The Good Fight 1.01. and 1.02.
I had stopped watching The Good Wife in early season 6, not because of the backstage drama, which I only heard about later, but because after the fabulous fifth season, the show seemed to me to lose nearly all the qualities that had made me love it, and when watching something provides you with more irritation than anything else week after week, it's time to get out. I never got the point of hate watching.
Otoh I do have fond memories of a lot of things about The Good Wife, and thus I tuned in for the new spin-off, The Good Fight, centred around Diane Lockhart, the first two episodes of which are now available for watching.
Like I said, I hadn't watched The Good Wife beyond early s6, but with all the brewahaha around the finale, I did read a recap, and so I knew about the Diane/Curt fallout (boo!) and the existence of the character Luca, who I gather was roughly the Kalinda replacement, and who is a main character in the spin-off. But you can start this show without knowing anything about the characters because you find out all that's necessary in the pilot, along with meeting the new ones. I have no idea how realistic Diane losing all her money due to her inventment firm's shenanigans is, but bearing 2008 in mind, I'm completely willing to believe it. Ditto for most of Diane's connections going from fawning about her to dropping her like a hot potato, especially since the show makes clear that it's not all ruthlessness and/or spite, but also caused because Diane did refer various organisations to the inventment firm of doom, and they've suffered to the point of having to shut down because of it. All of which results in Diane, instead of having a comfortable retirement in France to look forward to, realising she has to do it all over again, that (nearly) all she's achieved in her long life has been taken away. Which fits with the presumably lately added opening clip of Diane watching the Orange Menace inauguration in disgusted disbelief. Later on, when Diane, clearing her old office, is asked whether she wants to keep the photo of her with Hillary Clinton which we saw in The Good Wife pilot, Diane firmly replies with yes, especially now. I hear you, Diane. While The Good Wife often associated Alicia with Hillary (my favourite time was probably a Will and Diane conversation about the Florricks in which either Diane or Will, don't recall which one, called them "Bill and Hillary on acid"), it was Diane who embodied the feminism of Hillary's generation, which just got denied its symbolic happy ending and instead got kicked in the face by the election of an incompetent, evil manchild instead, so Diane getting her dreams scattered and having to start all over again feels like a great analogue, even if at the time the season was shot it couldn't have been intended. (The opening T clip was added late in the game, I hear.)
Also, of course, everyone loves an underdog, and Diane with her wealth and connections always was the opposite of that, smug male partners at the law firm or not. So taking her out of her comfort zone without denying that part of her appeal is that she's a Queen of her Realm type (when she does find a new job by the end of 1.01., it's not as a simple lawyer, but as a junior partner) was a wise move on that count as well.
Diane, of course, is not the sole main character. There's also Luca, whom I've met here for the first time after only reading about her in the recap before, and Maya, who I think is new entirely, and I'm trying very hard to avoid the obvious maiden-mother-crone simile but it sort of fits, except for the part where Luca has no children (I think). If Diane is the veteran, Luca is the tough woman in her prime, and Maya the naive newbie with potential. Maya also works in some ways as a younger Alicia analogue; she goes from a rich and privileged background and being taken into Diane's (original) law firm not just because of her qualiifications (which are there) but because of her association to one of the partners to being tainted by a horrible scandal not of her own making and having to recreate herself in a horrible new world made by that scandal. She even gets a similar speech to the one Alicia got in the pilot from Diane in Diane's (old) office, and like Alicia finds out quickly within the pilot that female solidiarity declarations doesn't mean Diane can't turn on you (though in Maya's case, Diane is still reeling from finding out Maya's father seems to have ruined her life when she snaps at her, and later repents and actually does support her). "Some people whom I thought to be saints weren't", Diane tells Maya at one point, and whether or not that's meant to refer to the"Saint Alicia" phrase flung about in the early TGW seasons (which even then was meant as a dig by her enemies), Diane herself had never been presented as one. She's dumped her share of inconvenient to her people, she can be petty. But she can also be incredibly loyal (ask the late Will, whose picture together with Diane is seen several times in the two first episodes, and even a Will disliker like yours truly didn't mind, because the partnership with Will was such a big part of Diane's life), and I thought her scene with Curt in the pilot brought out a great mixture of Diane's several sides. On the one hand, she doesn't want him to lose all his money due to the Plot MacGuffin Financial Scandal, too, on the other, she's by no means forgiven him and isn't ready to accept him back, not even as a friend, even though at this point (pre-finding a new job) she's in dire need of one. Meanwhile, Curt of course isn't the type to desert Diane in crisis, though the best thing for yours truly is that you get the impression that he'd still try to win her back if she was doing fine and about to leave for that cozy mansion in Provence after all, and Christine Baranski and Gary Cole still have great chemistry. I'm all on board with Diane starting out her new show as a single, but like Curt, I don't want that door to be closed forever, and want him to occasionally guest star, whether as ex or friend or renewed love interest, I don't care, as long as he shows up now and then and has scenes with her.
