photo: cbs
The Good Wife
In Sickness
Original Air Date: May 3, 2011
Patricia Morris Buckley – Sr. Staff Writer
pmb@thetwocentscorp.com
Julianna Margulies now has her Emmy entry ready after this week’s episode. This week Alicia had to deal with separating from her husband, the anger of her mother-in-law, the despair of her children, the betrayal by her best friend and accusations from her husband. And that’s just at home – at work it’s almost as bad.
The usually stone-faced Margulies breaks down several times during the episode as Alicia deals with another huge set back. It didn’t get to me until the scene where she told her kids that she and Peter were separating and Grace says, “You need to protect us better.” Then Alicia totally lost it and my eyes got quite unexpectantly teary. Is it a mother thing?
In the first few minutes, we again see her getting the news that Peter cheated with Kalinda. Then she goes home, boxes up Peter’s stuff, hires a moving van and rents him a moving van, then meets him at the apartment to say they’re done. I thought it stretched credulity to think she accomplished this all in six hours or so, but it made the point that she’s really, really done with him.
At work, the firm is defending a woman who had been moved from first on the transplant list for a donor to being taken off it. This marks the return of Patti Nyholm, the sharp and devious lawyer played beautifully by Martha Plimpton. I love Patti — she’s so entertaining. I wish her schedule on Raising Hope would allow her to do more on Good Wife.
It seems that the case is urgent because the woman only has days to live without the transplant and there’s a viable liver available for a short time. Talk about time pressure. Next on the list is a wealthy donor to the hospital. Alicia is able to show, with the patient having only hours to live (I didn’t believe she’d be talking so well with death so close), that the doctor who took her off the list was biased against people with tattoos.
The flip side of this was Patti’s getting fired from her firm for being pregnant and supplying the firm with information about the firm’s other class action suit against the hospital. It was all a ruse, of course, so Patti’s firm could get that leaked information thrown out of the case. And once again, Patti used her baby so very well to get sympathy. I love this character.
Cary also tries to make a move to come back to the firm with Kalinda putting in a good word for him. Diane and Will offer him all the perks of a third year associate, but with a second year title. Cary doesn’t go for it. By the end of the episode, Cary meets with Peter and it looks as if he’s agreeing to spy on Alicia or something. Could anyone else figure out what was going on with them?
After Alicia leaves Peter, Jackie shows up all vengeance and mother scorned. Alicia firmly and politely tells her that it’s between her and Peter and none of Jackie’s concerned. Alicia also “fired” Jackie, who had been taking care of the kids after school. Ouch!
My favorite scene was when Eli came in to see Alicia. He gently tried to get to the problem, but respected that Alicia didn’t want to tell him. Their relationship has mellowed into a sweet mutual respect and it’s quite refreshing.
But Peter went the opposite direction and tried to argue his way out of their problems after saying that he’d see a marriage counselor. When she refused, he started accusing her of having an affair with Will, Bad move. I do believe that Will and Alicia have had an emotional affair, but to compare it to what Peter did doesn’t work. It shows us Peter doesn’t really know his wife.
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