“The Good Fight” Episode 109 Recap: Guilty Non-Pleasures

Life is weird, isn’t it? I mean, think about it, human existence is a trip. And it just gets weirder as we get older. And that goes for the world as well. Sharing similar existential waiting room chit-chat are Maia and Lucca. Oh, did I mention what waiting room they’re waiting in? Yeah, it’s the FBI. The world, man. It’s a trip.

If you look very closely, you can tell the exact moment each day someone remembers that Donald Trump is president.

Maia is there to talk with federal agent Madeline Starkey about the Rindell Ponzi Scheme. And, wouldn’t you know it, our wily investigator is played by none other than our very own Jane Lynch. She is more Joyce Wischnia than Sue Sylvester here, with just a touch of that folksy lesbian purebred dog owner pragmatism from Christy Cummings thrown in for good measure.

Agent Starkey starts them off with a joke about NSA spying on her emails, because nothing makes an American citizen feel more at ease than the reminder of our federal government’s seemingly limitless ability to track even our most minute activities at any second of any day. Makes me feel safe. You know, like a warm blanket is slowly choking the individual liberty out of me to protect me from the beyond infinitesimal chance foreign-born terrorists will come into my home and murder me in my sleep.

Lucca reminds Agent Starkey that Maia is there under the terms of the “proffer” from the U.S. Attorney’s office, and cannot be prosecuted for any truthful thing she says. That sounds great. But, like the poor birds that keep flying directly into the office windows would attest if they weren’t dead, not everything that looks like clear, open skies in fact is clear, open skies.

Who misses wearing tracksuits to work? This gal.

Back at the Reddick, Boseman & Kolstad law offices, Adrian asks Diane to join him on the way to meet their latest police brutality client. So I guess he won out in the power struggle with Reddick? He has been tipped off that a well-known dirty cop, Officer Throeau, was the arresting officer in the case. Adrian and Diane are both excited about the prospect of finally kicking him off the force, until they come face-to-face with the victim.

Because he is not the young black man waiting in the holding pen. It’s the rich white guy who is whining about blood on his Egyptian cotton tuxedo shirt instead. The Good Wife watchers will also know him as the very wealthy, very creepy former client of Lockhart/Gardner who may (or let’s face it probably did) kill his wife, Colin Sweeney.

I get that race-swapping of the police brutality victim here is supposed to point out the absurdity of the reverse racism and All Lives Matter set. But I think that message gets muted for all of us who weren’t already TGW watchers and instead need to Google “Colin Sweeney” just to to figure out what a pretty terrible human person he is in the first place. Granted, comparing himself to Rodney King certainly sets the scene. And then there’s Diane calling him “the devil.” But still, there is such a thing as a spin-off show dipping back too much into its original source material, I think.

You may now mark the “Catholic Schoolgirl Uniform” square on your Lesbian Character Traits bingo card.

At the FBI, Agent Starkey is trying to jog Maia’s memory about Sept. 15, 2008. That’s the day Lehman Brothers collapsed. Some people remember it as the day their family’s multi-million dollar investment fund began to illegally embezzle money, others as the day everyone’s 401K went into the toilet and they realized they’d have to work until they were 85. Potato, potato.

Maia’s memories are a jumble of her dad freaking out while watching the stock market crash, investors crying at their door and her Uncle Jax telling them to keep their money in the fund. Only problem is that it doesn’t jive with what Agent Starkey has found on Mama Rindell’s computer calendar. It says Maia was at the gynecologist, so she couldn’t have seen Jax there.

Maia is still insistent that she remembers Jax that day. So Agent Starkey goes into a folksy story about her own childhood memories of being a contestant on the Bozo show. But then years later photos proved it was her sister, not her, who was actually the one who did all those things. See! Memories can be faulty, she comforts, Maia. Also isn’t “meme” a horrible word destroying our world?

Please, we all know “bigly” is the worst new word in the world and the real enemy of a free and open society.

But Lucca isn’t fooled by Agent Starkey’s folksy, I’m-on-your-side act. She takes Maia aside to tell her just that, and to not protect her parents. Maia says she isn’t trying to, probably. Maybe.

