If this episode made me realize anything, it’s just how valuable a character Kalinda is. The past few episodes of The Good Wife have been good, but she’s been stuck in the background, surfacing only to do some of the grunt work that allows the lawyers of Lockhart/Gardner to get from point A to point B in a case. Here, she was featured in the episode in a major way and you felt it. The show had changed.
Whenever she’s given a storyline with any weight to it, the show is cooler. It’s got this natural mystery and suspense to it that can’t be faked or produced conciously, but is just natural. I don’t know how Archie Panjabi does it, but she’s got smoldering chemistry not only with everything on two legs and/or with a head, but with the camera. She exudes this strong sensuality which defies defination and brings the show from an A-minus procedural to just about the best thing on television. Never has the term “scene-stealer” been applied to a character more than it has to Kalinda. I mean seriously, even considering what she did in this episode, had it been any other actress then it could have been a terribly dull sequence: her main objective in this episode is figuring out who is the mastermind behind bitcoin, an online currency starring Jason Biggs, or something. She spends a lot of her time at a computer nerd conference, chitchatting with hot girls in bathrooms and getting googly eyes from some Chinese econo-physicist thingy. It had no right working. And yet it did.
Of course the subplot regarding Will was far more interesting: Kalinda is, it appears, made to choose between helping Will or allowing Alicia to be disbarred thanks to the forged signature from last week (it was a twist which the writers handled really well, laying the foundation last week in a way that established that this was a loose cannon without making it overly dramatic).
Jackie made a much welcome and overdue return in full awfulness, picking at Zach’s relationship with Nisa, with whom she has a problem not because the girl is black (but kinda because she’s black) but because she goes to public school whereas Zach goes to private. I wish the show figured out a way to give her more screen time. I’ve never liked Alicia more than when she’s battling Jackie.
As for Alicia she mainly handled Jason Bigg’s bitcoin character and the courtroom angle in what was an exceptionally strong case of the week which I hope the show returns to in the future (they certainly spent enough time laying the groundwork to return to it, what with econo-physicist guy’s declaration of love for Kalinda and a pretty solid throng of guest stars).
All in all, this was one of the best episodes of the season and hopefully the back half of this season will, as evidence points, be a return to form, glorious form.
Please make sure to read our comment policy before posting a comment.