The Good Wife
May. 9th, 2014 07:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallowness5.15 Dramatics, Your Honor
Wow
That would be the best representation I can come up with of my response to what happened in this episode.
There’s the emotional level of disbelief and shock that Will is dead. There’s the intellectual shock and admiration that the show killed off one of its main characters, whom I felt had so much to give the story, whom I assumed was safe.
I mean, I knew something big was coming, and I’m so glad I was unspoiled but this isn’t a Joss Whedon show, and although it deals with murders, it’s at a remove. Diane learning how to shoot a gun was shocking. Violence is what Kalinda indulges in. That makes it the perfect show for a sudden, violent death.
I thought this was a great, intriguing episode, even if it wasn’t the ‘it’ I’d been speculating or dreading (in hindsight, I think my brain skirted away from really thinking about where they could go), for the first half, because of the developments with the vote stuffing and the return of Will’s innocent baby-faced client. There were little things that I registered, while following the story – I celebrated the casting of Matthew Goode (in a ‘With this and Jack Davenport you are spoiling us, casting director’, kind of way) and then noted that he was a regular, not a guest; Alicia celebrating what she and Cary’d done in six months; Kalinda’s existential crisis – and I was all, she didn’t say she was giving up investigating but just in this form, WILL.
Oh, Will. Because it was set up so beautifully. The audience was allowed to have its doubts along with Kalinda, while he believed in him, And Diane questioned him and trusted him – although I read it as being ‘for now’. This case was, after all, coming after all the dubious decisions he’s made this season, but then there was sympathy for him, partly for the Kalinda thing and for him not seeing that it was about Kalinda so much more than Alicia, or him (or even Cary, which of course I assumed she was going to tell him about) just as Will had had a blind spot about Alicia’s decision to leave and start her own firm, but mainly for the fact that that Office of Public Something guy had him in a position where he’d be forced to testify. And yes, he buried the votes for Alicia, but the reveal that it wasn’t just one district would have been quite enough to deal with in coming episodes, because if Eli and Peter get away with it, that’s impressive, if it hadn’t been this horrible, wonderful, devastating twist.
The build-up of the twitchy defendant, the scene where – and oh, Will, you couldn’t have had one of the associates second chair and babysit like Alicia used to, not even after she and Diane had warned you about the parents? Was it because that used to be Alicia’s role or arrogance? And a whole stream of ‘if only’s about the officer and his gun – he felt let down even as we knew Will was fighting for him with all his weapons and likely to succeed because Kalinda had cracked it, and he looked around and what was coming next dawned on me.
And the suddenness of the violence, even though by the point we switched to Diane, I knew for sure what was coming next. (Though I can’t see how else they could have played it.) But the suddenness, the dread and the hoping but the knowing which lawyer it would be, just as Kalinda did before she saw Will’s foot, and Panjabi and Baranski were flawless, while Charlse has been outstanding all season, and guh, I didn’t love where Will was going, spiralling to, because he had lost Alicia, hadn’t he, and he was going to crash, but why like this?
Well, because the show is brilliant. So, my emotional response is tempered and quiet.
And oh, Alicia, and missed calls, and Eli’s face (Cumming downplaying, phew) and his plain words probably making her think of the kids. And cut.
There’s things I haven’t mentioned though, that I did appreciate like of course Alicia would turn to Cary, because as her partner he’d have a stake in fighting for her, and he didn’t let her down in the deposition, either. There’s Will-Kalinda and how I loved their scenes, because I always love their scenes, and how they sneaked in a plausible goodbye, because I wasn’t expecting Kalinda’s decision, but once she said it, of course I bought it. Will-Diane had much less attention, but there was also the echo of them in Alicia-Cary (and there’s a little part of me that’s more open to Alicia/Cary, in the midst of all this, because even as Cary revealed his relationship with Kalinda, he was basically talking about how compartmentalised it is, which doesn’t suggest it’ll last, although she did seem willing to make changes to her life that might help it, but after this, who knows?) and there’s how Will got Alicia’s not too subtle message perfectly, but didn’t reciprocate – oh, Will! And their story as told on the show probably never would have ended up as Owen would have it (because...Grace), and he would have crashed some other way, and that would have hurt. Will and Alicia’s conversation felt like part of a running battle, very much so, although, in hindsight, last week’s flashback was and the conversation at dinner was so major. And she got to sit in on him defending part of the case, echoing him sitting in on her, but that’s going to be a particularly twisted memory.
Finally, there’s the fact that the most loaded exchange of looks in this entire episode (perhaps because Will/Alicia was being downplayed a little, because they are the rulers of communicating with their eyes) was between the defendant and the professor, who is probably dead and who was probably guilty.
Bravo, show. This is perfectly judged achy, achy horribleness – I didn’t want to see the body – excellent drama. The execution was nearly perfect (A- or A, though), but the storytelling choice has to be commended (A+). What a season, what a fifth season. I won’t make comparisons with specific shows, just say that pulling this off at this juncture is rare.
And now, without getting spoiled for the aftermath, because last night validated living under a rock, I’d love to read about the writers’ thinking in coming up with this.