1.02. provides the audience with a typical case of the week whiile continuing to let the main characters deal with the fallout, and the lawyerly goings on are as slickly presented as to be expected from this creative team, including the excentric judges. But what got my attention more was something very typical for this creative team, too. Oh Kings.
On the one hand: the whole set up is obviously them trying very hard for diversity. Diane ends up at an all black law firm (which she promptly proceeds to make less black, I'll get to that). New character Maya is a lesbian. Already established but new to me character Luca is a woman of color. There isn't a white cis male in sight among the regulars.
On the other: Diane, in addition to prompting her new firm to hire Maya as well, in 1.02. hires Eli Gold's daughter Marisa as her assistant. This causes Barbara, who clearly is meant as Diane's black counterpart in the new law firm - the queen of the realm type going for the raised eyebrow as a means of expression, also the sole voice against hiring Diane - to pointedly ask whether there was something wrong with the (black) assistants who had presented themselves, and Diane replies no, it's just that she knows Marisa. So, of course, does the audience. And Marisa is an endearing character, hence, I guess, her ending up in the spin-off. But it also strikes me as the show wanting to have it both ways, and lampshading that in dialogue doesn't make it go away. On the one hand, the (now no longer) all black law firm as the biggest counterpart possible to Diane's firm(s) of yore, on the other...somehow most of the characters with dialogue end up being white again. I get the idea that a spin-off might need more than one beloved by the audience character from the original to get going. But a) was there really a need for Marisa, other than "we like the actress", instead of providing Diane with a new assistant whom she and the audience get to know? And did Maya, who clearly is getting the "from newbie to law shark" arc on this show, have to be white? Not that the actress isn't good in the role so far, but surely there are black owners of investment firms (which Maya's parents have to be in order to get the whole scandal/fall from grace rolling)? If you want to show Diane having to start anew in an environment where suddenly she's the fish out of water, the one with a completely different background and the minority, why then cushion the idea by making sure the characters she'll interact most with do share her background after all?
This being said: none it stops me having enjoyed the first two episodes very much. I like the characters, new and old, I hope Barbara (aka Diane's counterpart, see above) will be fleshed out more and prove me wrong by getting as much dialogue with Diane as Maya and Marisa, and good lord, am I glad that there won't be any election campaigns on this show in the near future because at this point I really really am oversaturated with them, fictional and real aside.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1216107.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Otoh I do have fond memories of a lot of things about The Good Wife, and thus I tuned in for the new spin-off, The Good Fight, centred around Diane Lockhart, the first two episodes of which are now available for watching.
Like I said, I hadn't watched The Good Wife beyond early s6, but with all the brewahaha around the finale, I did read a recap, and so I knew about the Diane/Curt fallout (boo!) and the existence of the character Luca, who I gather was roughly the Kalinda replacement, and who is a main character in the spin-off. But you can start this show without knowing anything about the characters because you find out all that's necessary in the pilot, along with meeting the new ones. I have no idea how realistic Diane losing all her money due to her inventment firm's shenanigans is, but bearing 2008 in mind, I'm completely willing to believe it. Ditto for most of Diane's connections going from fawning about her to dropping her like a hot potato, especially since the show makes clear that it's not all ruthlessness and/or spite, but also caused because Diane did refer various organisations to the inventment firm of doom, and they've suffered to the point of having to shut down because of it. All of which results in Diane, instead of having a comfortable retirement in France to look forward to, realising she has to do it all over again, that (nearly) all she's achieved in her long life has been taken away. Which fits with the presumably lately added opening clip of Diane watching the Orange Menace inauguration in disgusted disbelief. Later on, when Diane, clearing her old office, is asked whether she wants to keep the photo of her with Hillary Clinton which we saw in The Good Wife pilot, Diane firmly replies with yes, especially now. I hear you, Diane. While The Good Wife often associated Alicia with Hillary (my favourite time was probably a Will and Diane conversation about the Florricks in which either Diane or Will, don't recall which one, called them "Bill and Hillary on acid"), it was Diane who embodied the feminism of Hillary's generation, which just got denied its symbolic happy ending and instead got kicked in the face by the election of an incompetent, evil manchild instead, so Diane getting her dreams scattered and having to start all over again feels like a great analogue, even if at the time the season was shot it couldn't have been intended. (The opening T clip was added late in the game, I hear.)
Also, of course, everyone loves an underdog, and Diane with her wealth and connections always was the opposite of that, smug male partners at the law firm or not. So taking her out of her comfort zone without denying that part of her appeal is that she's a Queen of her Realm type (when she does find a new job by the end of 1.01., it's not as a simple lawyer, but as a junior partner) was a wise move on that count as well.
