# Goliath (2016)

> A burned-out former lawyer takes on the massive firm he helped build in a wrongful death suit that spirals into a deadly conspiracy.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/59280

## Facts

- Seasons: 4
- Episodes: 32
- Episode runtime: 56 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama
- Created by: David E. Kelley, Jonathan Shapiro
- Network: Prime Video
- Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Maria Bello, Nina Arianda, Tania Raymonde, Olivia Thirlby, Ana de la Reguera, Diana Hopper, Molly Parker
- TMDB rating: 8.1/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4687880/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: gritty, laconic, tense, melancholic, determined

## What critics say

Viewers praise Billy Bob Thornton's gritty lead performance and the courtroom scenes in the first season, while later seasons drift toward cartel melodrama and are judged weaker.

## Synopsis

Goliath (2016-2021) is an American legal drama series created by David E. Kelley and Jonathan Shapiro for Prime Video. Billy Bob Thornton plays Billy McBride, a once-powerful lawyer now washed up and spending more evenings in a bar than in a courtroom. Reluctantly he agrees to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit against the largest client of Cooperman and McBride, the massive firm he helped create. Maria Bello plays Michelle McBride, while Nina Arianda plays Patty Solis-Papagian and Tania Raymonde plays Brittany Gold, both members of his ragtag team of underdogs. The engine of the show is a small crew with limited resources going up against an enormous corporate machine, with each episode built from courtroom maneuvering, research, and the personal costs of a fight that threatens everything. Across four seasons of eight episodes each, the story stays one continuing arc in which the stakes widen from a single lawsuit into a larger conspiracy. Its tone is gritty and laconic, with a wounded, stubborn protagonist. Fans of Better Call Saul, The Good Wife and Boston Legal will find resonance in its blend of courtroom sparring and moral compromise, set in contemporary Los Angeles legal circles.

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