The Good Wife — Recap & Review — Hi

photo: cbs

The Good Wife
Hi

Original Air Date: Feb 9, 2010

Patricia Morris Buckley — Staff Writer
pmb@thetwocentscorp.com

Can you believe that Peter is out of prison? No matter what happened in the first 55 minutes of the show, the moment we’ll remember most is Peter at the door, ready to move into Alicia’s apartment after being granted a new trial.

“Hi” is an episode that’s more, “he said, she said” than a real case. Alicia and Cary are called in because one of the firm’s big clients, Sonya Rucker, found her babysitter murdered in her home and her husband, Jason, is unreachable. The firm knows it only has so long to make a case that neither Sonya or Jason did the murderous deed before the police start making arrests.

Seriously, who wouldn’t notice that Cary, thinking he had the next day off, is higher than a kite on shrooms? In the real world, he would have been fired so fast. Instead we have Alicia covering for him and then, when he comes back down after 36 hours (!!!!!), they each admit they like each other in a platonic way. It’s all a waste of a subplot that is becoming less of a threat anyway as we know the firm is going to keep both of them – hey, both the actors’ names are in the credits! This isn’t Lost, you know…

So the hubby, an out-of-work cartoonist, looks guilty as it turns out he has an art studio and he’s been working with the babysitter on a graphic novel. When Alicia goes there, 10 minutes before the police, she discovers hair matching the babysitter’s and a bra. Pretty incriminating.

This set-up provides the first of several memorable scenes. Will is talking on the phone with Alicia as they decide if they should take the items that appear to indicate the two were having an affair (which the husband denies)— after all, it’s not a crime scene until the police show up. It’s a major gray area and interesting to watch two outstanding actors play up the internal conflict.

As it turns out, neither the husband or wife is guilty (the babysitter’s boyfriend did it), yet it leaves their marriage shaky. Perhaps this storyline is really a metaphor for Alicia and Peter? About how facing a crisis always leaves people changed?

Kalinda also faces internal turmoil as she’s called to be a witness at Peter’s trial and it’s obvious she has some condemning evidence of her own. Instead, she keeps referring to another client of the call girl ring, who we slowly realize is the judge himself. Nice move Kalinda! So the testimony on the sex is thrown out so that all the clients’ names don’t have to go on record (hee, hee) and Peter gets a new trial.

And now he’s at the door. Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall after that door closes? Hmmm… thanks to TV, maybe we will be.

I didn’t like get jerked around with all the red herrings in this case. It ended up too pat, so it felt like filler or metaphor. And again, the whole Cary storyline left me cold. But the episode did provide those three great scenes — Alicia picking up evidence, Kalinda on the witness stand and Peter at the door. And for those three scenes, I’ll raise the episode grade from a B to an A-.

Do you think Alicia should have taken those items from Jason’s art studio? Should Cary have just told his bosses he was too sick to work on the case? Think Peter will ever get to sleep in the same bed as Alicia ever again (and remember, Chris Noth is still listed as a guest star)? Give us your Two Cents…

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