The most unlikely and best news out of network television this season is that one of its most admired programs is finally the one most worth watching.
“The Good Wife” has finally tired of its own good behavior to become the bitchy, legal slugfest it was meant to be.
The dramatic stakes were raised a few weeks ago when Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), a partner at Lockhart Gardner, staged a coup with her colleague Cary Agos (Matt Czuchry), a disgruntled sneak. They split off to form their own firm, with many of LG’s fourth-year attorneys, who all seem to be 12 years old and five-feet-seven.
Alicia’s boss (and former lover) Will Gardner (Josh Charles) was so incensed, he had the always circumspect Florrick escorted out of the building.
The fallout was huge: knives were brandished, clients were poached, access to files denied. The double-crossing was well under way. The cast was on board with their A game. Aside from a brief, teary interlude on the company elevator as Alicia left the building, Margulies showed a good deal of spine. Charles’ self-righteous fury was exactly right as Will watched his former protegee betray him.
As usual, Christine Baranski offered the most complex performance as Diane Lockhart saw all of her strategies blowing up in her face. She sold out her partner, Will, for a judgeship, was forced out of the firm by the other partners then uncovered the coup. She bitterly fired Cary, cradling his laptop full of files, then went scrambling to preserve her future — which Alicia’s vindictive husband, Peter, the governor-elect, later took away in retaliation.
After Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) gave Diane the bad news that she wasn’t going to be a judge, she mustered all of her dignity and crept into the nearest ladies room and broke down — a sight we have never seen. To think that Baranski did these scenes while shuttling back-and-forth between the “Good Wife” studio in Greenpoint and a soundstage in London — where she is co-starring in the musical “Into the Woods” — is flat-out amazing.
So where do we go from here? After spending way too much time in Season 4 on Peter’s gubernatorial campaign, executive producers Robert and Michelle King have course-corrected and opened up a wide array of possibilities for further legal disaster and triumph for both Lockhart Gardner and Florrick Agos.
There’s no doubt in anybody’s mind that Peter’s decision to punish Diane and favor his wife will backfire, or that his voluptuous ethics counselor, Marilyn (Melissa George), will be a game-changer. There’s also the interesting question of how Kalinda will figure into the mix. Relegated to the background after an unfortunate storyline in Season 4, she’s been slithering her way back to the forefront, with the inscrutable Panjabi keeping everyone guessing whose side she’s on.
With ratings dropping to dismal levels, “The Good Wife” may have taken too long to get its mojo back, but who knows?
With many network shows having a hard time justifying their continued existence, and some cable faves having gone completely off the rails, “The Good Wife” might be here to stay.