Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
11.00 The Good Wife
The Good Wife. Episode 3. "Home"
Three for three and, I suppose, it's time to declare The Good Wife as my favourite new drama of the 2009/10 season. Defying Gravity has been cancelled, Melrose Place is just an old show warmed up, Vampire Dairies (while brilliant) is just another good love story, and FlashForward will only show it's greatness (if it has any) as the weeks go by.
Everything else (drama-wise) that started this season has been crap.
So, I'm left with The Good Wife... Much to my surprise. Since I had no high expectations going in.
Week #3 had another solid case-of-the-week, with the added bonus of it being linked to the past life of Mrs. Florrick. The trial was a little more predictable than the previous one, and the courtroom resolution/twist was a little 'too TV' for my liking, but that doesn't detract from the fact that the overall story and characters being presented to us, on the framework of a courtroom drama series, are very, very good indeed.
Julianna Margulies is a joy to watch. She pulls me in more and more and more every and I'm so impressed now with the nuances that she puts into every scene that I'm gonna have to go back, now, and watch the pilot for all the neat stuff I probably missed. The single best demonstration of her talent comes in the contract between the version of Mrs. Florrick we see through the episodes and the Mrs. Florrick we see in the flashbacks (garden party/bedroom scenes). A very different person, yet unmistakeably the same person.
And I like that person. I like Alicia Florrick. She's a good person and she didn't deserve what her (prick of a) husband did to her. But, unlike a lot of other similar fictional characters on TV, she has rolled with the punch, and set about keeping her life moving forward. Without any real trace of anger or outrage. Which is what we've seen in these characters before. But not here. Alicia's feelings towards her husband and suitably complex. And Margulies nails it. I must also say my own feelings towards her husband are complex. I'm a huge fan of the charismatic Chris Noth and it's difficult to completely dislike this character he's playing. The producers choose well when they cast him.
This episode was also the first to make a lot of use of the Matt Czuchry character. And good stuff it was, too. When he first teamed up with Mrs. Florrick and the investigator I wondered if the show was gonna turn into a procedural with the three of them investigating cases together every week (and if this had been the plan all along) but as the story unfolded it transpired that the falseness that annoyed me about the character was deliberately being placed there by the writers and the actor and I was - in fact - having the exact adverse reaction to him that I was supposed to. The episode's best scene was probably the one where he was alone with the Josh Charles character and they both laid their cards of the table, very clearly, while smiling broadly at one another the whole time.
More of that, please!
Florrick's character is the heart of the show. Margulies brings her wonderfully to life and makes me care about her. And stories (which tend to be pretty good on their own) are really a means towards exploring/understand the remarkable woman at the center of the show. Even the peripheral details (like her relationship with her kids) are more honest and real than you would expect on a show like this.
And, most important, the character doesn't appear weak or un-heroic despite what her husband did to her, and despite the fact that she still has feelings for him, and feelings for what they once had together. When I first read about this show, I (wrongly) assumed that it would be hate-filled. A show about a strong female where the writers/producers would define that strength in terms of how much she hated her ex-husband and men in general. Had that been the show, then I wouldn't be interested. Luckily it's not that kind of show. And while Mrs Florrick's strength has been unleashed because of her husband's actions, it's not portrayed as being a strength that exists in reaction to him. No, this strength is all hers. And I like that.
Men are all about power, and women are all about strength. And here's a weekly TV series that seems able to capture/portray that. Easily my favourite new drama of the 2009/10 season.
Yet Another TV Review Podcast
Yet Another TV Review Book
Yet Another Film Review Blog
Follow Me on Twitter
The Good Wife
