Screen: CBS
If the central lesson of last week's episode of The Good Wife was that being friends (even just business friends) with Will Gardner (Josh Charles) probably won't pay off in the end, then this week's episode built on that by teaching us an even more important lesson: you can bet against Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), but you do so at your peril.
I spent most of the last two seasons of The Good Wife feeling that it was one of the most overrated dramas among those to which critics pay the most attention. Like, I thought it was fine? It wisely confined itself to a limited amount of ground, and though it was satisfyingly twisty and great at casting guest stars, it was -- in my view -- merely a very competent network hourlong that fulfilled all of a viewer's most basic expectations without being particularly special (unless one of the viewer's expectations was that "Chicago" actually look like Chicago, because, Earth to Matilda, Chicago DOES NOT HAVE A RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL). But maybe as so many prestige dramas -- Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, HOMELAND -- have slipped in their last/current seasons, the consistent pleasures of The Good Wife stand out in such sharp relief; now I see that I mistook it for mere competence because it made the complex seem so simple. Or maybe I have just fallen completely in love with Diane.
That's not saying anything radical: if there were anyone who watched the show and hadn't already pegged Diane as his or her favourite character, last night's episode would have clinched it for sure; it was like an itemized list of everything that makes her fucking great. We start with her kicking off her morning target shooting with her DILFy fiancé Kurt (Gary Cole).
Then she takes in the counsel of a couple of old friends (Robert Klein and Helen Carey) concerned that she's considering joining her life to that of a Republican gun owner (and man, the glee Diane evinces throatily laughing at the idea that Kurt is a Sarah Palin supporter!), and though we can (barely) tell that their concern has given Diane pause, she never loses her composure. She strides back into Lockhart Gardner to deal with this nuisance sexual harassment suit because she is able to be the bigger person...and, fine, also because she's named in it, but still: classy. And she does what no one else at the firm has been able to do: she figures out that Alicia (Julianna Margulies) and a bunch of the fourth-years are about to defect and poach Lockhart Gardner's best clients. In the midst of all this, she gets married -- NBD -- because even if she was momentarily taken aback by the discovery that all of Kurt's best friends are cute girls in their twenties, this lady has no reason to be insecure about them.
There's probably an argument to be made that Diane's dominance of "On The Bubble" is mere fan service. Other than the VERY brief suggestion that her differences with Kurt will prove too great for the couple to overcome, there isn't a moment where we see Diane in a mode other than undisputed HBIC -- including at the firm that's in the process of pushing her out, and even in that instance, it's clear how wrong her former colleagues are: there's one thing that stands between Lockhart Gardner and utter destruction, and that's Diane's sleuthing skills. Well, two things: her sleuthing skills and her willingness to overlook the firm's shitty exit offer for the sake of the company she built. You're right, three things: her sleuthing skills, her willingness to overlook the firm's shitty exit offer for the sake of the company she built, and her innate awesomeness. But if that's fan service, I don't care. I'm a fan, and in this instance, I'm happy to be served.
All this, and not a hair out of place. Fuck the titular "good wife": Diane is the queen.
