The Good Fight Season 3 |OT| Good liberals go bad (and get a song number)

Wowfunhappy · May 3, 2019

Got to disagree, unfortunately—after a string of non-stop hits, this episode didn't work for me at all. I'm not sure why, but this episode stretched believability past my breaking point.

Last week, Liz was arguing for the hack despite Dianne's objections. But now she's the first person to decide she's had enough?
Why would Felix's lawyer just give critical information to Marissa?
Preying Mantis should have been thrown out of court as irrelevant. Felix Staples does not have standing to sue in the US over censorship practices in China. Cheryl perjuring herself is a separate case, and besides, it should have been easy enough for her to say she was referring to the US version of the search engine.
I'm not clear whether Preying Mantis already launched or was just in development (talking about Goodverse here, not the IRL version), but either way, there's no way Chumhum could operate a heavily-censored search engine without it becoming public knowledge, so the public either does know about it or will know about it. Consequently, I'm not seeing the PR nightmare.

It was nice to get an episode with a real focus on a legal case again, but this case was silly. I really do appreciate what they were trying to do... How do you avoid giving dangerous voices a platform while maintaining principles of free speech, and where is the line between "de-platforming" and, well, China? It just didn't work as a court case.

Also, while I appreciate the maneuver, I feel kind of cheated out of a song this week. :3

Anyway, two duds compared to six great entries isn't a bad score for the season so far (the other "dud" being Roland Blum's introductory ep). Hopefully next week is a return to form.

Wowfunhappy · May 3, 2019

Oh, separately: did anyone see this editorial about The Good Fight in the New York Times today? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/opinion/the-good-fight-trump.html

Some right wing people have apparently found scenes to object to, because of course they have.

thecowboypoet · May 4, 2019

Where the hell is Rose Leslie?!!?!?!?!?!

janusff · May 4, 2019

Where the hell is Luca's man? lmao it's too bad I kinda liked him in the show :p

Shizuka · May 4, 2019

thecowboypoet said:
Where the hell is Rose Leslie?!!?!?!?!?!

Next week.

janusff said:
Where the hell is Luca's man? lmao it's too bad I kinda liked him in the show :p

He's not on the show anymore, just like the older partner that was replaced by Liz.

berzeli · May 5, 2019

Oh wow, that censored song thing wasn't a joke.

'The Good Fight' Censored By CBS All Access For Subject Matter Concerns

According to sources, the scene in question was flagged by CBS' Standards and Practices division, and series creators Robert and Michelle King, in concert with CBS All Access/CBS TV Studios, made the creative decision to replace the content in question with the censorship message.

A CBS All Access spokesperson confirmed that the message was negotiated. "We had concerns with some subject matter in the episode's animated short. This is the creative solution that we agreed upon with the producers."

TVLine reports the Kings were going to depict the tactics used by US companies to break into the Chinese market, a subject covered in the episode's B-story regarding a client, fictional search engine ChumHum.

Wowfunhappy · May 5, 2019

berzeli said:
Oh wow, that censored song thing wasn't a joke.

'The Good Fight' Censored By CBS All Access For Subject Matter Concerns

...Wow. Now I really want to know what was actually in the short...

berzeli · May 7, 2019

The New Yorker has details, and holy fuck the spat was way more severe than I thought

s. The segment had been fully written and animated, then vetted by legal and run through all the regular corporate oversight. Then, less than two weeks before the episode was going to air, CBS told the Kings to cut the animated sequence. In response, the co-creators threatened to stop writing the show.

as for the short:

Coulton told me that the censored song is called "Banned in China." (Full disclosure: Coulton is a friend of mine and recently paid me to appear as a guest on an extremely nerdy cruise-ship event.) It begins with a verse about the fact that "The Good Wife" itself had been banned in China, in 2014, possibly in reprisal for a Season 2 episode called "The Great Firewall," which portrayed a Google-like company, called ChumHum, exposing a Chinese dissident to government torture. The next verse of the song is about the way that media companies censor content, with animations of movie scenes being snipped out of film strips.

