Monsters of Television

“Get out while you can. Just don’t go into retail.”

Every now and then, The Good Wife is a little one the nose, and “The Penalty Box” is one of those episodes. Even the quote above neatly sums up everything about the episode, which is concerned with people who need to get out of things and into other things before it just ruins their lives. Or, in Eli’s case, just kind of ruins a couple days of his life listening to why the firm should institute a slush fund to help clients get laid.

That being said, this episode was pretty tame, right (Kalinda’s steamy scene with Lana aside)? Especially for the penultimate episode of the season, not a whole lot of stuff, well, mattered, it seemed. I figured Peter’s run for governor would hit the backburner a touch, but I wasn’t expecting it to be reduced to a bickering married couple scene in the elevator (a great visual, by the way) (even more worrying: Matthew Perry’s pilot for NBC was picked up).

But let’s dive in and discuss the meat of the episode. Read more »

“It’s the big leagues You foul a few off.”

Oh, it is on.

I talked with Cory Barker over at his blog about the season so far a couple of weeks or so ago, and one of the things we discussed was how it seemed like the show didn’t have much to tie up as it moved into its final three hours. Yeah, there’s the Kalinda/FBI/financial thing, but does anyone really really care about it? (No.) There was only the result of the infighting of Lochart /Gardner & Associates hanging over the show, and whether or not Peter would run for governor.

I don’t know about Cory, but I’m feeling really stupid for not seeing this coming a mile away. And, really, I don’t think I’ve been happier to feel this sandbagged by, well, everything. Read more »

“We must have missed the memo. Apparently, we’re now Stalin and associates.”

No time, I’m afraid, for a full review this week. Just too much going on, so I’ll do kind of a highlight reel of the episode, blatantly stealing the idea from Todd VanDerWerff’s most recent Archer review.

The struggles at Lockhart & Associates: Really great stuff here as the in-fighting amongst the equity partners is reaching a boiling point, and the battle involved in keeping everyone not only under control, but also from totally rearranging the firm. People shouting and talking over each other is always fun, and it’s even more fun on The Good Wife because of Alan Cumming, Michael Boatman, and Zach Grenier going whole hog in the scenes. Which leads us to…

Diane (and, by extension, Christine Baranski) being pretty much the bestest: Diane’s character has struggled a bit to stay in mix on the show sometimes, but with Will unable to directly help (“Consulting.”) she’s been pushed to the forefront in all sorts of wonderful ways. The calm center of the raging boardroom fights has to be let out in places, whether it be her exasperated sigh as Alicia grabs her before the elevator (I loved that face!) or the decision that she needs a booty call with long-missing Kurt after getting stood up.

I loved all of this because Diane is rich character for the show to mine portrayed by a very talented actress, and the episode delivers a really strong episode for her (it has “Emmy submission” written all over it right now). And I like how it gets Diane a little into the muck here as well, unilaterally approving a bonus (not a full raise) for Alicia over the objections of (at the very least) David Lee. She’s going on a limb to keep Alicia around (even if Julius and Eli agree), using some political capital on a 3rd year associate, and it may not help Alicia’s standing at the firm to be seen as getting help from the managing partners. Read more »

“I don’t have to prove anything. Or, if I have to, I don’t want to.“

There seemed to be a good bit going on in this episode, but this could’ve been my sinuses/cold from a couple of weeks ago trying to stage a comeback influencing my perception of things. Said blahness is still trying to worm its way in today, so this will be a bit briefer than usual, even though there’s lots of good stuff happening in the episode. I’ll direct you to a couple of links at the end of the post for you to read to make up for it.

So, after the jump, I’ll address the two things that I really latched onto in the episode, which were the resolution of the Caitlin arc and Cary’s on-going struggles in the SA’s office. Read more »

“Nature abhors a vacuum.“

Are we still doing place setting? “After The Fall” feels very much like we’re still organizing the chairs on the deck before we set sail for the concluding episodes of the season. It’s not that “After The Fall” is a bad episode, but it’s just also kind of there, an episode that doesn’t feel completely essential apart from a few specific beats.

But thank goodness for those specific beats as they helped salvaged what might’ve been a truly lackluster episode. Between the (sadly) unengaging case and the fact that Will’s sisters, while amusing and helped fill in Will’s life a bit, didn’t feel themselves filled in.  Read more »

This was me. I was just as adorable, too.

I was sick this past weekend. I had a sore throat that made it difficult to swallow even saliva, let alone food. I was, paradoxically, suffering from both a stuffy and a runny nose, I had chest and head congestion, I had a fever, and by Saturday night, was pretty much unable to maintain a lucid conversation with someone over the phone. I had somewhat improved by Sunday, thanks to different over the counter medications, though the fever remained.

