”
“If you get to the point where no one knows the answer and everything seems doomed, Lucca will fix it and I like that about her. I think it’s kind of classically old-fashioned. She’s also way more boldly than I am I think in real life. I’m quite a confident person, but she will say something, she will come out and say something with no fear of the repercussions and she’s prepared to, you know, put stuff on the line for that. She’s incredibly loyal. I love that about her.
“You can predict that she will come through for Maia or for Diane, for members of the law firm. Lucca is probably a dramatic character that’s also got a bit of comedy to her and I think that Lucca is actually quite a funny girl.”
Aside from embracing her character, Jumbo adds, “This season, we’re (going) at 110 miles per hour and you aren’t really sure where it’s going to start and where it’s going to stop. We also have amazing new people popping in.”
The Good Fight season 2 is currently on M-net (Dstv channel 101) on Mondays at 9pm.