FALL TV REVIEW: The Good Wife

Name of Show: The Good Wife
Network: CBS
Day: Tuesday
Time: 10pm EST/9pm CST
Genre: Draaamaaaa
Length: 1 hour
Episode Watched: Pilot

Setting: Chicago!

Characters (in order of mention/appearance):
Alicia Florrick - wife of politician
Will - head guy at law firm
Diane (Christine Baranski!) - head lady at law firm
Peter Florrick (Chris Noth) - politician
Kalinda Sharmo - in-house investigator at law firm, fired in previous job by Peter, 25 years old
Matton - met Alicia at department office party
Judge Richard Cuesta - honorable, residing
Jackie - mother-in-law. likes telling granddaughter she's fast
Cary Agos - douchebag associate

Stereotypes:
- Grumpy Old Man
- Sassy non-White Woman
- Funny fat guy
- Hot blonde wife of funny fat guy
- Quirky, far too self-aware early 20's guy/girl
- Emo Teen
- Guy you've seen in that one movie who always has a sarcastic comment
- Fallen star taking what work they can get
- Relatable guy/girl, soon to be tabloid fodder
- High-strung guy/girl whose buttons everyone enjoys pushing
- Cougar
X Brainy brunette
- Precocious kid acting way too mature for their age
- Hot blonde

Facebook/Twitter awkward reference?: No! argh!

Basic premise: State's attorney got caught with hookers and the wife has to rebuild her wife. . .by becoming a lawyer.

Pilot plot:
Starts with the scene that has been in all the commercials - Chris Noth as a politician apologizing for his affair. His wife stands teary-eyed by his side and backstage, slaps him on the face. haha. He refuses to give interviews to the Tribune and Channel 2. . .which is funny because this show airs on channel 2. hmmm.

Then, we fast foward 6 months and see his wife, Alicia, starting her first day of work at a law firm. It turns out she's in the wrong conference room and sprints up the spiral stairs (oooh dizzy), only to be assigned to head up pro bono work. ouch.

Christine Baranski, as Diane, fills her in on the case she'll be picking up, some chick named Jennifer Lewis who was tried for killing her ex-husband and making it look like a car jacking. Last trial had a hung jury, so Alicia needs to make sure that doesn't happen again. Oh, and she has to go to court starting this afternoon. Today is the day! Diane also kindly brings up that Alicia brings with her prominent baggage, then gestures toward a picture with her standing next to Hillary Clinton and says "If she can do it, you can." Um. . .thanks?

Alicia walks into some guy's office and he's watching a You Tube video of Peter's apology speech. klassy. Some douchebag associate condescends his way through a conversation with her, while ogling assistants' asses and making chauvinistic comments. Let's hope that guy gets what's coming to him at some point this season.

Alicia goes to her office and waiting for her is an investigator named Kalinda, whose purpose seems to be to bring up how she was fired by Peter and that she's 25 (me: "yeah, plus 10.").

While heading into court, Alicia's daughter calls and nonchalantly asks if the hookers dad was sleeping with were teenagers because she heard something at school but didn't know if it was true or not. cute.

First day in court! Judge doesn't like Alicia's husband, Jennifer isn't happy that she has new representation, but the judge lets her out of jail as long as she wears an ankle bracelet. I hear they're all the rage.

Alicia and Kalinda meet with Jennifer to have her recount the story and Kalinda eyes all the physical signs. Alicia tries to get the nice-assed assistant to bring in some water, but she's too busy helping Cary (the douchebag associate). Alicia shoots a look that says "Thanks a lot, skank."
Jennifer and Alicia talk about moving forward, and Alicia tells her to put on nice makeup and clothes and read a book. . .fiction if possible. hmm. interesting advice. Kalinda warns her that she'll burnout fast if she relates to all the clients. Thanks, girl with 3 years experience.

Alicia heads out ot interview the jurors from the original trial, and things don't look so good. Basically, she learns that the vote was 11-1 (why are there even numbers on juries?) and there was one lone holdout. The rest wanted it to be over, so they changed their votes so that the jury would be hung and they could go. She visits Juror #9 who is a crazy cat lady (although those cats were cute!) and she says that she held out because she liked Diane and "just had a gut feeling." Not exactly helpful when trying to get a new jury to go your way.

