The Good Fight Season 5 Episode 5 Review: And the firm had two partners...
Jessica Lerner
at
.
It's too bad the Emmys have already been announced for this year because The Good Fight Season 5 Episode 5 would have been a real contender.
This was easily the best episode of the season and will go down as one of the show's greatest.
You think you're emotionally prepared to watch shows cover the COVID-19 pandemic, having already braced yourself from the horrors that could be coming our way, but then something like this airs, and it undoes you in a way you didn't know was possible.
Before we get started, let's take a moment to recognize the incredible work from Nyambi Nyambi, who plays Jay.
Nyambi gave the performance of a lifetime, as Jay dealt with the PTSD of his past.
Jay: Why are we here?
Douglas: Because we’re dying.
Jay: When did you last see a doctor?
Douglas: Yesterday, no, no, it was Thursday. What’s your name?
Jay: Jay.
Douglas: I’ve reached out my hand. Can you grab it.
Jay: I’m trying.
Douglas: Let’s do this. Let’s keep each other alive, OK.
It was a tour de force, and Nyambi executed the storyline to perfection, even managing to sneak some comedy in there at times.
Due to the disjointed mess that was The Good Fight Season 5 Episode 1, we only ever got the briefest idea of what Jay went through after contracting COVID-19.
We knew he was in bad shape for a while, but he eventually recovered, more or less.
However, he's not entirely out of the woods yet, still experiencing long-term side effects from COVID-19, including vivid hallucinations of arguing historical figures.
We knew the basics, but we had no f*cking idea of the actual hell he went through.
And had it not been for Oscar Rivi's lawsuit against Harbor Hospital, Jay might not have either, as it appears he repressed some of those traumatic memories from his time there.
At first, it was unclear how much of what Jay remembered happened.
Were he and another Black COVID-19 patient named Douglas Wood put in the basement, left there to die, with no doctors or medical equipment in sight? Surely, that wasn't real.
Yes, racial disparities among COVID-19 deaths exist, so it wasn't too much of a leap to believe that Harbor Hospital reclassified some Black and Brown COVID-19 deaths as pneumonia, but leaving two gravely ill patients unattended, no, that couldn't be.
David Lee: Why the fuck aren’t you asking me? I make calls all the time.
Jay: What are you talking about?
David Lee: Well, think about it. I know everyone on the Harbor Hospital Board, did half of their divorces, went to college with the other half. I kept track of any of our troops that got sick.
Jay: You didn’t really? Did you?
David Lee: Of course, I did. It takes a call from someone like me. That’s how you get the best seat in the restaurant or a hospital room.
Jay: David, thank you.
David Lee: Jay, it was a business decision. Forget it. The moment has passed.
In a way, it wasn't because it wasn't just two patients; it was a dozen or so Black men and women, stacked like sardines in the basement with no help of any kind.
The hospital staff sentenced them to death by putting them in the pit, and it was beyond horrible.
It was bad enough when we thought it was just Jay and Douglas, but when the camera zoomed out, and we learned there were more dying Black and Brown patients there, I got a pit in my stomach that didn't go away until the end of the hour.
The events unfolding before us seemed impossible, but there it was.
Naturally, I did a quick Google search and found that COVID-19 patients have been stashed in hospital basements without proper care in other countries, so there's a good chance some hospital in the United States has done this at some point during the pandemic.
Knowing this happened makes it so much worse than if the sensationalized storyline were concocted for the show.
If that had been the case, then we could overlook the genuine possibility that this has been happening since the start of the pandemic, and that's unthinkable.
It's horrible and tragic and infuriating, but it's the truth of our world, and it's something we should know, even if it makes us feel things we don't want to feel.
Sometimes we have to confront hard truths, and other times we have to take action into our own hands and threaten blonde gun enthusiasts to come clean or face the Feds. You never know what the day has in store.
Kurt's alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack ended with somewhat of a whimper after Diane blackmailed the woman who penned the manifesto.
Diane: You need to come clean with the FBI.
