Well, they can't all be winners. That seems to be the moral of The Good Fight, three episodes in, and applies to "The Schtup List." Spoiler warning!
The Good Wife was known for its fast-paced, high-stakes race against time episodes, something the legal drama almost always did well. But The Good Fight's first attempt at one failed to recapture the sense of urgency its predecessor almost always succeeded in conveying. Lucca (Cush Jumbo) and Diane (Christine Baranski) were tasked with defending their malpractice client when he was arrested for aiding a terrorist.
A brief rewind: Zachary Knighton from Happy Endings played a world-class surgeon working with Doctors Without Borders and providing Skype support to medical professionals in Syria. He was helping a dentist operate on a man via Skype when he was arrested.
Turns out the patient wasn't a terrorist, but a US citizen and brother to a known terrorist. He was over there to try and convince him to come home. In a Good Fight twist, turns out both Lucca and new addition Colin Morello (Justin Bartha) were being used to draw out the terrorist brother who was then killed in an airstrike. So was the patient, despite Lucca's win in court to allow the doctor to continue guiding the procedure over Skype.
The best part of the episode was the thawing of the relationship between Diane and Lucca, which began with a handshake after their court win.
Lucca and Colin are destined to be the show's new couple, which would feel more forced if it weren't for the pairing being placed in Jumbo's capable hands. She could have chemistry with a wall.
The urgency of the court case was sidelined with the other storylines of the episode, causing a disjointed experience. There were attempts at threading together the stories, but it never really gelled. Maia (Rose Leslie) was off in her own world, facing off with her mother (Bernadette Peters), confronting her uncle and trying to help her father (Paul Guilfoyle) by obtaining Uncle Jax's "schtup list." A serialized story like the Ponzi scheme is most welcome, however it would be more compelling if Diane and Lucca were tied to it in a closer manner.
Meanwhile, Marissa (Sarah Steele) got her feet wet with the firm's investigator (Nyambi Nyambi) and Adrian (Delroy Lindo), Barbara (Erica Tazel) and Julius (Michael Boatman) attempted to re-secure a business contract with a very pro-Trump administration company. Julius was brought in because he voted for Donald Trump. Yep, it didn't take long for The Good Fight to get more political.
Gasp count: Zero.
Expletive count: Three f—ks, one s—t.
The Good Fight premieres new episodes on CBS All Access on Sundays.