The fourth season of “The Good Fight” was cut short because of the COVID-19 pandemic, running for only seven episodes last spring instead of its planned 10.
But what creators Michelle and Robert King didn’t get to resolve in the abbreviated season was tying up the arc about Memo 618, the mysteriously sinister cabal of corrupt Chicago judges that seemed to be run by people in the highest echelons of power in the United States — and which Diane were trying to expose.
The fifth season premiere, streaming on Paramount Plus as of today, is called “Previously On.” And it was exactly that: In the episode, the Kings summarized a year in all of the characters’ lives, sweeping through why Adrian and Lucca are leaving, how COVID affected the characters, the election of Joe Biden — and much more.
Robert: I’m probably the most centrist of the room.
And it was a nightmare, even as there were moments of humor with the Four Seasons plumbing — there were all these like chocolate chips of comedy throughout.
Michelle: The first conversation we had in the writers’ room is, “OK, where do we start?” Do you cover this year — this insane year — 2020? Or do you start up in what would be present day when we start releasing the episodes? And the feeling in the room was, “We’re going to want to know what the pandemic was like for Diane and for Adrian or Liz.” And I think it was Robert that came up with, “Well, how about an entire episode that’s ‘previously on…’?” We just spent a whole episode finding out what 2020 looked like for all these people we love.
What I thought was valuable about that was this idea of kind of being given a freebie, in a way, before plot kicks in and you’re on your way for the season.
We needed someone who swept in, like, “You only have three to four lines on the show, but we need Diane to really believe there’s a chance to go in front of the Supreme Court with this case that we did on ‘The Good Wife’ years ago.” We had worked with him before on “The Good Wife,” so we just asked.
And we thought this would be a funny joke: “Whoa! — we’re not going to exit him that way.” Because of the way we killed off Josh Charles as Will Gardner.
And is that really appropriate? And so she is going to be struggling with that, and with the knowledge that Diane’s a good person, Liz is a good person, they like each other — but they don’t have exactly the same life histories, and they’re going to have different perspectives.
When Boseman was there, he was much more like let’s make this a firm that has more white lawyers, and so a white partner made sense, and she maneuvered a way into that position.
He tells this story, and you’re just feeling like, “I’m around the campfire, where’s he going with this?” For about three days, we were all wondering if it was too ridiculous.