Hacker Cinema
The Good Fight
2017 · TV series · 50 min episodes · 6 seasons
Created by Michelle King, Robert King, Phil Alden Robinson
Picking up one year after the events of the final broadcast episode of "The Good Wife", an enormous financial scam has destroyed the reputation of a young lawyer, Maia Rindell, while simultaneously wiping out her mentor and godmother Diane Lockhart's savings. Forced out of her law firm, now called "Lockhart, Deckler, Gussman, Lee, Lyman, Gilbert, Lurie, Kagan, Tannebaum & Associates", they join Lucca Quinn at one of Chicago's preeminent law firms.
6 positive3 neutralfrom 9 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
12 comments on Hacker News
And even if there were:
"We are not finders of fact. We are tellers of story. You base the story on the evidence, no? No! We base the evidence on the story. We prove what helps us, and we disprove what hurts us. Whoever tells the best story goes home with the cash-in prizes." (The Good Fight, season 3 episode 2. 30 - 31 minutes. CBS All Access 2019.)
I was reading the trial report by Inner City Press. The AUSAs were incredibly thorough and strategic. The evidences were air-tight, the cross-examination was masterfully controlled with precision and incisiveness, and of course the closing argument was forceful. It was a great joy to read the report, as if I was reading an extended episode of The Good Fight. On the other hand, the defense was really weak, quite hand-wavy, and resorted to argue about not-so-irrelevant specifics like how hard SBF worked. The closing arguments of the defense can be summarized as SBF was not guilty because he spent all the customer money on investment, on political donation, on private plane, and on company-owned real estate properties. They were company expenditures to build a business, not for personal gains. Therefore, SBF did not have any intention of committing a crime.
Last year, Consumer Reports did a study on spices contaminated with chemicals (cadmium, etc). And Trader Joe's wasn't immune from it.
Certain third world countries would grow them in contaminated areas and then sell them back to the west.
BTW, I appreciate your username. There's an episode of The Good Fight that talks about it.
Coincidentally came across a comment by Neil Gaiman today, related to this topic on Reddit: I don't write much about gay sex, as people who have read my book would know. But oddly, I don't read tweet like this and feel to convert. Instead I read it and vaguely wish I'd actually written more about gay sex. (Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/me_irlgbt/comments/x79303/me_irlgbt/ ).
Isn't it an interesting perspective from a writer? Inspiration and creativity comes from such moments, and tomorrow if this writer creates a gay character for some story, you can feel the author will do a good job of characterisation and making such character feel real. When the writing is good, an actor feels connected to it and the director and show-maker too are inspired to do justice it. Right now it doesn't often feel like that. sometimes when I see some of the awful effort of some of these LGBT / person of colour (PoC) / powerful women scenes, out of boredom I often find myself imagining how such a scene was shot - someone at the production unit suddenly remembers, "Ok, who is playing the token LGBT / PoC / Women? Let's get on with it. What's the scene about - Is it about them facing humiliation 'cos of their identity, showing them being accepted, a sex scene with them, or them finding their own voice or power?" ... (And later in the editing room some director instructing some intern) "OK, trim these hour long footage of the LGBT / PoC / woman character into 1 to 5 minutes snippets and insert it somewhere in episode 1, 5, 7 and wrap it up!" ...
As for every story requiring an LGBT character because they "exist everywhere", can't many other vulnerable / minority group too lay a claim on that? For example, I am sure there are more muslims in the USA than there are LGBTs - should every American TV show now start including muslim, Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, Indian-American, Chinese-Americans characters etc., etc? Obviously, you realistically can't. (And note that all these groups too face bigotry and hatred just because of who they are).
As a non-american, I prefer the previous format of American television where good story didn't have such contrived caricaturisation and only relevant characters that added to the stories. Will and Grace or Modern Family come to mind when I think of how LGBT characters were relevant, well integrated and portrayed well in the story. Recently I finished watching Atlanta and really love the show, especially due to the insights on black culture (in the US) it offered. Shows like "The Good Wife" and "The Good Fight" show women empowerment so naturally and elegantly that you don't even notice it while enjoying the drama. I feel such dramas do more justice to an LGBT / PoC / woman character than some token characters inserted forcefully.