Then comes the bridge, which lists other things banned in China, many of them symbolic images that Chinese citizens use on social-networking sites to evade censors. These include an empty chair (representing the late Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo), Winnie the Pooh (who is said to resemble China's leader, Xi Jinping), and "the letter 'N' and Tiananmen Square"—a reference to the fact that the letter "N" was briefly banned in China, because it was perceived as a coded reference to the elimination of Presidential term limits. One animation showed the Chinese leader, dressed as Winnie the Pooh, shaking his bare bottom. Another showed Chinese reëducation camps.

The song is clear about one of the motives for American self-censorship: China is too big of a market for media corporations to ignore. Like the episode around it, the lyrics touch on the notion that Western culture might help spread democratic ideals, even under censored conditions—but it's ultimately damning about how easily what might begin as a pragmatic compromise can become an excuse for greed. The clip ends with Coulton, in animated form, singing that he hopes his song gets banned in China—something that can't happen now, given that it was preëmptively removed by CBS.

Wowfunhappy said:
...Wow. Now I really want to know what was actually in the short...

.

Socivol · May 7, 2019

Just watched the first two episodes and the Trump stuff is exhausting. Does it get any less in your face? I hate Trump, but I also watch TV to escape from the realities of life. I didn't mind the first 2 seasons but to have Diane's whole ark around it seems a bit much.

Wowfunhappy · May 8, 2019

berzeli said:
The New Yorker has details, and holy fuck the spat was way more severe than I thought

Wow. The full article is well worth reading, lots of interesting details.

They should have left the censorship message up for much longer, as was apparently originally intended. Then it wouldn't have seemed like a joke.

Wowfunhappy · May 8, 2019

Socivol said:
Just watched the first two episodes and the Trump stuff is exhausting. Does it get any less in your face?

In a word, no.

I love this show, but if you don't want to think about Trump, I highly recommend watching something else.

berzeli · May 9, 2019

I'm not gonna rave too much (but still, loved it and ohmygod the cinematography with the neon signs in the tail end of the old fashioned scene and the directly to Blum being a confidante; Who knew you could shoot a prestige drama at night, actually see what the characters are doing, and still have it convey mood whilst looking stylish as heck?)

I will however plug the living daylights out of Scott Tobias finally doing another recap for Vulture (look just click the damn article link, if I get 4 of you to do it we will like quadruple its readership and I've enjoyed reading these)

Much like its predecessor, The Good Wife — and a show like ER, for that matter — The Good Fight takes place in Chicago but doesn't work terribly hard to convince viewers that it's actually shot in the city. The sunny-morning montage toward the end of the episode is generic B-roll footage—the Hancock Center, the Wrigley Building, Buckingham Fountain, and so on, almost certainly the handiwork of another production. But give the show credit for this insight in my home base: The bizarre mid-May hailstorm that underscores the drama is entirely plausible, part of a broad array of precipitation options that confuse and terrorize residents for eight or nine months out of the year. (Lousy Smarch weather!)

The thunderclaps and ice balls that crash outside Reddick, Boseman & Lockhart for much of "The One Where the Sun Comes Out" emphasize a grand reckoning that shakes the firm's foundations. The Good Fight is a show about the difficulties noble-minded people have in living up to their ideals, and it's absolutely merciless about exposing their flaws, even as it's sympathetic enough to put them in context. It's easy to make the morally correct decision when nothing important is on the line, but when careers and the business itself are at stake, doing the right thing can have devastating consequences. And seemingly everyone in this episode is forced to choose between bad options.

edit: Speaking of good The Good Fight writing:
The parallel that was pointed out by Nussbaum in her New Yorker article I linked earlier but that I forgot to highlight:

The show also hasn't shied away from criticizing the behavior of institutions that resemble CBS. This season—which was written after the firing of the CBS C.E.O. Les Moonves, after he was accused of repeated sexual misconduct—the firm's partners discovered that its founder had committed sexual assault and then voted to conceal these crimes with nondisclosure agreements.

I needed this pointed out to me, the characters in The Good Fight grapple with how a venerable legend of the institution they belong to did an array of horrendous sexual misdeeds, just as the cast and crew must have dealt with the same w/r/t Moonves.

firehawk12 · May 10, 2019

Is Moonves a civil rights legend or something? I just saw him as yet another generic executive, so admittedly I don't know anything about him.

