The Good Wife 2.14
Feb. 16th, 2011 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which we discover Robert & Michelle King like Mark Zuckerberg better than they like Aaron Sorkin, and Alicia & Owen have this year's best sibling scenes on tv (so far).
To start with least things first, I wish Blake's actor wouldn't mumble because I really didn't understand the last thing he said in the showdown with Kalinda, when he was on the floor. Help me out?
Also, I'm not happier than the last time this happened that we're apparantly supposed to think there is great UST between Kalinda and Blake. Yes, she was in control of the situation and used it to get information and the baseball bat, but I still don't think the entire Blake storyline was one of this year's brighter ideas. Moreover, I'm not sure what we were supposed to take from the juxtaposition of this scene with the earlier scene between Kalinda and the FBI woman. That Kalinda didn't lie when she said she doesn't differentiate, i.e. uses sex with both men and women if she has to?
On to the good stuff. The Owen and Alicia scenes were adorable beyond words, and if Blake (and so far Bond) have been this year's most disappointing additions, Owen is one of the best. Most convincing brother/sister relationship between characters in their mid-thirties I've seen in ages, and beyond the playful fun, they also served an important purpose, because while Kalinda also encouraged Alicia with Will, I can't imagine her getting Alicia to open up quite the same way.
Speaking of Will, I was surprised to find myself not groaning "do we have to drag this out even longer?" when he lied about his second message, because after the previous episode, that came across as Will having decided to turn his relationship with his girlfriend into something more serious, and so the fact that he doesn't immediately change his mind back once Alicia gives him something of a chance to, but actually follows up on the new commitment by literally closing the door on the not quite romance that wasn't, flows with the mature way this show deals (most of the time) with relationships.
(Mind you, doesn't mean I think we've heard the last of the Will/Alicia business, but I do hope it won't raise its head again until the finale or something like that.)
(Not that I, like Owen, don't want Alicia to do something for herself for once, but I can't help myself - not with Will.)
As for the case of the week, this was the first time where I actually knew what current day affair it was based one before writing my review and indeed before watching the episode. Mind you, I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to assume that if Mark Zuckerberg had sued, he'd have won the way it happens here (if potential legal experts on my flist know better, do tell), but as a connosseur of switching point of view tales, I appreciated that what the Kings did was basically the same thing Sorkin did, only with the studio and Sorkin the villain position. Complete with some facts, but not all facts and the distortion to make a writerly point. (I doubt the whole arguing about writer credits or character motivations and the Lemon Lyman business would have been as good a short cut in a 45 minute episode as Sorkin's equally well known drug use anyway.) That the Zuckerberg character was a bit too good to be true should still be more effective here in this fictional portrayal than the way over the top PR exercise that was TIME's man of the year story. Especially since the Kings, as opposed to the TIME article writer(s), whoever that was (I don't remember), know that the art of successful defense against a biting satiric portrait isn't just to proclaim what an incredibly nice guy you are in reality but to deliver another bitingly satirized villain instead.
Lastly, in tandem of the show's trademark ambiguity, they did let the Sorkin character make the point about artistic freedom versus censurship by lawsuits which Diane acknowledges is a real one in the last but one scene. All in all, an enjoyable episode, though I missed the campaign storyline.
Oh! Almost forgot: I loved the return of Cary's pal and new investigator (and his baby) and that he got the chance to match wits with Kalinda and Blake both at different points. Talk about good additions this year...
To start with least things first, I wish Blake's actor wouldn't mumble because I really didn't understand the last thing he said in the showdown with Kalinda, when he was on the floor. Help me out?
Also, I'm not happier than the last time this happened that we're apparantly supposed to think there is great UST between Kalinda and Blake. Yes, she was in control of the situation and used it to get information and the baseball bat, but I still don't think the entire Blake storyline was one of this year's brighter ideas. Moreover, I'm not sure what we were supposed to take from the juxtaposition of this scene with the earlier scene between Kalinda and the FBI woman. That Kalinda didn't lie when she said she doesn't differentiate, i.e. uses sex with both men and women if she has to?
On to the good stuff. The Owen and Alicia scenes were adorable beyond words, and if Blake (and so far Bond) have been this year's most disappointing additions, Owen is one of the best. Most convincing brother/sister relationship between characters in their mid-thirties I've seen in ages, and beyond the playful fun, they also served an important purpose, because while Kalinda also encouraged Alicia with Will, I can't imagine her getting Alicia to open up quite the same way.
Speaking of Will, I was surprised to find myself not groaning "do we have to drag this out even longer?" when he lied about his second message, because after the previous episode, that came across as Will having decided to turn his relationship with his girlfriend into something more serious, and so the fact that he doesn't immediately change his mind back once Alicia gives him something of a chance to, but actually follows up on the new commitment by literally closing the door on the not quite romance that wasn't, flows with the mature way this show deals (most of the time) with relationships.
(Mind you, doesn't mean I think we've heard the last of the Will/Alicia business, but I do hope it won't raise its head again until the finale or something like that.)
(Not that I, like Owen, don't want Alicia to do something for herself for once, but I can't help myself - not with Will.)
As for the case of the week, this was the first time where I actually knew what current day affair it was based one before writing my review and indeed before watching the episode. Mind you, I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to assume that if Mark Zuckerberg had sued, he'd have won the way it happens here (if potential legal experts on my flist know better, do tell), but as a connosseur of switching point of view tales, I appreciated that what the Kings did was basically the same thing Sorkin did, only with the studio and Sorkin the villain position. Complete with some facts, but not all facts and the distortion to make a writerly point. (I doubt the whole arguing about writer credits or character motivations and the Lemon Lyman business would have been as good a short cut in a 45 minute episode as Sorkin's equally well known drug use anyway.) That the Zuckerberg character was a bit too good to be true should still be more effective here in this fictional portrayal than the way over the top PR exercise that was TIME's man of the year story. Especially since the Kings, as opposed to the TIME article writer(s), whoever that was (I don't remember), know that the art of successful defense against a biting satiric portrait isn't just to proclaim what an incredibly nice guy you are in reality but to deliver another bitingly satirized villain instead.
Lastly, in tandem of the show's trademark ambiguity, they did let the Sorkin character make the point about artistic freedom versus censurship by lawsuits which Diane acknowledges is a real one in the last but one scene. All in all, an enjoyable episode, though I missed the campaign storyline.
Oh! Almost forgot: I loved the return of Cary's pal and new investigator (and his baby) and that he got the chance to match wits with Kalinda and Blake both at different points. Talk about good additions this year...
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 11:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 11:04 pm (UTC)And oh, oh, I loved The Alicia & Owen Show so so much. You'd think it would come across as cliché: the uptight lady attorney and the mischievous gay professor, but script and actors sell it even when it's done straight off TVTropes (the road trip through snowy landscapes -- staying together in a cabin -- alcohol loosening the tongue)!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 06:42 am (UTC)