How We Learned To Love Marilyn Garbanza

Most of the time, I'm leery of suggesting that the writers of a TV series allow themselves to be influenced by chatter on the internet. For one thing, I don't want them to be: viewers have all kinds of short-sighted ideas about what "should" happen on the shows they love, but if they were actually that good at plotting, they'd probably be TV writers. For another, when producers do bow to the apparent wishes of a show's most crazily invested fans, they run the risk of teaching those viewers that they can get what they want if they just bitchingly blog or tweet or co-ordinate the mailing of some totem object or other to the network. This is essentially the argument I made in the fourth season of The Good Wife, when producers made it known that they'd written out Kalinda's ex-husband Nick due to fan complaints. And, now that the latest episode has turned me around on the issue of Marilyn Garbanza, I wonder if the character's new awesomeness is due to series creators Michelle and Robert King reacting to fan response to the character. If so, as with the disposal of Nick, even if I'm not crazy about the means, I can't be too mad about the ends.

When she was first introduced, Marilyn was at the disadvantage of fulfilling a pretty thankless role. Anyone who knows anything about either Illinois politics or the partnership of Peter Florrick and Eli Gold knows that trying to keep them ethically pure is a fool's errand. Even if everyone agrees that Marilyn's job as Ethics Czar for Peter's administration is supremely important and valuable, no one likes a killjoy — particularly not one who's always trying to get her point across with old-timey sex appeal. Okay, maybe that's not fair. But that voice! So affected!

When we left Marilyn before the holiday hiatus, she had seemingly slid even further back from the unfortunate position she'd started in, when she dropped the bomb that she was going to name her unborn baby Peter, which, of course, strongly suggested that her baby had been fathered by her boss. But then, last week, we learned the truth, which is that her baby's father is actually a totally different Peter: PETER BOG-GODDAMN-DANOVICH. The reveal was such an out-of-left-field shock that it made this viewer re-evaluate everything I had thought about Marilyn: the sexy-baby voice is still a problem, to be sure, and yet someone who would decide to make a go of co-parenting with one of America's foremost film directors may have deep-running still waters I never would have credited her with. It's just so weird that it makes her interesting.

The latest episode lets Marilyn show us an entirely new colour: RAGE. With the last episode ending in the bombshell of a video very suggestive of the notion that one of Eli's election "soldiers" committed fraud with that contentious stuffed ballot box from last season, now Marilyn has to conduct an investigation into the matter. Though her interview with Alicia ends with Alicia icily triumphant and Marilyn cowed, Marilyn's talk with Eli only arouses her suspicions. Then she sits down opposite Will — who, recall, represented Peter and the campaign at the time the ballot box business first arose, and who now stonewalls her by invoking attorney-client privilege. Marilyn closes her folder, rises from her seat, and tells Will to come with her. He doesn't move, so she stands at the door and throws him a backward glance until he recalcitrantly gets up. With Will sulkily trailing behind her, a completely enraged Marilyn storms down the hall to Peter's office, and before she can even say anything to him, the unlikeliest thing has occurred: I've fallen in love with her.

Do I endorse Marilyn's work style? No. (THAT VOICE.) But as she realizes all at once what kind of bullshit she's been tasked to clean up after, her fury makes her not just sympathetic but kind of majestic. The way she challenges Peter and Will to acknowledge what they've (apparently) done to get Peter where he is today tips the balance, at least for me: maybe it's been fun, in the past, to see Peter (thanks to Eli) weasel out of various sticky legal situations and ooze along on charm. But now he's governor, this shit has consequences, and Marilyn's not trying to go down for it. In this moment, Marilyn is no longer just a figurehead: she's a serious professional in an extremely serious situation, getting no help from the people she is supposed to be saving from trouble of their own creation. And when Peter and Will double down on their privilege claim, it seems clear that they've potentially made a powerful enemy.

And, maybe most importantly, this is the episode in which we see that Marilyn's maternity workwear game is tight. Basically, the episode is an all-'round win for Marilyn, and I can't wait to see what she does next.