The Best Excellent Wife

I started this post a month and a half ago, but was inspired to keep writing after tonight's episode of The Good Wife, quite possibly the best show on TV. Read on...but be aware there are spoilers!!!

I know that I've talked a lot about my love of television and bad reality TV. But I also love good TV, including The Good Wife. I try not to post about movies or television shows that often, but sometimes I can't help it (e.g. Lost, How I Met Your Mother, ahem, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills). Sometimes I like to throw out my love for certain shows on the internet and see who of my (few) readers has that love in common.

Does anyone else love this show? I really feel like the show's second season has been one of the best on TV in general. I love how the whole Lockhart/Gardner & Bond storyline played out with Bond being voted out in what had to be one of the tensest moments on TV this season. I was on the edge of my seat the whole damn time thinking that Julius was going to sell Diane and Will down the river. The whole Bond thing was great, but then it occurred to me that the season isn't over yet. So why did that episode a couple of weeks ago, when I first started this post feel like a season finale. Then it hit me...we haven't seen anything yet. Bond is just a way to make the bigger story happen.

Which of course is why the other storyline that has been rocking my and everyone else's world is Kalinda and Blake, who have repeatedly blown our collective minds. The whole season they've heating up my tiny little screen with their cat and mouse game. However, the one thing that was killing me was that their little game felt so unfair. It felt so wrong that Blake was setting up Kalinda, mysterious, but ultimately good Kalinda. Whatever bad things she had done were in the past, she probably had her reasons, right? It seemed so unnecessary, and I just felt so bad for Kalinda. Up until those final moments in tonight's episode, that is.

That's right. Tonight's episode was a bit of a game changer. Because the secret that really had me shitting my pants, the secret that blew the lid off was that Kalinda and Peter slept together. Oh. My. God. Kalinda, friend of Alicia, totally boned Peter when they were both working at the state attorney's office. Oh. My. God. Kalinda has now made everything worse by making it possible for Blake to have found all this out. Oh. My. God. Kalinda, who slept with Peter and is friends with Alicia, will now probably cost Peter the election. OH. MY. GOD. Which also means that Alicia could end up back in Will Gardner's arms! I've been wondering how they would pull that off! If that isn't an amazing episode to get you pumped about how this whole season will play out, I don't know what is! (Sidebar: If you're ever in the Chicagoland area, go to New Rebozo in Oak Park. The owner walks around and tells everyone the menu and as he explains every dish, he stops to say Oh. My. God. Hilarious...and totally an insider experience to the city/suburbs worth visiting.)


It's funny too, because all these sort of fuzzy moments in the show became sharper than ever tonight. What also became sharper tonight was how good the writing really is on that show. I remembered that last season Kalinda visited Peter in jail, and they had this strange conversation. At the time, though, you as a viewer were supposed to assume that it was about some shady business dealings that they'd had when they worked together. Instead, it's become all too clear that the secret they are really hiding is that they totally did it! That the writers had the foresight to weave together the financial ruin of Lockhart/Gardner in order to introduce Bond so that Blake could come on board only to reveal Kalinda's big secret is only one small reason I love this show! The characters are intriguing, the mixture of politics and law is brilliant, the fact that it's in Chicago and they get it right is amazing, and of course the smarmy Eli Gold (the brilliant Alan Cumming who once again proves how amazing an actor he is) is genius. Heck, even the kids have great storylines!


And it all seems to always come together so beautifully. Such a great show! So great, in fact, that I joked to A.P. tonight that they should change the name of the show from The Good Wife to The Excellent Wife, whereas a month and a half ago I titled this post The Best Wife. I don't really know how much higher we can go!

Do you watch The Good Wife? Have you been loving this season? Did you see the Kalinda/Peter affair coming? I have to admit I didn't. I really forgot that they even knew each other!

(Photo 1 via here, Photo 2 via here, and Photo 3 via here)