The Good Wife’ Season 4, Episode 5 Recap
The show spends a week as The Wire, with good results.
- CBS
- They hate me because I’m beautiful ...
After several weeks of complaining that “The Good Wife’s” Cases of the Week had been unconnected filler at best, “Waiting for the Knock” did away with the show’s procedural formula and made it all about the investigation and drama, to great effect. In fact, “Waiting for the Knock” may be the best episode so far this year (though not without its issues) because it played upon the series strengths which, strangely, recently have not been about courtroom drama (even Cary got a small part to play!) The theme of “Waiting for the Knock” seemed primarily about separating business from the personal, and how the two really are inextricably linked.
It was another week too where Lockhart Gardner focus on the money more than the morals. Though Alicia shakes her head at Diane and Will wanting to go after Bishop’s drug business as well as his legit business, even trustee Hayden is for the idea. It’s certainly a less nefarious portrayal of the lawyers who support the scourge of drug kingpins than in “The Wire,” whose primary gangster attorney Maurice Levy was clearly a villain in a world where most everything is morally gray. I know that the writers and casting agents of “The Good Wife” have seen “The Wire,” too, because not only do they borrow the occasional theme (Lemond Bishop = a Stringer Bell type) but also some of its cast (seeing Wee Bey and Bodie in the same episode was joyous).
The show often subverts conventional characterizations, and here the FBI is portrayed as the problem (with Lana possibly investigating Kalinda, having used her to get information — another personal / business overlap), taking Lemond away from his son over sad music.