The Good Wife – “Marthas And Caitlins”
“The world must be your oyster.”
As with the previous post, I open with an apology for no post about last week’s episode. But last week’s episode wasn’t all that great, so I don’t feel too bad about it. And I also did a podcast with Cory Barker that discusses the episode and the season thus far (it’s the second half the podcast, in case you don’t watch or like Community), so I feel that kind of makes up for not posting anything about it.
On the upside, the adorably named “Marthas And Caitlins” is a good enough episode that I’m willing to fight through my intense sinus headache I’m experiencing today to write up a few hundred words for you. I mean, if Dylan Baker can make the time to stop by, I can I at least tell you about all the fun I had watching him.
But I’ll have to delay talking about the return of Colin Sweeney (such a perfect name for a psychopath (apologies if your name is Colin Sweeney)) to talk about the end of the episode. Alicia, who has been on something of a hot streak this season (dumping her husband, winning court cases, having steamy sex with her boss) gets the wind knocked out of her by Will as he reveals that Alicia was, for lack of a better term, a nepotism hire, like David Lee’s recently hired niece.
The range of emotions that Margulies allows us to see Alicia work through is a nice piece of acting. How should Alicia feel? Betrayed? Offended? Belittled? Flattered? In what is probably the best choice, Margulies doesn’t pick just one because it makes sense that all of these emotions would quickly move through Alicia. And kudos to Josh Charles for not dipping much into sentimentality here, for not sounding like he wanted Will to soften the blow. It’s clean, stark, and cuts deep, but with a quick pat on the shoulder to make it all better.
That Alicia is surprised by this feels just a tad forced. When she got hired she hadn’t practiced in how long? She was probably hired for her last name and because Will knew her from college (he more or less implies it with the asking of David Lee to vote for her). And when she was made a permanent associate over Cary, it was because of her name and because she brought in Eli’s business, not because she billed more hours or won more cases (that was Cary who did those things).
I’m not sure what to make of Alicia’s naïveté here. At this point, especially since dealing with the wily Louis Canning, you’d think Alicia would be a bit more aware that this is how things work. Admittedly, the episode does play this aspect up a bit here as she laughs off the idea that Peter would come after her for spousal support in the divorce, and her concern over Colin Sweeney’s well-being, but it does still feel a little convenient for the sake of the episode, especially after her Rosh Hashanah maneuvering in the pilot (which is incredibly cynical and slimy).
So this leads the rest of the episode to mull over. Baker’s return as Colin Sweeney feels organic enough that I didn’t mind his reappearance through the (what I assume to be) class action suit against an airplane manufacturer led by Diane and Celeste. But Baker is have fun. Pulling at his collar to try and get questions about his prison ink to the brilliant bit of business of him trying to cross his legs while in manacles, it was a nicely measured performance that could’ve easily gone too Hannibal Lecter-y (named checked a couple of times).
Celeste is, thankfully, more tolerable here. While she does, as David Sims notes, seem to exist “to be outrageous”, here the outrageous-ness feels a bit more justified than it has in her previous two appearances. I still remain unconvinced of Celeste’s chops as a lawyer, and why folks would want her working somewhere, but I’m going to give up on that happening. As a drinking buddy of Alicia, I do enjoy that interplay between the two, but it made me really miss Alicia and Kalinda doing shots of tequila after work.
The other two remaining plots — Eli getting Peter the keynote at the Democratic nominating convention and Grace’s continued friendship with her tutor — are fine enough. I did like that Eli is mostly in campaign mode here as opposed to (silly but awesome) crisis management mode, and I’m intrigued to see how he attempts to bring Peter and Alicia back together. Donna Brazile’s appearance, as herself, works better than their Vernon Jordan, Fred Thompson, and Lou Dobbs appearances earlier in the show’s run, if only because she seems both comfortable in front of the camera and the show’s not making a big deal of her appearance.
I’m still not entirely convinced the show knows what it wants to do with Grace and her one-woman-flash-mob tutor, hence the two generally uneven scenes and justifications for why Grace shouldn’t be friends with Jennifer (“I don’t want you to do these videos” / “She’s too old for you to hang out with.”), but I’m glad the show is at least following through with the plot.
So a much stronger episode than the last one, and happy for that.
FINAL THOUGHTS
- “Let me handle it with a fly-swatter, not a bazooka.”
- Hi, Ken Cosgrove! Sorry you didn’t get more to do!
- “Everybody needs it quick….Ah.” “That was quick.”
- “I hear America is irony free these days.” “Yes, it’s been outlawed.”
- What family spirit does Martha think is at Lockhart-Gardner? What kind of family do you come from, Marta?!
- Cary making small talk with Amani while he’s “talking with Peter” was great.
- I did love how Colin kept referring to the neo-Nazi who orders hits from prison as Donald.
- October 24, 2011
- Noel
- Episode Review
- The Good Wife