Yes, for the last time, women are people. I know it’s shocking to you, I know.

The Devil Sweeney is now in court and being a fairly horrible entitled rich white person, as is expected. The judge in this case is Judge Don Linden (played by the actor who wasn’t Balki from Perfect Strangers). He really isn’t much of a factor in this case, but I do mention it because they make a big show of him struggling to get up to the judge’s bench in his wheelchair. I don’t know if this is some callback to his guest spot on The Good Wife before, but without reference it seems like a cheap joke made at a disabled person’s expense. And, uh, this show is better than that, right?

After their break, Lucca and Maia return to the place birds go to die. Seriously, show, I get the metaphor. Free as a bird, until – blam. Agent Starkey keeps probing Maia’s increasingly faulty seeming memory and then confronting her with the facts. Like, no, her mom wasn’t really worried about Maia’s reproductive heath when she scheduled all those gyno visits. She was using Maia as cover to have her affair with Jax. Little stuff like that, is all.

A flashback shows a teenage Maia walking out of the exam room and through the haze of memory seeing her mom and Uncle Jax kissing. Did she know all along? Agent Starkey says her mother and Jax have been having an affair since 2008. But to be fair, economic collapse is so romantic it often leads to love.

When they return from a lunch break, Agent Starkey offers them some See’s chocolates. She offers up some relatable story about her husband eating all the good ones out and leaving her with the coconuts. But, ah-ha! Now Lucca has her. Because anyone with eyes knows Jane Lynch is as gay as a window (though, again, preferably not the kind that lure birds to their death). Kidding! Not about the gay part, Jane Lynch is always gay. But Lucca knows because she Googled Agent Starkey during lunch and found out she isn’t married.

I would also like to note that, while possible, it’s rather unlikely Agent Starkey was enjoying a box of See’s because they’re a mostly West Coast brand. You guys get to watch Saturday Night Live while it’s actually live and we get In-N-Out, See’s and to never have to scrape ice off our windshields in the winter. It only seems fair, at least for us.

Get that Whitman’s Sampler trash out of my face. Milk Chocolate Bordeaux 4Lyfe!

Isn’t it great how Jane Lynch has become America’s go-to sharp elbowed actress? And how she can play it either way: disarming charm with stealth sharp elbows or unmasked rage with obvious sharp elbows. But, either way, boy are you gonna catch an elbow.

Agent Starkey shakes her head knowing that her “nice lady” ruse is up. From here on out it will just be a brass knuckles chess match between her and Lucca. God, isn’t it thrilling when smart women are allowed to show each other just how smart they are on screen without any thought or cares about male approval? So they cut the act and get straight to what she wants: Info on the Rindell Foundation.

As a person who has watched television before in your life, you realize this means a lot of trouble for Maia. The foreshadowing breadcrumbs have been leading to her on this because she was its figurehead. The foundation was actually given to her as an 18th birthday present with the appropriately white guilt assuaging fundraising mission of ending malaria in Africa. Maia remembers asking her dad how much money they’ve sent to Africa, and him deflecting. So that’s not great.

In their deal with the devil, Adrian and Diane have the dirty cop on the stand. He is claiming he was attacked, and has the bruises to “prove it.” Small problem though, those bruises perfectly match the mouth guard he used while sparring earlier in the same day as the arrest. Well, here’s an interesting chicken and egg question. Do you think this cop boxed and then sought someone to beat up because he had bruises to use as a cover up, or beat up someone and then realized his boxing bruises could be used as a cover up? Same outcome, either way, I guess.

And this is why you don’t buy discount vibrators off the Internet.

Now in Maia’s minds-eye, it is her 18th birthday. There’s a big party and the big gift is the paperwork for the Rindell Foundation. Sorry, scratch that. The big gift is Amy. They met at her 18th birthday party. Maia had a boyfriend and Amy was just starting law school at the time. But all books and boys were clearly forgotten. Ahem.

Hey, who among us hasn’t snuck away from our own lavish birthday party where multi-million dollar foundation deeds are being gifted to go make out amongst the valet parked cars – or whatever the poor person proximally is to that.

