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What Made "The Good Wife" Canonical?

 A show lives or dies by the strength of its character development. I can't think of a character more gripping than Alicia Florrick, in the hour called "Hitting the Fan."

This hour--from the fifth season of "The Good Wife"--has Alicia plotting to start her own law firm. I've skipped around in the series, but my understanding is that Alicia has a mix of motives: (a) selfishness, (b) reasonable anger w/r/t the way she has been treated, and (c) a desire to distance herself from her boss, whom she (inconveniently) loves. 

Alicia's secret is unearthed. Phones are thrown at walls. Vases are shattered. And Alicia becomes spell-binding: She doesn't crumble or scream. She offers counsel when possible: "Anything you say now could be used in a deposition." "Document everything." "Get all the files into the Cloud...." Alicia maintains her steely face until she finds herself alone in an elevator and then--for around three (just three!) seconds--we get to see her sobbing.

This is only Act One. Later, we see Alicia frantically bedding her Bill Clinton-ish husband, whom she sort of dislikes. ("You want me to Lean In? I can Lean In for you.....") Alicia sets up camp in her apartment, and pauses a discussion of tortious interference to remove her teen daughter from a flirty moment with an adult male. ("We were just chatting about my Bible Group...") Alicia cancels a romantic trip to Hawaii (never suggesting that the trip holds little interest for her), wrestles her enemy for a major client, boasts that she is "kicking ass," and unmasks a trickster, in a courtroom, in the presence of a cranky, adversarial judge.

The script is so brilliant because mundane life continues to happen *while this high-stakes drama is unfolding* ....A judge pauses to note his own laryngitis, a teen gets annoyed about a missing permission slip, a death match is punctuated with "please" and "thank you." In one of my favorite moments, Alicia corrects herself before reentering an overheated war room. Alicia has just had sex, and she has shrewdly noticed a wardrobe issue. Though she has pulled her skirt back into place, she needs to return to Square One. Her underwear has somehow remained in its spot on the bedroom floor.

The director Edward Zwick says: "Assume your audience is even more readily bored than you are. Give them so many gifts: moments, truths, secrets, jokes. Every second." And "Hitting the Fan" is a Grade A example. This thrilling, oddly funny hour seems to have a surprise in literally every scene.

Not that this is news. "Hitting the Fan" is held up as a canonical bit of TV writing. I just had to include my love letter here. Recommended.
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