Contributor: Henry T.
Written by Ted Humphrey
Directed by Griffin Dunne
Ten episodes into the season, and it marks the end of the Nick-Kalinda storyline. Producers had apparently intended for the storyline to go longer were it not for fan backlash that prompted the swifter conclusion here. I can’t see how that would’ve worked, which makes the ending here make even less sense. This is because everything about Nick and his relationship with Kalinda made little sense. But he’s gone now, thankfully, and the show can move on to other things involving Kalinda.
The Case of the Week could not hold interest for me, even if the details were rather unique. The verdict rendered on the two trials was stunning. Although, it feels like it’s rendered moot by the lawyers joining forces on appeal. The show also keeps itself busy with less eventful subplots that have Alicia’s kids possibly searching for explicit information online and Eli being investigated by the Department of Justice for possible campaign finance violations.
It seems very silly to devote a big portion of this review on a plotline that I definitely didn’t favor for much of its run, but its ending here does warrant it. What Nick has done so far has had no concrete explanation. He had an underling beat Cary up for being close friends with Kalinda. It’s shady because Cary is Nick’s lawyer, though the previous episode established that Cary knew about Nick’s entire drug-running operation. If Nick was still running drugs while also getting lawyers for a monetary bid on a business, he’d be hard-pressed not to expect to get caught. It’s supposed to be satisfying that Kalinda blows the lid off the operation by exposing loads of drugs in the trunk of one of the towed cars, but it really wasn’t that in any way. Why did Kalinda wait hours after calling the police to tell Nick that his business was being raided? And why would Nick not even know that the police was basically ending his time on the show for that long a time? Then Kalinda tells him succinctly that he will be gone or she’ll make him gone. That’s all there is to it.
The storyline ends so abruptly that it felt like I had whiplash by the final scene. Kalinda’s face doesn’t give away anything, which seems par for the course. We never got an idea of how she felt about the guy so it becomes hard to feel any sense of loss when he leaves the show. It’s especially puzzling given the manner in which he leaves. It’s like the day you wake up and you find that cold you’ve been fighting for a week has suddenly vanished. It feels like you’re going to be in a fog for a long time. Eventually, you forget about it and move on.
The Case of the Week this time didn’t present much of anything that was noteworthy before the rendering of dual verdicts. It’s a murder case where two different men are on trial for the same crime. One is being defended in Chicago by Will and the other by a small-town attorney who’s being helped by Alicia. The details of the case don’t really hold interest for me, although I was amused by little moments like when Will disproved a security guard’s testimony by having Kalinda yell in the courthouse hallway or when Matan from the SAO gets roped into the case and has to answer for a past conviction that he screwed up on. In the end, I was shocked when both trials put a guilty verdict on both men. The verdicts should have had more weight to them, but it was immediately undercut by Will saying that they will pool resources with the SAO to overturn it on appeal. So I question why they would even bring the case to trial in the first place if the end result just doesn’t matter.
But that and other things add to the busy feel of the episode, even if they had somewhat mixed results. The writers pay off Kalinda’s photo of Eli by revealing that it’s part of an ongoing Justice Department investigation into the campaign finance tactics of the Florrick for Governor campaign. I like the notion that Eli constantly thinks he’s above reproach regarding these matters. It has to affect him in some way, somehow. We don’t see that here, but it may come up again down the line. Finally, Alicia’s kids get into the foray, though I prefer them like this, in the background instead of being a primary storyline like the past few episodes. A comedy of errors ensues due to an online keyword search of all things, and the twist is that the search doesn’t involve the kids at all, but actually Jackie, which is a nice (if icky) surprise. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on Alicia’s kids because they do mean well most of the time. I just wish the writers could keep them permanently in the background of a decidedly adult show like this.
Score: 7/10
