A Goliath Opening

A bit weird and off-beat as it was, I really liked the first season of the Amazon series Goliath, that David Kelley created, starring Billy Bob Thornton as a terrific, but broken and burned out lawyer who pretty much alone takes on huge corporations or even bigger industries that are willing to fight him in every way possible at their disposal.  I was warned off the second season, but tried it again for Season 3 – which was very good, though even more weird, taking place in the desert and dealing with Indian casinos and hallucinogens.

This is its fourth and final season, and I’ve watch five of the eight episodes so far.  And so far, it’s wonderful, as good as the first year for my taste, and some even better.  It still has its weirdness, mostly in the form of dreams the main character is having, but they fit in the storyline which compared to other years is more straight-forward.  Also, Billy Bob Thornton is more low-key here (in part, from what his character has gone through from the first season, though especially the last year), and there are two stand-out “old pro” performances by J.K. Simmons and Bruce Dern.  It’s more understated than the other years and has more of the sensibility of a film noire, which I love.  The first episode, in fact, was directed by Billy Bob Thornton, and particularly well done.  The storyline this time around deals with opioids and fighting several companies – one in particular – that are massive and pretty heinous.

I mention this all because they’ve had a several utterly off-beat, but quite wonderful opening scenes, and I wanted to post a couple of them.

This first comes from the last episode that I just finished, #5.  As you’ll see, it’s very not your normal opening of a show – I won't call it "weird" (you might...), because compared to when this series really gets weird, this doesn't come close, but it's definitely uncommon and quirky -- but terrific, and extremely well done.

The only thing I'll add is that the series is modern-day, not a period story.