The Good Fight

Take the interesting kids at school. They’re in an established group, a band of brothers, a coterie of girls, a mix of flavours. Their in-jokes have been in existence since the dawn of time. Explaining them is futile – you had to have been there. There’s a rhythm to the interaction too: an ability to see a friend in space, tee them up and deliver the joke emphatically into the net. Now, imagine the group disbands (a job opportunity comes up, a college placement opens up, a Yoko Ono enters the fray): what happens to that chemistry? Can it be transposed to a new group with different people? No, it can’t. You’re starting over. There’s a very real risk it’ll never be rediscovered. A chance that repartee rests in the rear-view mirror; rapport in the scrap book of history. 

  

For every Frasier, there is a Joey. Spin-offs aren’t a guaranteed success. Yes, the writing team and network producers may be the same, but the show isn’t. A character may work in a particular setting, interacting with regular characters; take them out of that world though and they appear lost, adrift. Many spin-offs don’t work because networks take for granted the good will of the audience. They think: ‘well, they all enjoyed the other show they were in, therefore they’ll enjoy this one.’ The mistake they make is that the audience enjoyed the group dynamic, the interplay and frictions – they weren’t interested in one character alone. Where Better Call Saul, Frasier and The Good Fight have succeeded is creating other characters that are as interesting as the surviving protagonists. Saul wouldn’t have worked without Chuck, nor would Frasier have survived without Niles. In spin-off, forget the old: the new characters are the thing.

My brother has the first season on DVD.

The Good Wife was the moniker title for Alicia Florrick, a wronged woman who stands by her husband following a public scandal. It tracked the attorney’s return to work and subsequent rise through the profession, superseding her husband and her own expectations in the process. It ran for seven years and is the Netflix box-set to go to if you’ve finished Breaking Bad. Worth noting, I also think it’s quite poetic that so many characters from David Simon’s superlative TV show The Wire pop up in the CBS drama, as both programmes are more than genre pieces: they examine politics, economics and social forces all whilst being thoroughly entertaining. Its successor is The Good Fight- the wife being dropped because Alicia is no longer a part of proceedings.

The original.

The show begins with Diane Lockhart ready to retire and set up home in Europe. She’s given her notice to the law firm that featured so heavily in The Good Wife. Unfortunately, just as she’s about to get the keys, her accountant calls and says the money simply isn’t there. Diane is one of Chicago’s best lawyers. She is to law what Capone is to crime. She’s the hot-shot with the enviable winning streak. It simply doesn’t make sense that she can't afford her autumn days. The reason she hasn’t got the money is because she invested in her friend’s get-richer scheme. A scheme that's defrauded million of pounds from hundreds of Americans. With her dreams in smoke, she goes back to the firm she helped make famous. They won’t bring her back into the fold on her terms though. History doesn’t count for much in the cutthroat world of criminal law. Despite growing the business, she can’t be made partner again; as a result, she walks.

What makes this show great is that it chooses not to focus on one character, like they did in The Good Wife. The spin-off isn’t the Diane Lockhart show. Her losing it and re-gathering it is an important focus of the series, but it isn’t the only one. Lucca Quinn, who was introduced towards the end of The Good Wife, is a tremendous heroine, every bit as interesting as Diane. On top of that is Maia Rindell, Diane’s goddaughter, whose father sold Lockhart the lie. The triumvirate are fantastic, representing the ladder of a law firm: from the fledgling Rindell to the aspiring Quinn to the established Lockhart. All three women come to work at the same firm, a growing company that specialise in police brutality cases. Lockhart’s heart bleeds liberalism; it’s a firm that matches her ideals. Ironically retirement's brought her a job she loves.

Quinn, Lockhart and Rindell.

The first season focuses on the investigation into Maia’s involvement with her father’s financial scheme, with other transitory stories running alongside. With this cleared up by the second season, the show enjoys a real political edge. Each episode title in this season reference how long Trump’s been in office- he is referenced regularly too. As a woman that had a picture alongside Hilary on her desk in The Good Wife, it’s fair to say that Diane is having something of an existential crisis. For her, the victories in court seem meaningless when the bigger fights are being lost in the Senate.

With strong women at its centre and diversity at its core, the show is anathema to creaky minded republicans. It’s fighting the good fight against Trump’s politics, and is entertaining to boot. What more could you ask for?  

The Good Fight Season 2 is available on More4. (You don't have to watch Season 1 to know what's going on.)