Cupertino Review: Lawyers Take Aim at Big Tech in Robert and Michelle King's Latest Winner

Maybe it's obvious, but I think it should be said often and with enthusiasm: The Kings know how to make great TV. Writing, directing, and producing husband-and-wife duo Robert and Michelle King have shown this to be true time and time again, and with their latest television series, the Silicon Valley-focused legal drama Cupertino, they've done it again. Simply put, the Kings know all the elements that are necessary to make compelling TV, and they know how to calibrate those elements perfectly to make even a well-trod genre, like a legal drama, feel fresh. Cupertino, which is a perfect blend of the Kings' The Good Fight and Evil, is a great showcase for how they continue to pull off this magic trick, and it mostly boils down to one word: specificity. Specificity in character, in location, and in tone totally upends your expectations for what you think you'll be getting when you hear the "legal show taking on Big Tech" pitch, delivering what's honestly a hot commodity these days — something exciting and, dare I say, fun?

A serious question: How do Robert and Michelle King make pilot episodes seem so easy? We know they're not. Even good shows can have rough starts, the kind where you can feel the show setting the table and getting mired in clunky exposition dumps. Cupertino's pilot showcases how efficient, confident world building, and trusting your audience, separates the cumbersome pilots from the great ones. Instead of some lengthy preamble, the first three minutes feature our two leads — savvy and seasoned attorney Michael Price (Mike Colter) and mild-mannered but determined newbie lawyer Olivia Siffre (Rachel Keller) — getting escorted off the premises of tech start-up S-Talk after getting fired. Simply by showing us what's in each of their boxes of personal items, the show gives us a basic understanding of who they are (plus, Michael's features a "David" protein bar, perhaps both a reference to the David-versus-Goliath premise of the series and a nice nod to Colter's beloved Evil character, David Acosta). Then, in a quick interaction outside the offices in which Michael hands Olivia a mint to help her stop crying, we not only get the beginning of their unlikely friendship but an introduction to Cupertino's just on the edge of off-kilter tone. And then we're off. 

The rest of the episode expands on their backstories, their unlikely team-up, and how their fight for justice over their wrongful terminations leads them to decide to, as Michael puts it, fight for the "Davids" in Silicon Valley against the Big Tech "Goliaths." While this is a pilot that is building to the show's main premise, it never feels like the destination is the whole point — every story beat feels purposeful in revealing who these characters are and what kind of world we'll be spending time in. It's an episode that makes the show feel like it has arrived fully realized. There's no hesitancy or shaking off our sea legs before things really get going. 

This confidence is felt in small ways, in choices that are full of unexpected quirks, like a shot of Olivia climbing over her parents to grab her phone while they're asleep in her bed during a visit to her tiny one-bedroom apartment. And it's felt in major ways, like how quickly the show introduces Michael's father, the ethically dubious celebrity lawyer Bayard Diamond (Joe Morton), and reveals just how much power this tense relationship has over Michael. (Whoever decided Morton should play this role deserves a raise; Colter and Morton going head to head is a gift that keeps on giving.) Cupertino could have wasted time just teasing Michael's daddy issues; instead, it's unafraid to dive right in upon arrival.

9.0

Cupertino

at CBS

Like

• The performances of and chemistry between the main trio
• The confidence in tone and storytelling
• Cleverly mines hefty subject matter for both horror and humor

Dislike

• There's an unnecessary love triangle brewing that feels distractingly out of place

And this show only gets better the deeper we're immersed in its world. (Critics were given the first 10 episodes in advance.) Colter and Keller have an easy and compelling opposites-platonically-attract chemistry. And isn't it unexpectedly refreshing to watch characters who genuinely care about and support each other sans any kind of melodramatic or saccharine notes? But much like Evil, the show really clicks into place once Cupertino's main trio is pulled together with the introduction of scrappy receptionist-slash-investigator Christy Palladino (Ella Stiller). The fact that all of her resources almost exclusively come from her incredibly wide-reaching blue collar extended family and her ties to TGI Friday's are running gags that never get old, but more importantly, she offers a great balance to our two other main characters. Michael, Olivia, and Christy are complementary in ways that make them a great team, but their personalities and worldviews are different enough that there's some exciting friction there, too. Colter, Keller, and Stiller have great timing and a fun, sparkly rapport. 

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Like with the Kings' other shows, the great casting and performances spill over into the supporting ensemble. Busy Philipps is fun as Michael and Olivia's financial backer, Natalie Boutella, a woman who became a billionaire after her tech CEO husband (played with effective sliminess by Fisher Stevens) ditched her for a younger model. Philipps finds that perfect balance between Natalie's scorned-woman motivations, her out-of-touch rich lady tendencies, and her underlying heart. And hey, Girls5eva fans rejoice, because Philipps does, in fact, share screen time with her former co-star and Kings-universe favorite Renée Elise Goldsberry. Did I cheer when Goldsberry shows up in Cupertino — they give her a real entrance — as Michael's ex and formidable opponent across the courtroom aisle? Of course I did. Thanks to the taste we got on Evil, I knew she and Colter would have piping hot chemistry (they do, they really do!), and I knew she'd devour every scene she's in. (And she does, she really does.) In true Kings fashion, every character, regardless of how small the role, is dripping in personality. In just the first 10 episodes, we're treated to memorable judges and lawyers played by the likes of Jackie Earle Haley, Jackie Hoffman, and Evan Handler, which surely points to a bevy of excellent character actors coming our way as the series continues. It's a feast of performances and unexpected characters to delight in!

If rock solid performances and perfect casting are par for the course on a Kings show, what really takes Cupertino to a new level is the way it tackles its subject matter. Not only could a series about all the ways the tech titans lording over Silicon Valley have infiltrated nearly every aspect of our lives be terrifying and bleak, but it could also become one note. Not on Cupertino. Yes, there are storylines and aspects of this show that are terrifying and bleak (at times it's more stomach churning than Evil was), but within that always-present undercurrent of fear, the show can still find humor. It handles the horror of what AI, and AI-on-steroids, AGI (artificial general intelligence), can do with the same deftness and nuance as it does the indignities of Zoom calls and rideshares. Cupertino deftly serves up social commentary with both heft and high entertainment value — which is maybe the best way to get people to pay attention to the current state of things. (A spoonful of sugar, and all that.) What fun it is to find a show that can take a well-worn format, infuse it with such a specific, offbeat tone, and fill it with characters with nuance and charm, so that it not only feels of the moment but meets the moment, too. 

Premieres: Thursday, Oct. 8 at 10/9c on CBS
Who's in it: Mike Colter, Rachel Keller, Ella Stiller, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Busy Philipps, Nik Dodani
Who's behind it: Robert and Michelle King
For fans of: Robert and Michelle King's oeuvre, unlikely team-ups, sticking it to the man
How many episodes we watched: 10 of 20