How ‘The Good Fight’ Season 5 Premiere Wrote Out Adrian & Lucca

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Good Fight Season 5 premiere.]

The Good Fight accomplishes quite a bit in the Season 5 premiere: It covers a significant period of time (pre-pandemic through January 2021), tackles COVID-19 and addresses George Floyd and the protests, and says goodbye to two major characters, Adrian Boseman (Delroy Lindo) and Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo). (Both Lindo and Jumbo were set to leave at the end of Season 4 before the pandemic affected the series.)

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For Lucca, her exit starts before the pandemic. Bianca (Chasten Harmon) flies her out to England to buy a resort for her, something that was only supposed to take three weeks. (She even arranges a nanny for Lucca’s son.) But after that’s out of the way, Bianca has a proposal for Lucca: a permanent job.

While Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), Liz Reddick (Audra McDonald), and Adrian don’t want to lose her, they also can’t beat Bianca’s offer — and thanks to them accidentally sending those messages to Lucca, too, in the Zoom chat, she knows it. They can, however, offer her a partnership.

By December, Lucca has to make a decision one way or another. She can become the youngest equity partner in the history of the firm, and they’ll match Bianca’s offer of $500,000. When the Zoom call drops, however, Bianca far surpasses their offer: $1.3 million and the offer to be her new CFO. She’s right that the firm can’t beat that. And after a Zoom with Marissa Gold (Sarah Steele) and Jay Dipersia (Nyambi Nyambi) — she didn’t smile as much before them, she admits — Lucca says goodbye.

CBS

Meanwhile, Adrian’s plans change as a result of what’s happening in the world. At the beginning of the pandemic, he’s working on his book (but not a fan of what he’s writing). His original contract was to write about his political awakening. Then he decides to outline his top 10 police brutality cases making a connection between police and systemic racism (but not using a suggestion from Margo Martindale‘s about how they opened his mind). After George Floyd, he declares he’s writing the book he wants to write because it’s not the time to “talk positively.”

By January 6, 2021, his plans completely change. He’s moving to Atlanta, he informs Liz and Diane. “I read this op-ed by a man named Charles Blow. He’s talking about Black people returning to the south to create and consolidate real political power,” he explains. “I am starting over.” And that is his official farewell.

The Good Fight, Thursdays, Paramount+