The Good Wife 4.06 The Art of War
Nov. 5th, 2012 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakWithout question my favourite episode this season so far.
Both the case of the week and the ongoing storylines complimented each other beautifully this week. Even everyone's, including yours truly, least favourite, the Nick saga, since it gave occasion to both Alicia and Cary having a smart subtexty conversation (the subtext being: how do we get rid of this Kalinda-threatening guy?) and Alicia and Kalinda having an honest conversation near the end of the episode in which Alicia, as opposed to making decisions behind Kalinda's back, point blank asks her what she'd prefer and how she feels about the guy, and Kalinda tells her instead of getting cryptic.
But naturally the meat of the episode was elsewhere. Loved Alica, her client Laura Hellinger and Judge Kuhn together and in various combinations; I don't remember Kuhn's first appearance exactly anymore but I remember being bothered about something. Not this time. She was great being supportive despite the restrictions of her office and as good as her word, drafting a key witness. The conclusion - that despite Judge Abanathy being sympathetic, Alicia in great form and the witness found, the attempted rapist still gets away with it because the military contractor he works for has too much influence and is too important, financially, for the army - is sadly all too plausible, but I liked that the episode also showed Laura Hellinger not being destroyed by it but taking some validation from the fact she had her day in court and could face down the jerk.
Meanwhile, the campaign storyline gets another twist as Mattie enters the race as a candidate herself. It's interesting that Alicia immediately arrives at the same conclusion Peter does at the end of the episode: that Mattie planned this from the get go and that this was why she befriended Alicia to begin with. At the beginning of the show, she'd have shown an emotional reaction when Mattie made her revelation (and Eli would have had to explain to her what the possible consequences could be); by now, she's been a player long enough to keep a pleasant face until Mattie has left, then goes to Eli immediately with the news. Did Mattie plan this from the outset, or did she come up with the idea as a reaction to the Intern story? Peter suggests a third possibility in his comment that "I can take a con man or a liar, but not a hypocrite, because a hypocrite doesn't known when she's lying", i.e. that Mattie doesn't really know herself. I'm not sure, either. Mattie certainly sought Alicia out before even knowing her (she asked Diane about her repeatedly) and it would be one explanation about why the Intern story just wouldn't go away despite having been exposed as a fabrication, but then again the episode also showed us that Mandy the journalist hadn't known Mattie (other than as a public figure) before, so they hadn't conspired together (or at least Mattie used intermediaries?).
Not only was Alicia the one to notice something was seriously wrong with Jackie during the hallucination scenes in the last episodes, in this one she makes the correct deduction about how to solve her mother-in-law's problem with the nurses, would that Jackie knew it. Jackie getting along with a male nurse where she didn't with female ones makes sense given her personality and social imprints, and Alicia has very good reason to know her mother-in-law has different standards for men and women, so that deduction makes sense. I'm interested in finding out whether the Cuban nurse will later be used by the show, say, by bringing in a case; somehow I doubt he was a one off character.
Nathan Lane's character's growing emotional involvement with L & G resulting in abrasiveness and Cary deducing that correctly, then using the situation to get criminal cases from Diane was a fun subplot, and furthered my hope we haven't seen the last of their growing SuperAccontant & Lawyerboy Fight Or Represent Crime buddiness.
Both the case of the week and the ongoing storylines complimented each other beautifully this week. Even everyone's, including yours truly, least favourite, the Nick saga, since it gave occasion to both Alicia and Cary having a smart subtexty conversation (the subtext being: how do we get rid of this Kalinda-threatening guy?) and Alicia and Kalinda having an honest conversation near the end of the episode in which Alicia, as opposed to making decisions behind Kalinda's back, point blank asks her what she'd prefer and how she feels about the guy, and Kalinda tells her instead of getting cryptic.
But naturally the meat of the episode was elsewhere. Loved Alica, her client Laura Hellinger and Judge Kuhn together and in various combinations; I don't remember Kuhn's first appearance exactly anymore but I remember being bothered about something. Not this time. She was great being supportive despite the restrictions of her office and as good as her word, drafting a key witness. The conclusion - that despite Judge Abanathy being sympathetic, Alicia in great form and the witness found, the attempted rapist still gets away with it because the military contractor he works for has too much influence and is too important, financially, for the army - is sadly all too plausible, but I liked that the episode also showed Laura Hellinger not being destroyed by it but taking some validation from the fact she had her day in court and could face down the jerk.
Meanwhile, the campaign storyline gets another twist as Mattie enters the race as a candidate herself. It's interesting that Alicia immediately arrives at the same conclusion Peter does at the end of the episode: that Mattie planned this from the get go and that this was why she befriended Alicia to begin with. At the beginning of the show, she'd have shown an emotional reaction when Mattie made her revelation (and Eli would have had to explain to her what the possible consequences could be); by now, she's been a player long enough to keep a pleasant face until Mattie has left, then goes to Eli immediately with the news. Did Mattie plan this from the outset, or did she come up with the idea as a reaction to the Intern story? Peter suggests a third possibility in his comment that "I can take a con man or a liar, but not a hypocrite, because a hypocrite doesn't known when she's lying", i.e. that Mattie doesn't really know herself. I'm not sure, either. Mattie certainly sought Alicia out before even knowing her (she asked Diane about her repeatedly) and it would be one explanation about why the Intern story just wouldn't go away despite having been exposed as a fabrication, but then again the episode also showed us that Mandy the journalist hadn't known Mattie (other than as a public figure) before, so they hadn't conspired together (or at least Mattie used intermediaries?).
Not only was Alicia the one to notice something was seriously wrong with Jackie during the hallucination scenes in the last episodes, in this one she makes the correct deduction about how to solve her mother-in-law's problem with the nurses, would that Jackie knew it. Jackie getting along with a male nurse where she didn't with female ones makes sense given her personality and social imprints, and Alicia has very good reason to know her mother-in-law has different standards for men and women, so that deduction makes sense. I'm interested in finding out whether the Cuban nurse will later be used by the show, say, by bringing in a case; somehow I doubt he was a one off character.
Nathan Lane's character's growing emotional involvement with L & G resulting in abrasiveness and Cary deducing that correctly, then using the situation to get criminal cases from Diane was a fun subplot, and furthered my hope we haven't seen the last of their growing SuperAccontant & Lawyerboy Fight Or Represent Crime buddiness.
