A Sensational Legal Drama That Gets Real With AI

‘Cupertino’ Tackles The Wilderness Of AI Litigation

For the most part, each case avoids being a public service announcement about the dangers of AI. Though there is an overarching season-long storyline about Bo (Rob McClure), a mysterious and darkly funny client who hires Michael and Olivia’s firm to stop an AI company from releasing a dangerous product to the market, the pushback on artificial intelligence is less about the technology itself and more about the need for transparency, oversight, and accountability.

The Kings’ series wrestles with the era we’re in, negotiating with the reality of how much AI use has permeated our lives. In music, security, medicine, surveillance, religion, the law, you name it and AI has impacted it in some capacity.

What Cupertino does is confront how new this frontier is and how our justice system is struggling to keep up. Not only because the technology isn’t well understood but also because the rules for its application are still being written and haven’t been fully devised yet. The law is either incomplete, not clear enough, or woefully lacking in some cases.

Michael and Olivia aren’t just bridging the gap in their world, their story adds to the conversations we’re having in ours. Almost in real time. That alone makes the series a must watch this television season. But beyond the premise, the show pulls you in with its band of intriguing, occasionally frustrating, and layered characters.

‘Cupertino’s Characters Bring Color To The Grey World Of Tech

Michael and Olivia aren’t an odd couple, they’re a dynamic duo with a rapport typical of a seasoned professional and a rookie with a lot of heart and good instincts teaming together to do what’s right.

Colter brings his usual charm and charisma to the role of Michael. He plays the experienced lawyer with a gentleness that’s inviting but with a contrasting bite when going head-to-head with his ex Nichole E. Ferebee—played to mischievous and exacting perfection by Renee Elise Goldsberry— and his father Bayard Diamond who Joe Morton imbues with a swarmy bearing that will get under your skin just as much as it does Michael’s.

Their presence complicates Michael’s typically jovial demeanor. With Nichole, it’s because there’s still attraction simmering under the surface of every word they speak to each other. Also, as opposing counsel, she’s great at her job and her ambition does lead to sticky situations both professionally and personally for Michael.

As for Bayard, count on Michael’s issues with his father to play a big part of why he intends on making the firm work with Olivia. Their bad blood connects to a tragedy that changed the course of both of their lives and Michael refuses to let his dad’s feet up from the fire because of it. Whether it’s in court or his own offices, Michael always has a few choice words for Bayard. It makes for very tense scenes.

In contrast to Michael, Olivia is a lawyer who’s fresh out of school. She’s a transplant to Silicon Valley who hails from Wisconsin. She’s also a sheltered, conservative Christian woman. But her innocence doesn’t impeded her gumption.

Olivia rises to every challenge she’s met with even if her initial insecurity causes her to stumble. Keller’s performance keeps her from being Pollyanna-ish. She plays Olivia as kind and sweet but with an unexpected fierceness that works to showcase why it’s a mistake to underestimate her like her overprotective and over the top parents—Maria (Debra Monk) and Gavin (David Aaron Baker)—have most of her life.

Together, Michael and Olivia make a forthright pair who are upfront with their clients about their resolve to help them and the fight they have ahead of them to win. But while Cupertino does well balancing their complementary characterizations, it struggles with being even footed when it comes to their differing social identities.

It’s rather common for Michael’s blackness to be a part of the conversation because he’s a minority working and living in a predominately white area. His affluence, being a successful lawyer in tech and the son of a famous defense attorney for celebrities, is brought up as well. But Olivia’s Christian faith is often incidental to the plot and is barely explored.

Her being conservative seems like a throwaway line. It does not impact her reasoning, her viewpoints, or how she sees the world and her place in it. As such, Olivia appears to be blandly religious, which is not uncommon in television series but is rare when taking into account a character that is meant to be shaped by their faith. So far only one episode leans into her Christianity in a worthwhile way.

Instead, the focus of Olivia’s otherness is her womanhood. Like Michael being a Black man, it comes up a lot. It’s used against her and used in her favor. Her class is also explored as she deals with living in a less than satisfactory apartment building and making it as best she can. Unstated but very clear is that this endeavor between her and Michael is more of a risk for her than it is for him.

The Supporting Cast Helps ‘Cupertino’ Cook Up Delicious Television

Michael and Olivia have a lot of needed support. There’s Christy Palladino (Ella Stiller), a fellow former employee of S-Talk who acts as Michael and Olivia’s receptionist/investigator. She has a family member ready and able to help them with whatever shenanigans they need to get into or out of. One phone call and there’s a cousin, uncle, or aunt capable of providing needed information or a distraction to buy them time.

Stiller is excellent as the cool, fast talking character that handles business so well that these lawyers would be lost without her. Christy is the glue keeping their impromptu firm held together. She has more than a couple of spotlights in the first ten episodes of Cupertino that really cement how important she’s likely to become as the season progresses particularly with Bo as she’s the closest to him.

Bo and Christy’s interactions are laugh out loud funny as they flirt and tease one another in the middle of serious discussions about the danger he’s trying to stop. Rob McClure is endearing in the role but there’s a menace hiding under all that charm that’s rife with possibility as the temperature turns up on his storyline.

Unfortunately, Busy Phillips’ Natalia Boutella is underused. Phillips hits every comedic note as the revenge seeking ex-wife of the third richest man in the world. But she’s actually at her most interesting when she flexes her rusty skills as a lawyer and gets serious about financing the firm.

Natalia cares about money and she’s not about altruism. That could be a problem waiting in the wings but much of her time in the first half of the season is spent making snarky comments, being a mess, and flirting with Michael. There’s potential for her character beyond being a caricature but we may be taking the long road to get there.

Finally, there’s Vik (Nik Dodani). He’s a coder who fills the firm in on all things AI and tech. When they’ve got a problem, they call him. But aside from that there’s not much to Vik. There’s an awkward, nerdy quality to Dodani’s portrayal that breaks into sweetness or a sarcastic lean when the moment calls for it that’s delightful. Hopefully, he gets more to do because his dynamic with the rest of the team has a fun bounce to it and there’s something simmering between Vik and Olivia that’s worth exploring.

Even with its shortcomings, Cupertino’s big swing more than pays off as it lands a story that confronts the way society has changed in such a short time because of AI without being a boring treatise on how to handle it. Expect hilarious turns and the kind of storytelling broadcast does best—heartfelt, earnest, and off-beat.

Follow Sabrina Reed on Forbes for coverage of Cupertino and news about the business of TV. For deeper thoughts on what she’s watching, chat with Sabrina on X and Substack.