Cupertino Season 1 Premiere Review

From that little moment of allegiance blooms the duo who are the beating heart of Cupertino. Colter’s been a ride-or-die actor for the Kings going back to The Good Wife, and here he brings smarts, charisma, and simmering sex appeal to Michael Price. Though this character wears tailored suits and comes from a prestigious family of lawyers, Michael is a believer in the Davids battling these tech Goliaths, which keeps him grounded and empathetic. The yin to his yang is Rachel Keller’s Olivia, who is shrewd yet green. Post law school, she migrated straight to Silicon Valley from the sheltered arms of her rural Christian family, so there’s plenty for her to navigate as she starts swimming with the sharks. Fresh from the series Tokyo Vice, Keller was also stellar in FX’s Legion, so it’s exciting to see her go toe-to-toe with not only Colter but Cupertino’s ever-expanding ensemble of top-notch recurring actors to come, including Girls5eva alums Busy Philipps and Renée Elise Goldsberry, Joe Morton, and Jackie Earle Haley.

If you’re an existing fan of the Kings’ work, Cupertino feels a little like comfort television because it utilizes many of their signature storytelling elements: ripped-from-the-headline cases; the casting of theater-great character actors; storylines that breathlessly twist on a dime; and their ability to make serious subjects comprehensible, weird, and entertaining. They’ve even 2.0’d their The Good Fight lady fixer character Marissa Gold, updating her as Michael and Olivia’s Gen Z street-smart office manager, Christy Palladino (Ella Stiller).

Yet familiar doesn’t mean this is a dumbed-down procedural by any means. The Cupertino pilot alone tackles tech industry sexual harassment and equity disparity, stealing personhood for LLMs, and the fragility of tech bros with their shell games and unethical smoke screens. It’s all presented with wit and intelligence, and through characters who bring us into this alien world of stealth technology and can decipher this industry that’s moving too fast and breaking things with seeming impunity. Cupertino reminds us that there’s no shame in being a broadcast procedural when you’re working at the level of the Kings and their collaborators.

If The Good Wife and The Good Fight could give me an understanding of Constitutional law and systemic governmental flaws, I can’t wait to see what the Kings school me on with Cupertino.