Alicia is adamant in her refusal to run for State's Attorney despite Eli's attempts to persuade her to launch a campaign. Meanwhile, as Diane considers joining Florrick/Agos as partner, an internal crisis threatens to destroy the firm.
Coming off its best and most surprising season yet, I bet no one was quite expecting The Good Wife's big twist in "The Line." Following the fifth season finale, we headed into this season focusing on Diane joining Florrick/Agos and Alicia possibly running for State's Attorney. And then, Cary was arrested on a drug charge connected to Lemond Bishop and that dominated the majority of the first episode this season. It's a great twist too - for a show that may be relying on too many twists lately. Lately, it seems the show wants to reinvent itself every handful of episodes. Only 10 episodes passed between Alicia and Cary leaving the firm and Will's death, then only 7 before Diane decided to jump ship as well. And the whole cliffhanger of last season was Eli being struck with a genius idea to have Alicia run for State's Attorney. Not all of these ideas were matching up in the same coherent way. Focusing on a Florrick/Agos firm with the possibility of Diane doesn't exact track that well knowing that Alicia will soon be leaving.All of those plot threads are still present. But the major focus of "The Line" is Cary's arrest and trying to understand what is happening. I love that it's not neatly resolved by hour's end. It's a story I'm not expecting a ton of time to be spent on - if it covers all the fall episodes this year I'd be surprised. But it is a game-changer. It challenges Florrick/Agos as an organization in interesting ways. It effects their business. For all the problems he causes, Bishop is still one of their best clients. And yet, they are all reminded of just how ruthless he can be upon learning of this threat to his business. Diane's clients may not be willing to move over now after being let in on this news. But it also has the potential to delay Diane's move to the firm. She wants to work with Alicia. And yet, she has placed a time limit on herself. She is leaving Lockhart/Gardner in a month. She's allowed to represent Cary because she doesn't have a conflict of interest but if this drags out that could be a problem for all involved.
It's a particularly harrowing experience for Cary. He knows his rights but the system around him is inefficient. He's being held on trumped on charges. He knows that there's no way he told Bishop how to evade detection for his latest drug shipment. And yet, he's the perfect pawn for the State's Attorney's office to get to Bishop. It would be easy for Bishop to eliminate the threat right away so he wouldn't have to deal with all of these issues. He doesn't even really know Cary. It wouldn't be an incomparable loss for him. Business would go on as usual. But the experience is all too real for Cary. The firm is trying their best to raise the funds for his bail. His father will only give eight thousand dollars. If he wasn't a jerk before, he most certainly is now.
But this whole twist may in fact be the connective tissue that all the show's various plots needed. Diane wants the firm to be the top one in the country run by woman. She doesn't have the highest respect for Cary. His betrayal when he left is still too raw for her to deal with - especially because he's not supportive of her joining the firm in the first place. Conversely, Alicia is adamant against running for public office. She's the only opponent based on Eli's polling who could beat Castro for the position. Peter is now on board. The two of them will just have to convince her now. And if she first hand experiences how far Castro is willing to go through this case with Cary, she may actually consider running. It's a very precarious situation and one I'm confident The Good Wife will execute with grace and perfection.
Some more thoughts:
- "The Line" was written by Robert King & Michelle King and directed by Robert King.
- Kelli Giddish returns as Sophia to keep Kalinda occupied so she's not with Cary doing his arrest. It's a very welcome return even though I know fully well that she'll have to go back to her regular work on Law & Order: SVU just as quickly.
- I'm not gonna say his work on The Neighbors was career-changing, but it is surprising that Lenny Venito went from being a lead on a comedy back to a character actor - appearing here as one of the correctional officers.
- Diane's plan to break away from Lockhart/Gardner could be a bit too repetitive of Alicia and Cary's story from just a year ago. We'll see how long it takes.
- It was great seeing Eli's daughter again. She is such a fun energy - especially whenever she got to talk about the intern not wearing any panties.
- It's always good seeing Michael J. Fox here. I wasn't the biggest fan of his and David Lee's scheming at the end of last season. But he continues to be an actor the show has a lot of fun using.
- It's interesting how Alicia just asks Finn Polmar if he's prosecuting this case because of his sister's death. That was quite the contentious moment.
- But what does the recording say that is so damning for Cary?!?!
