Laying down the law! On the Sunday, February 19, premiere of CBS’ The Good Wife spinoff, The Good Fight, Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) was back and better than ever … sort of. Like she said, “Bad things happen to good people” — but if you want to know what those bad things were, you’ll need to keep reading. Something good is happening to you, though, because you can download CBS All Access to watch the second episode of the show right now! In fact, the whole series is going to stream on the network’s app, so get it. (But read this first, of course!)
Raising the Bar
The episode started with Diane watching the inauguration of Donald Trump in shock, then turning off the television and walking out of the room. Elsewhere, her goddaughter Maia Rindell (Rose Leslie) was sitting at the Illinois bar exam. A few days later, Diane resigned from her firm, saying she was “ready to live [her] life.” Meanwhile, Maia got the results of her test: She passed. Guess where she was hired? Oh, you know, only the firm that her godmother just quit.
Diane took Maia on as a mentee and invited her to sit in on a deposition for a police brutality case. Once in the room with the opposing firm, which was helmed by do-good lawyer Adrian Boseman (Delroy Lindo), Diane learned Lucca Quinn (Cash Jumbo) had started working there. The two had to go head-to-head as a sickening video of brutality played, and Diane tried to lowball the victim, who was wheelchair-bound.
Things didn’t go well for either Diane or Maia for long. Maia’s dad, Henry Rindell, was arrested for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme. Even worse? He was Diane’s accountant. All of her retirement money was gone. Even worse than worse? The law firm wouldn’t hire her back, and no other firms wanted her, since she’d recommended the Rindells’ accounting service to them all.
Lawyers Need Lawyers, Too
Maia had to turn away her family’s lawyer when she realized he represented her mom. The associate lawyer needed a lawyer herself. Similarly, jobless and facing the threat of a frozen bank account, Diane pleaded with her estranged husband, Kurt McVeigh (Gary Cole), to divorce her and save himself.
Things were only getting worse for Maia beyond that. Her face was on the national news, given that people who lost money due to her father called for her to be arrested. A fake sex tape surfaced on TMZ purportedly showing her with her girlfriend, Amy (Heléne Yorke). She was even accosted by a man inside the firm who screamed that she had stolen all of his money, and he was going to sue her. See what we mean about lawyers needing lawyers?
Lucca, who was at the firm to represent her client, came to Maia’s defense and followed her to a bathroom, telling the younger woman to keep her head down and push through the media firestorm following her. Lucca said she learned from a friend that the headlines and fury would die down. Uh, Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), is that you?!
The Law of the Jungle
Don’t worry. Hope wasn’t lost completely for Diane or Maia. Remember how we described Adrian as a do-good lawyer? Well, he did some major good for Diane when — in spite of protestation from his partner — he asked her to join his firm.
“You got screwed here, Diane,” he told her before advising her to “screw them back.”
Screw them back she did. When Maia was unceremoniously fired from the firm, Diane enlisted her to join her at the new one.
Tell Us: Did Maia’s dad really do it?
The Good Fight streams Sundays on CBS All Access.