Diane, of course, is not the sole main character. There's also Luca, whom I've met here for the first time after only reading about her in the recap before, and Maya, who I think is new entirely, and I'm trying very hard to avoid the obvious maiden-mother-crone simile but it sort of fits, except for the part where Luca has no children (I think). If Diane is the veteran, Luca is the tough woman in her prime, and Maya the naive newbie with potential. Maya also works in some ways as a younger Alicia analogue; she goes from a rich and privileged background and being taken into Diane's (original) law firm not just because of her qualiifications (which are there) but because of her association to one of the partners to being tainted by a horrible scandal not of her own making and having to recreate herself in a horrible new world made by that scandal. She even gets a similar speech to the one Alicia got in the pilot from Diane in Diane's (old) office, and like Alicia finds out quickly within the pilot that female solidiarity declarations doesn't mean Diane can't turn on you (though in Maya's case, Diane is still reeling from finding out Maya's father seems to have ruined her life when she snaps at her, and later repents and actually does support her). "Some people whom I thought to be saints weren't", Diane tells Maya at one point, and whether or not that's meant to refer to the"Saint Alicia" phrase flung about in the early TGW seasons (which even then was meant as a dig by her enemies), Diane herself had never been presented as one. She's dumped her share of inconvenient to her people, she can be petty. But she can also be incredibly loyal (ask the late Will, whose picture together with Diane is seen several times in the two first episodes, and even a Will disliker like yours truly didn't mind, because the partnership with Will was such a big part of Diane's life), and I thought her scene with Curt in the pilot brought out a great mixture of Diane's several sides. On the one hand, she doesn't want him to lose all his money due to the Plot MacGuffin Financial Scandal, too, on the other, she's by no means forgiven him and isn't ready to accept him back, not even as a friend, even though at this point (pre-finding a new job) she's in dire need of one. Meanwhile, Curt of course isn't the type to desert Diane in crisis, though the best thing for yours truly is that you get the impression that he'd still try to win her back if she was doing fine and about to leave for that cozy mansion in Provence after all, and Christine Baranski and Gary Cole still have great chemistry. I'm all on board with Diane starting out her new show as a single, but like Curt, I don't want that door to be closed forever, and want him to occasionally guest star, whether as ex or friend or renewed love interest, I don't care, as long as he shows up now and then and has scenes with her.
1.02. provides the audience with a typical case of the week whiile continuing to let the main characters deal with the fallout, and the lawyerly goings on are as slickly presented as to be expected from this creative team, including the excentric judges. But what got my attention more was something very typical for this creative team, too. Oh Kings.
On the one hand: the whole set up is obviously them trying very hard for diversity. Diane ends up at an all black law firm (which she promptly proceeds to make less black, I'll get to that). New character Maya is a lesbian. Already established but new to me character Luca is a woman of color. There isn't a white cis male in sight among the regulars.
On the other: Diane, in addition to prompting her new firm to hire Maya as well, in 1.02. hires Eli Gold's daughter Marisa as her assistant. This causes Barbara, who clearly is meant as Diane's black counterpart in the new law firm - the queen of the realm type going for the raised eyebrow as a means of expression, also the sole voice against hiring Diane - to pointedly ask whether there was something wrong with the (black) assistants who had presented themselves, and Diane replies no, it's just that she knows Marisa. So, of course, does the audience. And Marisa is an endearing character, hence, I guess, her ending up in the spin-off. But it also strikes me as the show wanting to have it both ways, and lampshading that in dialogue doesn't make it go away. On the one hand, the (now no longer) all black law firm as the biggest counterpart possible to Diane's firm(s) of yore, on the other...somehow most of the characters with dialogue end up being white again. I get the idea that a spin-off might need more than one beloved by the audience character from the original to get going. But a) was there really a need for Marisa, other than "we like the actress", instead of providing Diane with a new assistant whom she and the audience get to know? And did Maya, who clearly is getting the "from newbie to law shark" arc on this show, have to be white? Not that the actress isn't good in the role so far, but surely there are black owners of investment firms (which Maya's parents have to be in order to get the whole scandal/fall from grace rolling)? If you want to show Diane having to start anew in an environment where suddenly she's the fish out of water, the one with a completely different background and the minority, why then cushion the idea by making sure the characters she'll interact most with do share her background after all?
This being said: none it stops me having enjoyed the first two episodes very much. I like the characters, new and old, I hope Barbara (aka Diane's counterpart, see above) will be fleshed out more and prove me wrong by getting as much dialogue with Diane as Maya and Marisa, and good lord, am I glad that there won't be any election campaigns on this show in the near future because at this point I really really am oversaturated with them, fictional and real aside.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1216107.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.