Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Review - The Good Wife Season 1 Episode 4 Fixed

The Good Wife is the best new drama this season hands down. I thought FlashForward's pilot was amazing, but after the last two episodes, it's clear The Good Wife is a cut above the rest. Julianna Margulies does a great job every week with Alicia's home life, husband's case, and work. Fixed was no exception with great legal story and progression in the ongoing investigation into Peter's corruption.

There were ethical and legal issues abound as Alicia discovers a potential jury bribing. The case is of utmost importance to the firm as it is precursor to a class action. She isn't quite sure which juror it is or even if there was bribing. Kalinda certainly breaks a few laws as she investigates, but that's television. Nothing legal is ever as exciting as something illegal. The trial ends with Diane winning and the clients receiving a nice chunk of change, but bribery issue is still unresolved as it will be. There is a big shocker which I had no expected. Kalinda had spotted someone in a green SVU giving a juror an envelope. She only gets a partial plate, so there is no way in knowing who it was. When Alicia talks to the clients after the trial, she spots their car, and sure enough, it's a green SVU with the corresponding partial plate. Sure it's illegal, but could it have been right? Either way, Alicia tells Diane who couldn't care less.

Equally interesting was Peter's lawyer hounding for Alicia to get information. He asks for her to get correspondence between Peter and a real estate developer named Gerald Koztco. Alicia is reluctant to help and the lawyer evens goes as far as to bribe her. With the ongoing investigation into the jury tampering, Alicia is obviously disgusted. The lawyer later ask if she could find a receipt for a bracelet. She goes to the jewelry store with the bracelet and ask if someone named Florrick had bought it. When told he didn't buy it, she asks if Koztko had bought it, but the store couldn't reveal any more information.

While being interviewed, the lawyers seem supremely confident that Peter is innocent, as Peter also is, but Alicia sits there expressionless. She has reservations about Peter and wouldn't care if he gets out of prison or not. With all that is happening, the possibility that Peter was corrupt is great, and Alicia realizes that. She didn't know he was cheating, so she couldn't know if he did any dirty dealings.

Seeing the improprieties at the law firm and her with her husbands conduct, Alicia is facing a harsh reality she didn't have to face before. So far she's been able to cope with her situation, but we'll see if she can keep it up.

Score: 9.3/10

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm liking "The Good Wife", too!

Daniel said...

Totally agree with this, The Good Wife is a very well written show with some great acting and production values. It is an intriguing psychological drama with characters to care for. As other reviewers have stated, I just hope it doesn't fall prey to the "case-of-the-week" syndrome. It's characters are too valuable for that.

Even though I try to suppress the thought, I sometimes wonder whether today's television landscape can sustain an intelligent, character-driven drama written for adults, that does not resort to cheap thrills to attract the (growing?) zero-attention-span population. Even though experience sometimes suggests otherwise, I deeply hope that it can, and that altogether we are still somehow advancing... the show was off to a great start, and it deserves to remain successful.

Related Posts with Thumbnails