Skip to main content


The Good Fight: ‘The Good Fight’ Recap: On the Other Side

posted onFebruary 21, 2017

Article snippet: On the surface, “The Good Fight” has much in common with its predecessor, “The Good Wife.” The power plays among Chicago’s elite lawyers lend the series a bracing wit. Role reversals happen with breakneck speed. Clothing informs characterization as much as dialogue does. There are, of course, familiar faces and names. Occasionally Alicia Florrick, the prickly lead of the original series, is mentioned in passing. But “The Good Fight” stands on its own because of the way it traffics in the thorny dynamics that arise among women who are navigating professional minefields, complex desires and identity politics. The way these women relate to each other as colleagues, lovers and friends powers the entire show. Television may be bursting with challenging, even antiheroic leading ladies, but seeing depictions of women who mentor and rely on one another with such fierce loyalty is still a rarity. At one point, Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) gives the newly minted lawyer and associate Maia Rindell (Rose Leslie) a leather portfolio with the name “Pearl Hart” etched on its cover. Hart was the first female public defender in Chicago, and the gift is one Diane received at the start of her own career. This gesture is meant to be a passing of the torch from godmother to goddaughter, mentor to mentee. It’s a beautiful moment about the legacies women share and pass on. But there is enough tension hinting at the cataclysm to come to prohibit this from tipping into saccharine t... Link to the full article to read more

Emotional score for this article