Well, it took him five months, but on last night’s episode of The Good Wife Jonas Stern (Kevin Conway) finally made the return he promised to make back when he left the firm to start his own competing one. Was it a triumphant one? Did the ground shake as his boots clomped down the hallways?
Nope. In fact, it was kind of boring, and extremely anticlimactic. Here’s the thing: take Stern out of the equation, and the trial last night was extremely interesting. The firm struggling to make it through the year is interesting. Watching Alicia excel as a litigator is interesting. And that’s putting aside for the moment all of the intrigue over at the Florrick residence, or more accurately in the kitchen. So why in the world does anyone involved with this show think that we need more layers of drama ladled on top of us?
This show is so strong. And for all that the Peter/Alicia plot is frustrating me right now (which I’ll get to in a minute), the creators of the show have managed to make the been-there-done-that of a big city law firm into some great TV. Must we really be diverted from what makes the show so very watchable?
Who cares about Jonas Stern and his ridiculousness? Who cares if an equity partner (I was never given the impression that Michael Boatman’s Julius Cain was anything more than a regular employee; that was played kind of poorly) and ten junior associates are on their way out the door? Okay, so no more contest between Cary and Alicia. Thank God! It was ridiculous to imagine that the low six-figure income that first year associates command was make-or-break-it for the firm anyway. Can we just get back to the good stuff that watching Alicia go about being an attorney is? And just a parting zinger: no way did Stern want Cary. No way.
But beyond that, I thought the case half of last night was great. Great story, great watching Alicia and Kalinda investigate, great watching the courtroom scenes. I love that about this show, and they do it really well. And I loved Bruce Altman as a judge — he’ll always be Alan Sapinsly from the “Whitecaps” episode of The Sopranos to me, but it was great seeing him again.
And it was great to see Terry Kinney (playing Gerald Kozko) and Gbenga Akinnagbe (back as Pastor Isaiah Easton) as well. Most people know Kinney from Oz, but to me he’s now forever Sergeant Harvey Brown from The Unusuals. How I miss that show. And we all know Akinnagbe from The Wire … still funny seeing Chris Partlow as a man of God.
But this whole Peter plot is sad, for two reasons. One, I think less and less of Alicia with each subsequent move that Peter makes. Throw him out of the house already! And, can you believe that Peter’s mommy had the nerve to tell her little baby that he’d apologized to everyone enough? Really? He apologized to the wife he cheated on and publicly humiliated enough? Is there even such a thing?
The second reason is that Peter keeps revealing himself to be more and more deluded. This personal pastor thing is distasteful, but worse is that Peter’s so sure that he’s a) an innocent man, and b) that no one has proof of what he HAS done. Do you notice that? He doesn’t so much seem to protest his innocence as he appears to be saying, “You can’t prove it.” And there’s no way that he could be innocent of everything but the cheating and the drug use. Being accused of something does not make you guilty of the crime … but would so many people be coming forward to testify if they were all, as he puts it, getting up on the stand and lying? Come on.
And someone please explain to me why Peter ran from the apartment when he did. He bolted though his invisible barrier, only to hit the down button on the elevator and metaphorically tap his foot impatiently while waiting for it come back from delivering Alicia to the ground floor. If you’re not going to race to catch the elevator before the doors close, or run down the stairs, what’s the point? I’m sure he’ll wiggle his way out of it, but an honest judge would throw him back in jail, no questions asked.
By the way, I loved Alicia’s line to Pastor Easton after he commended her for standing by Peter’s side, calling it a lesson in forbearance. As she put it so well, “It’s a lesson in something.”
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Apr 28, 2010 @ 12:30 EST5EDT
