The Good Wife: Ambivalence

This week’s episode of The Good Wife didn’t quite live up to last week’s. And while it wasn’t truly objectionable, this week’s episode of The Good Wife was just, well, average.

I suppose the theme for the episode was Alicia handling both the financial and emotional on goings of home; her life as a single (for all intents and purposes) mom.

While interviewing a nanny for Zach and Grace, Alicia gets a phone call from Will, who puts her on a new case, a malpractice suit going down now. At the hospital Alicia arrives to a hectic situation. A high school quarterback has died from an overdose of prescription medication. Alicia and Kalinda go into Ben Bower’s, the quarterback, hospital room. In Ben’s bag Kalinda finds pills which turn out to be 80mg of oxycodone.

Alicia goes to find the doctor who prescribed the pills to Ben, Dr. Wesley, who is giving his condolences to Ben’s mother. Alicia pulls him away and cautions him to go back to his office, without speaking to anyone.

At Alicia’s apartment, Zach is sneaking out to go to a concert when he hears Grace calling out to him. Their grandmother has passed out.

Alicia tells Peter that his mother had a stroke. Peter wants to visit her, but the cost of a supervised visit is “a couple thousand.” Alicia agrees to the cost. She tells him about Childs tapping their phone lines; Peter looks displeased.

Malpractice case: Dr. Wesley says that he prescribed Ben 10 mg painkillers, not the 80 mg ones that were found in his bag. Kalinda and Cary look at the gym as a possible place for Ben to have gotten drugs. The prime suspect goes into the locker room, where Cary approaches him about wanting something to help bulk up. The dealer then gives Cary a free sample of a “homemade drug.” Thus a friendship is born.

During the lawyer visit, Peter tells his lawyer about Childs tapping the phones. Though he wants the tapes subpoenaed, Peter hesitates because he is afraid what will come out on them.

Alicia preps Dr. Wesley who says that he treated Ben outside of the hospital. When the hospital finds out, they walk away from the lawsuit, leaving Wesley to face this alone. Wesley wants Alicia to continue with the case in his defense, and offers to pay her hefty fee in installments.

Kalinda meets with Glenn Childs, who blackmails her into spying on Peter. It turns out that at some untold point in the past Kalinda worked with Peter in some manner for some unknown time. I don’t know the nature of this relationship (salacious or not, is uncertain; which is a shame. Give us something please,) because it wasn’t even vaguely alluded to. She later meets with Peter and tells him to make her a better offer. Peter tells her to take Childs’ offer, but be a double agent, a role she is used to (his words, not mine. An allusion to their past relationship which I still know nothing about.).

At the hospital Alicia coaxes the pharmacist into telling her about how pills are prescribed. During this interaction, Alicia learns that the pills given to Ben were not properly bar-coded/ dispensed (i.e. he could have been given the wrong medication).

In an attempt to get Wesley a lighter sentence, Alicia tells the prosecutor about the pharmacy’s mistake with the pills. She tries to argue reasonable doubt, but what she does is get the hospital in trouble since they own the pharmacy. The hospital, upset, fires the firm; Will and Diane then tell Alicia to drop Wesley. She doesn’t.

The guy from the gym wants to sell Ben oxycodone. Cary and the guy meet, so do the police. In the dealer’s little black book Kalinda finds not Ben’s name, but his mother’s. Turns out Ben stole the pills from her. His mother is shocked and dismayed that it was her drugs that led to her son’s death.

On the Childs front, Kalinda sees Glenn and tells him Peter knows about the tapes. Childs wants more information but, oh drat, Kalinda doesn’t have anything. But perhaps if Childs gives her something to give to Peter it would put her in his good graces and get him, Childs, more dirt. It works; Kalinda gets the tapes and calls Peter.

As I said before, there was nothing really wrong with this episode. Maybe it’s just the fact that there was no intrigue, no one to root for. It was pretty obvious that Dr. Wesley was innocent, just as it was forgone that Alicia would get him acquitted. But there wasn’t really a struggle with this case; you didn’t see the drive to prove his innocence. And as Alicia later says it’s because she doesn’t care. How in the world are we supposed to care if Alicia doesn’t? Do the producers not know that it is her fight and determination that propels this show? And now she doesn’t care? Neither do I.

Season 1, Episode 12: Painkiller (originally aired January 12, 2010)

For more on The Good Wife, click here.

Tuesday at 10/9c on CBS

Photographs courtesy of CBS and Jeffrey Neira.