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GOOD<br />
NEWS<br />
CHRISTINE BARANSKI<br />
could have walked away from her beloved<br />
THE GOOD WIFE character after the show’s<br />
series finale last year. Instead she’s<br />
found Diane Lockhart a new firm—and a new<br />
show, THE GOOD FIGHT—on the streaming<br />
service CBS All Access.<br />
By LYNETTE RICE @Lynetterice
AFTER<br />
CBS ANNOUNCED DURING LAST YEAR’S SUPER BOWL THAT<br />
The Good Wife was coming to an end, star Christine Baranski was presented<br />
with two very attractive prospects: to star in a planned spin-off<br />
of The Blacklist on NBC or stick around CBS while it figured out a way<br />
to keep her playing attorney Diane Lockhart in another drama.<br />
“There was nothing definitive in the works,” recalls the 64-year-old<br />
actress, who received six Emmy nominations for playing the grande dame<br />
of Chicago’s legal community. “Once I got a serious offer to do something<br />
else, it sort of forced the hand of everybody to say, ‘Let’s see if we can make<br />
this work.’ And let’s face it, while there are roles out there for older women,<br />
there are very few Diane Lockharts, with that kind of stature, that kind of<br />
dignity. Keeping that was as good as gold to me.”<br />
And that’s how a couple of conversations about wanting to keep court in<br />
session led to the creation of The Good Fight (debuting Feb. 19), the first<br />
drama designed specifically for the CBS All Access streaming service.<br />
Masterminded by Good Wife creators Robert and Michelle King, the sequel<br />
revolves around a newly retired Diane, who was last seen slapping Alicia<br />
Florrick (Julianna Margulies) in the May 8 finale on CBS. (In case you missed<br />
the conclusion, Alicia threw her longtime friend and colleague under the bus<br />
in an attempt to keep her husband, Peter, out of prison.) Now Diane is the<br />
one who takes it on the chin: After a financial scandal<br />
ruins her reputation and leaves her penniless, she<br />
finds a job at a previously all-African-American<br />
law firm named Reddick, Boseman & Kolstad—<br />
the only one in Chicago that’s willing to hire her.<br />
( Above )<br />
Cush Jumbo<br />
and Rose Leslie<br />
“She’s upended emotionally,” explains<br />
Baranski. “Diane has a great reputation. But<br />
it’s decimated because of a Ponzi scheme.<br />
She encouraged a lot of women’s organizations<br />
to invest in this fund. So her reputation<br />
is tainted as well. Even her own law firm that<br />
she created won’t take her back. Her foundation<br />
is rocked to the core.” (Diane’s new<br />
office—half the size of her Lockhart/Gardner<br />
digs—does still bear a few vestiges of her former<br />
life: a photo of herself with Hillary Clinton<br />
rests on a windowsill, and a pair of Manolo<br />
Blahniks sits underneath her desk.)<br />
She is joined at the firm by goddaughter Maia<br />
(Game of Thrones’ Rose Leslie), a lesbian and<br />
recent law-school grad whose father concocted<br />
the scheme that took Diane down. “I felt like I<br />
was showered with gold dust after reading the<br />
pilot,” says Leslie, who was a big fan of The Good<br />
Wife while living in the U.K. “There are so many<br />
different layers to explore. Working at an African-<br />
American law firm really piqued my interest.<br />
I’ve never seen anything like that before.”<br />
Not everything about the new drama will<br />
seem unfamiliar. Though it features plenty of<br />
new players, like Delroy Lindo as law partner<br />
Adrian Boseman and Justin Bartha as very eligible<br />
state’s attorney Colin Morrello, the sequel<br />
is chock-full of Good Wife alums. Among them:<br />
Cush Jumbo as attorney Lucca Quinn, Gary<br />
Cole as Diane’s estranged husband Kurt, and<br />
Zach Grenier as Diane’s former law partner<br />
David Lee. Alicia won’t be back—Margulies was<br />
(PREVIOUS SPREAD AND THIS PAGE) PATRICK HARBRON/CBS (2)<br />
30 EW.COM FEBRUARY 17, 2017
firm in her decision that her character’s story ended<br />
Delroy Lindo<br />
with the May finale, the Kings admit—but Sarah Steele<br />
will reprise her breakout role as Marissa, the wisecracking<br />
daughter of Eli Gold (Alan Cumming). “I was<br />
sad at the wrap party because I thought it was going to be my last time seeing<br />
all of these people,” recalls Steele, who will serve as Diane’s assistant.<br />