As is the case with some people when they’re sick, I turned to television to be my nursemaid, particularly on Saturday during the worst of it, to keep me company, to tell me that I was, very likely, not going to die as a result of teh_sick. Typically my habit is to watch stuff I have on DVD, with my normal standbys being Sports Night and Batman: The Animated Series. Both shows are comfort foods of mine, and I know the episodes by heart so that if I zone out or fall asleep, I haven’t “missed” anything.

But thanks to advances in technology since the last time I was this sick (which has easily been at least 5 years), I didn’t have to drag my sick and feeble body off the couch or out of bed to change the discs of whatever I was watching. I could just hit ‘Next episode’ on Netflix and remain curled up in blankets, cats, used tissues, and mugs of tea.  It. Was. Wonderful.

So here are thoughts about what I watched over the weekend. I watched, by the way, entirely too much stuff. Really. It’s kind of pathetic. Read more »

“The only problem is that he never fought the Jews. We’re Mossad, baby.”

Rather thankfully, this ham sandwich is better than last season’s. And while I have little quibbles, mainly with Wendy, the episode as a whole is a great success, paying off the season’s overreaching plot of the investigation into Will’s judicial conduct. I mean, any episode that ends with Will and Diane dancing together because they appear to be goddamn bullet-proof is pretty impressive, yeah?

So while I’m going to talk about the episode a bit, I’m also going to address other reviews of the episode, as “Another Ham Sandwich” has prompted a slight resurgence in the “The Good Wife is doing cable drama on broadcast!” idea that gets circulated every now and then, and annoys the hell out of me. Read more »

“I like anything with bears!“

“Alienation of Affection” is good, but light. It’s cotton candy-y. Which sounds dismissive, but I really enjoy cotton candy (despite having made bags upon bags of cotton candy at a previous job (it’s not a fun experience, by the way)). But a more eloquent way to express the episode came from Carrie Raisler, a write for the AV Club. She tweeted: “#GoodWife is so committed to being just slightly off center; enough to be amusing, but not so far as to slip into [David E.] Kelley nonsense. It’s fab.”

Now, putting aside that I generally enjoy Kelley’s brand of nonsense (Harry’s Law notwithstanding), Carrie’s completely correct, and “Alienation of Affection” demonstrates this to a tee. The stakes of the episode, that Lockhart-Gardner is on the hook for $44 million dollars, is pretty absurd. There’s no way they’re going to pay that amount of money because it would crush the firm, totally change the dynamics of the show (as it slyly tries to make us think it will (but may still)), and everyone — the writers and the audience — know it’s absurd.

So instead of playing straight and with its normal steady hand of drama, the episode decides to have a little fun and treat the suit lightly. I mean, none of the characters ever seem all that worried about it, except for a last-minute tense-up about the rider. And, really, if you thought the episode was going to be played straight after seeing David Lee in full costume for a Gilbert and Sullivan production, you need to adjust your expectations.

Read more »

“Only in Cook County.”

Pardon me while I eat some crow about nothing happening in the investigation storyline until February sweeps.

Well. Half a serving. Since nothing really happened, still, but dayum, show. That’s some crazy stuff you just cooked up there (though I have minor quibbles).

On the upside, this is how I like to go out before (way too long) winter hiatus. Something that nicely raises the stakes for the characters while still giving a strong and compelling procedural element. Indeed, it had all my favorite elements of an episode of The Good Wife (except, oddly, no Eli, but I didn’t notice that until I started thinking about the episode yesterday!). Read more »

So, heh, been away for a long while. Combination of factors  over the past two months has made blogging a bit of challenge. I freely admit that it boiled down to personal issues, professional issues, writer’s block, and, really, being a burnt out on the week-to-week reviewing process. Sometimes you just run out of things to say, and it gets monotonous to write (not sure how it feels to read).  In any case, I’m back for at least this week (yes, of course, the week that lots of stuff hits winter hiatus, but there you go).

But I feel good about coming back to The Good Wife with this episode as it is one that seemingly acknowledges criticisms (“Eli feels like he’s not a part of the show now.” or “How the hell do LG win so many damn cases?” (am I right, Karen?)) while also shaking a few things up while providing us a couple of avenues for plot development.

That being said, how well does the episode do these things? While I’m overall fine with the outcome, the way the episode gets there is kind of, well, ham-fisted and wrapped in a chain of bad melodrama cliches that are are still (for the most part) effective, because that’s how good the show is.

Read more »