The Good Wife

The Good Wife
Episode 1: I Fought the Law

By: Carlos Uribe

The Good Wife is a show about Alicia Florrick and her career and scandalous personal life.

Spoilers Ahoy!

The Good Wife is one of the best broadcast shows of the season and it's a disappointment that the series didn't get nominated in the Emmys for Best Drama again. The third season might not have been as great as the second one but the Good Wife was still one of the best shows currently on the air. This is one of the reasons I was excited that this show came back for a fourth season, despite it's troubling ratings. This is why I was disappointed this week. The season premiere was a good episode of television but it wasn't up to the standards of most Good Wife episodes. There was a certain element of familiarity here that is absent in other episodes. I'm not talking about familiarity with the characters, the plot, or anything that is considered positive. I'm talking that this is an episode that simply felt like something another show has done in the past. This is more of a feeling than actual fact but it simply felt more average. It's a bit of a troubling start to the fourth season, but I don't see any reasons to worry that the series has slipped in quality. It merely means that the season premiere wasn't the triumphant return that I was expecting. The Good Wife is a show that I'm excited to have back regardless and it was nice to see the characters back on my television screen and my dad complaining about how the weasel (Will) is ruining the universe. Have I mentioned that my father, a fan of this show, seriously dislikes Will? He's not a fan of Will.

The episode had a case-of-the-week and I think the “client” was what made this episode feel more generic than anything else this episode did. When Zach gets stopped by an overzealous cop, Alicia does her best to dismiss charges and accuse the cops of doing an illegal search. It's always a red flag when a family member is put on trial since it rarely works well. It usually feels like a forced attempt to create additional tension by adding the stakes that the family member might go to jail. While this episode doesn't pretend that Zach is actually in danger of losing the court case, it still feels a bit manipulative by the show. While Alicia may be representing him in court, it was really Zach who did all the work for her. He's the one who researches the law, he's the one who does the homework on previous stops by the police officer, and he's the one who gets the law to back off. This is because Zach uploads a video of the overzealous cop on the internet. This causes the D.A. of the different county to back off and Zach earns Alicia's pride. She's impressed by his initiative but also by Zach's internet skills. The case-of-the-week was simply a cheap television trick and it didn't help that the show weakly connected it to Peter's political campaign.

Peter's campaign was a small part of the episode but it did lead to some good interview scenes with a reporter. Mathew Perry is playing Peter's opponent but he only appears in a quick political ad. That ad definably attempts to manipulate the voters of Illinois but it does open up the opponent to attacks that he's using his children's sickness for political gain. The campaign was nice but what got more attention was the bankruptcy of the law firm. They are $60 million in debt and they only have five months to pay it off. The court is worried about this and so a judge hires a trustee to get them back into the green. The trustee seems to be figuring out how loyal Will and Diane are (very) and he manages to manipulate Lee into staying with the firm. These two stories I feel could have used the most screen time since they were the best that the premiere had. At the same time, giving them more time might have led to them not being as good.

I was excited at the end of the last season when it looked like Kalinda was going to meet her husband. It seemed to be promising. It ended up being a major disappointment. The husband isn't the person knocking the door but an associate of his. We do meet the husband as he's hiring the law firm Kalinda works at. The two have an intense fight scene that predictability leads to a sex scene. Kalinda tries to tell him that it's over, which is kind of hard right after you've had sex with him. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting but it just felt so anti-climatic. This is going to be a plot that the series is going to have for at least the next few episodes and I'm hoping that the series is able to offer something better than what this premiere presented. At least something that I won't be able to predict a mile away. I've seen enough shows to know how violence can lead to passion in some couples.

The Good Wife delivers a premiere that feels more like an average television episode than an episode of The Good Wife. I've covered this in the introduction, but it was a disappointment. It was also an episode that is dedicated to one of the late executive producers, Tony Scott. While that was perfectly fine, I feel like they should have dedicated a better episode to him. An episode that the series could be proud of.

Other Notes:

Considering Zach's case was in a different county and that Alicia is his mom, I'm not sure why Alicia was the lawyer. They could have easily had Cary contribute to the episode and had him represent Zach. It would have at least made more sense.

Zach's YouTube video seems to be more of an impression of a YouTube video than an actual YouTube video.

I like Zach, but I think he ruined the premiere.