Also less Trump and more Blum and Maia made this my favourite episode of the season barring maybe the first or second one.

Sloane · May 10, 2019

firehawk12 said:
Is Moonves a civil rights legend or something? I just saw him as yet another generic executive, so admittedly I don't know anything about him.

If I remember correctly, The Good Wife supposedly was his favorite show for some reason and it more or less only stayed on that long because he liked it -- so at least the Kings probably were somewhat close to him, I'd suspect.

Edit: Christine Baranski also had some kind of history with him but I don't remember the details.

Hella · May 10, 2019

I'm... so tired of Blum.

My heart sinks at the thought of watching another episode filled with his zany antics. He's so unbearable, it's exhausting.

Ryu_Ken · May 10, 2019

Show has really gone down hill for me. The trump stuff rammed down your throat and the crappy sketches are tiresome. Loved it when we had a different courtroom story every week. Now it is just trash.

berzeli · May 10, 2019

btw, I do like how we're very blasé about the show killing not-Stephen Miller. I almost forgot they went there.

firehawk12 said:
Is Moonves a civil rights legend or something? I just saw him as yet another generic executive, so admittedly I don't know anything about him.

TV legend, definitely not civil rights legend, he basically was CBS for all intents and purposes being chairman and CEO. Ran the network from 1998 onwards to his downfall and was very involved with which series got ordered, etc.
It wasn't (and still isn't) uncommon that he got the prefix of legendary, even when the reporting was on his downfall (borrowed this from WaPo)

The CBS board of directors said Friday it would investigate allegations of personal misconduct against legendary CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves

Shizuka · May 10, 2019

Did Chumhum leave the firm after all?

Hella · May 10, 2019

The whole #bookclubresistance just feels zero-sum. It's centrists with a hobby, and that hobby is trolling.

It's a purely indulgent fantasy arc that just drags the show down. It's not empowering, clever, or insightful, it's just... there.

Shizuka said:
Did Chumhum leave the firm after all?

Of course. They already made up their mind!

Wowfunhappy · May 11, 2019

Episode was amazing but I feel really bad for Maia. Sure she has a job but now all her friends hate her... and the job isn't even a given now that Blum may be disbarred.

Remember how season 2 ended, with Maia, Marissa and Luca all happy together? :'(

Shizuka said:
Did Chumhum leave the firm after all?

Yes.

Jimx26 said:
The trump stuff rammed down your throat and the crappy sketches are tiresome.

Well congrats, the last two episodes barely had cartoon sketches, so, uh...

For real though, did they just give up and decide to throw them in the credits after one got censored? What?

PhilosopherDirtBike · May 11, 2019

Hella said:
The whole #bookclubresistance just feels zero-sum. It's centrists with a hobby, and that hobby is trolling.

It's a purely indulgent fantasy arc that just drags the show down. It's not empowering, clever, or insightful, it's just... there.

Of course. They already made up their mind!

I think the point of it is to be satirical of the left. Which I think is healthy. It's a how far is too far type thing and that's interesting to explore. It's not supposed to be powerful. It was literally started as a grift by a con artist.

Wowfunhappy · May 11, 2019

PhilosopherDirtBike said:
I think the point of it is to be satirical of the left. Which I think is healthy. It's a how far is too far type thing and that's interesting to explore. It's not supposed to be powerful. It was literally started as a grift by a con artist.

Well, and to make this more stark... it's a narrative I see all the time, both online and off. "Liberals need to stop being afraid to get down and dirty like the republicans, or republicans will keep winning." Okay, to an extent maybe that's necessary, but it very much depends on what you mean.

I, uh... legitimately know someone who I think would be on board with the "hack the voting machines to make up the difference" thing. I've had arguments with her about it, because I find the attitude quite scary.

Deleted member 2533 · May 11, 2019

berzeli said:
btw, I do like how we're very blasé about the show killing not-Stephen Miller. I almost forgot they went there.

