This past week’s episode of The Good Wife felt extremely light on Alicia … warning! This is what happens when casts expand and every player needs time to blossom. Peter and his team need a story (and Eli gets solid time on his own as well); Cary has to have screen time, which only converges with Glenn Childs’ (Titus Welliver) upon occasion; new name partner Derrick Bond (Michael Ealy) has to catch up to Will and Diane, who both have their own stuff going on; after her Emmy win for playing Kalinda Archie Panjabi has to headline, and she’s also playing a season long game with new investigator Blake (Scott Porter); Zach and Grace can’t be forgotten … you can see where Alicia might get overlooked.
That would be a giant mistake, because the show is Alicia Florrick. Her getting knocked off of the case-of-the-week because of Childs’ political charges was bogus.
That being said, this was a really solid episode all around. The firm’s case was interesting, and it dovetailed nicely with the sniper Cary found himself prosecuting. Cary, on the other hand, has become so excruciatingly smug that he’s pretty much intolerable.
I didn’t care very much for Alicia’s brother Owen (Dallas Roberts), but Peter’s reprimanding of Owen’s behavior made for a great discussion question — can Peter really claim the title of caring husband after all that he’s done? I’m sure a lot of people had positive feelings about Peter seemingly putting Alicia before himself, but wasn’t he really just trying to assume a spousal role that he lost when he cheated on her?
I’m not yet sure what to make of the personal rivalry between Blake and Kalinda. Clearly Blake knows something about her, and Kalinda may have stumbled onto one of his secrets as well when she tailed him (it’s unlikely to be as simple as him sleeping with hookers), but what’s the point of their rivalry? If it were only professional, that would be one thing. But this personal battle they’re waging seems beneath them both, and also kind of takes away from how great they could play off one another if they were struggling to work as a team.
As much as I believe that Peter’s entire story detracts from the show, I loved the Yom Kippur break fast that Eli set up at the Florrick home. Not the idea of it, mind you, but the meal itself was hilarious, especially with Grace getting into political arguments with the guests around the table. In a business of desperate ploys, the meal stunk pretty badly and I’m surprised that any of the players showed up in the first place. But, from a viewer’s perspective, it was definitely worth it.
This is a solid show, no question. But if you mentally extracted all of the ways in which Peter affected this episode — the break fast, Alicia being forced off of her own case, the battle with Glenn Childs and Cary’s subsequent employment in the prosecutor’s office — it not only would have still been a great episode, but we would have gotten a lot more of Alicia to boot. Is that really not enough for the writers?
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Oct 17, 2010 @ 12:30 EST5EDT
Don’t be shocked – but I don’t agree with you. {gasp!}
I loved Owen. I thought his relationship with both Alicia and Peter gave their marriage some much needed back story. “It’s Owen, it’s what he does.” We’ve never seen Peter and Alicia share anything as a family, let alone Peter brushing off Owen’s “attack” on his political career. And Owen was funny; I believed Alicia and him as brother and sister.
Kalinda and Blake seem to have a history. That’s why he keeps calling her Kali. Either that, or he does it to belittle her, but that doesn’t seem like his character. They are fighting each other professionally – it’s no secret that unless they each prove themselves individually, one will go. There isn’t a need for two people doing the same job. Diane asking Kalinda to find dirt on Will is the catalyst. Will never let on that he had any connection with anyone pre-merger.
The Peter political stuff just annoys the hell out of me. I hate that he has so little regard for his family, after everything he has put them through. Ugh.
*POST AUTHOR*
I found Owen completely random and ill-fitting. Suddenly Alicia has a brother? The reasoning provided for why we’d never heard of him before felt forced.
I think Blake keeps calling Kalinda Leila, or something like that … as in, she has a prior identity that she’s hiding from the firm but that Blake knows about. I don’t think there’s any history between them, however.
Diane being suspicious of Will’s connection to Derrick Bond makes no sense. Will voted against her client but appropriately for a capitalist, so she suspects that they have a prior relationship? Makes no sense. She may be right, but there was no foundation built for her conclusion.
I think I agree with Mod here. Owen brought some nice background/humanization to Alicia. It was the only brief look into her past that we have gotten so far. It was nice to see her connecting with someone on a different level than we have seen before.
Blake has been calling Kalinda Leila, though Kalinda doesn’t seem overly concerned about it, so I can’t imagine that it is anything earth shattering in a Don Draper type way.
Don’t forget that Will and Diane’s relationship has always seemed strained. I don’t think it would take much from either of them to breed suspicion in the other. Didn’t strike me as a stretch… especially seeing as how she is correct.
And, Mod, I like the political stuff. You don’t have to like Peter, and in fact I’m not convinced the audience is supposed to. It all just reinforces him as selfish and insensitive, which makes Alicia’s “good wife” role all the more fascinating.
*POST AUTHOR*
Maybe I see that about Owen. I just disliked him, and found the “That’s Owen!” from Alicia and Peter to be too convenient. It seemed staged in a beneath-the-quality-of-the-show sort of way.
I still think Peter could have been a thing never seen but always there — in prison for years on the show, as Alicia deals with the fallout. I think she would have been an even stronger character if done like that.
I don’t think there’s anything sexual. Blake is a slimeball who’s trying to take over Kalinda’s in-house investigator job with the firm (I don’t think there’s enough money or work for 2 full-time house dicks — in Blake’s case, the name is apt). I don’t think he knows anything at all about her, he just calls her ‘Leila’ because it’s more Muslim than her own name of Kalinda, which could denote a Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or even Christian faith. Given the current climate in the US, hinting that she’s Muslim is meant to undermine her position. Kalinda lost it when she realized he was making the point with the lawyers, not just with her, and she gave him a stern warning: stop messing with me.
*POST AUTHOR*
I think we learned that there was something to “Leila” this past week when Blake told Kalinda that he looked into her childhood and found it to be bogus. I believe he’s baiting her based on real info that he knows about her, i.e. that she is not who she says she is.
I liked this episode alot and just flipped when Kalinda and Carey had the scene together…did they really have a ‘thing’??
Blake knows something about Kalinda and is calling her by another name. Loved the scene with her and the baseball bat! Behind the sexual tension between them, I think it is just professional competition.
I liked Owen also, (he was a great character in the AMC series Rubicon). I found it all plausible and I think that there is more to discover about Alicia’s family also. I hope we see more of Owen.I think that he provided us with some info about Alicia, since she is SO strong, focused, closed…
LOVE Eli!!What a great actor! I don’t mind Peter, he seems like background to the ‘family and the law firm’ to me, like a side story.