But he’s not the only character receiving visits from the Great Beyond.
(Spoiler alert: It’s not.)
In other words, she’s using their racism to her advantage.
Paramount+
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What inspired you to dramatize Diane’s struggle through a fireside chat with RBG?
ROBERT KING:And I think we ran into a real problem with this episode.
It went through script, we were already in prep and it was not good.
Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald in The Good Fight.Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
Well, just because some scripts don’t turn out and others do.
And it was a tough script, but it wasn’t a lot of fun.
So it was like, “Let’s go back to the drawing board.”
Patrick Harbron/Paramount+
And the only person we could think of was someone who was deceased, who was RBG.
When we talk about this episode originally not working, it’s not because of Aurin’s script.
It’s because the build of the episode went in a darker direction.
So Aurin and the room pitched going in a new direction.
And that led to the RBG addition and what follows.
Thanks for letting us clarify. “]
What reaction to Diane’s choices are you trying to elicit from the audience?
MK:You nailed it.
Or we nailed it.
Even though it’s clever and Machiavellian, it puts her on the wrong side of the issue.
Because it’s so easy to see this in a villain.
But if it’s in a heroine that we all like, then the issue seems more real.
RK:It was hard only in that we didn’t know whether the viewer would follow us there.
Because the original script was much tougher about it.
She was just thinking of starting her own firm and using Julius Cain [to do so].
This is not.”
So we did pull back from I think the toughest version, but you never know.
So anyway, it felt interesting to us.
Whether we were worried about likability, we’ve often thought, “That’s tomorrow’s problem.
Let’s go for what’s interesting now.
And we’ll worry about likability later.”
And I don’t think it’s that easy on the actors either, you know?
So you have to be sensitive to that as well.
Did Christine and Audra come to you after reading the script or shooting this episode?
RK:Yeah, not even fair.
Hopefully our use of RBG gets us somewhat there.
Was theEvilepisode on your mind while the room worked on this script?
RK:So theEvilepisode was written before this episode ofGood Fight.
With Katja, she’s a killer who was let off by the cops.
I didn’t turn onThe Sopranos."
And then here, Diane is in this very awkward position.
Given their major political differences, how sustainable is Diane and Kurt’s [Gary Cole] relationship?
MK:We have that conversation every year in the writers' room, more than once.
RK:Kurt’s only saving grace is he’s not one of the bomb-throwers in the Republican party.
How does that relationship keep going?
And is that a sustainable relationship?"
New episodes ofThe Good Fightdebut every Thursday on Paramount+.
This post has been updated with an additional statement from Robert King clarifying his initial quote.