TV legend, definitely not civil rights legend, he basically was CBS for all intents and purposes being chairman and CEO. Ran the network from 1998 onwards to his downfall and was very involved with which series got ordered, etc.
It wasn't (and still isn't) uncommon that he got the prefix of legendary, even when the reporting was on his downfall (borrowed this from WaPo)

It's a little crass that in order to shoe-horn their Moonves analogue they choose to defame the black civil rights hero they made up.

Hella · May 11, 2019

Wowfunhappy said:
Episode was amazing but I feel really bad for Maia. Sure she has a job but now all her friends hate her... and the job isn't even a given now that Blum may be disbarred.

Remember how season 2 ended, with Maia, Marissa and Luca all happy together? :'(

I, uh, wouldn't feel bad for Maia given that she STABBED MARISSA IN THE BACK.

Cool Maia is now Evil Maia.

PhilosopherDirtBike said:
I think the point of it is to be satirical of the left. Which I think is healthy. It's a how far is too far type thing and that's interesting to explore. It's not supposed to be powerful. It was literally started as a grift by a con artist.

I've always taken the position Diane ends up in to be the "good fight" the show is named after. So joining the group is "the good fight," keeping it going is also, etc, etc.

But perhaps I am misreading the show. I've only been going along with it under the assumption that it's going to lead somewhere... I guess by the end of the season; hopefully all will be revealed then.

Shizuka · May 11, 2019

The "kill all lawyers" plot was really weak last season, at least the book club this season is more interesting.

Wowfunhappy · May 11, 2019

Shizuka said:
The "kill all lawyers" plot was really weak last season, at least the book club this season is more interesting.

I liked both myself, but I'd call the "kill all lawyers" thing more of a motif than a plot. It was a "theme", something to show how dark the world had become. There was no plot.

Dr.Acula said:
It's a little crass that in order to shoe-horn their Moonves analogue they choose to defame the black civil rights hero they made up.

Huh? They made him up, he's their character, why not defame him if they want to?

Taruranto · May 11, 2019

This felt like old The Good Wife. I missed this show.

Are they trying to ship Maia and Marissa? I'm not sure I'm into that. I wanted them to be my new Kalinda and Alicia.

Shizuka · May 11, 2019

Taruranto said:
I wanted them to be my new Kalinda and Alicia.

Well, they almost went there. Kalinda was in love with Alicia for the longest time.

Wowfunhappy · May 11, 2019

Shizuka said:
Well, they almost went there. Kalinda was in love with Alicia for the longest time.

Uh, what? That's not a vibe I ever got.

Hella said:
I, uh, wouldn't feel bad for Maia given that she STABBED MARISSA IN THE BACK.

Okay, so I'm actually not sure about this—did Maia purposefully set up that dinner date to extract information from Marissa? At first I assumed it was all planned, but then I changed my mind when Maia was crying in front of Blum.

In the event that it wasn't all a setup, I'd kind of feel for Maia. She was given information she didn't ask for, and then had an obligation to her employer.

But thinking back again now, it was probably a setup...

I don't know, the whole thing just makes me really sad, even if Maia deserved it.

Hella · May 11, 2019

Yeah I don't think Kalinda was ever attracted to Alicia. She felt guilty at first, over the Peter stuff, and then realised she was a real friend. And then the IRL feud had her hastily written out. :(

Wowfunhappy said:
Okay, so I'm actually not sure about this—did Maia purposefully set up that dinner date to extract information from Marissa? At first I assumed she was, but then I changed my mind when Maia was crying in front of Blum.

In the event that it wasn't all a setup, I'd kind of feel for Maia. She was given information she didn't ask for, and then had an obligation to her employer. But thinking back now again now, it was probably a setup...

I don't know, the whole thing just makes me really sad, even if Maia deserved it.

It's purposefully vague I suppose.

Maia implies that she won't help Blum with his perjury or w/e charge, but then cut to Maia very deliberately squeezing info out of Marissa about the firm's scandals. She also very deliberately avoids mentioning where she works now. Then Maia presumably gives the info she got from Marissa to Blum and is upset at the fallout. Remains to be seen if it's crocodile tears or legit.

I don't really have a good reason to believe Maia's sadness is insincere... but, like, it just doesn't jive with her actions.

