The Good Wife: Best So Far?

As I've mentioned on this blog before, I have become a huge fan of CBS' "The Good Wife".  It has an excellent cast that includes Julianna Margulies, Christine Baranski, Josh Charles, Archie Panjabi (who won the Emmy last year), and Matt Czuchry.  As great as the series regular cast is, lets not forget all the recurring people who pop up on this show.  They include Chris Noth, as Alica's politician husband Peter; Alan Cummings as Peter's campaign manager; Titus Welliver (man in black from "LOST"!) as Glenn Childs, the current D.A. running against Peter for re-election; Anika Noni Rose as Wendy Scott Carr (also running against Peter and Childs); Michael Ealy as Derrick Bond, the newest name partner at Lockhart/Gardner & Bond; Scott Porter, as a private investigator hired by Bond, who has dirt on Archie Panjabi's Kalinda (Kalinda's not really named Kalinda? She has a husband?!); and many, many more characters that I could delve in to.

Last night's episode was great on many reasons.  There were 3 main plots in last night's episode, and featured several sub-plots as well.  Let's start with "LOST" alum Ken Leung, who guest starred as a Chinese man who was kept prisoner and tortured for posting on an American social networking website. The website leaked the man's IP address/location to the Chinese government, which then took him.  This ushered in the return of the fantastic Rita Wilson (Mrs. Tom Hanks), as the super mean attorney Viola Walsh, who is defending the website in the deposition. Lockhart/Gardner & Bond wants millions of dollars from the website for leaking the information, and they also want them to stop leaking information in China in the future.  Lots of drama played out, and in the end, they agreed to no money, but all leaking of information would stop.  This also helped Alicia realize (with the help of Josh Charles' Will) that nobodies motives are good motives, when it comes to lawsuits.

The next great story that came to a head was the ousting of Derrick Bond from Lockhart/Gardner & Bond.  All season long there have been mind games and betrayal between Diane Lockhart, Will Gardner, and Derrick Bond.  One of them was going to have to go, and at one point or another, everybody was turning on everybody else.  Last night was the dramatic conclusion...the vote.  After some last minute deals, trickery, and even deaths, Derrick Bond was successfully voted out of the firm.  Diane and Will shared a victory hug and drink and realized they really are the perfect pair.  The writing, acting, and execution of this whole story arc has been top notch all year long.

The final main story from this week's episode was the election.  Peter and Eli knew that they had to get one of his opponents to drop out of the race.  After digging into the pasts of Childs and Scott-Carr (with the help of Peter's son and girlfriend), they realized that both of the other characters have a past with hiring illegal immigrants as their child's nannys.  However, as Peter pointed out to Childs just before Childs dropped out of the race...nobody likes a cover up.  Scott-Carr owned up to it, and Childs covered it up.  A short while later, Childs dropped out of the race.  Now it's a two person race between Peter and Wendy Scott Carr.  Will Peter win? Will he stick around beyond this season? And why has Chris Noth been on almost every episode for 2 seasons and yet never listed as a series regular? It keeps me wondering if at some point they won't write him out. 

One last plot that was touched on for a few minutes was about Cary (Matt Czuchry) and Kalinda (Archie Panjabi).  Cary, who is currently working for the D.A. (Glenn Childs), tipped off Kalinda that she is going to be indicted for a bunch of things that is even too confusing for me to understand.  Basically, when she was doing some private investigating, she stole/damaged some things, and then covered it up.  This is a bad thing to do. Now she's in trouble for it.  And also, the past few weeks they have been teasing us with the possibility of a Cary/Kalinda romance.  At the end of the scene where Cary tipped off Kalinda, he also kissed her.  Where will this relationship go? I don't know...but I'm very interested.  I like these two together.

At some point I would like to write a blog and list every subplot I can think of on this show (season 2 only).  I'm sure it would be a crazy high number.  Sometimes this show keeps me confused (and I'm someone who was able to keep up with LOST without a problem!) but I love it...and I might just be willing to say it's my favorite Drama on TV right now.  With LOST gone, I now have a different show to pull for in the Emmys.

If you don't watch..START!