PASADENA, Calif. – It has been almost three years since “The Good Wife” ended and with it the story of Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies). But the upcoming third season of the spinoff series “The Good Fight” (streaming Thursday on CBS All Access) almost brought Alicia back.
“This year we were thinking, ‘OK, maybe we’ll make a big episode of it. Maybe she’ll be at the resistance [meeting] and Diane and her have to face each other,’” said Robert King, showrunner of the “Good Fight” with wife Michelle King. “But it always felt like, ‘OK. Then, that’s the end of the story.’ You’re always looking at something, going, ‘I don’t know why that doesn’t look right, but it just doesn’t look right.’”
Ms. Margulies said she was game to return.
“Honestly, I was very close to coming back this season, but the deal fell through,” Ms. Margulies said at a National Geographic Channel party for her upcoming Nat Geo miniseries “The Hot Zone” (9 p.m. May 27-29). “The Kings had a great idea that I was on board with and [’Good Fight’ stars] Christine [Baranski] and Cush [Jumbo] are my dear friends, and I miss Alicia so much that I was ready. I wanted them to get on their own footing before I came back. The deal just didn’t work.”
Sigh. Perhaps in season four, assuming “The Good Fight” gets renewed again.
In the meantime, “The Good Fight” comes off a creatively strong season two — truly, it was among the best TV series of 2018 on any platform — by pushing its characters, including lawyer Diane Lockhart (Ms. Baranski), further into the storm of the current political moment.
“We’re spinning out of control these days,” says third-year associate Maia Rindell (Rose Leslie) in the third season premiere. Maia gains some backbone but possibly loses her soul (and more) when she’s forced to work with Roy Cohn-like corrupt lawyer Roland Blum (Michael Sheen).
“The Good Fight” began with Maia as a major player who pretty much eclipsed Diane in season one. A recalibration in season two moved Maia into a supporting role that better suits the character and the actress. Season three begins with an arc that emboldens Maia while introducing Blum, who is both entertaining and exhausting to watch. A little of this morally bankrupt friend of Trump goes a long way.
While season two balanced the smart and crazy of the current political cycle, season three leans hard into the crazy — sometimes too hard.
Diane joins an underground resistance group that tries to outdo the alt-right (think #pizzagate) in an effort to sink President Trump’s approval ratings. One plot stemming from the resistance group ensnares a music star, ultimately offering an echo of Western Pennsylvania singing sensation Jackie Evancho and her trans sister, Juliet.
In these new episodes, “The Good Fight” is at its best when the characters get honest about race within the majority black law firm in ways that feel startlingly real and, frankly, unique for a TV show. Plots involving firm partners Liz Reddick-Lawrence (Broadway star Audra McDonald, who gets to sing in an early episode) and Adrian Boseman (Delroy Lindo, at the top of his acting game) are particularly truthful about the politics of race and bias inside the Reddick, Boseman & Lockhart law firm.
“The Good Fight” found its creative footing in season two, and the show continues to take risks in its 10-episode third season including now-weekly “Schoolhouse Rock”-style animated segments (explaining things like Russian troll farms and who is Roy Cohn) and weekly soliloquies by the show’s characters explaining what they are thinking.
“Unless they’re awful and we cut them all out,” Mr. King said of the monologues at a late January press conference during the Television Critics Association winter 2019 press tour.
Through four episodes made available for review, the soliloquies actually work just fine; the animated segments, however, bring the story to a halt and draw viewers out of the narrative for little benefit.
New mother Lucca Quinn (Ms. Jumbo) tries to balance life as a single mom with her work as a rising law firm associate even as she comes to recognize inequities at her workplace (Justin Bartha, who played her baby’s father, does not appear in season three).
The show’s cast and producers acknowledged “The Good Fight” has evolved dramatically from its “The Good Wife” origins.
“This show has become far more political than we anticipated, because the world changed [with the election of President Trump],” Ms. King said at TCA.
“We’re not real fans of shows that preach to the choir,” Mr. King said. “I think our show is perceived to be doing that, but a lot of it is satire of the left. Even ‘The Good Wife’ was that. Racism in our show is not about the white supremacists, not about a cliche. There is an episode that is really about the racism within the firm, and it’s really about the people who pat themselves on the back for giving to all the right causes are really kind of scumbags, too.”
As to how the show is prepared to handle any topicality that gets, ahem, trumped by real-world events, producers said they have contingency plans.
“I think everyone will cheerfully rewrite if we’re at a different point in time,” Ms. King said.
“We have a few backup plans if the world runs ahead of us involving two to three pivotal scenes we’d have to re-shoot,” Mr. King added. “We try to stay as close to the zeitgeist as possible, but it’s very difficult when you’re writing ahead.”
TV writer Rob Owen: rowen@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2582. Read the Tuned In Journal blog at post-gazette.com/tv. Follow RobOwenTV on Twitter or Facebook.
First Published: March 11, 2019, 12:00 p.m.