The Good Fight Season 5 Episode 6 Review: And the two partners had a fight...
Jessica Lerner
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Sometimes there is no right or wrong answer.
We live in a world of ambiguity and gray, but the way Diane went about things The Good Fight Season 5 Episode 6 doesn't paint her in the best light.
She made a decision that ensured her future at the firm, but it may have cost her a good friend in the process.
One of the overarching themes of the season has been whether Diane, as a white woman, should give up her name partnership at a Black law firm, only one of a few in Chicago.
That's a complicated and nuanced issue, and kudos to the series for portraying all sides of the issue.
Diane: Well that’s unfortunate. We’ve represented people far worse than Kurt, who by the way was found innocent.
Liz: I’m not saying that he wasn’t, but Jan. 6, we watched the Confederate flag make its way to the Capitol building. The people that Kurt didn’t want to turn over to the FBI, those people, they don’t even want us alive.
Diane: Well, not all of them. I’m sorry I didn’t mean that. I’m certainly not defending those people. They’re all despicable traitors.
Liz: And now that’s what people are saying about Julius.
Diane: And me?
Liz: Diane…
Diane: Am I being pushed out?
Liz: No, not pushed out. You’re a name partner. You can't be pushed out.
Diane: But…
Liz: The partners just think you should do the right thing.
Diane: And step aside?
Liz: Stay in the firm, stay as an equity partner. Just step back from your managerial role.
Diane: Liz, I pull in the big clients. I get the billable hours, but maybe you should step aside. Weren’t we going to form a firm led by women?
Liz: And I hope that it will be.
Diane: But Black women?
Liz: Diane, I am not voting against you. I promised you I wouldn’t but there is growing anger here. They want to address it at the next partners meeting, so you just think about it. You’re a good person.
Diane: No, I’m not.
Liz: Yes you are.
You have Kurt arguing the race and gender shouldn't factor into the equation, and it should be about a lawyer's worth and value; dream Ruth Bader Ginsburg who reminds Diane she shouldn't let others tell her to step aside, not when she knows what she can do; and Liz and the other Black senior partners, who believe a white woman shouldn't be the face of a Black law firm.
Diane is in a tough spot, and she wants to do the right thing, though she's unsure what that is.
On the one hand, she gets that the morally sound thing to do would be to step down, but on the other hand, she's worked her ass off to get where she is despite her gender and age.
As I've mentioned, there is no one right way to handle this situation, but the way Diane goes about it leans more toward wrong than ambiguous.
If she had ultimately decided to fight for her name partnership on her merit alone and what she brings to the firm, as she wanted at the start of the season, that decision would have fallen firmly in a gray area.
However, her machinations by circumventing the chain of command and going over Liz's head to David Lee was somewhat underhanded and maybe even a little manipulative.
Diane knew her secretly racist -- or at least racist adjacent -- clients would be more "comfortable" with her than another Black partner, and since they contribute to STR Laurie's bottom line, her plan all but ensured she would retain her place at the table.
It was a bold move on Diane's part, and while she kept her name on the door, there's bound to be fallout.
David Lee: What the fuck is going on?
Diane: Could you be a bit more specific?
David Lee: My bosses in Dubai, they don’t think in terms of millions or even billions. They think in terms of trillions of dollars. They look at their computer’s algorithms and only react when it blinks red, and you two, you’re blinking red.
Liz: Why?
David Lee: Four of your top clients have called with issues.
Liz: What issues?
David Lee: The teamsters, they’re being shifted to another partner. Bob the Fracking King, he’s being shifted too. Who told them about a reorganization?
Liz: Diane, thoughts?
Diane: Nothing from me. I met with my clients. I just told them of the restructuring I was being told about.
David Lee: What restructuring?
Liz: Wait, David, wait. Is this a powerplay on your part?
Diane: No, it’s just updating my clients.
Liz: David, Diane was told about frustration at the partner level about a white woman being a name partner in a Black firm, and apparently, this is her response.
Diane: I just told our clients what was going on.
David Lee: Stop, both of you. Diane’s a fucking name partner until STR Laurie says she’s not. No one decides until I decide. Stick your race war back in its bottle.
Liz, for one, has supported Diane since the jump and kept her promise about not forcing Diane out of the firm.
They've become good friends over the past few seasons, and Diane's scheming could spell the end of their friendship.
Additionally, the other Black senior partners and associates won't be happy when they find out.
They were insistent that a white woman should not be the face of a Black law firm -- let alone one with a supposed white supremacist as a husband -- and were readying to talk action of some sort.
However, when they find out that their voices have little bearing on who runs the firm, it'll only make them louder and embolden them to enact change.
We could be talking about protests, strikes, suddenly quitting en masse, going to the press, even suing the firm and its name partners. Nothing is off the table.
It'll be interesting to see how the rest of this storyline plays out, and hopefully, the series will hold off on coming to a definitive conclusion because it's much more thought-provoking when we live in the gray.
For Diane, her place within the firm wasn't the only stressor, as she also had to contend with Kurt taking a position at the NRA.
The marrieds politics have always been different, but Liz was right when she said the Capitol attack changed some things.
Diane: What about Kurt?
Dream Ruth Bader Ginsburg: What about him?
Diane: We don’t agree about anything.
Dream Ruth Bader Ginsburg: I didn’t agree with anything with Scalia, but I liked him.
Diane: Yeah, why did you like him? The opera?
Dream Ruth Bader Ginsburg: No.
Diane: Then what then?
Dream Ruth Bader Ginsburg: He made me laugh.
