The Good Wife (season 2 thoughts)

(Spoilers: Season 2 ahead)

I should probably wait, I only have 4 episodes left to go in the second season. I could wait to express my thoughts then, but I can't wait.

The Good Wife is one of the most incredible TV shows in history. The first season was brilliant, and I never thought the second season could best it. After all, the more episodes I see, the more attuned to its nuances I become, the more famliar with its tricks I am and the harder it gets for the show to surprise me, or catch me. And yet the second season is twice, maybe three times as good as the first. The episodic punch takes a back seat to the amazing storyline. The depth of the protagonists takes center stage here and each individual is illuminated with considerable depth and nuance. And a truly impeccable ensamble cast of frequently recurring guest-stars puts together one of the richest worlds I've seen portrayed in drama. It's just wonderful.

The question of Alicia's morality or lackthereof continues to startle and progress. The last couple of episodes actually had them defending the good guys for a change.... almost. In the latest episode, our Lockhart/Gardner crew discover that the company they're in legal battle against has been embezzling its assets, but they can't bring it to the police because then those assets would be frozen and Lockhart/Gardner won't make any money.... so Will Gardner extorts money from the company by threatening to bring criminal charges. Weirdest thing is, nobody even said anything about it. Nobody was like "So hey um, we're extorting this company. This is way illegal."

Lockhart/Gardner has done countless things in the grey area of the law, small bending of proper conduct here and there. They've also wantonly represented murderers, and drug kingpins, and benefited from the criminal activities of other people. Not to mention they've horribly misled and screwed over people in ways that are completely legal, as lawyers sometimes do. But they've NEVER done anything so transparently criminal before, nothing so unobtusely against the law. And so I'm sitting here wondering..... is this eventually going to 'come to a head' and meet some sort of conclusion? Or, are our heroes simply going to be 'the badguys' for the whole show? Am I watching The Sopranos now? Is Alicia Florrick the new Walter White?

On the romantic side Alicia still doesn't seem much inclined to either of her potential suitors. That would be great if she was secretly a lesbian, though it's unlikely. As it turns out, Kalinda slept with Peter long ago, which is pretty messed up. She must have just done it for political reasons, which begs the question of how many other people has she slept with? This will probably be the final nail in the coffin for Peter, unfortunately, but even worse I hope it won't ruin Alicia and Kalinda's relationship. Again Kerry plays the good samaritan, going to bat for Kalinda when she'll probably never reciprocate his feelings. I adore that FBI agent that keeps trying to seduce Kalinda, hopefully they'll get together someday. I wonder if Kalinda is holding off on getting together with her because she's with the FBI, or because Kalinda is timid about her feelings.

Will's casual sex partner, who initially only served to make Alicia jealous, has turned into a full-fledged serious girlfriend with a decent amount of depth and romance -- one who I (and I think the rest of the audience too) am rooting for! Which is great. They could be setting us up to let Alicia finally try to make real amends with her husband Peter. Or.... they could be lining duck in a row so that when Alicia and Will finally get together, we won't even be able to enjoy it because they'll leave a Pompeii of emotional destruction in their wake.

I never thought I'd see Eli Gould have a love interest. It's a shame it didn't work out, although understandable. Under normal conditions all hope would be lost, but with the brilliant consistency of recurring characters in this show, I actually think they might get a third chance (she's had two episodes about her already!). He deserves a nice girlfriend, aside from Kalinda he's probably the coolest character.

I also liked how they cut out the big issues early. I was expecting the Lockhart & Gardner VS Bond, and the Kalinda VS Blake battles to make up the season's climax. But instead they concluded those storylines with about 8 episodes left, and brought in new controveries. Clever, keeping us on our toes. Wouldn't be surprised if the end of the State's Attorney election came around with a couple episodes left.

I guess that's enough for now. See you next time!

The Good Wife

While I absolutely hate how my taste is ever-changing, never knowing what I'll be interested in next month, having to repeatedly reinvent myself as my entertainment interests morph, having to perpetually succumb to an errant muse... At least it can be pretty funny sometimes, the tangential paths my interests take.

I believe it was exactly a year ago today when I watched my first episode of The Good Wife, strictly because the episode featured Miranda Cosgrove. At the time I wasn't interested in drama, so it was a fleeting experience. But now I've been powering through the series. I'm a handful of episodes into Season 2, and only a handful away from Miranda's episode!

