Contributor: Henry T.
Written by Nichelle Tramble Spellman
Directed by Felix Alcala
It’s been such a long hiatus for “The Good Wife” that it took me a little while to remember where the show left off with its storylines. I still remember the firm being in dire financial straits (that’s hard to ignore) and that Eli was under some kind of investigation by the FBI. At least, it looked that way from the photograph obtained by Kalinda. So the show’s return continues with those two major plots. The surprising thing is that there is very little forward movement on those plots here. I’m not asking for a wholesale skipping of major events or an amount of time, but there is a sense that everything that’s happening on the show is becoming stale.
This is especially true of the ongoing bankruptcy of the firm. The characters have set a goal amount to reach and the writers are trying to wring out every possible ounce of drama to delay the firm in getting to that goal. We all know it’s going to happen so there’s the question of why everyone has to delay it. I also don’t think there will be much to be drawn out of the investigation into Eli’s campaign practices. The villains on this show rarely outsmart the “good guys”, and this is just as egreigious an outcome since the show brought back a character from the past who has been roundly defeated every time she has been onscreen.
“The Good Wife” doesn’t always know the best way to enter an episode, and this is no different. The Case of the Week involves mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus and abandoned swimming pools, having the appearance of something Erin Brockovich would be involved in. The case sends Alicia to the backwoods of Minnesota with the task of interviewing the CEO of a corporate conglomerate who owns the properties that had the abandoned swimming pools infested with West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes.
This isn’t the first episode to send Alicia away from the comfortable confines of the courtroom, but this had to be one of the least interesting side trips she has been on. There is no one around the area to interact with, and so the show has to bring back a popular villain: Louis Canning. Now, in the past, I have liked whenever Canning shows up to cause some kind of chaos for Alicia and the firm. His appearance here didn’t spark that same feeling. This is because Canning does the same thing in every appearance: undermine Alicia by currying favor with judges or otherwise carrying out some hidden agenda that is ultimately revealed as a shock twist by the end of the episode. I was wary of Canning from the start, and only waiting for the other shoe to drop.
There were some nice twists thrown in here, with Alicia being friendly with Canning’s wife and her ploy to coldly blackmail the CEO into settling the case by threatening to reveal that he was secretly being treated for cancer. The cold, calculating side of Alicia isn’t seen very often, and more befitting a huckster like Canning. We ultimately don’t know if he still wants Alicia to join forces with him (I still think that’s his ultimate endgame), but he had to admire a bit the fact that she would go that far in order to win the case. I had the small feeling that Alicia always had that in her, but chose to keep it hidden for times when she really needed it. She does get the best of Canning on the case, but the shock twist predictably comes at the end: Canning is now the firm’s new creditor after Clarke was ousted.
The subplot with Clarke facing off against Will and Diane was probably the one I enjoyed about the episode the most. The petty squabbling between both parties was entertaining, and it gets so bad that they have to bring in a mediator to sort all of it out. Both positions are made clear from the outset: Will and Diane will refuse any attempt to fracture the firm by either a merger or a force-out of the managing partners, which is what Clarke is asking for after they blocked his merger attempt in a previous episode. They both make good points about the others, too. Will and Diane point out that Clarke’s only interest is in money and the bottom line. Sure, he has worked with them on certain cases, but he is clearly not there to make friends with anyone.
Clarke makes the most obvious statement about Will and Diane, too. It is one that I have noticed throughout the run of this series. He tells the mediator that Will and Diane have this pathological need to always come out the winner in every case they take, sometimes to their own detriment. Lockhart-Gardner has rarely been shown as the loser, yet they are still in the throes of bankruptcy. It’s the ultimate irony.
If anything, I’d like to see their staff lose some cases, if not to knock them down from their pedestal a bit. They want to be the prestigious, well-liked Chicago law firm, but the truth is that they should be the scrappers; the ones who have to fight tooth-and-nail for every case they can get their hands on. The show has never really explored this direction, and I think it would really help to make it (and the overall plotline) more dynamic. The ending is very predictable, though. Lockhart-Gardner is going to get out from under its debt. It’s only a question of when that will occur. Right now, the storyline is a real drag.
Same can be said with the investigation into Eli’s campaign practices. The Department of Justice sics its hounds onto the Florrick gubernatorial campaign and the goal here seems to be separating Eli from Peter. Or more specifically, painting Eli as corrupt so that Peter is corrupt by association. This would likely torpedo the campaign. And we can’t help but think that’s the motive behind assigning Wendy Scott-Carr as the lead investigative attorney. She has been humiliated in the past by both of these men, which builds a personal and professional vendetta, and this is her way of getting back at them. Never mind the fact that the Department of Justice should have seen that Scott-Carr is too connected to several aspects of the case and that should have immediately disqualified her from the job
It’s like Canning’s appearance in this episode. The writers can’t come up with a new villain right out of the gate of a long hiatus so they bring back someone from the show’s past in the hopes that they can give some kind of shock factor. Eli and Peter have beaten the long odds so many times before that even the outcome of this case seems preordained. They are going to win this.
The show has to do better. It can’t be blamed for stumbling a bit here since the episodes before the winter hiatus had to untangle a large mess of subplots and narratives that didn’t work. It’s not a great start, but there’s time to still fix things as they come along. I should hope they don’t go back to the familiar too often as the season continues to progress. It isn’t the best course to take, as this episode showed.
Score: 6/10
