The Good Wife
Episode 22: What's in
the Box?
The Season Fnale
By: Carlos Uribe
The
Good Wife is a show about Alicia Florrick and her career and
scandalous personal life.
Spoilers
Ahoy!
It
was a pretty smart move to have this week's case involve the overall
election plot. It all begins when Zach goes to vote for his dad. He
shows up by himself and he's happy to support his dad when he notices
poll workers bringing out a polling box. He notices that the seal is
broken and that one of the ballots is for Kresteva. He tries to bring
this to the attention of the polling workers but they kick him out
for taking pictures. Zach calls his mom with what he believes to be
fraud. Alicia brings forth a motion to court to discount the votes in
the polling box while the opposing campaign tries to count them. It's
a pretty good set-up that promised a great weekly case with the
stakes that Peter might win or lose the election based on the court's
verdict. We're going to want our lawyers to win because they're
obviously fighting voting fraud since Kresteva would steep that low.
Only the end of the teaser has a great twist when it's revealed that
the majority of the votes are actually for Peter. This changes the
motion as it goes from Alicia trying to get the votes thrown out to
trying to keep them in. There's a smart scene soon after where we get
to see the lawyers questioning the victims with reversed purpose.
It's not only a good twist to have them reverse their position
because it creates more obstacles. They not only have to argue what
they have already established but they have to find more evidence to
back themselves up. There is a complication near the end when we find
out that one of the Democrats was actually rigging the election
against Peter. The evidence finds it's way into Will's hand. Does he
reveal the results to the court, knowing that they would be thrown
out and Peter might lose the election? Or does he keep the video
hidden and hope that the decision is favorable? It's murky ground
that makes viewers question their support for Peter.
It
doesn't really matter in the end that Will decides to keep the video
a secret. Peter is able to actually win the election by a significant
margin. They were expecting the results to come down to a thousand
votes but he won by 500,000. This voter fraud case wouldn't have
shifted the results in a significant direction. What's great is that
this victory comes after the writers have convinced me that Peter was
going to lose. That he would be forced to return to the DA's office
and the status quo would be maintained in this regard. It's okay as
there were other shake-ups that were being promised by the writers.
Having him when came as a promising surprise. It's going to be
interesting to see how he adjusts to life in the Governor's Mansion.
The capitol of Illinois is in Springfield so I wonder if this will
strain his renewed relationship with his wife. His position as
Governor should also provide new story opportunities for Eli as
they'll certainly have to overcome many obstacles to get their agenda
passed. Overall, it's a nice end to an election plot that has had
mixed results. It could have easily been handled better but it had
outworn it's welcome as it kept lasting even as the real-life
election that had made it relevant faded away into a distant memory.
It doesn't help that the opponent in the general election, Mathew
Perry, was largely absent except in a few episodes. This made it more
difficult to root against him as he's been largely out-of-sight and
therefore out-of-mind. If the writers could have made him a bigger
presence within the campaign then the plot might have worked better.
The primary did have a more visible opponent with Maura Tierney's
character but she was written too inconsistently to really have an
impact. It didn't help matters that the writers didn't allow us to
forget that the real opponent, Kresteva, was the one Peter had to
watch out for. There was never any doubt Peter would win the primary
so it couldn't create the necessary stakes.
There
is two other serialized plot at play here. The first is the love
triangle that's been developing between Alicia, Peter, and Will.
Alicia's marriage with Peter has been strong but the kiss with Will
has opened something she simply can't ignore. She tries her best to
move on but she can't help but feel attracted to Will. There's a
really strong moment in the end when she's at Peter's election party
but all she focuses on is what appears to be Will. He turns out to be
someone different but it's obvious that Will is going to get in the
way of her marriage. So she decides to push him away. There's a
clever moment in the end where the writers try to lead us to believe
that she called Will to her apartment. The promise is that they're
going to start schmoozing. Only she doesn't do that because of the
secondary plot. That's Cary trying to open his own firm. He has found
the perfect office space but it's too expensive if he wants to hire
Kalinda. The other associates force him to go with Robyn because
she's cheaper. Ah, fun office politics and it's a nice way to keep
Robyn in the show. There's a moment when Cal Sweeney, excited to move
his business to Cary's firm, tries to convince Alicia to jump ship.
In that moment when Alicia thought of Will at her husband's party,
she decides to do just that. She's going to distance herself from
Will so that she can be with her husband. She's choosing Peter over
Will in that choice. Is it final? Of course not. In joining this new
law firm, she's removing a major obstacle that has stopped them from
truly getting together-they work together. She might try to remove
herself from his sphere but her lust isn't going to away. Whatever
the case-season five promises to be a complete shake-up.
Peter
is going to be in the Governor's Mansion and Eli will probably join
him as Chief of Staff. Alicia, Cary, and Robyn will be forming a new
law firm. Diane will presumably be leaving Lockhart & Gardner to
be appointed as a judge. This leaves Will, Kalinda, David Lee, and a
few other lawyers at Lockart & Gardner. It's going to be a very
different firm. It's a huge risk for the show-one that it might at
least partly back out of. I hope not because the season that this
episode sets out holds a lot of promise and might be the shake-up
this show needs in order to bring it back to life. I can honestly say
I'm excited for the next season...because it holds so much promise.
This isn't to suggest that this season hasn't been good. It's been a
relatively good one with a lot of great standout episodes but it made
a lot of stumbles with Kalinda's husband and the campaign sub-plot.
The narrative momentum has been a bumpy ride and this season has felt
constrained compared to the previous three. There might not have been
a single bad episode this season, or one that was even just average,
but this season was definably a step-down from the third but it still
remained leagues above most other shows. The Good Wife remains a
sharp show and I have every confidence the fifth season can be just
as brilliant as the first three seasons were.
What's
in the Box? is an episode that shows how brilliant the Good Wife can
be. The weekly case helps to create the stakes for the election
sub-plot while the law firm politics intensify and love triangle
really heat up. It closed out the season in a spectacular fashion
while setting up a promising new one. This episode succeeded as a
brilliant season finale...providing closure while making us want to
come back for the next chapter in the story. The Good Wife might have
stumbled a bit this season but it's looking like it'll back in
top-form next season.
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