Did The Good Wife just land Michael J. Fox in a recurring role?

Another solid episode of The Good Wife last night. Suddenly multiple story lines are coming into sharp focus, and the upcoming conclusion to the second season promises to bring with it a whole lot of answers … if not a slew of new questions, too.

Since Jonas Stern (Kevin Conway) left the firm, Lockhart, Gardner has been struggling to stay afloat. And even though the firm’s troubles were in part inflicted by Stern himself, I’ve been waiting a while for Stern’s ultimate revenge. Well, it would appear that his revenge will come in his death — his new firm has been bought by none other than Louis Canning (Michael J. Fox). Could Fox be set to join the show on a semi-regular basis?

That would seem even more likely with the job offer that Canning repeatedly extended to Alicia last night. It’s not her first, but it would seem to make the most sense, at least from the show’s perspective; is it just me, or are Fox and Julianna Margulies a great pair? Watching them act off one another is awesome. And I think it’s possible that Alicia will leave the firm … the show’s about her building her own life, and that means nothing should be off the table.

Besides, Will as a significant other seems to be a ship that’s long sailed at this point. I’m not a Tammy (Elizabeth Reaser) fan, but they seem to be happy together, and I don’t see why Will would throw that away at this point. I certainly prefer things this way, because I never felt anything real between Will and Alicia.

Fox did another awesome job as a lawyer, and I love how he gets under Alicia’s skin all the time. Judge Abernathy (Denis O’Hare) presiding over the class action suit provided Canning with a ton of opportunities to have his way, like introducing exhibits that Lockhart, Gardner itself had used when arguing against Canning’s client way back when. We seem to have lost the Michael Ealy sweepstakes, so why not give us Alex P. Keaton?

The class action itself was interesting, even if the pension fund raiding was a bit of an easy out, but there was just so much else going on last night … how about Eli choking DCC chair Frank Landau (Mike Pniewski) after learning that they’d filed a frivolous residency suit against Wendy Scott-Carr? And it’s interesting that Alicia may learn about Kalinda and Peter’s affair through someone other than Kalinda, like maybe from journalist Petra Moritz (Lily Rabe). It was a terrible idea for Eli to agree to allow Alicia to do the interview, but she handled herself pretty well.

I’m still tired of Peter’s philandering, but I at least appreciate that the story’s been taken out of Kalinda’s hands and handed to other people to deal with. Looking back from this perspective, it would seem possible that Blake — and by extension Bond — was introduced solely to bring Alicia, Peter, and Kalinda to this point, and it’s at least an interesting take to watch as the story’s navigated by Cary, Andrew (Tim Guinee), and Matan (Chris Butler) instead of by Kalinda. Great lion speakerphone, by the way!

I still think Wendy should — and will — win the election; Peter doesn’t deserve a second chance from the electorate any more than he does from his family. What’ll be interesting to see is what season three will look like … will Alicia and Peter be over for good? Will Alicia be working for Canning? Will she run for office herself (which would keep Eli in the loop)? Will all the players at Lockhart, Gardner be gone save for when Alicia and Canning square off against them?

And how will Derrick Bond exact his revenge? Because I can’t believe that we’ve heard the last of him quite yet….

“We all end up in the same place; all that’s left is our Wikipedia entry.” – Will to Diane, on death

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Apr 06, 2011 @ 16:00 EST5EDT