The Good Wife "Loser Edit" Review: Going for the Jugular

The Good Wife S06E18: "Loser Edit"

Watching TV is such a weird experience sometimes. I know the crossover audience between The Good Wife and Arrow isn't very large, but I find myself grappling with similar issues regarding both shows. Arrow's third season has been dealing with a seasonal arc that hasn't really worked, and thus is weighing down the show for me in ways that elicit a frustrated sigh every time Wednesday rolls around. Meanwhile, The Good Wife has focused most of its attention on a storyline that I liked at first but have since soured on, and it's been quite a slog with regard to the big picture of Season 6.

I won't rehash my recent complaints about the State's Attorney's election storyline (if you've been reading my reviews of The Good Wife, you're well aware of them by now), but I bring them up, along with my recent complaints about Arrow, to explain how I end up tolerating certain plot developments for certain reasons and to certain ends. Arrow and I haven't always seen eye-to-eye, but I've liked the show well enough... just not well enough to accept a lot of nonsense recently. But I've loved The Good Wife for years—the show gets me and I get it—and so I'm more willing to sit through the stories I'm not responding to.

But "tolerate" and "sit through" aren't exactly the feelings you want to have while watching one of your favorite shows. It gets back to that "generally well-executed but not particularly compelling" label I slapped on last week's episode. Do I really care that Petra was going to bury Alicia with the hacked emails? No, I don't. Am I worried about the possible charges of electoral corruption that Petra ran with instead? Well, I'm worried in the sense that they might not be enough to boot Alicia out of office, but that's not why the show wants me to be worried, so.

Because of all this, I worry I'll be left adrift for the rest of the season, enjoying character interactions without feeling particularly invested in what's causing them. Case in point: Even though the story engine for "Loser Edit"—that the hackers released the emails because they didn't receive an apology, which read more like an aside than anything else—was rather flimsy, it was nice to see the mechanics of the situation play out with Eli's two-pronged attack plan. Same goes for two-pronged attack plans being a thing from Marissa's childhood. Also, it's really nice having Eli back; I didn't realize how much I'd missed him.

I liked the cutting between Alicia being interviewed by a "dumb as an ox" reporter (Mo Rocca, held back by the episode, and indeed the show, for far too long) and Eli all but telling his reporter to run with it if she wanted to scoop Petra, with the nice topper of Peter dealing the knockout blow to Petra during their interview. It amounted to the sort of "tribal" power move (to borrow a phrase Will used last season) that the Florrick machine excels at executing, and recalled just how truly ruthless Alicia and Peter can be when they join forces.

The power couple's discussion over wine may've been the highlight of "Loser Edit," even if it felt a little disjointed after their fights in "Red Meat." Peter might've caused a traffic jam for Alicia, but I'm not convinced they're fully out of the tunnel of anger and resentment and onto "maturity" just yet. Still, it was pleasant to watch them behave civilly and like two human beings who've known each other for a long time, long enough for her to call him out on the gleam in his eyes about the potential for sex. It's easy to forget how awesome Julianna Margulies and Chris Noth are as a pair, since they're so rarely together these days without having to shout at each other.

The scene was a good reminder of what I like about The Good Wife. I may not 'ship Alicia and Peter, but their relationship is a large part of the spine of the show. Sometimes it's easy to forget that—especially when they don't get much shared screen time—but they're both messy and complicated, as individuals and as a couple, and the show has steadily chipped away at the Saint Alicia persona to reveal an Alicia who is arguably pretty well-aligned with Peter, at least as a political force. Indeed, at this point they're aligned well enough that there are issues surrounding her election victory. If we hadn't already gone through this in Seasons 4 and 5, I think it'd be an interesting thread to pull.

The court case in "Loser Edit" wasn't really a court case, but I appreciate it when The Good Wife explores other aspects of the legal system, and in this case it was R.D.'s (Oliver Platt) conservative think tank deciding which legal challenge to fund in the arena of gay and religious rights. The plot was super-timely, given everything that's been happening in the U.S.—specifically in Indiana—regarding whether or not businesses can decline to sell goods and services based on customers' sexual orientation, and whether or not those businesses can claim religious freedom in doing so.

There was fun to be had in all this, including the cutaways to various businesses in various states rejecting gay couples' patronage and the mock trial in which Diane hired R.D.'s gay nephew to "testify" because she was going for R.D.'s jugular as she was instructed to do, though she may've expanded the zone of which jugular he meant. In terms of representation, it played better than The Good Wife's recent 3D-printed gun case, even though it wasn't all that convincing. I'll never dock a show for advocating on behalf of gay rights, but given that Diane's side of the case was presented as far sturdier, it didn't really make sense for R.D. to continue funding the wedding planner's appeal. At least with the 3D-printed gun, the straw man hung himself on the stand. That didn't really happen here, and from a dramatic perspective, the plot suffered a bit.

Elsewhere, now that we've reached the homestretch of the season, the other shoe dropped for Kalinda's faked evidence in Cary's trial. I'm glad the forged metadata faded away in favor of the Bishop stuff, but since Bishop seems ready to move on without taking Kalinda along, one way or another (so far), now's a good time for this plot to resurface. Plus, I applaud the decision to bring back Andrew Wiley (Tim Guinee) as the investigator, considering he's the one who dropped the bombshell about Peter and Kalinda. It seems fitting that he would be the one to cause Kalinda's exit from the show.

Drawing Finn into the proceedings might be the best move as he's been unmoored for a while, but I do wonder about the legal feasibility because he was involved in Cary's case; it might create a sticky web going forward. Of course, Kalinda's going to need legal help no matter what, and it certainly isn't going to come from someone at the firm since they're the ones she's trying to protect.

One aspect of this whole mess that I simply hadn't considered until "Loser Edit" is that The Good Wife could, thanks to Kalinda's actions, essentially drop Cary and Diane from the cast and focus on Alicia in the State's Attorney's office... provided she survives the upcoming challenge to the election results. The possibility should fill me with dread, but I don't think the show would be bold enough to drop all three of them. Then again, I didn't expect Will to die, either. It's something to keep an eye on.

SIDEBAR

– Anyone else getting the impression that the show is setting up R.D. as a potential affair for Diane? Just me? Okay.

– "I like secrets and things of that elk." "Ilk?" "No, elk. Things of that elk."

– I love that Wiley is still a haggard parent, and that he's keeping his children on a leash. I want to know if he still has the lion phone, though.

What'd you think of "Loser Edit"?