The Good Wife is fast becoming one of my all-time favorite dramas. I haven't watched a drama in such rapid succession since Dawson's Creek. It presents the perfect balance of episodic punch and ongoing story to make it effortlessly enthralling. And its moral nuance makes shows I used to think were cool like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit look like a puddle of putrid milk, with their one-dimensional storylines and characters which are invariably caricatures of the most obvious stereotypes: the concerned father, the repressed mother, the sleazy criminal, an intern could write superior characters. And character development? There is none. o.e But back to a show that's actually good...

(Spoilers: Season Two ahead)

Season one was fantastic and I'm loving season two even more so far. Season two is making palatable things that repulsed me in season one, which is pretty darn impressive.

I absolutely couldn't stand the Will/Alicia romantic pairing in season one. And I still feel like for her to cheat would negate so much of her character, so much of what she did in season one (not that it wouldn't necessarily fit very much in line with where she's been going lately). At first Will just seeemed like an obsessive creep, a nuisance. But in season two Will seems to be getting a better wrap, he's being shown with other women and you can see what a catch he really has been all along. When the Childs deposition leaks and Will acts as Alicia's attorney, that scene was just awesome. Will was acting so powerful and protective. I still don't think Alicia should cheat but I can now get onboard for a hypothetical post-divorce relationship for them.

The Kerry/Alicia stand-off has been well-played thus far. Kerry was always sort of going back and forth on my "is he good or is he bad?" meter, but at this point I think it's safe to say that he's genuinely a good person. I can't think of anything he's done that is even in the legal grey areas that our 'heroes' frequently stalk. I'm really hoping he gets back to Lockhart/Gardner someday. But I digress. Alicia & Lockhart/Gardner of course win most of their cases but I don't think Kerry cares any less about genuine justice, he appears to care more. His assertions to Alicia that she is a bad person could be his attempt to psych her out and hurt her, but it's just as likely that he's being sincere. After all, what he's saying about Alicia is pretty much true.

Speaking of, Alicia's descent into the grey areas of the law has been very intriguing, and I feel like the intention behind it is to show you that this is exactly how it happened to her husband Peter. Peter Florrick starts out as this apparently corrupt guy, this borderline villianous figure and then through the series his profile has increased bit by bit. Then you see Alicia take the same path. She starts out as the steadfast moral compass, but then she, in her own words "grows up," she has to deal with real world circumstances. First it's just "sometimes helping people means being less than forthright, skirting the law a bit." Then it's "sometimes a lawyer has to help set free a murderer or a drug lord who isn't secretly innocent, and that's just part of the job. The justice system depends on mutual representation, right? My kids have to eat, right?"

Through Alicia you see how Peter must have fallen into the darker roads while always maintaining a genuine desire to do right. Still, I'm not sure WHY they're having us empathize with Peter, when it seems like Alicia is destined to leave him for Will. Are they just trying to make it hard on us? Make us understand the difficult position Alicia is in? Will Peter drop off the series if Alicia leaves him, or will he maintain a role like Kerry?

The ONE thing I don't like about this incredible season this far is... Kalinda's little feud with the in house supersleuth incurred from the merger with new firm partner Derrick Bond. It seems childish and unnecessary, very uncharacteristic for such a zenlike and intelligent character as Kalinda. I know from last season's director commentaries that in season 2 they're trying to dispel Kalinda's appearence of infalibility and expand on her character more, which is fantastic. But I don't understand her angle here, she's going to go berserk at this guy and yet she doesn't stand to lose anything? It's not like Lockhart, Gardner & Bond are going to fire one of their supersleuths, there's no need for the two to compete. Unless she's in love with Alicia and she feels that the new guy is relieving her of the role she has in Alicia's life. But I very highly doubt that. Love seems like the only angle that would cause such erratic and seemingly unnecessary action. If she's in love with the new guy then that's a major disapointment, I'm under the impression she's a lesbian. But I guess time will tell!

Now I'm off to watch some more...

The Good Wife (And What Your TV Says About You Behind Your Back)

Warning: If anyone out there is a diehard follower of The Good Wife, and you haven't watched the 7th episode of season 2 yet, the following blog entry contains very minor spoilers.

The Good Wife

A couple months ago or thereabout, Miranda Cosgrove appeared in an episode of the CBS drama series The Good Wife. I never bothered to watch it because, I guess, I feared it would be more of a cameo appearance or a token role. As it turns out, she plays a significant role.

I ended up checking out the episode after discovering that I had abysmally failed to watch Christmas In Washington, an annual concert event which this year featured Miranda Cosgrove performing "Last Christmas," a beautiful song having previously been covered immaculately by Taylor Swift.

