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Which has been put up on Prime Video. As with season 2, I was delighted and rivetted. (And find it hard to imagine what this show would have been like if Hillary had won in 2016, as its makers famously assumed she would when shooting the pilot, hence the need to revise some s1 stuff, because so much of The Good Fight is a response to living in the times of the Orange Menace.) What few criticisms I had in s1 were all addressed in s2, and by s3, even the one remaining one - Julius as the partner without a personality beyond "the one Republican in the firm" - was dealt with. The Julius & Marisa scenes in this season were great and unexpected combination. And I'm more grateful than ever for Liz Reddick(-Lawrence), because Audra McDonald rocks.

This season's big guest star was Michael Sheen, playing Roy Cohn protegé Roland Blum as if he were Al Pacino on acid. It's quite a thing to watch, especially given that all I'd seen Sheen in so far - three times as Tony Blair, once as David Frost, once as Aziraphale - required subtlety, and Blum is anything but; still, he's supposed to be magnetic in his sheer awfulness, and Sheen certainly delivers. (He also lowers his voice at least one and a half registers, to the point where when I first heard that growl I wondered whether he was dubbed.)

Now, The Good Fight wouldn't be a Good Wife spin-off if all our heroes had to deal with would be awful opponents (the Orange Menace as the overall Big Bad, and Blum in terms of smaller scale antagonist/ very temporary ally on occasion), as opposed to their own flaws and moral dilemmas re: their own ethics. Moral dilemmas dulty arrive, starting with the season opener. In which it turns out co-founder of the firm, civil rights icon and late father of Liz has also been a serial sexual assaulter of secretaries and other women. It says something (good) about this show that for their big Me Too story, they don't go for a Weinstein avatar but for more of a Crosby-with-the-politicis-of-Harry-Belafonte avatar. Easy to boo at Weinstein and decide on exposure. But when it's someone who means a lot of positive things to a lot of people, and whose politics allign with your own - then the emotional reactions suddenly go through a much wider spectrum. The narrative focus is on Liz, because it's her father, but the victims also get plenty of screentime, and the two actresses playing the two main victims are superb.

Other headline-inspired stories include one where the opposing counsel defending alt!Right not!Milo from last season does in fact use the case as a sneak attack to expose the hypocrisy of Bozeman & Reddick's main client, ChumHum, who make a big deal of supporting democratic rights at home but have just struck a deal with the Chinese government allowing government censorship on all their products. (Hello, Apple.) Since this season as part of its satiric elements includes a little cartoon providing background info in sung form in each episode, this particular episode instead has a stark credit saying "CBS censored this content" instead of an explanation of the self-censoring going on in order not to loose the Chinese viewing audience, and as a searing indictment, it couldn't be more effective.

It's not a coincidence that the first, s1 image to advertise this show had Diane, Maia and Lucca on it, whereas the one for s3 has Diane, Adrian and Liz; the narrative emphasis has shifted. Lucca plays still an important part, but Maia is just there in the opening and closing episodes of the season, while disappearing in the middle section. There's an in-story reason for this, but given Maia's overall story is becoming a Sith, err, joining the Dark(er) Side of Lawyering as embodied by Roland Blum, and she refuses a reset button at the end of the season, I am wondering whether that's meant to be a final exit. It would work for me. Not that I dislike Maia, but her big story had been the s1 tale, in s2 she was a minor supporting character without a story of her own, and in s3 she's a minor supporting character with a story that's "leaving Bozeman & Reddick" which can't be repeated, so I can't help but suspect the writers might just be done with the character.

Diane and Liz in this season become part of a group of anti-Trump activists which becomes increasingly radicalized to the point where our heroines are faced with having to ask themselves where they draw the line. About this, I'm a bit torn, because otoh, anti Trump radicalism does not strike this viewer from across the pond as a problem the US has, and from there, it's awfully easy to slide into a "both sides" narrative, but otoh, it's certainly true that "let's just do what they do, the end justifies the means!" was the road to ethical disaster throughout human history. Also, it provides Diane and Liz with one of their best scenes this season, when Liz talks about the right wing manouevres of voter suppression these recent years, and it makes the point that Diane, with all the good will in the world, still as a rich white woman simply does not have the same background to experience this in as Liz as a black woman does.

The mixture of drama and comedy - or satire - has by now achieved peak efficiency. One key question throughout three seasons - how to survive in the Age of the Orange Menace without losing your mind, heart or soul? - is asked in ways both satiric and serious, and in the season finale, in a conversation with Adrian, Diane gives her personal answer. It's not one she'd have given all those years ago when The Good Wife started. But at this point, both the writing and Christine Baranski utterly sell it.

Lastly: I remember an interview where the actress playing Alicia's mother-in-law Jackie mentioned that she, Alan Cumming and Christine Baranski all are trained singers but that their characters in the show, short of a dream sequence, would never burst into song. The Good Fight finally figures out a not-dream sequence way to let Baranski sing that's ic for Diane and also provides a great moment of bonding between her and Liz. (Audra McDonald also can sing, clearly.) Cheers!