The Good Wife 5.15
Mar. 24th, 2014 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which one of my key assumptions about this show turns out to be wrong. I am impressed.
Because from the pilot onwards, I thought Alicia/Will would be endgame. I wasn't happy about this, and there were times when I was considering the show might have changed its mind there - to wit, the first half of this season - but by the rules of most tv, I did expect Alicia to end up with Mr. Gardner in some fashion once the show wraps up. Even when I intermittently thought I might be wrong about this, I never, ever, expected the show to do what it just did: which is, to kill off Will Gardner, not in a "maybe" or "in a coma, can be back next season" or in a cliffhanger "will he survive?" fashion but laying out the dead body in the morgue, so to speak. Well. I say. Um.
Firstly, I am impressed they kept this under wraps. I try to avoid spoilers, so maybe they didn't, but until today I didn't see any above cut mumblings among the more spoilery friendly of my friends, either, so for now I assume The Good Wife really managed to keep this a secret until the episode got broadcast. There was also no ominious lead-up to this, since it looked like the courthouse plot was just the case of the week whereas the ongoing plot was the vote fraud investigation and the "will Will (sorry) testify?" question. In retrospect, of course, filling hte preceding episode with Alicia's flashbacks to the time of her looking for a job and Will giving her one was a sort of emotional lead up, as was Alicia warning Will about the parents of his client in this episode with the result that they had their first friendly conversation since Alicia left the firm - this isn't quite as radical as Six Feet Under, which killed Nate Fisher, not at a point when he was being endearing and fine with his loved ones but right after he'd done something dastardly to his wife, and still managed to make it an devastating death. But it is bold nonetheless; death by random courthouse shooting was the absolutely last thing I expected to happen to Will Gardner. (I didn't expect it to happen to anyone, but I suppose if you'd suggested it would happen to one of the regulars and asked me which one I'd have been afraid for Diane and feared the show would make a thematic point because of Kurt's profession.)
Making Diane, Kalinda and the attorney (did we know him before this episode? I've forgotten) whom Will was battling with at court the immediate people reacting was a good choice; you really felt for Kalinda and Diane, who were probably Will's closest friends (only friends?) in the world, and their shock and raw grief, while the sight of the shocked (and also shot) attorney with Will on his lap immediately brought home this real, this is really happening. I did vaguely remember the boy from a previous episode but none of the details of the case. There is some emotional manipulation in that Will defending a kid he believes to be innocent - as opposed to, say, Lamont Bishop or any of the numerous clients bringing in the profit with their very guilty money - when he gets shot by said kid means his death is given added nobility, which I don't think would have been necessary - getting randomly shot is always tragic, no matter who does it, and Will was a top lawyer not because he usually defends kids he believed to be innocent but because he was really good at getting clients, no matter how guilty or innocent, off the hook and because he was a good at finding a lot of those who were rich. But be that as it may - it was one brutal and brutally effective twist, and a genuine game changer. Can't speculate about the future without mentioning the stuff from the trailer, so I'll do that after saying something about the non-Will-dies rest of the episode first.
Cary telling Alicia that he's "seeing Kalinda" and Alicia's reaction should be fun to the remaining Alicia/Kalinda shippers, because Alicia's "but she's gay!" to Cary's "um, bi?" certainly is an ambiguous moment. (Alicia, of all the people, knows Kalinda also has sex with men, so this really should not have come as a surprise. Unless, of course, she's subconsciously prone to think of Kalinda in an exclusive f/f context.) That Cary felt he should notify Alicia of this is also interesting, though it makes sense, given how much backstory each of them has with Kalinda. Meanwhile, Kalinda telling Will she wanted to leave surprised me, and in combination with her early uncertainty about whether or not their client was guilty and her misreading of whether or not Cary was telling her the truth in the previous epsiode made me wonder whether the show would do a "Kalinda has a serious crisis of confidence and needs to find herself" storyline. (Now, I don't think so, not least because there's no way Kalinda will leave the firm in the wake of Will's death.)
Alicia handling her interrogation by curly haired Nelson with aplomb was no surprise; Nelson having other videos, of course, means in retrospect he was just playing and we shouldn't measure his interrogation skills by this.
