The Good Wife (TV)
Sep. 27th, 2012 06:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnSo sophia_gratia told me I HAD to watch this, and I have learned that when my friends are quite this insistent, they are right.
Caveat that I've only watched the first half of the first season, but I have not felt this strongly about a TV show since Veronica Mars. It is in some ways a totally different show, of course. VM is dark and noir (to the point that I would have stopped watching after the pilot if not forliuzhia (who told me I HAD to watch it, and who was right) telling me it wasn't that dark from then on) and the main characters are high-school students, and it's got a precision micrometer plotting arc I've never seen equalled anywhere else. TGW's main character is a middle-aged woman with high-school-age kids (which I LOVE) and has a much more detached, posh, political vibe (given that it's a drama of politics disguised as lawyer drama, this makes sense). They are the same, though, in their complicated and nuanced portrayal of people (both women and men, lots of interesting women) who are trying to do the right thing in an ethically gray and morally complicated world, in the rich chracterization, in the incredible (INCREDIBLE) character interactions. And in both main characters being women who can totally beat up (metaphorically, though, heck, I'd put odds on them in a dark alley as well) people giving them crap. TGW does not have the precision plotting of VM, but on the other hand, have I mentioned that TGW's main character is a middle-aged woman trying to navigate going back into the workforce, a woman who is juggling her husband's drama and her kids and her job and... AGH. And it's all about the character interactions playing in with politics and power and hierarchy and strategy and... yeah. It's, in a lot of ways, VM for grownups. Go watch it.
[ep recaps for "Conjugal" through "Unprepared" are taken from my comments onsophia_gratia's DW, just so I have them all in the same place :)]
"Conjugal" and "Unorthodox": I have to admit I kind of ship Alicia and her husband now, in a totally dysfunctional non-romantic partnership-oriented kind of way -- I NEED MORE WAYS TO DESCRIBE RELATIONSHIPS, the AO3 designations of F/F F/M M/M ARE NOT CUTTING IT FOR ME, but ah, that is a separate rant -- obviously they have all kinds of issues and EEK, but the bit in the conjugal room where he's all "I have a favor to ask," she gives him this LOOK like "I can see fifteen ways this conversation can end badly," and he's like "...um, I want to take a shower." BRILLIANT. And the part where he sleeps on the floor. And I loved his conversation with Kalinda where he was all "So, I can help, but I can't help YOU." (I must admit I am not quick on the uptake, and it took me until they were in the conjugal room to get it.) So maybe what I'm saying is that I ship them as people who are learning to be partners, a far different kind of partners than they were before (although presumably he was at least once attracted to her intellect and etc.)
Oh, Kalinda! I was worried, given the first several eps, that she was going to be a one-note "Kalinda is always right!" character, but then in the racial profiling one they allowed her to be wrong (while still being awesome) and YAY. However! I cannot TELL you how AWESOME it is that Kalinda gets to be the knows-how-to-do-everything-and-regularly-saves-the-day stock character. You know? I was just talking toase on how the resident genius who always does the calculations right and saves the day is always a white guy, right? So to have it be an Indian woman... AWESOME.
And the whole tangled ethical-legal-emotional MESS of the Jewish couple and the estranged father and the parallels between them and Alicia and the other lawyer hitting on her and Alicia making the ethically dubious choice to save the case and the other lawyer totally not learning anything from it and AGH.
And Zach phoning the sex line! And the part where the acting is so brilliant at the end, it's really clear he's lying to Alicia as well as us, and she's all "okay what do I do about this..."
And all the examination of how it is to be a woman in a man's world, and what you sacrifice, and what you keep. AHHH.
And I adore Will in a rather slimy sort of way (and I love the way he and Alicia work together, and the way he treats her as an equal -- I mean, personally and to the extent possible by their hierarchical work relationship), and I adore Cary in an even MORE slimy sort of way (and the way Alicia is clearly in a mentor-like relationship with him, WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I CONSUMED MEDIA WHERE A WOMAN GOT TO BE EVEN FAINTLY IN A MENTOR POSITION TO A MALE, it might have been Dreamsnake??), and I love Diane in a she-reminds-me-of-CJ-from-West-Wing-if-CJ-were-hard-as-nails kind of way, and I love Will and Diane together in a we-are-evil kind of way :)
And all the acting and the writing is BRILLIANT. I wouldn't be saying all these "I love..." the characters if it weren't that the acting and brilliant writing is so bringing them to life. Oh, and I LOVED the irascible judge in this ep.
