The Good Wife – What’s with the ridiculous movies about programmers?

If that wasn’t the writers of The Good Wife weighing in on the whole Facebook meets The Social Network issue I don’t know what last night’s episode was. Then again, I’ve never been on the website and I haven’t seen the movie, so I could be wrong. But let’s assume that I’m not.

In a vacuum it was an interesting case. I liked the process that Will and Diane went through as the depositions continued and their legal possibilities evolved. Patric Edelstein’s (Jack Carpenter) impassioned speech was worth absolutely zero, but what can you do; he wasn’t meant to be personable, right?

If Will and Diane were trying to prove malice, I wonder why they didn’t more aggressively investigate reasons that the creative forces behind the movie would have to defame Patric. We never did learn what his website did, but maybe it makes fun of movie producers. Who knows, right?

The studio exec had a solid point with her “Reckless disregard for the truth” answer, despite what Will kept on saying. Inserting fiction into a non-fiction story does not equate a reckless disregard for anything; screenwriter Rand Blaylock (Stephen Kunken) had a great point about needing to more clearly define his characters.

But Rand was far from even a poor man’s Aaron Sorkin. Not that he was necessarily supposed to be, but Rand played Sorkin’s role in relation to the movie; while Patric had certain things in common with his counterpart, Rand’s Sorkin read nothing like the little that I know about the award-winning writer.

In the end I loved the product placement angle that was taken with the case, but it wasn’t enough to put a shine on a lackluster plot. I enjoyed some of what they were doing, but not the broader plot (if that makes any sense). There’s ripped from the headlines, and then there’s mediocre plagiarism. You can guess what I think this was. And what was with Viola Walsh (Rita Wilson) going off like a psycho on Diane? She threw her share of the impending fee right out the window for no reason.

Meanwhile Alicia was off with Owen (Dallas Roberts), helping him move to Chicago after his relationship imploded. There were many sides to the time that they spent off in the middle of nowhere together. Again I enjoyed some of what happened, but not the bottle in which it was delivered.

First of all I don’t like Owen, so seeing him again wasn’t fun. And I really hope that his moving to town doesn’t mean that he’s going to become a frequent visitor. He’s awful. I did like seeing Alicia open up, but I’d prefer it be with just about anyone else.

It was unfortunate that with Owen came a rehashing of Will and Alicia’s relationship. We really didn’t need that, especially after all signs were pointing to the writers moving away from that idea. But one moment there was awesome: when Alicia confronted Will and he went to close his office door, the look on his face … you could see him desperately searching for the right thing to say given all the events that have transpired since last season’s finale. That was great.

I’m getting really tired of the continued battle between Kalinda and Blake. I’m glad that Cary’s friend Andrew (Tim Guinee) agreed to sign on with the State’s Attorney as an investigator, and I loved when he yelled at Cary, but enough! I’m so tired of this back-and-forth.

After Lana (Jill Flint) and Kalinda’s dinner I couldn’t imagine being more grossed out and uncomfortable by this episode. That, of course, was before Kalinda and Blake met up in the hotel room. Cheap sex from this show? I never would have guessed that they’d think to stoop that low.

There were only two things of interest in that scene. One, that Blake’s a fixer and not an investigator. Although, he did “investigate” everyone in the office, so that’s kind of semantics. And two, Blake gasping out to Kalinda that he had found her husband. That, too, was great.

On second thought maybe Blake and Kalinda can fight for another week while we get answers to that little tidbit.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Feb 16, 2011 @ 15:00 EST5EDT