The Good Wife – Forget about the kids already!

That was some great case on last night’s episode of The Good Wife. Well, maybe not a great case, but I’ve always contended that The Good Wife does a great job of approaching run-of-the-mill TV legal cases from interesting, creative, and/or fresh angles. And last night was no exception.

After a “shocking” guilty verdict was returned against their client — every episode description I’ve read has called the verdict shocking, but here’s my question: why was it shocking? Just because it supposedly was unexpected by the defense and the judge, and perhaps the prosecution as well? Don’t forget … it was a murder trial, so presumably there had to be some basis for finding her guilty — Lockhart/Gardner scrambled to find some basis for overturning the guilty verdict.

And that’s where the episode got extremely interesting. I really enjoyed watching as the team worked to figure out what exactly had happened at lunch that changed a predominantly not guilty verdict to a guilty one. Kudos to The Good Wife for giving Romany Malco (as Justin Coyne) plenty of screen time; keep up the good work on that front, because he’s awesome.

And I also enjoyed all the failed attempts at convincing Judge Peter Dunaway (Kurt Fuller) to declare jury misconduct or a mistrial. Let’s be honest here: who thinks the judge friended the crazy button lady on purpose? I, for one, am a yea vote on that one.

So that’s where the episode scored. Where it missed was on all other fronts. First of all, Alicia’s preoccupation with Grace … okay, so I know what happened last week wouldn’t have been over and done with just yet, but considering the fact that all Grace did was get baptized, I think Alicia was wigging out a bit too much about the whole thing.

Like her trying to switch the kids back to their old private school? Okay, first of all private schools have probably screwed up just as large a percentage of their students as public schools have, just in different ways. Second, did anyone else start thinking a lot less of Alicia after she asked Peter to use his position as State’s Attorney to get the school transfer taken care of? After being sent to jail for influence peddling, leaving Alicia and their kids broken and humiliated, Alicia asked Peter to get right back in the saddle and peddle again. And how about that headmistress, being charmed by a man she knew had slept with prostitutes, probably did drugs, most likely used his office illegally for his own gain, and went to prison? That was sad.

Then there was the whole Alicia and Diane thing. Just about the only thing worse than an Alicia and Kalinda reunion — which could be in the making as well, after Alicia learned that Kalinda was the one who tracked Grace down — is an Alicia and Diane collaboration. Instead of responding positively to yet another of Diane’s annoying lectures, Alicia should totally have called Louis Canning up and asked if he was still interested in her. Instead she decided that Diane would make for a good friend?

Ugh.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Dec 12, 2011 @ 19:56 EST5EDT