"Unprepared": ALICIA KICKING SOME TOTAL BUTT AT THE BAIL HEARING. Just saying. I was so worried she was going to be a terrible witness and NO. JUST MADE OF AWESOME THANK YOU WRITERS. I could watch Alicia being awesome ALL DAY.
I'm definitely having the "you know, Zach, I really do not understand why you don't tell your mom, okay, I do undersatnd, but DO IT ALREADY" blues. But so well acted, and so believable, that it's not making me pull my hair out nearly as much as it would in a lesser show. also, JACKIE. JACKIE! OH SHOW. I looooove that Jackie/Alicia dynamic, because, wow, that's also a really hard dynamic to play.
"Threesome": Heh, this really points up my complicated shippy feelings. Because the scene where Peter totally pwns Amber? SO AWESOME! The kiss at the end? DID NOT LIKE! (Though I loved the part where he was all "Is it the kids?" and was really worried for a second there.) I am totally amused by my extreme non-romantic FEELINGS toward this pair. I think I really really like the family stuff, because they're united in being parents even if they fail as romantic partners. Also, STERN.
"Lifeguard": okay, sophia-gratia, is this the episode you were talking about? Because now my FEEEEELINGS toward Cary and Will and Diane, which were already quite feely, can be summed up by this: I ADORE YOU ALL. ADORE ADORE ADORE. Cary tossing off multiple regression tests casually WHAT IS THIS I LOVE IT. (The pedantic in me has to confess that I was also thinking about how they still seem to have too small a data set to run quite the large set of variables they were doing, but NEVER MIND THAT.) DIANE. DIANE I HAVE NO WORDS TO EXPRESS MY LOVE FOR YOU. That cackle when she's "outed" as a closet lesbian that says better than words (regardless of the truth, which we don't know; my headcanon is that she's asexual), "Seriously? That's the best you can do?" The wordless acting at the end, how she embraces her role as a lifeguard-as-lawyer... TREMENDOUS. WILL. The scene where Will confronts his friend. WILL AND DIANE and their complicated relationship -- how they totally have respect and a kind of brutal honesty with each other, while still being totally willing to stab each other in the back. But with honesty! And I just love how the ethics of this show are complicated and gray and yet all of Our Heroes are trying, while still being human and failing, to do the right thing. (I am not discounting that people keep telling Alicia Will will stab her in the back, and I'm betting the show goes there. But I'm also betting there will be some complicated ethically gray reason for it.)
"Infamy": JUDGE ABERNATHY! Hi! Love you and how you don't want anyone to rise for you! Never change! Whenever I see you dithering about it puts a huge grin on my face! Also I can't help but laugh at the way you always dither yourself towards ruling against Our Heroes. AWESOME.
"Painkiller": "She's pushy. A know-it-all." HEE. Oh Jackie! Also OH ZACH. (I must say that I'm getting tired of the whole Zach subplot.) The whole Peter-Kalinda-Alicia triangle -- I am in LOVE. (For anyone who is reading this without watching it -- although I don't know why you would -- it is NOT a romantic triangle, which would be boring. This? Is a scheming triangle. And it is crackling.) The Cary-Alicia-Kalinda partners-in-crime thing I am ALSO in love with. Cary! You are so very awesomely slimy!
"Bad": I love Li, the coroner! ALSO I love Diane! And Kalinda! And Diane-Kalinda! I JUST, all the character interactions on this show, have I mentioned to you guys before that I love people working together and partnerships, especially fraught ones but ones that still work really well, and OH THE BUTTON-PRESSING this show does! Also, gosh, that was the quickest recovery from a stroke I've ever seen. Seriously Jackie's just going back and hanging out with the kids again, and everyone thinks this is just fine? A small misstep, though, in what's otherwise really fine television.
