The Good Fight Takes on "Fake News" and Gets a Villain

Matthew Perry returns to stir up trouble

By Chris Harnick Mar 05, 2017 2:00 PMTags
Watch: Cush Jumbo Dishes on Her Character's "Good Fight"

Now this felt more like an episode of The Good Fight (and The Good Wife). After a bit of a stumble last week, "Henceforth Known as Property" stepped back up to the plate. And while it didn't quite knock it out of the park, the episode was definitely a triple play.

The success of the episode is due mostly to the main case and the conversation we've been waiting for between Diane (Christine Baranski) and Barbara (Erica Tazel). The reason it wasn't a homerun? The return of Matthew Perry's Mike Kresteva (was anybody demanding this?) and Maia's "fake news" story.

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The Good Fight First Look: Return to the World of The Good Wife

 Case of the week: Lucca and Diane are tasked with helping a woman recover eggs she donated to a fertility clinic since they weren't used in the five year-span of her contact. After ovarian cancer, this was the only way she could get pregnant with her own child. What followed was a wild goose chase to find the remaining ova and get it back to the client—which required a court battle. End of the day, they won, and the client would be able to have her child should everything go her way.

"Do you regret not having children?" Barbara asked Diane.

"Sometimes," Diane said.

"When are the sometimes?" Barbara asked

"With my husband…" Diane said, adding she would look at Kurt (Gary Cole) and think about how he would raise their kids. She then went to call Kurt, remember they're estranged, but hung up before getting him on the phone! Give me the Diane and Kurt romance rekindling!

CBS

Over in Maia (Rose Leslie) land, her ex-boyfriend set up a Twitter bot to impersonate her and generate fake news. It only took four episodes for The Good Fight to tackle "fake news," but maybe if they waited a little longer it would've been handled better. Maia still feels like she's living in her own world, sort of like when Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) would go off on her own adventures on The Good Wife after she stopped having scenes with Alicia. The show works better when all stories are related, even if it is in the slightest bit.

 

Meanwhile, one of the most annoying character's to ever grace the show, Mike Kresteva, returned. This gave the characters a villain to unite in the face of, which is fine, but his character is just so unlikable…so he's doing his job. As a special prosecutor, he was tasked with curbing police brutality cases. Naturally Mike's plan was to sue and destroy the firm that handles the majority of those suits, so he targets Diane's new firm and makes up blatant lies about their conversations.

Next week: Carrie Preston!

Gasp count: One.
Expletive count: Three f—ks, one s—t.

The Good Fight airs on CBS All Access.