TV #24 of 2020:
The Good Wife, season 3
The third year of this law drama is its best one yet, and not only because it finally acts upon the romantic will-they-won’t-they dimension that’s mostly lingered in the background subtext for the first two seasons. There’s also the smart writing decision to bring Eli’s crisis management business in-house at Alicia’s firm, which both displays that political operator in a new light and allows him to more fully interact with the rest of the cast. One of The Good Wife’s strengths is its constantly-growing universe of interesting figures across the Chicago legal landscape, and it’s always a joy when the program finds a way to bring two of them together for the first time, as happens repeatedly throughout this particular run.
The main storyline is also better realized, with the investigation into Will’s shady past and subsequent power struggle among the other partners deeply rooted in personalities and histories that we’ve seen develop over time. On paper the intrigue is not all that different from the somewhat bloodless Derrick Bond maneuvering of the year before, but it tends to play out more as the specific characters driving the plot, rather than the other way around. We also get to witness a realistically gradual evolution in Cary reconciling with his former colleagues, one of the rare instances when the long seasonal episode counts work in the narrative’s favor. (The slow thawing of the heroine’s relationship with her old friend Kalinda progresses similarly.) And always and forever, the series continues its exploration of the uneasy dynamics behind using personal connections for professional gain and vice versa.
There’s not always much movement to these arcs from week to week, but everything goes off like fireworks when the threads come together for episodes like “Another Ham Sandwich.” And even when individual hours carry little forward motion, they continue the show’s habit of finding new and distinctive fashions in which to present its cases, from panel review to arbitration to proving a mistrial and beyond. That alone keeps The Good Wife from ever growing stale, even aside from its other considerable charms.
★★★★☆
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