The Good Wife 4.5 meets The Sopranos

Three powerful women figured prominently in The Good Wife 4.5 last night:

1.  Annabella Sciorra of The Sopranos and all kinds of fame puts in an appearance as one of  Lemond Bishop's attorneys.   She's as cute and effective as ever.

2. Of course Julianna Margulies - another anna - is also on hand.  Come to think of it, she was also in The Sopranos.   All that was missing was the Polish woman with one leg.

3. And Maura Tierney - who I'm pretty sure was not on The Sopranos - also shows up, with a continuing storyline that has nothing to do with Bishop.

Maddie (Maura Tierney) has had a strange storyline so far.  There was an implication that she wanted to sleep with Alicia - which didn't happen but could still be true.  All she seems to want is to be friends with Alicia, who is happy to have her as a friend as long as Maddie keeps the money flowing to Peter's campaign.   But last night, as a snakey blogger - whew, The Good Wife doesn't like bloggers - posts an article about how the mainstream media backed off publishing the bogus sex story about Peter and a blonde campaign worker, Maddie shows a keen interest in the story and the campaign worker.

Why?  Not yet clear, but after a meeting with the campaign worker, Maddie withdraws her support from Peter's campaign.  From the inklings we get in the coming attractions, maybe Maddie is thinking of jumping in the race for governor herself?

Unknown at this point.   All I can say is, "Don't stop-"

See also The Good Wife 4.1 Meets Occupy Wall Street ...  The Good Wife 4.2: Reunited ... The Good Wife 4.3: "Template-Based Link Analysis Algorithm"

And see also The Good Wife 3.1: Recusal and Rosh Hashanah ... The Good Wife: 3.2: Periwigs and Skype ... The Good Wife 3.7: Peter v. Will ...  Dexter's Sister on The Good Wife 3.10  ... The Good Wife 3.12: Two Suits  ... The Good Wife 3.13 Meets Murder on the Orient Express ... The Good Wife 3.15: Will and Baseball

And see also  The Good Wife Starts Second Season on CBS ... The Good Wife 2.2: Lou Dobbs, Joe Trippi, and Obama Girl ... The Good Wife 2.4: Surprise Candidate, Intimate Interpsonal Distance ... The Good Wife 2.9 Takes on Capital Punishment ... The Good Wife 2.16: Information Wars 

The Good Wife 4.2: Reunited

The Good Wife treatment of Occupy Wall Street continued in episode 4.2, with the story of an innocent protester tasered to death by a cop out to make his "mark".  In addition to the strong courtroom drama - with Will back in court arguing the case of the victim - the story provides an important reminder of what cops can do and have done when they're set unconstitutionally loose against protesters and people.

Meanwhile, the court also has Will grappling with a new rule that allows jurors to ask questions of witnesses when they're on the stand.  This makes for some humorous and decisive moments in courtroom but, even it hadn't, I like this rule.  It empowers the everyday people who are the bedrock of our judicial system and democracy.

An important continuing story is also introduced tonight, in the person of Maddie Hayward, played by ER's Maura Tierney.   Her character on ER overlapped briefly but significantly with Julianna Margulies' Carol on the same show, and it would have been great to see the two together on The Good Wife in any case.  But their new story seems especially scintillating and complex, spanning business, politics, and, of course, the personal.

Maddie goes out of her way to help Alicia - including giving an unasked-for contribution to Peter's campaign.  But her guardian angel behavior may have a price - she wants to have a drink with Alicia.  When Alicia demurs, Maddie says she just wants to be friends, and Alicia agrees to have a drink the next evening.

We don't see that. The episode ends before that.  But one thing is sure: it's not just friendship that Maddie wants.  Maybe sex is indeed her motive.  But I'm thinking Maddie wants Alicia to run for some office.






See also The Good Wife 4.1 Meets Occupy Wall Street

And see also The Good Wife 3.1: Recusal and Rosh Hashanah ... The Good Wife: 3.2: Periwigs and Skype ... The Good Wife 3.7: Peter v. Will ...  Dexter's Sister on The Good Wife 3.10  ... The Good Wife 3.12: Two Suits  ... The Good Wife 3.13 Meets Murder on the Orient Express ... The Good Wife 3.15: Will and Baseball

And see also  The Good Wife Starts Second Season on CBS ... The Good Wife 2.2: Lou Dobbs, Joe Trippi, and Obama Girl ... The Good Wife 2.4: Surprise Candidate, Intimate Interpsonal Distance ... The Good Wife 2.9 Takes on Capital Punishment ... The Good Wife 2.16: Information Wars

The Good Wife Starts Second Season on CBS

The Good Wife returned to CBS last night, with a great episode that picked up right where the first season ended, Alicia about to join Peter on stage after his political come-back speech, phone ringing for a second time in Alicia's hand with a call from Will, her boss and almost more ...

Will's first call, a few minutes earlier, was to tell Alicia that he wanted to be with her.  Alicia's response was that she got the romance, but if she was to jeopardize her family, she needed a plan.   In the premiere of the second season last night, Alicia doesn't get to answer the second call - one of Eli Gold's guys takes the phone from Alicia, and she joins Peter on stage.   Will, seeing the two on television, leaves voice-mail - it's best that Alicia forget what he just told her, their relationship will be strictly professional from now on.  But, then, a few beats later, he reconsiders and calls back with a different message: he loves her, they can make this work, if she agrees then they should get together and work out a plan, if not, he won't bother her about this again.

