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TV Diary

A hero's journey: anytime a plucky warrior is removed from an Ordinary World and plunged into the Enchanted World.

The Enchanted World doesn't need to have castles and dragons; in "The Good Wife," the Enchanted World is the terrain of Hillary Clinton (or Silda Spitzer).

After Alicia Florrick discovers--via CNN--that her husband has been having numerous affairs (and possibly with some illegal twists), she, Alicia, must go back to work. It's not easy to be a woman at a law firm. You have the young male associate you're competing against; Christine Baranski favors the young guy, unfairly. You have secretarial candidates who blatantly forget there is anyone in the interview room who isn't a man. You have the voice of the mother-in-law on the phone, asking when you'll be back home.

At the same time, Alicia contends with case-of-the-week dramas. To get an innocent young man detached from a spurious murder charge, Alicia must throw her estranged husband under the bus. (She throws him under the bus.) To help victims of corporate evildoing, Alicia must overlook clear evidence that jury bribery has occurred. (She closes her eyes.) To hold a train operator accountable for malpractice, Alicia must expose one worker's extramarital affair. (She shines bright lights on that affair.)

I'm not sure if Alicia ever fully crosses over to the "Dark Side"; I'm only partly through Season One. But I love all the impossible choices she has to make.

I also love this show's attention to "code-switching." If you're anyone other than a straight white man, then you're altering your performance pretty much all the time. Kalinda--the Emmy winner Archie Panjabi--is a special example of this. Not quite plausible as a human being, Kalinda becomes someone new in basically every scene: bro among bros, sexy pixie dream-girl, hard-hitting negotiator. Alicia watches and learns, and we're very quickly exposed to New Chameleon Alicia: steely with a legal rival, or masterfully feigning ignorance, or cooking up a scheme behind faux-wide eyes.

Good writing should have a "story under the story," and the writers here never seem to forget that they're really examining what it means to be female in America. Even a reunion between father and children becomes an opportunity to think about gender. When Mr. Florrick's children visit him in jail, the boy runs to Dad and throws his arms wide. The girl--younger, smarter--clearly considers the pain her father has inflicted on his spouse, and the reunion is therefore appropriately cold.

And don't get me started on the tense relationship between Alicia and her in-law, played by theater legend Mary Beth Peil. The monster-in-law knows many things about power, and she brutally manipulates Alicia whenever possible. "Well, I TRIED to remember to call you...." (Alicia is sharp: "TRY? There's no question of TRY here.....")

"The Good Wife" was named--by Emily Nussbaum, no less--as something on par with "Parenthood," and I can see why. And now you have my COVID diary. This is how I'm spending my time.
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