Amy Ponds of the 99% (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
allchildren) wrote2012-04-29 11:49 pm
allchildren) wrote2012-04-29 11:49 pm
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as far as I'm concerned Jackie Florrick and Katherine Olson are basically the same person
I actually really liked the finale but I need to complain a little bit about The Good Wife's third season as a whole before I can move on with my life.
What a colossally mismanaged, ill-conceived, and narratively wasteful season of television! First can we all agree that as delightful as Alan Cumming is, promoting Eli Gold to regular was a terrible mistake. Besides the ongoing "this makes no sense why is there a PR guy at a law firm" factor, justifying his paycheck meant carving out screentime via his weird and boring kismesis thing with Amy Sedaris and their puzzling triangle with Parker Posey. This storyline had no emotional anchor -- oh, Eli's personal life and feelings, which we know and care so much about?? -- and never bothered to provide the backstory as to why Eli and Parker were so buddy-buddy nor why [anything with Amy Sedaris at all]. How to eat up a bunch of time with three potentially excellent screen presences in the least gratifying way possible, exhibit A.
Also, lol dropped and blatantly *ist storylines! First and worst (imfemslashcentrico), Dana Lodge. Her flirtation with Kalinda that went nowhere...
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
...and her dating Cary kinda but then just like disappearing after the grand jury trial okay bye?? (Not to mention the impressive disappearing of her PLUS Wendy PLUS Matan PLUS Geneva except for when Geneva comes in and goes "Peter's racist" and Cary's like "huh is Peter racist" and the show is like "so anyway as I was white ppling"*). Oh, hahah remember how we were all excited that Lisa Edelstein was coming to the show? Well, that was revelatory. I'm kidding. What else. Grace's tutor. Grace's religion, kinda. WENDY SCOTT-CARR COMING IN SECRET TO WILL AND TELLING HIM SHE'S NOT AFTER HIM, SHE'S AFTER PETER DUN DUNN DUNNNNN let us never speak of this again
thanks for that
oh plus Romany Malco the people's lawyer!!! u r black so goodbye forever!!!
Third, a lot of the cases were just plain boring/exploitative/flippantly ripped from the headlines (recreating Gay Girl in Damascus a year+ later as a sidebar so Kalinda can blackmail someone for three minutes?!)/bad. In the first season almost all of Alicia's cases involved defending shadow doubles, women in vulnerable places with whom she could relate, which gave the courtroom element of the show a narrative and emotional gravitas. That aspect of the show is now completely gone and has been replaced by shitty generic Cutthroat Law. Yawn.
I've been thinking about this stuff for a while, but what really struck me as I watched this zingy finale is that it had character dynamics I care about. That elevator scene was such a paean to the gorgeously charged chemistry this show is capable of! And yet we just sat through a season of Eli and his triangle, Peter and Cary, Alicia with strangers, Kalinda with [footage not found], Diane with snooze, and Will with random ladies with whom he is supposed to have sexual tension. Alicia and Peter do we keep having to do this??? Alicia and Kalinda need to have screentime because Alicia is Kalinda's weakness and Kalinda is Alicia's confidante, yet also her greatest uncertainty. AND KALINDA IS IN LOVE WITH HER. Kalinda can also play awesomely off of Will, Sophia, Lana, Dana, Cary, and basically whoever, but she has to actually be there to do so. Alicia and Cary are LG classmates and awkward frenemies and there is a ton to mine there. Alicia brings out all of Josh Charles's pugnacious hotness so they should have screentime. (LOL PS I JUST REMEMBERED KAITLIN) Alicia plus her kids, Alicia plus her bro, Alicia plus Diane, Alicia versus Jackie. All good. The point I am making here is that there are a lot of really rich relationships on this show and they are all interesting to play around with. Separating characters who need to be playing off each other and putting them in equally boring stories keeps this from being a character drama and makes it into a procedural.
I flippin' hate procedurals.
Please be better next year.
