The Good Wife 3x11: What Went Wrong

Original Air Date: 11 December 2011

Storyline: The firm goes all out when a client is surprisingly found guilty of first degree murder. They have a sympathetic judge and even Carey Agos was concerned that the prosecution hasn't made their case. The accused refused a deal, not prepared to plead guilty to something she didn't do. Now that the verdict has been delivered, they look for evidence of jury misconduct or anything that might get the judge to direct a verdict of not guilty. It doesn't get easier when Special Prosecutor Wendy Scott-Carr questions the judge in the Will Gardner investigation. She also has something interesting to say to Will.Best Quote:

Ms. Venegas: You are the State's Attorney, sir.
Peter: Yes, ma'am, I am. That's why I'm going to say this to you...very slowly. I'm the State's Attorney. You don't say no to me. And you especially don't say no to me when it concerns my children. Do you understand? I think the word you're looking for is yes.

Review: This week's episode was all about rekindling friendships and keeping true to one's beliefs and I found it quite entertaining in all aspects, even though one major character was missing. I find any episode where Eli Gold is not present is a half bummer, even if everything else is enjoyable. Yeah, yeah, I know, whenever he was around, I complained about too much going on, and now I'm complaining about his absence. Women are like that, impossible to please.

Out of all the cases we've seen these past 2 and a half seasons, I thing this one is the one I liked most. It went past the usual legal investigations and right into jury and judicial misconduct, a topic I find most appealing. I don't know if I've said it before, but I'm a law graduate, and that's only one of the reasons I enjoy legal procedurals so much. I'm also educated in the civil law system (more commonly known as Continental European law) and - though I find common law intriguing, there are a lot of aspects I don't agree with on principle. I don't understand how people can find fair a system that allows people to be condemned by the likes of old McDonald - people with no legal education and sometimes with no education of any kind, who think what they see on CSI is true, a system where the courtroom is more like a theater scene where the actor who puts the best show usually wins or a system where plea bargains are real, allowing for so many unfair decisions.
So, back to our sheep, this week's case was a good example of the lack of objectivity in American courts, one that put so many innocent people in jail or on death row and let free so many guilty ones. It was entertaining as a case study and a proof that any verdict can be overturned if people dive into it a little bit. The good thing was that is gave us some great Alicia/Kalinda scenes, not to mention giving us plenty of the gorgeous Romany Malco.
Let's put aside the care for the moment and focus on some of the themes of the episode. These were all over the place, ranging from female bonding - "women need to help women" (which is not a bad concept per se, but it was shallowly treated here and came out of nowhere) to winning no matter whose life gets screwed to old friends to dignity and standing your ground despite the challenges that come with that. And in all this mess, the Florrick kids couldn't have been absent, though I really don't get all this insistence on Grace and her beliefs, with all the bad feedback coming from the viewers. As Diane said to Alicia about keeping her eye on the ball, I'm directing the same plea to this show's producers.
The surprise of the evening came from the ever so elegant and annoyingly fake Wendy Scott-Carr (Anika Noni Rose is gorgeous, but why make her speak in that affected tone all the time?), who showed that, despite claiming to be a straight up person, showed that she can stab someone in the back without the slightest remorse. I'm thinking here that this - and Peter's actions to get his kids into private school - might just be enough to drag Alicia back into his political mess.
Some other stuff: Owen is becoming too much of a filler character, brought in when something about Alicia's personality needs to be emphasized; not cool, guys, not cool. For a show who mentioned Twitter and Facebook numerous times (and is quite "in" with the real world's events), I was unpleasantly surprised about using Facebranch as the social network of the week. And probably the most fun thing of the episode was the story about the Mosou women; that would be the greatest society to live in.
There were a lot of good things about this week's installment - Alicia and Kalinda being on the way to mending fences and Will's refusal to save his butt instead of giving up secrets about Peter (not to forget Alicia's confession - finally! - that she never really loved Will). I'm now looking forward for the new episodes coming in January.The Good Wife 3x10: Parenting Made Easy Back to Season 3