Monsters of Television

“I think I was just mugged.”

Maybe I’m just feeling off, but this episode certainly felt a bit messy. But then maybe it was that out out of left field kiss and the Elsbeth and Eli subplot that ended up distracting me from the otherwise solid core of the episode.

Which I feel bad about because the on-going L-G stuff was not only interesting but pushed characters in new directions, and the case of the week, while having a couple of missteps, allows the L-G stuff to have a bit more room to breathe than it might otherwise have had.

And the episode continued CBS shows not only having Kyle MacLachlan show up, but a show including the phrase “Red Team” in an episode title. Read more »

“This guy’s obsessed with Rambo. Does anyone even watch that anymore?”

I say things and they happen.

Last week, I said that L/G needed to hand off Eli to another lawyer, preferably Elsbeth, to handle the DOJ investigation happening, and whamo! I should ask for other things to happen. Tell me what to ask for you in the comments, otherwise I’ll use my powers for evil (like asking for David Lee to only appear in Gilbert & Sullivan garb).

After a lot of booms (see what I did there?) in the previous episode, “Je Ne Sais What?” is a much lighter episode, and we’re all the better for it, really. There’s plenty of (easy) humor, and a bit of advancement on the political campaign, making it just the right sort of episode before we enter the back half of the season. Read more »

“No one disappears. They all come back. Like zombies.”

First: I want to apologize for the lack of The Good Wife posts as the season wound down. Sundays and Mondays just got hectic for me, TV writing-wise, and it just receded as the week went on. Those issues have been removed from the time equation, so I should be back with the show for the time being. Know that I generally liked each episode, though I feel like the series is starting to gorge  itself on guest stars (“A Defense of Marriage” was practically bursting at the gills). I have nothing to say about the “resolution” of the Kalinda and Nick storyline since, well, without seeing Nick’s body being dumped into a plastic barrel of hydrofluoric acid, Breaking Bad-style, I refuse to believe that he’s really gone.

Second: All of the feelings about this episode. And all of the thoughts. And all of the thoughts and all of the feelings are in serious conflict with one another. Read more »

“It’s still crap.”

First, apologies for no review for “Waiting for the Knock” from last week. Between paid writing and trying not to get sick (and then actually getting sick), I just didn’t have the opportunity to write about the episode. Here’s a micro-review: Clarke is the most awesome to ever awesome, Cary’s hoodie was hawt, and if Dylan had hung onto Lemond any longer, I would’ve been sniffling about a drug dealer and his son. Also: Two folks from The Wire stopped by, again, so that was cool. Also also: Cary’s hoodie, guys.

And now onto “The Art of War.”

Read more »

I’m of two minds about “Don’t Haze Me, Bro.”

On the one side, there is no Nick storyline. HUZZAH. (Sadly, he’s back for the next two episodes.) And it was a very funny episode.

On the other side, the case of the week was something of an afterthought (though it had John Glover, who is always a delight). And some of the humor turned out not to be that funny.

Oh, and despite all the mounting evidence, someone is bound and determined to demolish Peter’s run for governor with this campaign worker scandal.  Are we getting played for saps? Read more »

“You’ve been paranoid for so long that you don’t recognize when someone is on your side.”

As you may or may not be aware, I work for a Web site. And since I work for a Web site that has high-profile corporate sponsors, we’re constantly concerned about search engine optimization, or SEO. It was to my delight, then, to see a court case about how a search engine, in this case Chum Hum (owned by returning Web 2.0 nemesis/caricature Neil Gross), was potentially (and likely) gaming search results by tweaking its search algorithm. It’s something we talk about at work about every week in regards to Google Panda, their algorithm.

So perhaps I responded more strongly to the court case than others may have (it’s actually a really important thing to highlight, and I’ll get to that), but the rest of the episode offers lots of good stuff if the case’s search engine intricacies weren’t your cup of tea.

And, you know, the dramatic dead end that is the Kalinda-Nick thing. Oy. Read more »

“What was that? Suddenly I’ve got Columbo on the jury?”

For the record, I had no idea that Maddie Hayward, Maura Tierney’s character who debuted in this episode, was going to just keep the feminist ball rolling this week, and make it even more explicit.

While last week’s review was a sort of a large, over-arching, “here’s an idea I’m having, let’s talk about it” sort of post, this week’s will be a bit more nuts-and-bolts, and more focus on the episode than the broad overview I gave the premiere. If anything, hopefully, this will convince people at Television Without Pity that my response to the Kalinda plot last week was not due to me hating her (which seemed to be common take-away, oddly, and ignoring the parallels I was attempting to draw). Read more »

“This isn’t about the ’50s, and it’s not about women. It’s about me.”

I don’t know that many dramas do better season premieres than The Good Wife.

It’s not that “I Fought the Law” is necessarily a crazy episode but that it is, now in its fourth season, can effortlessly do these sorts of establishing episodes with not only aplomb but with enough little touches that it didn’t miss a step over the break.

But there’s also a lot of promise in this premiere. It’s par for the course for the series, one that likes to juggle lots of different elements. These elements don’t always pay off (Remember how excited I was about Lisa Edelstein last year?!), but it’s a sign of the show’s ever-increasing ambition that it actively pursues these elements. And I think the plots points presented here, the law firm troubles, Peter’s campaign, Kristen Chenoweth’s reporter, and another new Kalinda subplot, all show promise. Read more »

“They tried to flip it, but they didn’t put any work into it.”

Nothing ever dies, nothing ever goes away. Things can be forgiven, but they can never be forgotten. So, yes, you may keep defeating two crafty lawyers time after time, Lockhart-Gardner, but they never forget the defeats. Yes, the grand jury didn’t indict anyone, and the SA didn’t bother to try again, but the stink of judicial bribery will always be there, Will. Yes, you can run from your past, from your husband and live in a spartan, all white apartment, but he will find you, Kalinda. And, yes, Alicia, you can kick out your husband and he will fall on his sword for your professional success, but the marriage will never be fixed because neither of you seemed to really make an effort.

So no matter what you think about new days and starting over, the past is there, always lingering, always waiting for you to stop looking over your shoulder. Read more »