The Good Wife is the least interesting person on her show

What a solid episode of The Good Wife last night! While two of the three stories featured big arcs reaching crescendos, it was the third, unrelated tale that I found the most entertaining.

I was trying to think of another legal series that did as good a job crafting a supporting client like Lemond Bishop (Mike Colter). We’ve only seen him four times, but every time his story’s been interesting, creative, and fresh. And last night’s was the best.

I loved the “even drug dealers get divorced” aspect of it; we usually don’t think about the legally challenged going through the more mundane areas of the legal system, but apparently they do. And there has to be a connection between The Good Wife and The Wire, because last night yet another veteran of the latter appeared on the former when Bodie (J.D. Williams) himself popped up as Bishop’s man Dexter Roja.

Dex was awesome during his interview. I loved when he said that he doesn’t keep the books, but rather “I keep count,” and it was really funny when he started arguing with Katrina Bishop (Sophina Brown) over the value he put on Bishop’s drug trade. Fred Medkiff (Bill Irwin), the mediator, was great when he started to ask a follow-up question and then thought better of it.

Even better in the mediation room was David Lee. I generally am not a fan, but I thought he was just so funny, especially when he was fighting with Agent Hemings (Paul Urcioli) about, among other things, what the FBI was doing on September 11. “That was the CIA!”

And, I’m sorry, but there was something so right — considering the character — about Bishop taking matters into his own hands and having his wife killed. And that with our assumption that he didn’t know she was cheating on him; I wonder what he would have done had he found out!

So that was the best part of the episode. Coming in second was the political drama. The DNC coming in and acting all tough with Eli was great, and I loved that Eli was unbuckling his pants. But I have to question the logic behind their “whitewashing” of Peter’s campaign. First of all, according to the 2000 census the demographics of Chicago are roughly one-third black and one-third white, so what Eli’s really shooting for is that the other one-third of the population, all minority, will vote for the guy with the all-white campaign. Sure thing.

Plus, isn’t it more dangerous for Peter to drop Pastor Isaiah — does he still have a pulpit? — now rather than keep up his private relationship with him? Talk about bad public perception.

I feel a little better knowing that this focus on Kalinda isn’t really about her. I like her character, but the center of a grand tale? It never made sense. It also doesn’t make sense that Childs would be aiming to take down Will, but I’ll accept that for now. Still, I was mainly bored during that part of the episode, save for the Blake appearances; I really think he was a tremendous addition to the show. And I loved how in her final testimony Kalinda put the Bishop murder on Blake. That was awesome!

As was the twist at the end, with Blake’s accusation that Kalinda had slept with Peter. I don’t know why the writers had to toss her new identity into that mix — Blake could have been sniffing after the affair all this time instead — but that would be unbelievable. Can you imagine the possibilities?

It would even make Alicia significant again, wouldn’t it?

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Mar 23, 2011 @ 15:42 EST5EDT