Posted by Janie Logan Feb 2, 2011, 22:15 GMT
A great source of tension on The Good Wife comes from former colleagues Cary (Matt Czuchry) and Alicia (Julianna Margulies), who are both highly idealistic lawyers, and competitive. Photo courtesy of CBS.
Two losses in a row for Alicia, and like last week in “Two Courts,” a just conviction. Defending guilty clients is part of the business of being a defense attorney, but we’re not used to seeing our heroine lose so much.
Before these two losses in court was the young man who confessed in “Breaking Up” to killing a pharmacist to protect his pregnant girlfriend, despite some unscrupulous tactics to try to turn him against her. Added up, all of this led Alicia to question, “Do you ever feel like we're on the wrong side?”
There’s this pervasive sense that things are not well at Lockhart Gardner, and I think much of the blame can be placed on Bond. Diane and Will joining forces was a step towards getting things back on the right track, and while they didn’t play much of a role in “Silly Season,” they did have a cute little exchange where they put on a show for Bond, pretending to argue over money before Diane walked into her office smiling.
And in light of the fact that Lockhart Gardner is not doing its best work, the episode took us behind enemy lines, so to speak, to the State’s Attorney’s office to revisit Cary Agos. I begrudged his prominence at first—he’s been little more than a smirky sore loser since he started working for Childs—but watching him display some loyalty to Kalinda, and then take a principled stand on the Joey Church case, I was reminded that he’s not a bad guy. And, of course, Matt Czuchry’s charm really does get to you after a while, no matter how much you fight it…
Also given lots of time to shine in “Silly Season” was Alan Cumming. What’s great about Eli is knowing that he is capable of, well, almost anything to achieve his ends, but working with good people like Alicia and a newly reformed Peter makes him rein in his opportunism. You can see in his face when he’s restraining his lesser instincts, and the result is quite comical, as is seeing him face off against a devious high school girl.
The flyer situation seemed like a cheap political tactic that wouldn’t have any real ramifications, but when Eli tracked the anti-Wendy poster to the Political Action Committee that was the major funding source for Peter’s campaign, Peter put a stop to it to protect Zach from the abortion flyer (even though it was false). The effect at the moment: Florrick for State’s Attorney is bankrupt. Eli may think this is the end, but that wouldn’t be a very exciting story, now would it?
According to executive producers Robert & Michelle King, Peter’s outburst in the televised debate a few weeks ago is going to win him some support among the youth (Lesson: cursing is cool!), and that might be just what he needs to rally a victory in the Democratic primary.
Peter’s not perfect, to be sure, but from Alicia’s reactions to the aforementioned outburst and to his dropping the PAC, it’s clear that he’s a different man. He’s putting his family before politics, and it is for that reason that a door was finally opened in their relationship. He asked Alicia to let him share the bedroom again because he is more than a dad and a roommate. If she’s really going to stick with him, she has to let him start being a husband again.
Of course, if he wins the election and resumes his position as State’s Attorney, that’s when the real fun will begin. Not only will it be a test of just how changed he is, but he and Alicia would be working on opposite sides in court. That’s just too good a possibility NOT to happen.
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