Dammit, if they’d been making out on a U-Haul I’d have had Bingo.

Cue Maia getting lost in two hours of day-dreaming about all the making out she did with Amy when they met. Join in, won’t you? It’s nice here. So many neck kisses.

Also, am I the only one who had a moment of panic when you found out it was uncle Jax who introduced them that Amy was part of some incredibly long-game con having to do with the Ponzi scheme? But only for a second. Just me then? OK, back to kissing.

And all I got for my 18th birthday was a new Walkman.

Maia snaps out of her smooch daydreams long enough to remember Diane gabbing casually with her parents about the Bernie Madoff scandal. She asks Lenore whether she thinks Bernie’s wife knew. Ah ain’t hypocrisy a hoot? Like isn’t it fun comparing anything the Trump does now with anything he tweeted within the last eight years? And by “fun,” of course I mean “maddeningly horrifying.”

As Lucca and Agent Starkey argue over the finer points of Maia’s interview, she remembers something else amid the haze of kissing. She signed those papers at her 18th birthday party. But, she didn’t actually turn 18 until three days later, the following Tuesday.

In celebration, Lucca takes one of the See’s chocolates with a smile. And then the women share a high-five on the way out. Whew, well at least all that Rindell business is behind us now, right? We can all just go eat chocolates in peace, right?

Raise your hand if you wish you were that lucky chocolate.

Speaking of cases that aren’t entirely closed yet, the Devil Sweeney’s case continues with surprise testimony from his date for the evening, who is from what I can gather an Israeli dominatrix of some sort. She swears he got out and hit the cop unprovoked. They figure out it’s because officials threatened her with deportation because she had drugs on her. Sheesh, it’s like people can’t go to school or church or court or chem-sex parties without ICE being all up in their grill. (But seriously, ICE is insane right now – so insane.)

Hay tracks down a potential witness via the dash cam footage. But he turns out to be a Florida billionaire real estate developer sent up to Chicago by that other Florida Man in the White House to vet potential ambassadors. So that Devil Sweeney won’t allow them to question him and blow his shot at an ambassadorship (not to mention waste the $1 million he donated to Trump’s campaign PAC). The partners all bust out laughing at that the prospect because, really, at this point it’s really one of the best coping mechanisms available to us. That and donating to the ACLU.

Maia and Lucca return to Agent Starkey’s office to finish up. She is now drilling into the brass tacks of her case. When did Maia know about the Ponzi scheme. She says not until it was reported on the news. But was it earlier?

Cue flashbacks to her law school graduation in 2016. Her happy parents and Amy’s somewhat less happy parents were both there. Amy and Maia were living together by then and it’s unclear whether their less than thrilled faces were because of the gay or because they hadn’t been allowed to invest in the Rindell Fund.

Agent Starkey zeros in on Amy’s parents wanting to join the fund. Maia says she told her they needed to have a minimum investment of $200,000, which they didn’t have. But then did Maia ask her dad to make an exception for them, as Amy had requested? And therein, my friends, lies the rubby rub rub.

Maia is riddled with Catholic/plain-old guilt about her knowledge of the Ponzi scheme. She’s unclear on why she waived Amy’s parents off the fund. And why she never asked her dad to make an exception. And why she lied to Amy about asking. Why why why?

I swear, honey, I’m going to make “Blonde Bestie” the new “Gal Pal,” you watch.

Lucca knows they’re in trouble and Maia is ready to “admit you killed Biggie.” Did that reference just come out of insane left field? Sorry, maybe I was daydreaming about neck kisses, too.

On the police brutality case, Adrian and Diane finally figure out how to get soon-to-be ambassador Sweeney off without bringing Hess to the stand. And then they remember the young black man who was in the holding pen with him, who was also there for a trumped up charge. They put him on the stand and case closed. Now it’s time for a celebratory $6 million lawsuit. Except Sweeney promptly drops the suit because now he wants to be ambassador to the Vatican. Poor misunderstood white billionaires are the real victims, America. Remember that.

If you look very closely, you also can tell the exact moment each day someone remembers what a good president Hillary would have been.

