I just finished watching “The Good Wife” pilot. It was good, but a lot different than I expected.
I was actually wondering how they were going to turn this premise into an interesting drama. I mean, how long can you drag out the whole “stand by your man” theme?
After viewing, I now know that the whole “good wife” thing is just a smoke screen for feeding us yet another legal drama. Those crafty little clams, I didn’t even see that coming…well done!
The show begins with disgraced States Attorney, Peter Florrick (Chris Noth), as he’s in the middle of his scandal-tinged press conference, with his stunned wife, Alicia (Julianna Margulies), standing by his side. The flash bulbs are blinding, the crowd is overwhelming and the reporters are spewing a rapid-fire of questions.
Cut to six months later, and we see Alicia trying to resume work as an attorney after thirteen years as a politician’s wife. Her husband’s in prison, her mother-in-law is driving her crazy and her children are trying to assimilate into their new public school. No member of the Florrick family is spared the slings and arrows of Peter’s poor judgment.
There are some wonderful moments of the family attempting to move past the public crisis, while trying to ignore the knowing-glances, hushed-whispers and careless YouTube videos. How would you handle it if the latest, viral Funny-or-Die video featured your family?
The moments showcasing the scandal-scarred Florrick family were quite moving, and really made me sympathize with the families of our many disgraced politicians.
I don’t know that I will watch “The Good Wife” for the full season-I don’t like getting my legal dramas under false pretenses-but I will give it a few more episodes to see if the family drama gets equal billing with the courtroom drama. Plus, I enjoy Chris Noth and Julianna Margulies.