“Then the Kings came up to me and said, ‘Can we steal you for the spin-off<br />
in the fall?’ I was never a series regular on The Good Wife, so I thought it was<br />
going to be more of the same thing—being a super-peripheral character.<br />
Then a couple months later they called and were like, ‘Can we pitch you<br />
what we want to do?’ It was so sweet. When does that happen to actors?”<br />
When a streaming service is eager for original content that still feels familiar<br />
to its target audience, it would seem. After two-plus years in existence,<br />
CBS All Access has managed to attract one million subscribers at $5.99 a<br />
month, but repeats of Wings and Touched by an Angel aren’t enough to help it<br />
achieve a goal of 4 million by 2020. “The idea is to differentiate it from other<br />
services and give people another reason to subscribe,” said CBS Interactive<br />
chief Marc DeBevoise. Launching the latest chapter in the Star Trek franchise<br />
could have done that, but numerous creative and production issues pushed<br />
back Star Trek: Discovery to later this year, if not 2018.<br />
Enter The Good Fight, which got a major boost last fall when the Kings<br />
agreed to write all 10 episodes of the series after completing BrainDead,<br />
their second outing for CBS, which aired over the summer. “It felt wonderful<br />
to get back to these characters, because we love them,” says Michelle<br />
King, though her husband frets about having to condense so much story in<br />
fewer episodes. “I have much more sympathy for the cable people now,” he<br />
admits about having less than half the episodes per season he was given on<br />
The Good Wife. And while that won’t leave much time for some of their signature<br />
satirical bits like Darkness at Noon—the show within the show that<br />
Alicia used to watch with her daughter, Grace—they will continue to draw<br />
from our crazy culture to help spin contemporary tales.<br />
Which naturally brings us to Donald Trump. “I think we’re going to have<br />
pretty rich raw material with a Trump presidency,” says Baranski, who had to<br />
reshoot a scene for the pilot because the Kings thought Clinton would win.<br />
(Now the episode opens with a stunned Diane watching his inauguration.)<br />
“The Kings never proselytize,” the actress says. “They are not out to write a<br />
left-wing liberal show, but they incorporate what’s going on in the culture.”<br />
That said, there is one moment in the pilot that may resonate with, say,<br />
65.8 million voters. “Diane’s second scene will be her in the south of France<br />
looking for real estate, presumably as many liberals and Democrats are<br />
threatening, ‘I’m getting out of here!’” Baranski says, adding, “It’s kind of<br />
funny. I think it will play out as like a wish fulfillment for a lot of people.” <br />
BACK ON<br />
THE CASE<br />
The Good Fight boasts a deep<br />
bench of familiar guest stars. Here’s who<br />
we’re most excited to see again.<br />
GARY COLE<br />
Kurt McVeigh<br />
Diane’s right-wing<br />
ballistics-expert husband,<br />
whom Alicia Florrick<br />
exposed as an adulterer<br />
in the Good Wife finale<br />
MICHAEL BOATMAN<br />
Julius Cain<br />
An equity partner in<br />
Diane’s former firm who<br />
moved from Chicago<br />
to its New York office<br />
ZACH GRENIER<br />
David Lee<br />
Diane’s longtime law<br />
partner and resident<br />
curmudgeon<br />
CARRIE PRESTON<br />
Elsbeth Tascioni<br />
The shrewd yet astonishingly<br />
scatterbrained lawyer<br />
who routinely came to<br />
Alicia’s aid<br />
JERRY ADLER<br />
Howard Lyman<br />
A former equity partner at<br />
Lockhart/Gardner known for<br />
napping with his pants off<br />
JOHN BENJAMIN HICKEY<br />
Neil Gross<br />
The smug and extremely<br />
wealthy founder of<br />
Chumhum, the drama’s<br />
fictional version of Google<br />
MATTHEW PERRY<br />
Mike Kresteva<br />
An attorney and spouter<br />
of alternative facts who<br />
ran against Peter Florrick<br />
for governor<br />
DENIS O’HARE<br />
Judge Abernathy<br />
A liberal-leaning magistrate<br />
who’s been an acquaintance<br />
of Diane’s for years<br />
LINDO: PATRICK HARBRON/CBS; COLE: JEFF NEUMANN/CBS/GETTY IMAGES; BOATMAN, PRESTON, PERRY: DAVID M. RUSSELL/CBS (3); GRIENER: JUSTIN STEPHENS/CBS; ADLER: MYLES ARONOWITZ/CBS; HICKEY: DAVID GIESBRECHT/CBS; O’HARE: DAVID M. RUSSELL/CBS/GETTY IMAGES<br />
32 EW.COM FEBRUARY 17, 2017