Hating myself, I scoured Youtube for video, but there was none available. Still jonesing for a MiranCoz fix that my personality (what you sometimes call a "soul") was now expecting to receive, I decided to check out the aforementioned Good Wife episode. I had never watched The Good Wife before, but I'm familiar with its ilk. It's a by the numbers court room/political drama, and while as of late my taste has been for its polar opposite, I've been fond of this genre at times. So I was really excited to watch this episode.

I don't believe there exists any genre of television more archetypally adult than the courtroom drama... except for the courtroom drama which (inexplicably?) carries a parallel story about a politician's troubled bid for election amidst a corrupt system AND a parallel story about high-ranking suits embroiled in high-stakes office politics, none of which seem to intersect with each other or influence each other (I'm sure it would make perfect sense if I was familiar with this show).

Perpetually straight-faced, as melancholic as film noir, driven not by action but by words, and rife with grim moral dilemmas that are meant to define the psychological squalor of the modern age, The Good Wife (and the rest of its ilk) are everything that consequential adults are supposed to appreciate. At least in my perspective. Some might opt for the more critically acclaimed fare of The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, two of my favorite shows, but they include copious amounts of crime kitsch, which appeals to rebellious youths. Court room dramas are about truth, justice, the American way, and various moral dilemmas therein. In any case, it's a marked contrast from what Miranda Cosgrove had been involved in thusfar.

Miranda Cosgrove plays what is essentially a fictionalized amalgam of Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan. She's a Disney recording star named Sloan who gets an underaged DUI which ends up turning into an attempted murder case. Sloan is notorious for a past lap dance scandal straight out of Miley's reality, and she is depicted undermining the honor of the court, reminiscent of Lohan's recent indiscretions. I found this re-appropriation of realities hard to swallow at first... I mean... talk about weird. Let's hire Miranda Cosgrove to portray... of all people... Disney's ill-mannered ragamuffins? I like Cyrus AND Lohan, but talk about a heady concept. Takes it a smidgen further than Freaky Friday!

In any case, once MiranCoz took control of the role, my identity crisis on her behalf subsided. I was impressed with her performance, though seeing as how I was expecting it to be good, I can't say I was blown away or anything. She definitely did a spot-on job filling the role of 'grim stoic entity' that everyone in a courtroom drama necessarily has to acquire, quite a far cry from the flighty flirty flamboyance of Carly Shay or the snarky cynical self-assurance of Megan Parker and Summer Hathaway.

I wouldn't necessarily say she removed herself from herself as much as Victoria Justice sometimes seems to, but she certainly far surpasses Katie Holmes' lone ability to act exactly like Joey Potter in every role she has ever performed (which, granted, isn't a bad character to play). What I can say is that I would definitely watch this show regularly if Miranda Cosgrove was a regular, and more improtantly I would be very, very interested in viewing other programs where Miranda performed similar roles.

She's proven her acting chops and I absolute can. not. wait. to see her appear on all kinds of other programs. And frankly, I enjoyed the juxtaposition provided by this most adult of genres. I'd like to see her do more of the same style, perhaps appear on The West Wing or something. Does The West Wing still make new episodes?

Miranda definitely seemed a lot older here, as well. Almost reminds me of the end of her run on Drake & Josh, when she had obviously out-grown her role as cute little (albeit evil) Megan Parker, and was ready to do iCarly. Of course, this could just mean that it's time for iCarly to enter a new phase. I wouldn't mind seeing iCarly: The College Years. ;)

And What Your TV Says About You Behind Your Back

ANYWAY... If I were trying to be all philysophical and chiz, I would say something like.... My feelings are summed up by this one scene early in the episode. The big bad lawyer people are discussing the case in the kitchen and the one lawyer's two young daughters come walking into the room laughing, and then they see the intense adult scene going on in the room, and they say "Oh, sorry," and walk away.

Court room dramas are fascinating stuff. The twists and turns are sure to always keep you guessing and it can be really satisfying to finally get to the bottom of the story at the end of the episode, when all the pieces fall into place. But in all in all, I think I'd rather watch Gibby burst out of a giant cherry pie like an alien chestburster while Jennette McCurdy poses like a grimlord. Man, I've spent years in the bleak fog of "adulthood" (whether genuine or wholly imagined), and there's something to be said for... wait for it... the zenlike immaturity of a youth. If given the option, I'd rather laugh than stare.

Of course, anyone who isn't an idiot will realize that these two states of being (colloquially "adulthood" and "youth,") are anything but mutually exclusive. And anyone who isn't an idiot and a half will realize that it's perfectly possible for a man to enjoy both children's sitcoms and courtroom dramas. I wonder which one Miranda Cosgrove prefers...