But Alicia never gets to hear that second message, because Eli erases it.  This is a good move, narrative-wise, because it allows the new season to start off as if the end of the last season didn't happen.   (But, technically, wouldn't Alicia have seen a second missed call indicated on her cell phone?  And my wife doubts that Alicia would have let anyone take her phone, even under these pressured circumstances.)   But keeping the lid on Alicia and Will for now does make for exciting possibilities in the near and later future of this series.

Meanwhile, the most powerful scene in the episode - and I'd guess on all of television last night - comes after Peter sees Alicia stand up to a judge in a courtroom, and risk a contempt citation in defense of the Fifth Amendment.   Peter is turned on by Alicia's daring and power, and later, at home, he walks into the steamy bathroom where Alicia has just finished her shower and dressed.    She's happy enough to see him, but demurs and says she has to study up for a case.   Peter says that's ok, he'll take of everything, which he does, with about as explicit oral sex as we've seen indicated on prime time network television without actually seeing it.    This is a significant reversal of usual male-female power-sex roles, because Peter is doing this a little more for Alicia's pleasure than his, to in effect reward her for her brave courtroom performance.

Other good touches on the last night's show are additions of Scott Porter (Jason from Friday Night Lights!) and Michael Ealy (Sleeper Cell, FlashForward) to the cast, and indeed to Alicia's law firm.   But Julianna Margulies as Alicia remains the towering figure in the show, continuing to deliver an awesome performance in every episode.



5-min podcast review of The Good Wife

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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Sneak Preview Review of Nurse Jackie!

I caught the first episode of Nurse Jackie a few months ago. It's to debut on Showtime on June 8 at 10:30 PM (ET/PT) - right after the season premier of Weeds - and I've been dying to tell you about it, but had to respect the "embargo" (I do enjoy tossing around terms like that - makes me feel like a real inside reviewer), but I can tell you about it, at last, right now, so here goes -

First, the half-hour episodes star Edie Falco, just great of late as Carmela on The Sopranos, and in fact in every TV show or movie in which she appears, and she's feisty, sharp, tough, vulnerable as Nurse Jackie.

There haven't been too many nurse shows on television - the last ones were The Nurses, The Doctors and The Nurses, and The Nurses, three versions of the same show, the first two prime time, the last a daytime soap, back in the 1960s. There have been plenty of excellent, provocative, even powerful nurses on doctor shows ranging from St. Elsewhere to Chicago Hope and ER, but they have usually been in supporting roles - Nurses Hathaway (Julianna Margulies) and Lockhart (Maura Tierney) on ER were exceptions. So, with that as backdrop, it's especially refreshing to see a show that centers completely around a nurse.

The elements of the story are mostly familiar. Jackie stands up to arrogant doctors, is smarter than some of them, and is willing to break the rules to save a life. She's on pain killers (ala House), and of course is sleeping with at least one doctor. She likes sex.

There's a jolting surprise at the end of the first episode - along the lines of our finding Furillo in bed with Joyce at the end of the pilot of Hill Street Blues - but I'm not going to tell you what it is, and it's not specifically like that Hill Street Blues scene, it's reminiscent of the shock value....

You'll have to see the premier of Nurse Jackie to see what I mean - you won't be disappointed.

See also Nurse Jackie at 6

ER Ends Softly

There is more than one good way to end a television series. One of my favorites is the camera pulls back, our characters recede, and we take our leave of them, along with the irresistible impression that they are continuing their lives and business as usual, lives and work which we have been privileged to see. The last scene of Star Trek: The Next Generation did a great job of that, with the camera pulling away from Picard and his top officers playing cards around a table. ER did that last night with John Carter and newer characters responding to an all-out out emergency...

ER started much the same way in 1994, except John Carter was just a med student back then. The series was immediately appealing, with its multiple stories and criss-crossing, fast-moving camera trajectories. This was a new mode of story telling on television, and, actually, still is.

The intense linear story lines of the Sopranos, the Wire and 24, the incredible, compelling complexities of Lost and Battlestar Galactica, the idiosyncratic brilliance of House and Bones - what I've been calling the new golden age of television drama - blew by ER, and left it spinning like a top...

Except, ER was already spinning, with a pace and style all of its own, from the very beginning. The doctors and students all jockeying for position, but all devoted to saving lives ... drinking in and pumping out adrenalin ... and you never knew exactly when the door would swing open with another life-and-death emergency, except you knew that it surely would.

I wrote here several weeks ago how good it was to see Doug Ross (George Clooney) and Carol Hathaway (Julianna Margulies), Peter Benton (Eriq La Salle), John Carter (Noah Wylie), and lots of the original nursing staff back for an episode. Benton and Carter were back again last night, as well as Susan Lewis (Sherry Stringfield), Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes), and Elizabeth Corday (Alex Kingston). It was also heartwarming to see Mark Greene's daughter Rachel (Hallee Hirsh), now in her 20s, seeking to join the ER team, picking up for her late father, and poised to pick up the John Carter role as medical student. The eternal cycle continues. John Wells, executive producer - show runner - of the series since its beginning, wrote both episodes.

The two-hour finale will air again on NBC this Saturday - well worth seeing if you've ever been a fan of the show. A last chance to see the life-savers outside of Chicago County General, as the ambulances swoop in, and the scene moves one last time from the pace on the screen to the soft recesses of our memories.

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