Female gun enthusiast: What do you mean?
Diane: I mean you need to give the Feds all the names of the people in your group so Kurt doesn’t take the fall since he’s done nothing wrong to any of you.
Female gun enthusiast: I haven’t done anything wrong either.
Diane: I’m more ambitious for a reputation of personal courage. I recognized that phrase for a video you shot for the NRA. Straight out of Churchill, isn't it?
Female gun enthusiast: What do you want?
Diane: What I want is for you not to exist. What I’ll get is for you to go to the Feds and clear my husband of all these charges.
Female gun enthusiast: I’m not guilty. I didn’t do anything.
Diane: I don’t give a fuck. You wrote this manifesto. You’re hiding the names of your gun group, and my husband’s being fucked over in the process, so you tell the Feds he’s innocent.
Female gun enthusiast: I have to pick up my daughter.
Diane: Yes, I know. I checked you out online. I think it’s strange that a dedicated guns rights advocate would have any issues with being publicly tied to this manifesto, but I guess you’re worried what your Gymboree might think. You have until tomorrow. Then I’m telling the FBI it was you.
While it's great that the Feds are no longer after Kurt, it felt like there was more to explore with this storyline.
There was so much more drama to be mined, especially between Diane and Kurt as a couple.
Kurt wasn't even that angry over his wife's betrayal, letting it roll off his back, even though her actions could have landed him in jail.
Not that we want to see marital discord, but it feels like there at least needed to be a screaming match about Diane's betrayal or a heated argument where Diane fiercely defends her decision. Instead, we got none of that.
Also, with Kurt being cleared, we've been denied an incredible courtroom showdown between Diane and Julius versus the Feds, Madeline Starkey, and Nancy Crozier. How epic would that have been?
But with the investigation into Kurt over, it almost feels like nothing ever happened.
Kurt's not going to jail, his and Diane's marriage is still intact, and everyone but the FBI lived happily ever after.
It just feels like somewhat of a letdown after the show built up this amazing storyline, and then it gets wrapped up neatly in the span of one episode.
Diane: It’s insane for you to stay silent. I know it’s your code, your stupid cowboy code.
Kurt: You keep saying that.
Diane: Because it’s true.
Kurt: No, because I don’t like how the authorities use lies like these to get me to turn on…
Diane: Dylan Pike is going to send you to prison because he knows you won’t respond to his lies. John Wayne doesn’t punch first, but he does punch back.
Maybe, they didn't want to risk another unresolved storyline à la Memo 618, but it feels incomplete, almost like there's supposed to be more, but there isn't.
Am I overthinking this? Did the storyline wrap up organically? Should I trust The Good Fight to know what they're doing? Only time will tell how these questions play out.
Lastly, the television gods finally answered our prayers and gave us a little more insight into Carmen.
It wasn't much, but watching her finally be vulnerable, even for a minute, showed there's a human person underneath that tough facade, and that's someone we can root for.
Carmen puts on this haughty attitude because she wants to project confidence and legal acumen, but all it did was isolate her from the other lawyers at the firm.
It's only once she starts opening up and letting them that we begin to care about her. Carmen may not be our ride or die yet, but she's getting there.
Some stray thoughts:
-
David Lee helping Jay was both sweet and his typical assholery. It was a nice moment until David Lee ruined it by saying he would have done it for anyone, but it was still a nice reminder he's not the devil incarnate, that there's still a heart in there deep down.
-
Did anyone else think the manifesto the Feds found at Diane and Kurt's place was something leftover from Diane's Book Club days at first? Were you disappointed when it turned out someone else wrote it?
-
Since Isabel is Deaf, why didn't Oscar sign? He clearly understands sign language, so why doesn't he sign when he talks to her instead of forcing her to read his lips?
So what did you think, Good Fight fanatics?
What's your take on Harbor Hospital's atrocities?
Was Kurt let off the hook too easily?
Are you starting to care about Carmen?
Don't forget to hit the comments below to let me know your thoughts.
Jessica Lerner was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in October 2021.
