The Good Fight Season 5 premiere recap: Previously On…

The Good Fight Season 5 officially kicked off this week, and it was every bit glorious as it has ever been. Last May the series had to cut its fourth season short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and suffice to say, it ended on a very weird note.

The one thing I love about this show is how intelligently it conveys its sociopolitical platform. They aren’t afraid to be brutally honest and shed light on some of the most important topics in our world today. But they do it in such a hilariously, in-your-face manner, and I can never get enough of it. It’s honestly an extremely underrated show–more people need to watch it!

In any case, The Good Fight Season 5 premiere, “Previously On…” took us through the brutal and tragic events of 2020 including the pandemic, the election, and George Floyd’s murder. Many shows have covered these events, but some have gone about it the wrong way. This series, however, does it in a way that we’re not taken down memory lane (let’s be honest, we don’t need to keep reliving 2020) in a jarring way.

Apart from the chaos of 2020, the Season 5 premiere bids farewell to two characters, Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo) and Adrian Boseman (Delroy Lindo). Both Jumbo and Lindo came back to film their farewells even though their run was meant to end in Season 4. And I’m so glad they did because they’re two of the best characters in the series, and saying bye was hard enough. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if they didn’t return for a proper send-off.

And with that, let’s recap some of the major moments from The Good Fight Season 5 premiere!

The Good Fight Season 5 premiere recap: Two farewells

Under the disguise of a legal drama, The Good Fight tackles current events in an intriguing way season after season. It’s very deliberate in its approach, which is what makes it so entertaining to watch. The series has primarily focused on a lot of political angst and turmoil and for a while, their subject was on the Trump administration.

They’ve taken a step back from that in the Season 5 premiere which accurately depicts the events of 2020. Still, I half expected some passive-aggressive dialogue in there but 2020 was difficult enough so I get it.

As I mentioned already, we bid farewell to two major characters in the Season 5 premiere. Let’s start with Jumbo’s Quinn. During the pandemic, Jumbo had shifted back to London so she wasn’t able to join the cast and crew in the United States to film any scenes in person. However, the series found a seamless way to incorporate her in for one final episode.

Since last season, Quinn has been working for multi-billionaire Bianca (Chasten Harmon), and it’s because of a job offer from her that Quinn decides to leave the law firm. Reddick, Boseman, and Lockhart did their utmost best to match the offer, but getting up to $1.3 million is not exactly an easy feat. Not only was Quinn get a ridiculous pay raise, but Bianca decided to make her CFO of her company.

I loved seeing Jumbo a part of the premiere and I love that she was able to join from across the pond. She’s been an integral part of not only this series but its predecessor The Good Wife. She will be missed and is leaving behind a void that will never be filled.

I’d say the same about Lindo’s Adrian who has carried the series with his dark humor and wit. The Season 5 premiere puts Adrian on the path for the 2024 Presidential Election, which could have been an interesting arc to follow had he stuck around.

In one hour, The Good Fight somehow managed to wrap up both of these characters’ storylines in a bittersweet way. It’s often a show that can pull off such a surreal feat, but if anyone can do it, it’s this series.

The Good Fight Season 5 premiere recap: 2020 in an hour

As quickly and coherently as they were able to (it got rough at times), The Good Fight manages to cover the highlights of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, they had to make sure one of their characters actually got it so the audience could feel that they did their best to incorporate it.

At the start of the episode, Jay (Nyambi Nyambi) comes down with a fit of sweats and breathing problems which eventually leads to a COVID-19 diagnosis. Everyone around him seems to be taking the whole thing in stride, and I’m honestly quite surprised they overlooked the fact that some of them should have gotten sick too.

I mean, Adrian was literally in the ambulance with him, unmasked. But I guess for the purpose of storytelling, they decided to skip over that little tidbit.

As the pandemic brewed throughout the year, the series covered George Floyd’s murder as well. That devastating tragedy causes Adrian to veer away from the election as he makes the decision to move to Atlanta instead. He wants to be on the ground there making political change, which he doesn’t feel he’ll be able to do if he chooses to run. I loved this storyline for him!

While Jay is in the hospital, he eventually recovers but has a strange sequence of scenes where he hallucinates Malcolm X (Clifton Duncan), Fredrick Douglass (Ben Vereen), Jesus (Brandon Mendez Homer), and Karl Marx (Steven Skybell) are in the room with him. In this hallucination, Jay is seeking their advice about the protests happening around the world due to George Floyd’s murder. He doesn’t know what he should be doing, and so he conjures up some of the most iconic men in history to help him through it.

I understood the sentiment behind this scene, but it didn’t quite land in the way I think they were hoping. It carried important implications but it was carried out in a messy manner and just placed between all the sub-stories that were taking place throughout the episode.

A for effort!

The Good Fight Season 5 premiere recap: The election

The banter between Diane and Kurt (Gary Cole) during the election results is absolutely hilarious. The series focused on their political differences a couple of seasons ago, and now this couple has just fully embraced their drastically different political ideologies.

Diane watches with anxiety as the results play out on CNN, overcome with anxiety over whether or not Trump will win. She refuses to do anything that might jinx it, and I love that Kurt goes along with it.

A bit prior to the November election, we see Diane cope with the news that Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away just as she was getting ready to present a case to the Supreme Court. It crushes Diane’s heart, and it took me back to the moment that I found out as well. Sigh, 2020 really did suck.

The premiere flourishes in the aspects this show always has, with a touch of surreal nonsense that somehow pulls you in. The storytelling in this series is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and I simply can’t wait to see how the rest of this season plays out.

Three cheers for The Good Fight’s return!

What did you think of The Good Fight season 5 premiere? Tells us in the comments below!