The Good Fight: Is Now the Time for Maia and Diane to Shine?

"Not So Grand Jury" is the seventh episode of The Good Fight's 10-episode season, and it felt like something of a climax to the season. Mike Kresteva's (Matthew Perry) investigation into the firm fully merged with the Rindell scandal, giving the latter some actual sense of relevance to the overall show (it's been drifting around all season, like a Dickens ghost, rattling its chain when it needs attention).

Both storylines -- the DOJ investigation and the Rindell scandal -- have also been two of the most prominent ongoing plots for the show so far (Lucca's [Cush Jumbo] romance with Colin [Justin Bartha] being the other one, and arguably the most consistent of the three story engines), and they both experienced a sort of resolution in this episode. Kresteva's investigation is likely stalled thanks to his deal with Henry (Paul Guilfoyle) going public; meanwhile, with the deal off the table, the Rindell plot is just a matter of untangling who did what over the next three episodes.

With this quasi-resolution -- I don't still really care about the Rindell aspect of the show; be it Henry or Jax (Tom McGowan), I'm not sure it matters who schemed to do what at this point -- Maia (Rose Leslie) more or less cut ties with her father over his willingness to do in her new firm and Diane (Christine Baranski) for a significantly reduced sentence for himself. Spurred on by the loyalty espoused by Adrian (Delroy Lindo) to Diane in an earlier scene, she likely fed the details of the deal so it would be a part of the record and scuttle whatever chance of a deal Henry would have, dooming him to prison for life.

On the other side of the cutting ties spectrum, Diane was ready to resign to save her new home and firm over an issue of shared information regarding the case that ended up bringing Diane to Reddick, Boseman & Kolstad in the first place. It's a pattern of behavior for her, and an understandable one. Partners in Lockhart-Gardner, in its many forms, would've been scheming to force her out for even less than this. However, Adrian recognized the power of fighting together, of staying loyal to one another, and refused Diane's resignation.

All of this is, truly, the best thing possible for The Good Fight. Based on the pilot, I was expecting and hoping for a show in which Diane and Maia navigated this life together, but they've largely been separated for much of the season, Diane doing what she can to reclaim some semblance her life and standing and Maia doing... whatever it is Maia does when she's not recording her father with her phone. It's been just a smidge frustrating not seeing that relationship get any sunlight at all, let alone blossom into something.

When she thought she was retiring, Diane made a big show of passing the baton to Maia. There's been no sense of follow through on that. That's understandable, now, given that Diane may not have been sure where Maia's loyalties were, and Maia herself probably didn't know, either (though she never seemed particularly pro-family throughout this season, so maybe if she and Diane just spoke more than once since, like Episode 3 or 4...).

With this affirmation of loyalty, however, to one another and to Reddick, Boseman & Kolstad, I feel like the mentoring can actually begin. It's one thing to want to pass the baton, but it's another to still be there, guiding the person you see as next in line, and that was always one of the more exciting potential aspects of The Good Fight, for me, anyway: seeing how Maia would respond to the different sort of ideological and legal approaches offered up by Diane, by Lucca, by Adrian, and by Barbara.

Thus far, that hasn't played a role in the show -- Maia apparently gets treated like an actual associate and does very little glamorous TV law work -- but now that both women feel secure in their place at the firm, perhaps they can begin to really work together, Maia carving out the next stage of her life and Diane solidifying her legacy.

The Good Fight streams new episodes on CBS All Access on Sundays.

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