Goliath season 3 premiere review: California water shortage turns deadly

When we last saw Billy and the team on Goliath everyone had lost big time. We saw the cartel get away with framing and murdering a child that Billy was working to protect and both Brittany and Patty had major missteps in their relationships. We weren’t sure if we were going to get any updates in season 3 about Marisol, but we did – she’s engaged to some Hollywood big wig and seems to be doing well.

For season 3 we have a fresh story and we are going to see Billy back in the role of a lawyer which we felt was missing quite a bit from season 2. The premiere lays out the ground work for Billy’s latest case and it’s going to be a big one (which makes sense considering the name of this show). It takes place in Central Valley California where it is mostly farmland for as far as the eye can see (if you haven’t had a chance to drive through it, it’s really quite incredible!).

When a giant sink hole on some farmland swallows up a friend of his, Billy takes on the case to find out who is responsible for her death. Working with her husband, Gene, is the first step to unraveling the mystery as he explains that his neighbors are constantly drilling into the land, sucking up all the water and leaving the ground unstable – which can cause things like this to happen. With the drought in California that’s been going on for years, water is the most valuable commodity in farming and clearly people will do anything to get it. We gotta say, whoever was the locations manager on this season did an incredible job of giving us the dustiest, driest, cracked land they could find – we felt like we were breathing in puffs dust every time something moved.

After the accident, Gene’s neighbor Wade (who owns the biggest farm on the block called Tall Grass) offered to buy his land from him. Billy heads to Tall Grass headquarters to find out that the Water Board is also in the same building (Billy finds it weird that a private company would house a public company) and that Wade is the president of the Water Board. Easy suspect and since it’s in the first episode, this has got to be way bigger then just Wade.

When Billy has his first chat with Wade it really leads onto a path going no where for Billy and now Wade is going to be keeping an eye on Billy – along with three other men who all seem to have had a hand in the sinkhole situation that killed Gene’s wife.

Related – Check out our Goliath season 3 episode 2 review!

CarterMatt Verdict

While season 1 had a lawyer feel to it and season 2 had a James Bond adventure going on, season 3 is clearly the year of the cowboy. We have dusty plains, a guitar twang music score, an animal skull on the ground and even a painting of Wade in a cowboy hat with a goat. Throw in a tumble weed, a cactus and a gun fight and we might as well be watching High Noon.

The premiere set us up for a really solid story and so far there’s a lot to like about it. The show is shining a spotlight on a real issue that has been plaguing California farmers for years now and that is the serious drought and what that lack of water has been doing to the crops. If you drive up highway 5 you can see sins for miles from farmers talking about the drought, talking about what it does to our food and looking for a solution.

What did you think of Goliath season 3 premiere and do you like where the story is going? Leave us a comment in the box below with your thoughts. (Photo: Amazon)

This review was written by Jessica Carter and you can follow her on Twitter here.