The Good Wife: Feeding the Rat, aka, Diane Wins at Everything

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Our Formerly Good Wife

So this episode confirmed what the season has been hinting at all along: in the war between good and evil, black and white, Alicia sits firmly in team Dark Grey. In a twist, Julius makes the comment we once would have expected from Alicia, and as always, Diane puts things in the right perspective.

It's a direct flip from previous seasons, when Alicia was trapped in the grey area in her personal life, so she exerted more certainty in the professional world. Now, she's laid strict rules for herself personally, and allows herself a lot more moral uncertainty in her professional life.

In many ways, Alicia has become that person that Kalinda wants to be and Will imagines himself as in the season premiere.

But where does that leave Will?

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(gif credit to aliciaflorrick on tumblr)

Will and Diane

When the apocalypse comes, I'm fairly sure these two will still be standing, drinking single malt scotch and dancing on top of the wastelands. While the show often posits that all of its characters are in it for themselves, this episode reminds us that there is one bond that will never be broken, not even by people named Bond.

They seem to bring out the best in each other, morally and financially.

So when Will and Alicia inevitably flame out, we can be fairly certain how the forces will realign themselves: Will/Diane, Alicia/Eli/Kalinda, Celeste and Cary as the wild cards, and Peter on his own.

Peter and the Wolves

As profoundly irritating as I find Celeste, that scene with Will and Peter was absolutely golden. In a misguided attempt to embarass them both, she only manages to piss them both off. Will walks away, but Peter just clearly isn't having it.

Which makes more than a little sense, after all. As I discussed before, Peter is no longer con

 

cerned with petty personal problems, he's angling for total destruction. So the more that Celeste buzzes around him like an annoying fly, the more likely he is to have her put down. (Seriously, what lawyer thinks it's a good idea to piss off the new State's Attorney?)

And as for shenanigans at the State's Attorney's office, big warning alarms went off when Peter immediately assigned the AUSA to Cary. It's not impossible that Cary will be just another pawn in Peter's game, the sacrificial lamb that he'll give up to the authorities if things become more hairy. Or maybe I'm being paranoid, but I don't believe that Peter does anything now without 7 layers of deception.

Quote of the episode: "He doesn't like me." Wibbly-eyed: "Why doesn't he like me?"

Running Tally of Potential Spinoffs:

  • Kalinda and Pooch
  • The Young Lockhart/Gardner, the exciting tale of how Diane and Will came together
  • Eli Gold Takes Over the World
  • Eli and Kalinda raise the child that grows up to either save or destroy the world. That child's name: "Kal/El"

Also, whatever show this is:

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What did you think of the episode? Any other spinoff ideas?

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9 Responses to “ The Good Wife: Feeding the Rat, aka, Diane Wins at Everything ”

  1. Celeste is the best new thing on this show. Her scenes are sometimes irritating, sometimes full of life but always interesting to watch.

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  2. It's true! She brings a weird energy to the show that we haven't really seen before (and I don't think we've ever seen Will so back-footed)

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  3. I think Celeste will sleep with Peter for advantage. She has it out for Alicia.

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  4. Oh dear me, I am normally so immune to so called shipping, but instead I have a whole parallel show in my head where Eli actually already knows all that stuff he is asking Kalinda, he is just doing it so he can hang out with her more and deploy his charm. You are correct, the wibbly eyes were the best. Second place goes to Dianne's happy excited christmas day look when Will give's the nod to bring in the legal aid people.

    I don't really remember caring as much about Will's feelings before this episode, especially after he claimed to Kalinda he didn't have any, but all these scenes where he dips back into what his life was like and realises he is better off now and then gets crushed a bit by Alicia at the end were really heartbreaking. Awww poor Will. And I never thought I'd say that, which is another reason why this show is so good. Especially since last episode, I was pretty sure I agreed with Alicia and her Bro that love would be a bad idea for them right now...

    PS, Judge Tie Dye, yay! And the return of people shamelessly exploiting whatever advantages they have in the courtroom, one of my favourite recurring tropes.

    Oh, and Julius is back! I think Eli Gold should be warned how dangerous it is to have Julius against you.

    and a final PPS, I think it should be mentioned that while it was quite simple, the case of the week is so close to a lot of people's worst nightmares, including mine, that for me at least it packed a reasonable punch. All credit to the show, because I really don't think that it would have worked at this stage if they hadn't flat out SHOWN us he was innocent from the beginning. As a Good Wife viewer I've become way too cynical. I was even wondering if the opening was some kind of unreliable narrator trick for a while there...

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  5. My spinoff idea is DIANE HAS AN AFFAIR WITH THE HALF-HER-AGE PRO BONO LAWYER.

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  6. Lol that would be awesome. But I still miss Kurt McVeigh!

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  7. I never thought I'd say "poor will" either. It's back to Dan Rydell all over again, Lisa Edelstein making him question his life. 

    I do love the quirky judges, though I understand some people hate them? But the AUSA's dirty move was golden.

    Oh yeah. Julius will be the death of all of them.

    Someone else pointed out that it's one of the very few, if not the only time that LG are defending an explicitly innocent person. You're right though, had we not known that from the start it would have been much too stressful. It's my greatest fear too!

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  8. Young Will and Diane all the way; she's idealistic, he's all about the money- together they make it work. Though I'd be partial to Eli Gold Takes Over the World. So many possibilities. I would also like to thrown in the idea of an Owen/Jackie sitcom, think of the possibilities.

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  9. oooh owen/jackie! that would be a great one. Someday, when I have more time, I'm going to mock-up graphics for all of these shows...

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