Now, speculation fed by rest-of-season trailer: I have the dire feeling that dead Will, as opposed to living Will, might get idealized by just about everyone but that's human and ic for the people concerned. Diane will need a new partner, because Florrick & Agos coming back collectively would be lame and unbelievable (Will was never the sole problem why they left in the first place). Now, the trailer makes it look this might be Louis Canning. If so, I'm thrilled! (I take it Michael J. Fox is available again; is it too much to hope for at least one line of dialogue about why Louis Canning, after trying to get Alicia away from Lockhart & Gardner for several seasons, was invisible when she finally left?) It certainly would make for interesting new dynamics all around. And while in the immediate wake of Will's death relations between the two firms will be grief-strickenly improved, I can see them getting competitive again once Louis Canning is one of the partners and faces Alicia in court.
Because from the pilot onwards, I thought Alicia/Will would be endgame. I wasn't happy about this, and there were times when I was considering the show might have changed its mind there - to wit, the first half of this season - but by the rules of most tv, I did expect Alicia to end up with Mr. Gardner in some fashion once the show wraps up. Even when I intermittently thought I might be wrong about this, I never, ever, expected the show to do what it just did: which is, to kill off Will Gardner, not in a "maybe" or "in a coma, can be back next season" or in a cliffhanger "will he survive?" fashion but laying out the dead body in the morgue, so to speak. Well. I say. Um.
Firstly, I am impressed they kept this under wraps. I try to avoid spoilers, so maybe they didn't, but until today I didn't see any above cut mumblings among the more spoilery friendly of my friends, either, so for now I assume The Good Wife really managed to keep this a secret until the episode got broadcast. There was also no ominious lead-up to this, since it looked like the courthouse plot was just the case of the week whereas the ongoing plot was the vote fraud investigation and the "will Will (sorry) testify?" question. In retrospect, of course, filling hte preceding episode with Alicia's flashbacks to the time of her looking for a job and Will giving her one was a sort of emotional lead up, as was Alicia warning Will about the parents of his client in this episode with the result that they had their first friendly conversation since Alicia left the firm - this isn't quite as radical as Six Feet Under, which killed Nate Fisher, not at a point when he was being endearing and fine with his loved ones but right after he'd done something dastardly to his wife, and still managed to make it an devastating death. But it is bold nonetheless; death by random courthouse shooting was the absolutely last thing I expected to happen to Will Gardner. (I didn't expect it to happen to anyone, but I suppose if you'd suggested it would happen to one of the regulars and asked me which one I'd have been afraid for Diane and feared the show would make a thematic point because of Kurt's profession.)
Making Diane, Kalinda and the attorney (did we know him before this episode? I've forgotten) whom Will was battling with at court the immediate people reacting was a good choice; you really felt for Kalinda and Diane, who were probably Will's closest friends (only friends?) in the world, and their shock and raw grief, while the sight of the shocked (and also shot) attorney with Will on his lap immediately brought home this real, this is really happening. I did vaguely remember the boy from a previous episode but none of the details of the case. There is some emotional manipulation in that Will defending a kid he believes to be innocent - as opposed to, say, Lamont Bishop or any of the numerous clients bringing in the profit with their very guilty money - when he gets shot by said kid means his death is given added nobility, which I don't think would have been necessary - getting randomly shot is always tragic, no matter who does it, and Will was a top lawyer not because he usually defends kids he believed to be innocent but because he was really good at getting clients, no matter how guilty or innocent, off the hook and because he was a good at finding a lot of those who were rich. But be that as it may - it was one brutal and brutally effective twist, and a genuine game changer. Can't speculate about the future without mentioning the stuff from the trailer, so I'll do that after saying something about the non-Will-dies rest of the episode first.
Cary telling Alicia that he's "seeing Kalinda" and Alicia's reaction should be fun to the remaining Alicia/Kalinda shippers, because Alicia's "but she's gay!" to Cary's "um, bi?" certainly is an ambiguous moment. (Alicia, of all the people, knows Kalinda also has sex with men, so this really should not have come as a surprise. Unless, of course, she's subconsciously prone to think of Kalinda in an exclusive f/f context.) That Cary felt he should notify Alicia of this is also interesting, though it makes sense, given how much backstory each of them has with Kalinda. Meanwhile, Kalinda telling Will she wanted to leave surprised me, and in combination with her early uncertainty about whether or not their client was guilty and her misreading of whether or not Cary was telling her the truth in the previous epsiode made me wonder whether the show would do a "Kalinda has a serious crisis of confidence and needs to find herself" storyline. (Now, I don't think so, not least because there's no way Kalinda will leave the firm in the wake of Will's death.)
Alicia handling her interrogation by curly haired Nelson with aplomb was no surprise; Nelson having other videos, of course, means in retrospect he was just playing and we shouldn't measure his interrogation skills by this.
