Who else has a vendetta against The Good Wife?

They build, and build, and build, and then … splat. Nothing.

I loved how well The Good Wife built the missing Grace story line last night, even if I didn’t care that Grace was missing. But the action that started the whole scramble, the butt dialing? I know it’s a problem people with touch screen phones actually face, and I just have to ask: do touch screens have some sort of rocket science-level locks that are unintelligible to regular people? After all these years with cell phones people haven’t figured this out?

Anyway, as much as I dislike Kalinda I appreciated the initiative she took in finding Grace; isn’t it sad that the police don’t investigate as well as she does? Peter telling the police that he was going to get special treatment was an extreme abuse of power, but I enjoyed seeing him being a loving father instead of everything else we’ve had to suffer through with him. And Louis Canning (Michael J. Fox, who’s always a treat to see no matter what he’s doing) helping and consoling Alicia as she attempted to put some of the pieces together was phenomenal. The entire sequence was done incredibly well.

But then Kalinda found Grace … after an hour … as she was randomly being baptized at some hole-in-the-wall church in Englewood … and suddenly a great bit of storytelling withered and died on the vine. I wasn’t looking for her to be in danger — although the episode could have done more than the nothing it did with the Pike story — but talk about ruining a great plot with superb multiple story arcs running through it. Boo!

It was mighty fine having Louis Canning back irrespective of that. I still like the idea of Alicia going to work for him. First of all their chemistry is electric — imagine Alicia actually having chemistry with someone! — and second of all, we’d get to see Fox more often. I say she should go for it. And I love how good he is at what he does: “I waited till your daughter was safe; then I looked in your bag.” Yeah you did, Louis!

I liked Arbitrator Rodney Jesko (John Michael Higgins), and the case was kind of okay — mostly due to Canning — but the Caitlin (Anna Camp) versus Martha (Grace Rex) battle was a) blown out of proportion, b) not done particularly well, and c) totally something we’ve seen a thousand times before with Alicia and someone else. And was it just me, or does Martha’s bitterness sound an awful lot like Cary’s? Did that really need to be recycled?

I’m extremely glad that Cary dragged his investigator, Andrew Wiley (Tim Guinee), back into the fold. I enjoyed him before, and am glad to see him again. Especially if he’s being let loose on Will; no way is Andrew going to come up empty handed, and Will’s due a comeuppance.

Eli’s evolving story could go a number of ways. If he’s going to be sucked into the Peter/Will nonsense, I’ll pass. But if his airtime in the near term is going to be his learning to be more involved and to share, well, that’s awesome. I loved Eli learning how to play nice with others, and his struggling to learn how to work in a collaborative environment would be an awesome story for him. And for the show, which so far this season has been struggling. I say go for it.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Dec 05, 2011 @ 08:00 EST5EDT