Season 6, Episode 8: “Red Zone”
Alicia Florrick spent much of “Red Zone,” Sunday night’s episode of “The Good Wife,” worrying about whether: a) she was too entitled b) she appeared to be too entitled c) both of the above. I couldn’t help thinking, probably unfairly, that the show — with its large ensemble of Chicago power players, nearly all of them upper-middle-class whites except for the bisexual dragon lady and the drug dealer — was expressing its own anxieties. Why do we only hear from working-class people when they’re defendants (or junior prosecutors)? When is Taye Diggs coming back?
Alicia’s alarm stemmed from a focus group convened by her campaign manager, Johnny, and her mother-hen strategist, Eli. One young woman disapproved of her because she hadn’t dumped Peter, and as the woman thought about it, the critique expanded: Alicia was entitled; she seemed selfish; everything was about her. (Which was kind of meta-funny given that the show is about her. In a funny bit of timing, the charges also closely echoed criticisms made of the recent “Good Wife” guest star the presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett in the wake of the midterm elections.)
That was all the fuel Alicia’s insecurities needed. When she visited Finn in his empty new offices above Lockhart Gardner (where he was ready to represent “D.U.I.’s and bail jumpers”) and fretted about the focus group, he suggested that she volunteer with him at a soup kitchen. But it turned into a disaster when a cellphone photograph went viral of Alicia, in the suit she’d worn to court that day, cleaning what looked like an already-clean pot. (If you’re trying to remember the real-life analogue, it was Paul Ryan and his family in Ohio when he was the Republican nominee for vice president.)
“This is a disaster,” Eli told her, and Alan Cumming’s comic rage, sucking in his cheeks and pounding his forehead against available surfaces, was the best thing about the episode. “I take my job seriously,” he went on. “You need to take it seriously, too.”
Once again Eli had to beat down Alicia’s nobler instincts. He arranged for her to return to the kitchen, in casual clothes (who picked that cat-vomit shade of brown?) and with a battalion of news photographers. At a final session of the focus group, where it was announced in weirdly offhand fashion that James Castro had dropped out of the state’s attorney race — no more Michael Cerveris? — and that Frank Prady had officially declared, the contrarian woman decided that she liked Alicia overall despite her failure to leave Peter. “Now you just have to beat Prady,” Eli said, and Alicia replied, “Tell me what to do.”
In the case of the week, Alicia’s brother, Owen, prevailed on her to represent a woman who had accused a fellow student of rape but hadn’t pursued criminal charges; the woman was now taking part in a campus hearing that she hoped would result in the man’s expulsion. This might have been a backhanded parallel to Alicia’s campaign situation — the male student and the university’s sham panel, before which Alicia couldn’t speak or call witnesses, certainly represented one facet of entitlement. And the she-said, he-said situation was reminiscent of Alicia’s problems with the cleaning detail (“That pot was dirty!”).
Alicia carried the day, of course, and even got the chance to best Louis Canning when, with Kalinda’s help, she found a way to turn the case into a class action against the university. But her triumph was short-lived: When the school found a craven way out, expelling the male student on drug charges, the female student accepted the compromise, leaving Alicia and her righteous fury sitting alone at the table.
The notable thing about the rape story line — besides the nice performance as the accuser by Madeleine Martin, who played Becca Moody through seven seasons of “Californication” — was how the show played it for laughs. The issues in the case were overshadowed by Alicia’s strategy of using text messages to get around the restrictions and coach her client, with failing batteries and auto-correct malapropisms adding to the hilarity. (And it was highly unbelievable that the panel members, sitting a few feet away, never noticed that the accuser was looking down at her phone every time it buzzed.) When the case moved to court, there was a patented scene of Louis Canning playing up his disability, this time running into walls in a wheelchair. (His health has sunk to the point that he’s waiting for a kidney transplant.)
The main action of the episode, unfortunately, was in the curiously, continuously flat story line of Cary’s impending drug-trafficking court case. Things were not going well there. On the one hand, he was being prepped for testimony with the help of Viola Walsh (Rita Wilson) and it was going badly — unable to contain his anger and frustration, he was looking like a sitting duck. “If I’m on the jury, he’s going away for 15 years,” Viola said, and Diane could only reply, “I know.”
On the other hand, he discovered what we’ve known all along and what the drug dealer Lemond Bishop had known for a while: that Kalinda was two-timing him with her F.B.I. agent girlfriend, Lana. The writers dovetailed the two situations neatly. Lemond ordered Kalinda to deliver a presumably threatening message to Lana by slipping a blank white card into her wallet (if you know what that was supposed to mean, tell us in the comments). Meanwhile, Cary confronted Kalinda in her apartment and, when she said she wouldn’t give up Lana, he told her to go to hell. And when it came down to it, the common thread appeared to be that Kalinda was really in love with Lana — unwilling to give her up for Cary and also unwilling to deliver Lemond’s white card, which she snapped in two with an apprehensive smile on her face.
The Cary-Kalinda breakup was the episode’s big scene, and it has to be said that it was pretty lame — he essentially told her that he wanted to be exclusive, and her reply included the cringe-making line: “Cary, we’re not married. We’re not even going steady.” It was, one hopes, the final demonstration of how little sexual chemistry exists between Matt Czuchry and Archie Panjabi.
So now Kalinda’s free to make some great sacrifice to protect Lana. Or perhaps Kalinda, who overheard Lana discussing Lemond’s case (mentioning wiretaps) and then lied to Lemond about it, will be the primary target herself. Let us know where you think that’s going, and other thoughts about “Red Zone,” in the comments.