"Hi": Alicia-Cary OH ALL THE FEELS. I don't want Cary to go! I know he's got to go by the rules of the game (can we change them? don't spoil me!) because obviously Alicia's not going to go, but OH CARY. Diane-Will! I LOVE Diane-Will! They too are in an unstable equilibrium, this partnership can't last forever (can it? I wish??), but while it's going it is SO SO AWESOME. Also. ALSO. Kalinda and Childs and that totally completely FLAIL OF AWESOME (I was totally flailing about, myself, anyway) where Golden is so transfixed by how Kalinda is walking an amazing tightrope that he almost misses his cue. FLAIL. But what did Peter know, and when did he know it? He knew Glenn was trying to catch him in a perjury. And he lied. Did he know Kalinda was going to do this? Did his entire legal strategy hinge on Kalinda outfacing the judge? Because either way he comes across as a lot more stupid than I thought he was.
sophia_gratia told me I HAD to watch this, and I have learned that when my friends are quite this insistent, they are right.Caveat that I've only watched the first half of the first season, but I have not felt this strongly about a TV show since Veronica Mars. It is in some ways a totally different show, of course. VM is dark and noir (to the point that I would have stopped watching after the pilot if not for
liuzhia (who told me I HAD to watch it, and who was right) telling me it wasn't that dark from then on) and the main characters are high-school students, and it's got a precision micrometer plotting arc I've never seen equalled anywhere else. TGW's main character is a middle-aged woman with high-school-age kids (which I LOVE) and has a much more detached, posh, political vibe (given that it's a drama of politics disguised as lawyer drama, this makes sense). They are the same, though, in their complicated and nuanced portrayal of people (both women and men, lots of interesting women) who are trying to do the right thing in an ethically gray and morally complicated world, in the rich chracterization, in the incredible (INCREDIBLE) character interactions. And in both main characters being women who can totally beat up (metaphorically, though, heck, I'd put odds on them in a dark alley as well) people giving them crap. TGW does not have the precision plotting of VM, but on the other hand, have I mentioned that TGW's main character is a middle-aged woman trying to navigate going back into the workforce, a woman who is juggling her husband's drama and her kids and her job and... AGH. And it's all about the character interactions playing in with politics and power and hierarchy and strategy and... yeah. It's, in a lot of ways, VM for grownups. Go watch it.[ep recaps for "Conjugal" through "Unprepared" are taken from my comments on
sophia_gratia's DW, just so I have them all in the same place :)]"Conjugal" and "Unorthodox": I have to admit I kind of ship Alicia and her husband now, in a totally dysfunctional non-romantic partnership-oriented kind of way -- I NEED MORE WAYS TO DESCRIBE RELATIONSHIPS, the AO3 designations of F/F F/M M/M ARE NOT CUTTING IT FOR ME, but ah, that is a separate rant -- obviously they have all kinds of issues and EEK, but the bit in the conjugal room where he's all "I have a favor to ask," she gives him this LOOK like "I can see fifteen ways this conversation can end badly," and he's like "...um, I want to take a shower." BRILLIANT. And the part where he sleeps on the floor. And I loved his conversation with Kalinda where he was all "So, I can help, but I can't help YOU." (I must admit I am not quick on the uptake, and it took me until they were in the conjugal room to get it.) So maybe what I'm saying is that I ship them as people who are learning to be partners, a far different kind of partners than they were before (although presumably he was at least once attracted to her intellect and etc.)
Oh, Kalinda! I was worried, given the first several eps, that she was going to be a one-note "Kalinda is always right!" character, but then in the racial profiling one they allowed her to be wrong (while still being awesome) and YAY. However! I cannot TELL you how AWESOME it is that Kalinda gets to be the knows-how-to-do-everything-and-regularly-saves-the-day stock character. You know? I was just talking to
ase on how the resident genius who always does the calculations right and saves the day is always a white guy, right? So to have it be an Indian woman... AWESOME.And the whole tangled ethical-legal-emotional MESS of the Jewish couple and the estranged father and the parallels between them and Alicia and the other lawyer hitting on her and Alicia making the ethically dubious choice to save the case and the other lawyer totally not learning anything from it and AGH.
And Zach phoning the sex line! And the part where the acting is so brilliant at the end, it's really clear he's lying to Alicia as well as us, and she's all "okay what do I do about this..."