She bumps into Will, and asks about some douchebag comment Cary made about the "best man" winning. Apparently people weren't supposed to know, but there's only one associate position open, so they decided to hire 2 people for six months and then give the job to the best person. BUT, he's glad the pro bono case is going well. um. . .shit.

Alicia visits Peter in jail, and they talk about paperwork stuff. He tells her that he remembers the Jennifer Lewis case and that there's a rumor that some evidence or testimony is buried. He also says he's innocent of abuse of office charges (hmm. . .abuse of office charges. . .Chicago. . .so familiar!)

Alicia and Kalinda visit the warehouse area and Alicia notices there should be another page to the crime lab report. They also figure out that even though the warehouse tapes don't support the crime, maybe they were mislabeled. Since boobs are better than subpoenas (her words, not mine), Kalinda works her "magic" with the warehouse guy. Alicia decides to suck up to the office assistant whom he berates. We don't know yet which tactic got them further, but I'm rooting for boobs! Yay boobs!

Back at home, mom-in-law Jackie tells Alicia to forgive Peter because he's hurting. She tells her to eat shit and die (not really, but in different words).

Back in court, the second wife testifies and Alicia can't say anything without being objected to. She does manage to bring up the possible hiding of evidence, and in chambers (thanks Law and Order for helping with my lingo!), the prosecution accuses her of being fed evidence from Peter (true, but harsh!). The judge demands that they find the missing evidene, but warns Alicia that IF she did get her info from Peter, she's walking a very fine ethical line.

Act 1 Break Pickle: Can she win this case? Will the judge find out the truth that she was fed info from Peter?

Alicia is in Diane's office getting reprimanded by her and will for changing strategies and not updating management. They decide that because she was married to a state's attorney and lived in Highland Park (oooh, appropriate Chicagoland reference!), that she doesn't think she's a junior associate. They decide to move Cary to first chair.

Kalinda talked to/agreed to drinks with some guy at the police and she found out the missing evidence is some dog hair that doesn't match. Alicia takes home the warehouse video and some plastic bag flying around. . .which apparently is proof?

Back in court, she shows warehouse videos from the day before, day of, and day after the murder. The plastic bag flies around at the same time in all the tapes. Security guard guy admits to being lazy and just duplicating the tapes for the days he doesn't do the rounds Another profession disparaged in a fall pilot. Sorry security guards!

Alicia is chatting with Will in her office about the case, apparently they were old law school friends. Alicia thinks Wife 2 may not have been happy with the ex-husband having dinner with Jennifer. . .possible suspect?

New state's attorney tells Alicia that Peter is using her. She tells him he's a scumbag for releasing the sex tape to the press. . .but more nicely.

Back in court, Alicia links Wife 2 to dog racing lotion chemicals found at the scene as well as greyhound dog hairs and her brother who works at the racetrack. Objections were made, but the damage is done!

At bar, Kalinda asks her her why she stood by Peter. Basically, she was blindsided. . .and that's all the reason she gives. Erm. . .ok. Phone rings and jury's in!

Alicia and the DA gather in chambers. The judge informs them that the cops are pursuing a case against Wife 1 and the brother and the state's attorney has decided to drop this case. Yay! Victory!

Will brings by wine and tells her she's 2nd chair in a civil case. I guess that's good? She then listens to a message from Peter as a slideshow of family pics plays on her computer monitor. His lawyers think they can overturn his case. She seems notsohappy about this news.

Until next week!

Reaction: When I first saw commercials for this show I thought "Awesome! That's such a good idea!" mainly because politicians keep cheating on their wives and the story seems to be more about the wife's reaction. I am a little surprised that the story is about the wife moving forward and less about the scandal. . .and I'm a little disappointed that it's basically a law/crime show with the B plot about the politican's affair. I do like that this episode was less backstory and more actual story. . .but does this network need another crime show?


Competing against in my DVR schedule (remember, only two slots!): Nothing
Added to schedule?: No
Renewed for a 2nd season prediction: Yes

Hey look! It's _Christine Baranski_________ from __Cybill_____

Don't f-with me!