Wow
That would be the best representation I can come up with of my response to what happened in this episode.
There’s the emotional level of disbelief and shock that Will is dead. There’s the intellectual shock and admiration that the show killed off one of its main characters, whom I felt had so much to give the story, whom I assumed was safe.
I mean, I knew something big was coming, and I’m so glad I was unspoiled but this isn’t a Joss Whedon show, and although it deals with murders, it’s at a remove. Diane learning how to shoot a gun was shocking. Violence is what Kalinda indulges in. That makes it the perfect show for a sudden, violent death.
I thought this was a great, intriguing episode, even if it wasn’t the ‘it’ I’d been speculating or dreading (in hindsight, I think my brain skirted away from really thinking about where they could go), for the first half, because of the developments with the vote stuffing and the return of Will’s innocent baby-faced client. There were little things that I registered, while following the story – I celebrated the casting of Matthew Goode (in a ‘With this and Jack Davenport you are spoiling us, casting director’, kind of way) and then noted that he was a regular, not a guest; Alicia celebrating what she and Cary’d done in six months; Kalinda’s existential crisis – and I was all, she didn’t say she was giving up investigating but just in this form, WILL.
Oh, Will. Because it was set up so beautifully. The audience was allowed to have its doubts along with Kalinda, while he believed in him, And Diane questioned him and trusted him – although I read it as being ‘for now’. This case was, after all, coming after all the dubious decisions he’s made this season, but then there was sympathy for him, partly for the Kalinda thing and for him not seeing that it was about Kalinda so much more than Alicia, or him (or even Cary, which of course I assumed she was going to tell him about) just as Will had had a blind spot about Alicia’s decision to leave and start her own firm, but mainly for the fact that that Office of Public Something guy had him in a position where he’d be forced to testify. And yes, he buried the votes for Alicia, but the reveal that it wasn’t just one district would have been quite enough to deal with in coming episodes, because if Eli and Peter get away with it, that’s impressive, if it hadn’t been this horrible, wonderful, devastating twist.
The build-up of the twitchy defendant, the scene where – and oh, Will, you couldn’t have had one of the associates second chair and babysit like Alicia used to, not even after she and Diane had warned you about the parents? Was it because that used to be Alicia’s role or arrogance? And a whole stream of ‘if only’s about the officer and his gun – he felt let down even as we knew Will was fighting for him with all his weapons and likely to succeed because Kalinda had cracked it, and he looked around and what was coming next dawned on me.
And the suddenness of the violence, even though by the point we switched to Diane, I knew for sure what was coming next. (Though I can’t see how else they could have played it.) But the suddenness, the dread and the hoping but the knowing which lawyer it would be, just as Kalinda did before she saw Will’s foot, and Panjabi and Baranski were flawless, while Charlse has been outstanding all season, and guh, I didn’t love where Will was going, spiralling to, because he had lost Alicia, hadn’t he, and he was going to crash, but why like this?
Well, because the show is brilliant. So, my emotional response is tempered and quiet.
And oh, Alicia, and missed calls, and Eli’s face (Cumming downplaying, phew) and his plain words probably making her think of the kids. And cut.
There’s things I haven’t mentioned though, that I did appreciate like of course Alicia would turn to Cary, because as her partner he’d have a stake in fighting for her, and he didn’t let her down in the deposition, either. There’s Will-Kalinda and how I loved their scenes, because I always love their scenes, and how they sneaked in a plausible goodbye, because I wasn’t expecting Kalinda’s decision, but once she said it, of course I bought it. Will-Diane had much less attention, but there was also the echo of them in Alicia-Cary (and there’s a little part of me that’s more open to Alicia/Cary, in the midst of all this, because even as Cary revealed his relationship with Kalinda, he was basically talking about how compartmentalised it is, which doesn’t suggest it’ll last, although she did seem willing to make changes to her life that might help it, but after this, who knows?) and there’s how Will got Alicia’s not too subtle message perfectly, but didn’t reciprocate – oh, Will! And their story as told on the show probably never would have ended up as Owen would have it (because...Grace), and he would have crashed some other way, and that would have hurt. Will and Alicia’s conversation felt like part of a running battle, very much so, although, in hindsight, last week’s flashback was and the conversation at dinner was so major. And she got to sit in on him defending part of the case, echoing him sitting in on her, but that’s going to be a particularly twisted memory.
Finally, there’s the fact that the most loaded exchange of looks in this entire episode (perhaps because Will/Alicia was being downplayed a little, because they are the rulers of communicating with their eyes) was between the defendant and the professor, who is probably dead and who was probably guilty.
Bravo, show. This is perfectly judged achy, achy horribleness – I didn’t want to see the body – excellent drama. The execution was nearly perfect (A- or A, though), but the storytelling choice has to be commended (A+). What a season, what a fifth season. I won’t make comparisons with specific shows, just say that pulling this off at this juncture is rare.
And now, without getting spoiled for the aftermath, because last night validated living under a rock, I’d love to read about the writers’ thinking in coming up with this.