And all the examination of how it is to be a woman in a man's world, and what you sacrifice, and what you keep. AHHH.
And I adore Will in a rather slimy sort of way (and I love the way he and Alicia work together, and the way he treats her as an equal -- I mean, personally and to the extent possible by their hierarchical work relationship), and I adore Cary in an even MORE slimy sort of way (and the way Alicia is clearly in a mentor-like relationship with him, WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I CONSUMED MEDIA WHERE A WOMAN GOT TO BE EVEN FAINTLY IN A MENTOR POSITION TO A MALE, it might have been Dreamsnake??), and I love Diane in a she-reminds-me-of-CJ-from-West-Wing-if-CJ-were-hard-as-nails kind of way, and I love Will and Diane together in a we-are-evil kind of way :)
And all the acting and the writing is BRILLIANT. I wouldn't be saying all these "I love..." the characters if it weren't that the acting and brilliant writing is so bringing them to life. Oh, and I LOVED the irascible judge in this ep.
"Unprepared": ALICIA KICKING SOME TOTAL BUTT AT THE BAIL HEARING. Just saying. I was so worried she was going to be a terrible witness and NO. JUST MADE OF AWESOME THANK YOU WRITERS. I could watch Alicia being awesome ALL DAY.
I'm definitely having the "you know, Zach, I really do not understand why you don't tell your mom, okay, I do undersatnd, but DO IT ALREADY" blues. But so well acted, and so believable, that it's not making me pull my hair out nearly as much as it would in a lesser show. also, JACKIE. JACKIE! OH SHOW. I looooove that Jackie/Alicia dynamic, because, wow, that's also a really hard dynamic to play.
"Threesome": Heh, this really points up my complicated shippy feelings. Because the scene where Peter totally pwns Amber? SO AWESOME! The kiss at the end? DID NOT LIKE! (Though I loved the part where he was all "Is it the kids?" and was really worried for a second there.) I am totally amused by my extreme non-romantic FEELINGS toward this pair. I think I really really like the family stuff, because they're united in being parents even if they fail as romantic partners. Also, STERN.
"Lifeguard": okay, sophia-gratia, is this the episode you were talking about? Because now my FEEEEELINGS toward Cary and Will and Diane, which were already quite feely, can be summed up by this: I ADORE YOU ALL. ADORE ADORE ADORE. Cary tossing off multiple regression tests casually WHAT IS THIS I LOVE IT. (The pedantic in me has to confess that I was also thinking about how they still seem to have too small a data set to run quite the large set of variables they were doing, but NEVER MIND THAT.) DIANE. DIANE I HAVE NO WORDS TO EXPRESS MY LOVE FOR YOU. That cackle when she's "outed" as a closet lesbian that says better than words (regardless of the truth, which we don't know; my headcanon is that she's asexual), "Seriously? That's the best you can do?" The wordless acting at the end, how she embraces her role as a lifeguard-as-lawyer... TREMENDOUS. WILL. The scene where Will confronts his friend. WILL AND DIANE and their complicated relationship -- how they totally have respect and a kind of brutal honesty with each other, while still being totally willing to stab each other in the back. But with honesty! And I just love how the ethics of this show are complicated and gray and yet all of Our Heroes are trying, while still being human and failing, to do the right thing. (I am not discounting that people keep telling Alicia Will will stab her in the back, and I'm betting the show goes there. But I'm also betting there will be some complicated ethically gray reason for it.)
"Infamy": JUDGE ABERNATHY! Hi! Love you and how you don't want anyone to rise for you! Never change! Whenever I see you dithering about it puts a huge grin on my face! Also I can't help but laugh at the way you always dither yourself towards ruling against Our Heroes. AWESOME.
"Painkiller": "She's pushy. A know-it-all." HEE. Oh Jackie! Also OH ZACH. (I must say that I'm getting tired of the whole Zach subplot.) The whole Peter-Kalinda-Alicia triangle -- I am in LOVE. (For anyone who is reading this without watching it -- although I don't know why you would -- it is NOT a romantic triangle, which would be boring. This? Is a scheming triangle. And it is crackling.) The Cary-Alicia-Kalinda partners-in-crime thing I am ALSO in love with. Cary! You are so very awesomely slimy!
