The Kings are known for making TV that captures the Zeitgeist.
Its a high-wire act thats gotten trickier post-Trump.
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At first blush,Evilis a sort of Catholic-inflectedX-Files.
A decaying body, split at the center, pulling herself along the floor by scraping fingernails.
Shes dead before a word can escape her lips.
Kristen is skeptical, but finds herself in situations that science cannot explain.
The episode leaves her crying in her backyard, looking diminished and small.
Something about this image got under my skin.
The Kings use the procedural form to tell urgent stories about the structures of power that shape our lives.
Robert says their attraction to the procedural was at first a matter of circumstance.
(The Kings returned to New York this year, where their writers rooms are based.)
Michelle adds, Television just lends itself to procedural storytelling.
She points toScandal, a series that frequently left reality behind.
We have been unwilling to leave reality behind.
Michelle comes from a Jewish background and is further to the left.
Shes the more exacting of the two.
Behind the scenes, Michelle is the structuralist, while Robert homes in on the visuals and dialogue.
The sharpness of their intellect and curiosity comes through clearly in conversation.
He thrives when hes thinking through tangled ideas the more polarizing, the better.
Michelle is the peacemaker, the one who raises questions about their most audacious decisions.
Even then, there are stories they wont touch.
I dont like rape stories because theyre binary, Michelle says.
It was a very interesting story and heres the problem, Robert says.
Our writers room was ready to rip each others throats out over this subject.
People were just screaming at each other, Michelle says.
We like to live in the gray, and it didnt feel like we were living in the gray.
It doesnt mean we wont tell that story eventually, but we didnt find the nuanced version.
I was probably the most pro-Israel, Robert adds.
Every draft is group-written, Robert explains.
That isnt the case on every show.
Sometimes their writers and actors push back.
Lead actor Delroy Lindo (who has since left the series) voiced his concerns.
Delroy was worried that kind of plot hurts Black men, especially Black young men, Robert recalls.
Michelle adds, Its one of the few times weve had to junk an episode written.
This past season ofThe Good Fight,Baranski didnt agree with a major plot turn for her character.
I was shocked by that, she tells me.
And because Im so close to the character, it hit me emotionally.
I did not want to lose that marriage.
I said, Thats kind of simple, isnt it?
And then where do we go?
Imagine if I could talk to the person I most admire, Baranski says, what would she say?
The Kings nudged the storytelling into frequently experimental areas.
Characters broke into song.
Memory and dream sequences unfurled, becoming tools to explore the dark recesses of the characters psyches.
In the third-season opener, Trump appeared in the form of a bruise on Dianes husbands shoulder.
Characters contended with a possibly fake Melania Trump as she mulled a divorce.
There are limits to their approach.
During the latest, fifth season ofThe Good Fight,they werent always able to find the right balance.
(The RBG scene was less revealing than it was ridiculous and arch.)
Season five takes things further.
We arent wholly privy to the interior lives of the Black people who critique her position.
I think I need to prove myself, she tells Liz in the closing moments of the finale.
When I ask about their approach to race, the Kings defer.
I dont think of the show so much as interrogating whiteness as interrogating liberalism, Michelle says.
Robert points me to the shows Black writers.
(The Good Fightwriters room has two Black writers; theEvilroom has four.)
He admits that he struggles with the question.
Well throw up our hands and say, youre right, he says.
I dont know what to do about it.
Like Diane is toThe Good Fight, Kristen isEvils engine.
Youre a nice suburban mom.
What happened to LeRoux was justice.
Some people deserve to die.
Cops know that better than anyone.
Kristen doesnt face external repercussions beyond her own self-destructive impulses.
Like Diane, Kristen isnt framed as an anti-hero, but a flawed hero were meant to care for.
Its interesting to look atEvilandThe Good Fightside by side.
WhileEvilhas the same limitations when it comes to race, it has become the stronger show of the two.
The writers never lose sight of the foibles that make the characters human.
And whileEvilhas touched on topical issues, its not restricted by them.
God forgives, he advises.
I killed a man I did LeRoux.
Then the scene turns from weepy fearfulness to lustful.
The finale ends before were able to witness how far they go.
I couldnt help but gasp.