Frankly, I don’t like the meme either. I realize it’s meant to be taken in jest, but it still has an impact on the tenor of discourse.
There’s a Jonathan Coulton song from the TV show “The Good Fight” about how memes can evolve online:
At first it’s just a meme, Then it’s a joke about the meme. The joke is that it’s fake, It’s not as fake as it may seem. Confusion when they use one, And it seems like what they mean. And then, ta-da, a cartoon Nazi frog!
My favorite take on the Overton Window is this monologue from The Good Fight:
https://www.vulture.com/2019/04/the-good-fight-recap-season-3-episode-5.html
Is it alright to hit a Nazi unprovoked? I was always taught never to throw the first punch, never to instigate. Defend, but don’t attack. But then I saw a video of the white nationalist Richard Spencer being punched in the face during an interview. I realized Spencer was in a pressed suit, wearing a tie, being interviewed like his opinion mattered — like it should be considered part of the conversation, like neo-Nazism is just one political point of view. And then I realized there’s no better way to show some speech is not equal. Some speech requires a more visceral response. It’s like Overton’s window — that’s the term for which ideas are tolerated in public discourse. Well, Overton’s window doesn’t mean shit unless it comes with some enforcement. So yeah, this is enforcement. It’s time to punch a few Nazis.
> I realized that the world in which Hillary won wouldn't be a happy world either. Because all of the drivers of the stress we feel today — minus one — would still be very much be present."
TV show The Good Fight Season 4, Episode 1 "The Gang Deals with Alternate Reality has brilliant dark humor take on alternate reality where Hillary Clinton won the election.
spoiler alert ---
(spoiler: Liberal lawyer Diane wakes up in alternate reality where Trump lost, but #MeeToo did not happen. She is representing Harvey Weinstein who is big donor for liberal causes and connections to the WH)
This was an episode of the court drama series The Good Fight. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6199772/
Except it was about writing Terms of Service and debating people impacted by the new rules.
Just echoing the above—watch The Good Wife! I think it's my favorite TV show, and I'm really picky. Don't be put off by the title—this is absolutely not "the real housewives" or the like.
One addendum, however: I would greatly encourage skipping the last two seasons of The Good Wife (6 and 7), which constitute a massive and sudden drop in quality. There are a few good episodes, but not enough. You'll hear tidbits about what happened when you watch The Good Fight, and it's better that way.
Lots of stuff! Off the top of my head, for both The Good Fight and its predecessor show, there was:
• A story on how large media companies use broad copyright laws to exploit independent artists.
• Multiple stories on data surveillance and privacy.
• Stories depicting injustices in the immigration court system.
By the way, the episode containing the censored segment also had a woman explaining how she was tortured by the Chinese government.
There's nothing on The Good Fight that would be off limits in, say, HBO's Last Week Tonight, but there's plenty I was surprised to see in a CBS drama.
> I associate CBS with bland procedural crime dramas and awful three-camera sitcoms.
The Good Fight is really good, now I'm going back to watch the predecessor.
People don't want to pay $100 a month for cable TV either, but they did it anyway (for decades) and continue to do so. Now we're being asked to buy a bunch of streaming services and we'll bitch and moan, but ultimately we'll pay because every major platform will have at least one show that justifies their existence.
I associate CBS with bland procedural crime dramas and awful three-camera sitcoms. CBS All Access would have been doomed without Star Trek: Discovery. Admittedly, the show isn't particularly good, but I'm a trekkie so it doesn't matter. On the plus side, I discovered The Good Fight (a surprising smart, entertaining and well written show) so I now I have a legitimate reason to give a damn about All Access.
And then Apple will offer their own gateway drug (Lord of the Rings?) and Disney (...well they could just offer their back catalogue alone and still be a major player) and so on.