"Bad": I love Li, the coroner! ALSO I love Diane! And Kalinda! And Diane-Kalinda! I JUST, all the character interactions on this show, have I mentioned to you guys before that I love people working together and partnerships, especially fraught ones but ones that still work really well, and OH THE BUTTON-PRESSING this show does! Also, gosh, that was the quickest recovery from a stroke I've ever seen. Seriously Jackie's just going back and hanging out with the kids again, and everyone thinks this is just fine? A small misstep, though, in what's otherwise really fine television.
"Hi": Alicia-Cary OH ALL THE FEELS. I don't want Cary to go! I know he's got to go by the rules of the game (can we change them? don't spoil me!) because obviously Alicia's not going to go, but OH CARY. Diane-Will! I LOVE Diane-Will! They too are in an unstable equilibrium, this partnership can't last forever (can it? I wish??), but while it's going it is SO SO AWESOME. Also. ALSO. Kalinda and Childs and that totally completely FLAIL OF AWESOME (I was totally flailing about, myself, anyway) where Golden is so transfixed by how Kalinda is walking an amazing tightrope that he almost misses his cue. FLAIL. But what did Peter know, and when did he know it? He knew Glenn was trying to catch him in a perjury. And he lied. Did he know Kalinda was going to do this? Did his entire legal strategy hinge on Kalinda outfacing the judge? Because either way he comes across as a lot more stupid than I thought he was.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-27 03:37 pm (UTC)JUDGE ABERNATHY! I love him and his earnest politics and his cardigans. And LI! Even the most minor characters, I just fall in love with (JUDY THE COURT REPORTER). <3
Diane in "Lifeguard" – I love so much how she understands how entirely compromised her politics are, and stands by them anyway. She's so attracted to idealism – and the idea of herself as an idealist – but still so very good at getting down in the dirt and doing what needs to be done, without having any illusions about it. Augh, Diane.
The end of "Infamy," oh man: Alicia and Kalinda and the KETTLECORN (David Lee, you sneaky asshole, I LOVE YOU), and Alicia's side-eye and Kalinda white-knuckling it, and DIANE LOCKHART/CACKLING OTP 5EVER.
And yes, "Bad". COLIN SWEENEY. What a performance. I have some serious objections to the kinksters-are-killers implications of his character, but WHAT a performance, and I love Alicia v. Colin. AND EXCUSE ME BUT KALINDA TEACHING DIANE TO SHOOT. Jeez, Archie Panjabi, I'm sure glad you just decided to purr your way through that scene, because your lines weren't suggestive enough as it was, and CHRISTINE BARANSKI THE THINGS YOU DO WITH YOUR FACE. ... Sigh.
And YES, Kalinda on the stand! (And Golden fanboying her just cracked me up.) Though it has never been clear to me exactly what did and didn't go down in Peter's first term as SA, what Kalinda did and didn't do for Peter, and I'm not sure the writers know, either. The ground seems to shift an awful lot over the course of the seasons.
And now I have to go behave like I have a job. But eeeeEEE you have such great things coming. Having to do a lot of clapping my hand over my mouth to keep from spoilerblurting. Eeeeeeeee.
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Date: 2012-09-28 04:55 am (UTC)And yes, this is one of the few shows where I can't leave it on in the background and just listen, because the visual shots sometimes carry all sorts of information that the dialogue doesn't. AUGH.
The thing I love so much about Diane in "Lifeguard" is that there's a line that she will not cross, even if Chief Justice person will. Oh, she's compromised and everything is murky and ethically gray, and that's part of what I love too -- but a corrupt judge is a corrupt judge, and although she might not herself have pursued it, once it becomes obvious what's going on, she'll see it to the end even when she knows perfectly well it's going to wreck her political aspirations. JUST.
So do you read Colin as the killer? I still want to believe that he's not. That what he said to Alicia at the end was the truth: that sometimes the improbable gesture is indeed improbable. My reading of the directorial intention is that they intended it to be ambiguous, but perhaps I missed something.