So now Lucca and Maia are back at Agent Starkey’s office for the final day of questioning. She is here to answer why she never recommended Amy’s parents invest in the fund. She tells her it’s because she didn’t want to mix family and finances. Agent Starkey doesn’t buy it. She likes Maia, she thinks she’s smart, but she also thinks she committed a crime. So she will be recommending prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Well, shit.

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Dorothy Snarker

Find more from Dorothy Snarker: visit dorothysurrenders.com or @dorothysnarker.

Dorothy has written 14 articles for us.

31 Comments

  1. loved the recap! Also really starting to like this show, I do know that a lot of people are complaining about the absence of amy in most of the episodes, but to be honest… the good thing about this show is that it is not just about love interests! And hell so many strong smart and often totally fu**** up women!

  2. “Sorry, scratch that. The big gift is Amy.” –Dorothy Snarker but also literally me

    I watched this yesterday and as soon as I finished I couldn’t wait to see what everyone thought about it! I did have the momentary heart attack when I found out Amy was introduced to Maia by her uncle, but mostly because I’ve been low key waiting for them to drop some sort of Maia/Amy bombshell and honestly I still worry that might happen…? Especially once it comes out that Maia lied about the whole Rindell fund thing with Amy’s parents. I’m not sure how much the writers can actually do in one more episode ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVCBsuTz0nU ) so it looks to me like these ten episodes were intended to set up season 2 which will be all the prosecutions of the Rindells. I’m not sure what the writers are setting up for Diane and RBK, but I would REALLY like to see more of Barbara next season. I think she’s spectacular.
    I hope this show gets even just a few more episodes in season 2. The Good Wife was fun to watch because of the long arcs and because the writers had more time to develop the plot while still doing the per-episode legal and current event stuff.
    I just have so many thoughts after this episode, but mostly it solidified for me that I’ll be watching next season. I’m invested! Is that a pun? Maybe?

    • Barbara is a goddess and needs all the screen time, thx.

      I agree with you, a 22 episode season would be amazing, and do justice to the strength of the ensemble.

  3. I definitely had Cosima/Delphine flashbacks when we found out Jax introduced Amy to Maia.
    (Also, law student hooking up with high schooler? GROSS. And I refuse to believe any queer woman would wear that “Blonde Bestie” shirt unless it was a deliberate parody of A.S.’s Gal Pal merchandise.)

    MORE IMPORTANTLY

    Did Adrian ask Diane out on a date?!?!?

    • Yeaaaaah I just did the math on that age difference too… *minimum* age difference is 5 years – 18 (oh wait! 17 until 2 days later!) to 23. And bonus: maybe she’s Maia’s first girlfriend, since M was at the party with her then-boyfriend. I don’t want Amy to be a creeper but it’s sure looking a touch creepy.

      • Actually they said Amy was just starting law school so presumably she just graduated from college so she’d be 21 but yeah see my comment below I had the same issue with the age thing.

    • I had pause on the age difference for a second too, mostly because right out of high school and right out of undergrad (which they were respectively at the time) are such different emotional ages. But it does all even out a bit once they’re older. And, you know, love makes you do the wacky.

  4. They have See’s candy here on the East Coast too. Even though the show is based in Chicago it still films in NYC like The Good Wife did. However, Starkey IS an FBI investigator so presumably she travels for work and she could have made her way to the West Coast and picked up some See’s candy on her travels or just ordered them off the internet.

    Last week my comment was something along the lines of “remember when they had all the kissing and intimate moments” well since that worked, let me say, remember when I had a million dollars…

    Something about this whole Maia and Amy thing has been bugging me and I can’t determine if this is how it actually happened or just Maia’s distorted memories but…
    When they met at Maia’s 18th birthday party and subsequently made out, Maia was 17 and Amy was entering law school so 21 and this was in 2008.
    The show takes place in real time so 2017, I’ll even go 2016 for argument sake. In a previous episode with the troll ex-boyfriend it was mentioned that they broke up 4 years ago (and presumably she started dating Amy). So Amy and Maia have been together for 4 years, so what happened during the 4 years from when they met in 2008 until they started dating in 2012?