* just scratching the surface of this show's myriad isms whichcrossedwires hired me to write about in an auction over a year ago and I never did because I am terrible at everything and I think she stopped watching because of said isms. But I've been keeping track all this time :( WHOOPS
What a colossally mismanaged, ill-conceived, and narratively wasteful season of television! First can we all agree that as delightful as Alan Cumming is, promoting Eli Gold to regular was a terrible mistake. Besides the ongoing "this makes no sense why is there a PR guy at a law firm" factor, justifying his paycheck meant carving out screentime via his weird and boring kismesis thing with Amy Sedaris and their puzzling triangle with Parker Posey. This storyline had no emotional anchor -- oh, Eli's personal life and feelings, which we know and care so much about?? -- and never bothered to provide the backstory as to why Eli and Parker were so buddy-buddy nor why [anything with Amy Sedaris at all]. How to eat up a bunch of time with three potentially excellent screen presences in the least gratifying way possible, exhibit A.
Also, lol dropped and blatantly *ist storylines! First and worst (imfemslashcentrico), Dana Lodge. Her flirtation with Kalinda that went nowhere...
...and her dating Cary kinda but then just like disappearing after the grand jury trial okay bye?? (Not to mention the impressive disappearing of her PLUS Wendy PLUS Matan PLUS Geneva except for when Geneva comes in and goes "Peter's racist" and Cary's like "huh is Peter racist" and the show is like "so anyway as I was white ppling"*). Oh, hahah remember how we were all excited that Lisa Edelstein was coming to the show? Well, that was revelatory. I'm kidding. What else. Grace's tutor. Grace's religion, kinda. WENDY SCOTT-CARR COMING IN SECRET TO WILL AND TELLING HIM SHE'S NOT AFTER HIM, SHE'S AFTER PETER DUN DUNN DUNNNNN let us never speak of this again
thanks for that
oh plus Romany Malco the people's lawyer!!! u r black so goodbye forever!!!
Third, a lot of the cases were just plain boring/exploitative/flippantly ripped from the headlines (recreating Gay Girl in Damascus a year+ later as a sidebar so Kalinda can blackmail someone for three minutes?!)/bad. In the first season almost all of Alicia's cases involved defending shadow doubles, women in vulnerable places with whom she could relate, which gave the courtroom element of the show a narrative and emotional gravitas. That aspect of the show is now completely gone and has been replaced by shitty generic Cutthroat Law. Yawn.
I've been thinking about this stuff for a while, but what really struck me as I watched this zingy finale is that it had character dynamics I care about. That elevator scene was such a paean to the gorgeously charged chemistry this show is capable of! And yet we just sat through a season of Eli and his triangle, Peter and Cary, Alicia with strangers, Kalinda with [footage not found], Diane with snooze, and Will with random ladies with whom he is supposed to have sexual tension. Alicia and Peter do we keep having to do this??? Alicia and Kalinda need to have screentime because Alicia is Kalinda's weakness and Kalinda is Alicia's confidante, yet also her greatest uncertainty. AND KALINDA IS IN LOVE WITH HER. Kalinda can also play awesomely off of Will, Sophia, Lana, Dana, Cary, and basically whoever, but she has to actually be there to do so. Alicia and Cary are LG classmates and awkward frenemies and there is a ton to mine there. Alicia brings out all of Josh Charles's pugnacious hotness so they should have screentime. (LOL PS I JUST REMEMBERED KAITLIN) Alicia plus her kids, Alicia plus her bro, Alicia plus Diane, Alicia versus Jackie. All good. The point I am making here is that there are a lot of really rich relationships on this show and they are all interesting to play around with. Separating characters who need to be playing off each other and putting them in equally boring stories keeps this from being a character drama and makes it into a procedural.
I flippin' hate procedurals.
Please be better next year.
* just scratching the surface of this show's myriad isms which
crossedwires hired me to write about in an auction over a year ago and I never did because I am terrible at everything and I think she stopped watching because of said isms. But I've been keeping track all this time :( WHOOPS
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Also so many great guest stars wasted. Also too much Eli not having a point (WHY does he want to be involved in the post-Will power struggles at LG, except that the writers wanted to have him snark with David a lot?) Also if I wanted RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINEZ gimmicks I would still be watching Law and Order.
I think if I were Archie P I'd be a little annoyed to come off of two seasons that each garnered her emmy nominations and then be given such an insulting lack of material for the third season. I mean I'M annoyed. And I wish I could have faith that the stuff that happened with Kalinda in the last two episodes is actually going to go anywhere in season 4.
(she's SO in love with alicia omg)
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Why didn't we get more of Will and Alicia fucking up against the wall?The finale was great. Everything else has just felt like an exercise in frustration. Highly confusing frustration.