(Also, OMG ELI GOLD. Not that I haven't gone through a bunch of episodes today or anything...)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-28 05:06 am (UTC)Sweeney is deffo ambiguous (ahem, hand clamped firmly over mouth). But what's not ambiguous is that he's a dangerous creep, and it's the equivalence of deviant sexuality with dangerous creepiness that turns me off. (And *Alicia* thinks he did it, in part because of what she understands about his deviant sexuality, so the show is really sending a message there... but if I follow this line of thinking it'll be a massive screed. Best to wait.) But when Dylan Baker and Julianna Margulies are doing what they do, honestly? Who the hell cares.
... You'll let me know when you've seen 1x22, "Hybristophilia," possibly my favorite s1 ep, for so many reasons.
EEEEEEEEEELLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII.
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Date: 2012-09-28 05:29 pm (UTC)And in other news... I can't wait until the end of the season to talk to you about this. I'm just going to post in these commments and you will just have to see it twice when I make the end-of-season-1 post. These were (mostly) written while watching the eps in question (so, for example, you can see my mutating thoughts on Will/Alicia).
1x15"Bang": OMG Eli Gold. AHAHAHAHA. Also, Diane just got compared to Sarah Palin? HEE. ...Also, is every single conversation in this episode with double layers to it? Oh Will-and-Alicia. Don't. Don't go there! (I was mildly spoiled for this, by which I mean I have a vague idea what's going to happen.) If it does happen, I get it, I understand, I really do, but... don't.
1x16 "Fleas": I KNEW it wasn't Cary. Not his style. Saint Alicia, not his style. No, no, he'd stab her in the back and smile, but he'd do it for something tangible and he'd play by the rules. This kind of catty thing just to poke at her, no. Oh, Alicia. I hope you apologize to him. Also? Will/Diane partnership is totally my non-romantic OTP for this show. No romantic vibe between them whatsoever, so much so that they totally joke about it. I also love how they're the only "couple" on this show that really has the knock-down drag-out fights that all the couples, romantic and not, need to have and are not really having. Also! I guess the solution to unstable equilibrium = triangle! I HOPE SO. DO NOT DEPRIVE ME OF MY WILL/DIANE, SHOW. Also, I repeat: Eli Gold, HEE. Also also Murky Complicated Ethical Things OH MY HEART.
1x17 "Heart": Oh, it's the pregnant lawyer now with a baby I LOVE HER IN A TOTALLY EVIL WAY! So I have no idea why Will doesn't keep bringing up the 68 other couples in the same situation to EvilBaby!Lawyer. (Huh. I didn't meant to imply the baby was evil, but that is an unexpected bonus, so I shall let it stand.) Also, whoa, Christianity portrayed in a sensitive and nuanced fashion on a show about lawyers and politicians WHAT IS THIS SHOW. Also even more than that, I loved loved LOVED the scene between Peter and Will because it really played up the kind of show this is not, the show that is all about the powerful men talking while the woman is hidden in the corner, bringing the men coffee, silent, unimportant. It's a shock to the system, actually, because the show is so much not about that that it's a little like entering a foreign country. What is this place? And then Will and Peter both bring it back to Alicia (and Kalinda!), and we all breathe a sigh of relief. (While still being disturbed, because it's brought home to us how easily it can shift back to that, if the show weren't being so careful not to go there. It's the men who carelessly allow Alicia to play again.) OH THIS SHOW. ...And of course there's the kiss. And the hot sex. I just totally get it. I understand. I really, really do. But OH ALICIA. OH WILL. OH PETER.
1x18 "Doubt": Oh it's my favorite judge! YAY! No, actually, I realize I said I liked Abernathy, but really this guy is my favorite. I love how he's always totally mocking both lawyers. I'm sad Diane turns out to be boringly straight after all, and attracted to ballistics guy (although I do like him a LOT, there were a lot of murky hormones in this one, on everyone's side, hi Alicia and Will!), but it was just about worth it to see her casually stride by his courtroom and then say she was in a hurry and GO BACK THE WAY SHE CAME. Let me give you a hint, Diane: this guy studies trajectories for a living. HE IS NOT FOOLED. You might as well come out and say you like him! Also, dear SGU, THIS is fine directing, not whatever crap you are doing with shaky cameras. Also, kill me, why don't you, show? I have the bad feeling this is just a prelude to Our Heroes starting to lose things over and over OUCH I was really enjoying them winning. Also THERE YOU ARE MY MAN CARY MISSED YOU!
no subject
Date: 2012-09-28 08:02 pm (UTC)Colin Sweeney's dangerousness is in his Hannibal-Lecter-like ability to emotionally manipulate people – even if he never laid a finger on anyone, he'd still be threatening. It's precisely the "oddly sympathetic" that makes him scary to me. Scary and endlessly compelling.