    Obviously at 18 Maia would have started college and we know Amy was starting law school. Have they mentioned where Maia went to college? If it was away then that could account for her and Amy not being together until she came back home. And did Maia always want to be a lawyer while doing her undergrad? Or maybe she just couldn’t get the blonde she made out with at her birthday party out of her head and wanted to be a lawyer because Amy was gonna be a lawyer. Did Amy being a lawyer influence Maia’s decision to go into law?

    And it seemed weird when their loft was “raided” by the feds Amy was like I’m a assistant states attorney when Maia just passed her bar. I thought they were the same age but now it’s clear that Amy is at least 3 years older than Maia.

    • Oh man I didn’t remember that she said she dated the guy that recently! I wonder what happened with Amy and Maia after they both went away to school. Hmmmm.

      Also for sure keep us posted on the million dollars

    • The timeline is a little wonky between Amy and Maia, for sure. Met around 2008. Broke up with her boyfriend about four years ago, so around 2012. I guess it could just be her going away to college but always pining after her Blonde Bestie…

      As for See’s, I grew up in the Midwest and never had a single piece until I moved to California. I know it’s available in larger East Coast cities now. But it seemed a very specifics West Coast touch, since it’s just less known as a brand elsewhere. Like if a show set in L.A. talked about White Castle burgers it would be off. But maybe I just think about food too much.

      • It’s definitely made me want to learn more about Maia and Amy’s beginnings. Maia must have had previous encounters with girls even though she was with “a boyfriend” at the party otherwise I don’t think she would’ve been that comfortable making out with a girl she just met. And I think it’s a safe bet to say that Maia probably had some flings with girls and boys in college (until she got serious with the troll) but she likely kept in touch with Amy and saw her around on breaks. And then when she graduated and was home for good, she dropped the boyfriend and got together with Amy.

      • Don’t really like See’s myself, though I have friends who swear by it. I grew up near a local candy maker that it just much higher quality as far as texture and taste.

        Sadly, as an adult we discovered the local’s problematic politics. But they can’t kill my fond childhood memories!

  5. Off-topic: can we get any love around this board for “Call The Midwife” (still missing recaps from “ThAt OthEr” lesbian website). Patsy parted from Delia to go (to Hong Kong!) to be w/ her dying father, and I’ve got all kinds of FEELS! [Nurse Crane got a quick view of “Pelia” and knowingly gave heartbroken Delia a book of Garcia Lorca love poems. Gah!]

    • I agree. It should be covered in Boobs on Your Tube but unfortunately that isn’t a weekly column (which it should be).
      There are many shows that don’t get a full recap so BOYT would be good to summarize that weeks episode and put it on someone’s radar that wasn’t watching or even give viewers a “forum” if you will to discuss the episode.
      Maybe no one on the Auto staff watches a show, so someone in the comments can always say “hey, this show featured this character this week” check it out.
      There are a few shows that I have been curious about that I only see vague tweets about but I’d love to know a little more about them to know if I should invest my time or not.

  6. Man, there must be a mountain of dead pigeons under those windows, or the FBI is paying someone full time to stand under there with a catcher’s mitt.

    But I like your analysis of the dead bird metaphor, Snarker. Maybe the sheer numbers could also represent the vast swaths of people chewed up and spit out by our justice department?

    Captions on point, as ever.

    • I did not think of the bird carnage underneath. But, considering our justice department, they’re probably just swept under the rug.

  7. Just an FYI Maia and Amy’s ship name is “Maiamy” pronounced like Miami. Though I’ve seen it spelled as Mayamy too.

  8. Hang on. HANG ON!
    Lesbian detective (of the obvious) coming through.
    Maia kissed Amy at her birthday in 2008. The show is set in 2017 where they live together. When Maia had to deal with her asshole ex-boyfriend a few episodes back she said: “Get over it. We broke up 4 years ago”.

    SO, Amy and Maia were secretly together from 2008 til she broke up with that guy in 2013?

    5 years in secret + 4 years after = 9 years longterm lesbian relationship.

    This makes me happy. I have to grasp to every successful lesbian relationship that I can.

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