Now, speculation fed by rest-of-season trailer: I have the dire feeling that dead Will, as opposed to living Will, might get idealized by just about everyone but that's human and ic for the people concerned. Diane will need a new partner, because Florrick & Agos coming back collectively would be lame and unbelievable (Will was never the sole problem why they left in the first place). Now, the trailer makes it look this might be Louis Canning. If so, I'm thrilled! (I take it Michael J. Fox is available again; is it too much to hope for at least one line of dialogue about why Louis Canning, after trying to get Alicia away from Lockhart & Gardner for several seasons, was invisible when she finally left?) It certainly would make for interesting new dynamics all around. And while in the immediate wake of Will's death relations between the two firms will be grief-strickenly improved, I can see them getting competitive again once Louis Canning is one of the partners and faces Alicia in court.
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Date: 2014-03-24 07:55 pm (UTC)(Obvs since I haven't been watching I have no opinion on how it was handled but it's definitely a BOLD choice.)
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Date: 2014-03-25 04:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-25 12:31 am (UTC)I can't say I expected Will/Alicia as endgame, although I thought they might toy with it again. Or maybe it's just that I didn't want it so badly that I wouldn't entertain the idea. Or I might have been putting too much (or enough?) trust in the show that she wouldn't be with either Will or Peter--that it wouldn't be about that at all. Just Alicia. Owning.
I thought the exchange between Cary and Alicia regarding Kalinda was a little weird, too. First because I'm not sure Kalinda would put it that way, lol (I'm getting the idea Cary sees it as more serious whereas Kalinda always seems free as a bird). But I also found Alicia's reaction curious. At the same time, to me, Cary disclosing that was more about their partnership growing closer.
AND I was surprised, too, when Kalinda told Will she was leaving. That definitely felt out of nowhere and now seems like they were just using that in order to make it more dramatic once Will died.
I'm excited about Canning/MJF too. :)
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Date: 2014-03-25 05:13 am (UTC)Cary and Kalinda: well, Cary's been in love with Kalinda since forever, so it's probably not surprising that he interprets it as them dating as opposed to "couple of one night stands between two old aquaintances", and no, I don't think Kalinda sees it that way, but then again - I'm not sure. Kalinda does know Cary seriously cares for her since late s2 when he went above and beyond to help her, and it's not like she needs to have sex for him for any Machiavellian purpose. So maybe a part of her does want a relationship. re: Cary telling Alicia, agreed that it was about their partnership growing closer. Ever since their trip to Washington (where we found out his dad is Lex Luthor) when they chatted the night away in a hotel room, I had the impression Cary doesn't have any other confidant, either, and he does trust Alicia (beyond respecting her as a professional, I mean), so it may also be that he just needed to tell someone.
That definitely felt out of nowhere and now seems like they were just using that in order to make it more dramatic once Will died.
Yes, in retrospect, I think it was mainly about giving Will the line "life is overrated" and also to ensure he has a meaningful scene each with the women in his life before he dies - so there is a partnership scene with Diane where she counsels him, a scene with Alicia where she compliments him about being the better lawyer, and one with Kalinda where he counsels her.
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Date: 2014-03-26 05:19 pm (UTC)Jeeze, I forgot about his dad! I wonder when he'll come back around...
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Date: 2014-03-25 05:13 am (UTC)Same here. I elaborate on it in Swatkat's blog, here: watkat.dreamwidth.org/334578.html
Keeping this quiet is quite the feat; such a thing depends on extraneous factors too, though, so I am mostly looking at the story level.
*raises hand* One of those three folks, yeah.
(I'll take my bi visibility where I can get it, lackluster as it may be.)
It would come out of left field...but then, so have other Kalinda storylines. Honestly, whenever the writers actually give a character love and attention, it turns out well -- even Eli's "love story", dubious as it was, made me smile a little. Should the Kings decide to go this route, I would almost certainly appreciate it. There is also no reason to NOT continue this train of thought from here on in: Yes, Kalinda will stay (loyalty, but also the reminder of how tenuous good fortune can be). But once introduced, how can she not entertain that notion of a departure from her investigator's existence, especially now that she knows how dangerous life can be?
I should explain; I actually don't think Kalinda is drawn to the "dark side", or into "bad boys", or whatever clichés reviewers -- or the occasional one-note writer -- throw at her character. I think she is a sharp pragmatist with a well of emotion held in very good rational check in most situations.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-25 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-25 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-26 06:39 am (UTC)My favourite review for this episode was "Did George R.R. Martin write this??"
I loved the randomness, the shoe lost in the struggle, and the hundred small decisions that came down to the sudden hopeless end. It felt fully true as a narrative, not contrived, but simply: this is what happened.