Monsters of Television

“Ma’am, I live in a world of rules.”

Death penalty stories are inherently manipulative. The stakes are clearly and easily defined, and since our protagonists are always defending an “innocent person”, we’re quickly caught up in their story. Said death row inmate will also have an estranged family member that our protagonists will convince to see their relative one more time. Pile on the ticking clock of a last-minute appeal, both legal and emotional, and you might as well just go ahead and toss us, the audience, into an emotional pressure cooker.

And it’s surely to the The Good Wife‘s credit then that while I was aware of its shameless deployment of the death penalty tropes that I didn’t really care that I was being manipulated (well, okay, twice I got a little annoyed). The episode is tightly constructed, suspenseful, and emotional, and it’s a real treat to get this before the winter hiatus settles in.

You all know how much I love good procedural beats, and an episode like this allows them to occur at a very rapid rate, which just contributes to my enjoyment of the episode. I’ve always liked when a show that deals with something I’m not super familiar with, like why a clerk would be calling for an addendum, strings out its characters acting like it’s important. It’s a great hook, because you’ll stay through the cold open to find out why an addendum is damn important and if you’re through the cold open, you’re probably not going to switch the channel.

But it’s also a nice way to give you something to care about right off the bat. Not only does the show make you ask a question, but it makes you care about the question if it’s done right. Which leads to you caring about them getting the addendum, which leads to you caring about everything else in the episode (Mind you, if the dirty dreams of Will didn’t hook you initially, and they hooked me, then I don’t think anything will).

So I enjoyed the rest of the episode’s procedural beats, as the firmed pilfered from Legal Aid to look through their case, tried to get info about judges, argued technicalities in front of judges, and even brought in Barry Scheck to bring Cary, however briefly, back into the fold. It’s a nice moment, because it reminds us, as much of this season does, that despite Cary’s bitterness at not being selected for the firm’s junior associate position, he’s still a lawyer who cares about things, a lawyer who has a moral compass (of sorts) and follows it.

These events feel a bit piled up, but they should, given the episode’s deadline, which makes the compact nature of the episode click and add urgency to it. As a result, it’s the best kind of drama where you actually need a commercial (yes, that’s right, a commercial) to catch your breath and take a moment to decompress. Sure, you could hit pause, but then you control when you go back, and there’s something a wee bit thrilling about having a deadline of your own.

So what were the two things that annoyed me, you must be wondering? Wright’s shuffle down to the death chamber waiting room, in chains, past his estranged daughter with the somber song playing over it without diegetic noise irked me. It was too shamelessly manipulative for my taste, even if it be a trope the episode has to hit. Likewise, Alicia’s plea at the end, “It has to be right.”, tried a little hard for me, and shook me out of the episode’s momentum in its last moments.

The character beats worked well, too. I like the timeout that Alicia and Kalinda take to talk about Will and, gag, Blake, and with beers no less! And while the heart-to-heart still didn’t give me much to go on with Kalinda and Blake (“I didn’t like my life before, so I changed it.” […] “In ways that Blake is trying to use against me.” WHY FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT HOLY, WHY?!), I still liked that the episode, organically, managed to take this step back and have this brief scene.

Grace’s conversion, on the other hand, seems a little wobbly. Having laid the groundwork for this a bit in a previous episode, I appreciate the follow-through, even while I wonder about the suddenness of it. But I’ll play along as it seems like everyone is a little unnerved by it, and we, as the audience, are left to feel unnerved as well with that last shot of Grace kneeling in prayer at her bed.

All in all, a  great episode of a great series. Hopefully this carries us high into the next half of the season.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• That must’ve been the most amazing French toast.
• Here’s how much I enjoyed the episode: I didn’t even notice that Eli wasn’t in it until 11:48 pm. That’s nearly two hours after the episode finished.
• Despite the seriousness of the episode, there’s still plenty of small bits of comedy. From the French toast to Alicia selecting a tie without even looking, to Jackie appearing on command followed by the most amazing bewildered and shocked look I’ve ever seen on Julianna Margulies’ face (someone make that into a .gif for me, please?), it all really clicked. All that was missing was a pratfall.
• I’ve covered three spots for my The Good Wire bingo card. Two more and I think I get my own tower in Chicago.