'The Good Wife' brings its NSA storyline in for a satisfying landing
When The Good Wife's NSA storyline was first introduced in the show's magnificent Season 5, it was a surprising and interesting twist that added layers to the Chicago legal show. With episodes like "Parallel Construction, Bitches," and "All Tapped Out," this narrative became the show's most successful interrogation of technology and privacy, something it is thoroughly interested in.
However, each time the show has chosen to return to the NSA since then has been met with diminishing returns. But, as the show enters its final stretch of episodes ever (TOO SOON!), it manages to find what made this plot so interesting and fun.
In "Landing," Sunday's episode of The Good Wife, the show returns to the NSA plot via the reintroduction of Jeff Dellinger (Zach Woods), the ex-NSA analyst/C-list Edward Snowden whom we saw earlier this season.
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Jeff tries to return to the U.S. for his mother's funeral via Toronto; however, the NSA finds out he's coming back and tries to apprehend him at customs. He sees them coming and tries crossing back over to Canada, and a hilarious tug-of-war across the line between U.S. customs officials and Canadian guards ensues.
So, Alicia, who just broke the news of her divorce to Jason, and Lucca are called to Toronto to represent Jeff in a hearing to determine who has jurisdiction in the customs area: the U.S. or Canada. The case involves bringing back several NSA staffers we've seen over the course of the series, including Tyler (Tobias Segal), Charles Froines (Michael Kostroff) and Stephen (Michael Urie), and takes us inside of the Communication Security Establishment, Canada's NSA. The episode gets a lot of mileage of the presiding justice of the peace, who requests that she be referred to as "Your Worship," throwing shade at America for its gun policies and massive surveillance issues.
In the end, Alicia and Lucca successfully get Jeff asylum in Canada after the CSE realizes how valuable he is. This brings The Good Wife's three season-long NSA arc to a satisfying and interesting close that manages to capture what it made so enjoyable the first time around.
When Alicia returns home for Toronto, she finds Eli, Michael and Peter preparing for Peter's arrest in her kitchen because the grand jury decided to indict. For once, Alicia says she'll let Grace and Zack step in front of the cameras to defend their father, which is the first time she's ever done that.
"Things have changed. Their dad's in trouble," she says to Eli when he points out how she usually says no to using the kids. This doesn't necessarily track with the character we've seen over the past seven seasons, but the show seems to suggest that it is just a result of her not caring anymore.
Connor, who shows up at the apartment with several cops to arrest Peter a day early, interrupts the little chat in the kitchen. The direction and editing in this scene is phenomenal. The camera shows us Peter getting frisked and handcuffed and then cuts to Alicia, who is frozen and anxious in a corner of the apartment, like she's flashing back to when she went through this the first time. That good wife mentality from seven years ago kicks in and Alicia darts into the bedroom to grab a tie and jacket for Peter. The tie is to make him loom more presentable and the jacket is to hide his handcuffed hands when he hits all of the press waiting for him outside of the building.
"You will not embarrass my husband," says Alicia when Connor objects to the tie and jacket. In that moment, you believe that she actually cares about appearances and isn't just putting up a front for everyone. Even the news clips of her defending her husband to the press feel very real.
To some extent, Alicia's behavior makes sense because she's a complicated person. As she tells Jason later on, "I'm not simple." In making decisions like whether or not to support Peter or to make sure his image is intact when he's getting arrested, there's a sense that she's making decisions with everything that's gone on. Yes, she and Peter haven't been truly married for several years, but there's still a deep bond there -- a history -- and it's hard for her just to cut ties like that because some part of her still cares about him. Even with a divorce, it'll probably be impossible for her to fully separate herself from him. That's clear in the scene they share when Peter tells her about Connor's plea deal: three years in jail.
"So, we're right back where we started, huh?" says Alicia.
Alicia and Peter's scenes are nicely juxtaposed with Diane and her husband Kurt McVeigh, played by Gary Cole. I was worried the series would end without checking back in with Diane and Kurt, who are this show's best couple. Christine Baranski and Cole have such effortless chemistry, which comes through in the first scene they have together when Kurt announces that he's selling his ballistics business and moving to Chicago full time to be with her. Their scenes together serve as a touching goodbye to Kurt, who we probably won't see again after this.
Diane: You make me happy, Kurt.
Kurt: I know.
On a related note, Alicia has a chat with Jason about the whole divorce thing and finally decides what she wants: It's him. I pray this isn't the series' final answer to that the question for Alicia, because that would be lame.
Case Notes:
• This week in The Good Wife recycles: The show returned to imagery of a line. We first saw this in the sixth season premiere when Cary was arrested and there was line in this prison hallway separating the prisoners from the not-prisoners. In this episode, it's played for humor.
• "I don't like Canada. It's too clean. I always want to litter here," Lucca, when she and Alicia arrive at the airport.
• "I have faults. I'm easily mesmerized by people who use multi-syllable words and men who can discuss Tolstoy," Diane, to Kurt about some of her faults before telling Kurt he's susceptible to young, pretty, blonde republicans like Holly Westfall (Megan Hilty), the woman who wants to buy his company for half a million less than it's worth.
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Sandra Gonzalez was a Senior Television Reporter at Mashable. A Texas native, she spent almost four years in New York City before leaving the land of superstorms for Los Angeles, where she was introduced to these terrifying things called "rolling earthquakes."Previously, she was with Entertainment Weekly, where she wrote about every show that could fit into her perfectly crafted TV schedule and anything ever touched by Shonda Rhimes.You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @theSandraG