And yes, please keep talking at me.
PATTI NYHOLM!!!!!!!!!!!! Her first episode pissed me off (oh, they're playing that card, are they?, thought me), but she grew and grew and grew on me and now I think she is just the most fantastic evil hero and Martha Plimpton is a frakking genius and I love her.
I love what you say about the scene between Peter and Will – you're exactly right, and have articulated something I was sensing instinctively about that moment but hadn't thought through.
I love how unfastened that sex scene in "Heart" is, how unromantic – Alicia's dubious, so well-executed "well I'm all like aroused now, guess I'll screw my husband" unromantic act; her agency – however compromised – in all of it.
The Christianity thread through the show is fascinating, and something I want to give a lot more thought to. Love how ambiguous Pastor Isaiah is – embodying both the benefits and dangers of the true believer, the genuinely beneficial pastoral care that can so easily slide into the brittle moral position of the ideologue. SHOW. HOW YOU SO SMART.
And yes, I love Judge Cuesta!
DIANE AND KURT! Died over the scene you mention, for exactly the same reasons. I get a little tired of how airheaded Diane goes over him, especially when she gets ~~distracted from her work in a totally OOC way, but WHATEVER because DIANE AND BOYS is always charming and hilarious and I want her to have whatever she wants so little writing peccadillos be damned. (Related: I have decided that Diane and Christine Baranski's character in Mamma Mia! are the same person. I'm pretty sure this happens in the Lockhart/Gardner offices all the time.)
And I will offer this comfort: you are not going to lose the magnificent political waltz that is Will/Diane. I so so so love being able to really invest in a relationship between a woman and a man that is NOT and WILL NOT BE and HAS NO TENDENCY TOWARD BEING a romantic/sexual one. They really are the perfect couple.
I'll also say that I really expected to really hate where they would go with Alicia/Will. And while I have a reservation or two, I actually think that for the most part, the show plays it just perfectly, and I've been really satisfied with the arc. SO SMART SHOW SO SMART AND THANK YOU FOR NOT MISSING YOUR OWN MEMOS OR BREAKING YOUR NICEST TOYS.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-29 04:54 am (UTC)I love how unfastened that sex scene in "Heart" is, how unromantic – Alicia's dubious, so well-executed "well I'm all like aroused now, guess I'll screw my husband" unromantic act; her agency – however compromised – in all of it.
YES THIS.
Love how ambiguous Pastor Isaiah is – embodying both the benefits and dangers of the true believer, the genuinely beneficial pastoral care that can so easily slide into the brittle moral position of the ideologue.
Yes. I haven't seen that much of the ideologue explicitly, but it's there, oh, it's there, you can see it very clearly. And the thing is, as you say, these are two sides of the same coin. And to actually engage with that instead of just picking one or the other... AH.
And I will offer this comfort: you are not going to lose the magnificent political waltz that is Will/Diane. I so so so love being able to really invest in a relationship between a woman and a man that is NOT and WILL NOT BE and HAS NO TENDENCY TOWARD BEING a romantic/sexual one. They really are the perfect couple.
OH GOOD. And yes yes YES. Another thing that I was going to say and forgot is that Will/Diane are also the only couple that resolves things, because they're the only ones unafraid to fight. They fight and yell and hurl things at each other and at the end they come to a conclusion ("how about a third partner?"). As opposed to all the other pairs on the show, who have short spats that just glide off of each other, leaving things unresolved.
I'll also say that I really expected to really hate where they would go with Alicia/Will. And while I have a reservation or two, I actually think that for the most part, the show plays it just perfectly, and I've been really satisfied with the arc.
WOW. If you liked it... well. I was thinking I'd really hate it too, but now I'm hopeful :)
Heh. So clearly I'm not going to make the beginning of the season, but I'm hopeful I might make it while I can still watch the episodes on Hulu or something, they keep four or five around, right? :)