Goliath, Season 4

The fourth and allegedly final season of Goliath was released yesterday, and I binged through the whole season last night and into the early hours of this morning. I was surprised that there was a fourth season, because the third season had so spectacularly run off the rails.

To summarize, the first two seasons were fully rooted in reality, and the central character managed to pull a legal rabbit out of the hat nearly every episode to brilliantly save his case, despite being deeply dysfunctional and self-destructive. This brilliance translated directly from brilliant writing. The third season was very different from this. It was very metaphysically weird, and reality was out the window. Also, there was not a case saving move toward the end of episode. Instead, is was mostly a slow burner building toward one big finale at the end of the season.

This fourth season was kind of weird, but the weirdness was mostly limited to dream sequences. It served to provide color and perhaps tension, but the story itself took place completely in reality. You could say this was a partial retreat from the audacity of the third season.

As for brilliance? Well, ho hum. There was kind of an artificial wow factor induced by ever increasing settlement dollar figures, but the central character didn’t do much to earn them. As with the third season, the big pay-off was in the last episode. However, even the smart trick that won the case at the end wasn’t that impressive, and it wasn’t even entirely believable.

What this fourth season did have was a quicksand of loyalty. Nearly every major character left doubts about whose side they were on, who they were really working for, and what their agenda was. In this regard, the story had quite a few plot twists. Truth was revealed gradually in layers. Loyalties shifted. In this way, it was quite an enjoyable story.

So yes, the fourth season was fairly good. Just know that it is different from the previous seasons.