Diane: That’s it?
Dream Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Yeah.
Diane: You certainly didn’t agree about abortion.
Dream Ruth Bader Ginsburg: We violently disagreed about abortion and school prayer. He was a nightmare on everything. He was a nightmare on diversity, but he was funny. He made me laugh, so we had dinner together.
Diane: So you just wouldn’t talk about the political stuff?
Dream Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Well, he teased me. I teased him. You know life is too short to fight over everything, and you’re right about opera. Opera is good. Food is good. And his pasta was amazing. His spaghetti carbonara… my lord. You can’t hate a man like that.
Diane: My husband is going to work for the NRA.
Dream Ruth Bader Ginsburg: You ever read Scalia’s 2000 dissent on Stenberg v. Carhart? Working with the NRA is child’s play. You like who you like. I don’t like bland people, and a lot of the people who agree with me politically are bland.
Pre-Trump was it easier to overlook political differences because there was an inherent understanding that we all stood for the same things at heart.
Still, over the past few years, it's become harder to reconcile those differences, something that's nearly impossible in some instances since Jan. 6.
And Kurt taking a job with the NRA, after being accused of an insurrectionist behind the Capitol attack, could have proved too much for Diane.
Yes, they love each other, but they are very different people at their core, so you have to wonder when love is no longer enough.
Diane certainly had her fair share of worries this installment as she pondered if Kurt's politics were too different than hers, but in the end, love won out.
At some point, it may not be enough, but for now, Diane was able to push past her worries and realize she wants her husband to be happy.
That's all Kurt wants for her as well, as he was willing to pass on the job if Diane felt that strongly about it.
Time and time again, this couple proves they can handle anything the world throws at them, and if they've managed to weather everything so far on The Good Fight Season 5, then maybe we -- or at least I -- should start believing it too.
Elsewhere, Wackner was sued and found himself in an actual courtroom, and through that storyline, we found out that the 9¾ Circuit Court may not have the idealized romance we initially thought.
Because beneath the silly costumes, ludicrous courtroom rules, and an inane judge, there was something pure and magical about the 9¾ Circuit Court.
Attorney Schultz: What, if any, appropriate instructions were you given as to appropriate wardrobe?
Garrison: I was told to wear a moose suit.
Judge Farley: I’m sorry, what?
Garrison: I had to wear a moose suit.
Judge Farley: A moose suit? What is a moose suit?
Garrison: It’s a suit that looks like a moose. It has a straw hat and a basket.
It was a place trying to right the failings and shortfalls of the justice system without being weighed down by red tape or bureaucracy.
The facsimile was doing something important and necessary, and now it appears there may be something more sinister afoot.
It's unclear who sent those thugs to "change" Garrison's mind, but someone from Wackner's team -- whether it be David Cord, Del Cooper, or even Wackner himself -- sent them to beat the douchey video game creator into submission.
Garrison's suit against Wackner threatened to derail everything the fake judge and his associates were creating -- not to mention endangering the reality show and presumed millions in profits -- and someone took matters into their own hands to ensure that didn't happen.
Only Marissa is cleared of suspicion because everyone else had a lot riding on the success of the 9¾ Circuit Court.
It comes down to money for David Cord and Del Cooper, but for Wackner, there's something more at play.
Wackner couldn't care less if the 9¾ Circuit Court or the reality show turn a profit; for the fake judge, it's about his pride and belief that he's doing something great and life-changing.
Therefore, any actions taken to ensure the court's success, such as putting a man in a wheelchair, could be written off for the greater good.
That's not to say what happened to Garrison was OK on any level, but utilitarianism could be used as an excuse for the perpetrator.
Liz: Let’s ask for a continuance. We’ll be unopposed from the other side. They’re in no hurry to force this issue.
Wackner: A continuance until when?
Liz: Well, the judge has a busy calendar, so I don’t know, about 10 months.
Wackner: Holy fucking hell, that’s a problem. No one’s in a hurry. We delay, delay, delay. One day, look back on our lives, wondering where the fuck they went. People die while we wait.
Marissa: Hal, this allows you to keep your court open. It gives you the whole year to work out the kinks and get it on TV.
Wackner: What does it matter if people do not have to follow my judgments? I say $6 million, and they just go whining to big boy court. It’s appeal, appeal, appeal. It never fucking ends.
So while it's saddening that the 9¾ Circuit Court's integrity has been perverted in a way, it only makes me that much more interested in the storyline.
Before, it was this idealized vision of what reformation could be; now, it's an exploration of when good intentions go too far. Way more juicier and exciting.
Some stray thoughts:
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If we have to go through creating yet another law firm, I'm going to lose it. That was essentially all the later seasons of The Good Wife were, and with the rotating door of name partners and lawyers on this series, I can't take any more new law firm surprises.
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Was anyone else a little uncomfortable watching Jesse Tyler Ferguson play a swearing douchebag after portraying loving father Mitchell Pritchett on Modern Family for 11 years? Those two characters could not be more different, and it was a little jarring to see.
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Now that yet another high-profile client has become involved with Wackner's people court after meeting the fake judge in Reddick, Lockhart & Associates' elevator, should the firm invest in a full-time security guard to ensure no more chance meetings happen?
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Donk is like Slack but on steroids. Imagine hearing that ding notification 20 times a minute. I'd go crazy.
So what did you think, Good Fight Fanatics?
Did Diane go too far?
What will be the fallout from her machinations?
Is something sinister afoot at the the 9¾ Circuit Court?
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.
