Bravo to The Good Wife for an incredibly outside-the-box episode, full of twists and turns that kept me interested from the word go … at least as far as the law was concerned.
Because, were we meant to be moved by Peter’s “bold” move of chasing after Alicia at the risk of his freedom? I wasn’t. He cheated on her, he lied to her, he embarrassed her publicly, and now he has the nerve to pick up like nothing’s changed and run for office again? Hold meetings in her kitchen? Ask her to make public appearances with him, like last week at Church?
And worse than the fact that she continues to swallow his crap is that the kids are completely not playing this entire situation right. I’m not saying they should side with their mother … they shouldn’t be involved at all. Allowing them to lie for Peter was extremely bad parenting on Alicia’s part, and letting them question her decisions about her relationship with Peter (like Zach’s “In separate bedrooms” line) mistakenly makes Grace and Zach members of her’s and Peter’s two-person marriage. There’s nothing about the situation that’s being done right.
But everything’s going right over at Stern, Lockhart & Gardner. I’m loving the way this show does the legal dramedy. Will presiding over mock trial was hysterical, and I couldn’t believe that Giada Cabrini (Karen Olivo) did something as disgusting as forcing him to have to recuse himself.
First of all, she’s going to run into the same “lack of legal acumen” problem with another judge, and I don’t see how someone in a teaching position giving advice to a student is showing bias in any way. Will’s friend Sadie’s (Julie Lauren) an idiot. By the way Will, Giada is 25, not 17, so the fact that she’s significantly younger than you doesn’t matter quite as much. The problem with dating her is that she seems to be a horrible person, but nothing beyond that.
I enjoyed the fact that we got to hear Kalinda’s perspective on illegal immigration — that someone whose parents came to America legally wouldn’t feel “immigrant sympathy” toward someone whose parents didn’t. And it was hilarious that she didn’t speak Hindi, and the way that she said it to Cary was perfect.
I was disappointed that the government was depicted as a bunch of cold-hearted bureaucrats, willing to force someone like Anil (Sanjit De Silva) — an innocent and uninvolved person — to cooperate with them on threats of deporting his mother Simran (Sarita Choudhury). At the same time, I was surprised that Alicia only focused on the number of years that Simran had been here, and not that she’d come illegally in the first place.
I don’t want to get into the politics of illegal immigration, but I do want to say that it’s the mark of a good show when you can get emotionally invested in its stories. It means the show did such a good job handling a real issue that you find yourself moved to voice your own thoughts. This is one such issue for many people, and The Good Wife in general is one such show. And while I realize that they only have an hour, this is a plot that I think required more time for exposition. There are so many levels to it, and it’s far from being as simple as a timeslot forces it to be.
By the way, who else yelled “I knew it!” when Peter admitted to doing things that he called “fuzzy” for his friend Kozko (Terry Kinney)? In the position that he was in, and as a bearer of the publics’ trust, there’s no “modifier” about it … the black-and-white of it all is that what Peter did was illegal. And I’m sure Kozko wasn’t his only special friend.
I say lock him up, and let Alicia get on with her life!
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on May 05, 2010 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