Shizuka · May 11, 2019

Wowfunhappy said:
Uh, what? That's not a vibe I ever got.

There was even one character flat out saying Kalinda was in love with Alicia and that's why she helped Alicia so much.

Hella · May 11, 2019

Shizuka said:
There was even one character flat out saying Kalinda was in love with Alicia and that's why she helped Alicia so much.

Wasn't that Cary? With Kalinda shooting the theory down immediately. (Because, y'know, she loves Cary!)

Shizuka · May 11, 2019

I still read that Kalinda had a platonic love for Alicia for a few seasons every time I watched the show.

ody · May 16, 2019

this asmr bit looooooooooooooooooooooool

oh man that ending

Dio · May 16, 2019

the fuck was that ending.

TripOpt55 · May 16, 2019

Wow that was some ending 🤯

Shizuka · May 16, 2019

That was a great ending, I can't wait for the next season.

firehawk12 · May 16, 2019

Glad the Trump stuff seems to be done. Honestly I'd rather see Mad Queen Maia full time at this point, which is probably something I didn't expect to ever think. lol

TripOpt55 · May 17, 2019

I assume Maia is being written out then? Kind of a bummer as I also want to see more of this version of her.

PhilosopherDirtBike · May 17, 2019

I assume Maia/Blum are off the show (or at least the main cast)

Also don't think we're done with Trump stuff. The entire show, from the first few moments of the pilot, is framed around his presidency.

Hella · May 17, 2019

Well that was a disappointing way to close out the Blum saga. He just... rides off into the sunset, with Blum 2.0 in tow.

Ugh.

Wowfunhappy · May 18, 2019

Episode was fine but far from the best of the season. I liked the penultimate episode more.

I'm feeling really unsatisfied with Maia's arch. So she's just okay being Blum's lawyer now, even when she had an out? Screw everyone else, I guess. What the heck happened to her?

Little aside, the asmr joke was good but they took it too far. I could have done eith her whispering—taking out the wrapper and such was beyond believability to me. Did she just become an ASMR expert overnight?

Was that Apple disclaimer really necessary? Kind of pulled me out of the moment. Wonder if CBS made them do that...

PhilosopherDirtBike said:
Also don't think we're done with Trump stuff. The entire show, from the first few moments of the pilot, is framed around his presidency.

I was thinking the other day—assuming we get there, how will the fifth season work? They'll have to write the season not knowing if Trump wins re-election or not.

Taruranto · May 19, 2019

Welp, this was underwhelming. The new Judge stuff was just too ridiculous and Maia deserved infinitely better.

caliph95 · May 19, 2019

The judge was a bit too dumb

I can accept him being idiot and simple minded and also gullible but I'm wondering how he even finish high school

Wowfunhappy · May 20, 2019

caliph95 said:
The judge was a bit too dumb

I can accept him being idiot and simple minded and also gullible but I'm wondering how he even finish high school

He was no dumber than the real-life person who appointed him.

(I'm not sure how that guy finished high school either.)

firehawk12 · Jul 26, 2019

So I just heard that Rose Leslie quit the show. I think some might joke that she hadn't quit already two seasons ago?

janusff · Jul 26, 2019

firehawk12 said:
So I just heard that Rose Leslie quit the show. I think some might joke that she hadn't quit already two seasons ago?

for real? damn

WrenchNinja · Jul 26, 2019

firehawk12 said:
So I just heard that Rose Leslie quit the show. I think some might joke that she hadn't quit already two seasons ago?

She basically got written out in the finale. Not surprised.

berzeli · Jul 26, 2019

firehawk12 said:
So I just heard that Rose Leslie quit the show. I think some might joke that she hadn't quit already two seasons ago?

janusff said:
for real? damn

Yeah it was confirmed at ComicCon

https://tvline.com/2019/07/18/the-good-fight-season-4-rose-leslie-leaving-maia-not-returning/

PhilosopherDirtBike · Jul 26, 2019

Not surprising. Once they bailed out of the Rindell Fund storyline, they clearly couldn't think of anything else to do with her.

The Good Fight Season 3 |OT| Good liberals go bad (and get a song number)

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