'The Good Fight' Season 4 Episode 1 Review: Diane wakes up to a world where Trump is just an absurd dream
Spoilers for 'The Good Fight' Season 4, Episode 1 'The Gang Deals With Alternate Reality'
It's rare that It-Was-All-A-Dream stories are ever all that satisfying, but with their season premiere, 'The Good Fight' might have found the perfect way to do it - to let you know, right from the start, that it's a dream, that none of this is going to last, and that the question to focus on is this: What does the dream say about the world we find ourselves in?
There are many who dream of being able to just wake up and find out that Donald Trump's presidency was all a ridiculous nightmare, and that the biggest a presidential scandal can be is how much they pay for their haircut.
Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) wakes up to one such world, one where Hillary Clinton won the election and has been the president of the United States for the past five years. It's not often that a law show gets to have a 'What if?' episode, and 'The Good Fight' milks it for all it's worth.
The first half of the episode is a hilarious barrage of jokes that put into perspective just how ridiculous things have gotten since Trump took the presidency.
Marissa Gold's (Sarah Steele) confusion when Diane says Trump lost the election despite Hillary having 3 million more votes is priceless. Even the title sequence, of exploding objects, is reversed in this new world - broken objects are instead on the mend. The rainforest is saved. They cured cancer!
It all takes a sour turn, as in this world, outrage against Trump never led to a Women's March. The missing outrage means that #MeToo never gained ground, and figures like Harvey Weinstein were never outed or brought to justice for their harassment and rape.
It's arguable how realistic that change is, but the show runs with it, and given that it's all a dream anyway, the show clearly expects the audience to just go with it as well - at least for the sake of argument.
There's always a downside to attaining an impossible dream, and in this case, it's women who can't come forward because it's so important to maintain the message that women have never had it better.
The dream of Hillary in the White House is the dream of women having finally "won", and for that dream to stay alive, it's necessary that stories of abuse and assault stay quiet.
It's unlikely that a Hillary win would have led to a world where women sweep lies back under the rug quite as drastically as shown in the show, but the question that the show brings up is clear - would a Hillary win have meant more complacency from the world? Less outrage? Again, it's debatable, but highly debatable questions are what the show is all about.
The emotional highlight of the episode comes in resolving Season 3's cliffhanger, reminding audiences that there's a possible SWAT shooting to be resolved.
That Diane has spent so much time dreaming implies a head injury, or worse, that either her or her husband, Kurt McVeigh (Gary Cole), are dead. The dream's slow turn to nightmare is brilliantly done and brilliantly brought to an end, building up a sense of powerful anxiety as to Diane and Kurt's fate.
The sense of relief in finding out that both of them are alive and well is equally powerful, and once again, 'The Good Fight' shows just how to play to its audience in one of the most fun episodes the show's ever had.
'The Good Fight' is off to a delightful start, and the season teases a lot more intrigue, conspiracy, and hilarity to come.
The next episode of 'The Good Fight' airs April 9, on CBS All Access.