I can admit it now: It wasn’t love at first sight.
In fact, if I’m being completely honest, the exact opposite was true. I sort of had a hate-on for you, because it felt as if you promised something you weren’t actually delivering. I couldn’t see in you’re the possibility of greatness, let alone that I would come to value each hour we spent together.
Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.
But that first night back in 2009, when a young woman named Alicia Florrick found her life being rocked by her husband’s scandalous secrets and lies, I just wasn’t that into her… or the show on which she appeared, THE GOOD WIFE. It quickly became apparent to me that the new series would be focused more on her career as a litigator than on the political world in which her husband had operated. I wanted a fictionalized version of the Hookergate scandals experienced by such politicos as David Vitter and Eliot Spitzer. Instead, I was getting what felt more like L.A. LAW.
Mistakes were made, harsh words were said. I turned away in anger.
But people kept telling me I should give you another chance.
Eventually, I dove back in and came to discover all of the qualities that had been there, waiting for me to recognize them, from the beginning. You courted me, and I fell… hard.
But even as you caused me to swoon by causing me to fall for the forbidden passion of co-workers Will and Alicia, you somehow sensed what no series before you had. You recognized that I, like so many others, could become easily bored and wind up seeking something newer, fresher, younger.
So you stepped up your game.
You separated Alicia and Will, throwing her back into the arms of her husband, Peter, even as he was being seduced back into the world of politics which had cost him everything the first go ‘round. And while other shows were claiming to rip their tales from the headlines, you were creating tomorrow’s blog posts by exploring the complicated intersection of the law and emerging technologies.
You vixen, you.
However, it was all just foreplay compared to what has become the seductive dance of Season Five, during which you’ve teased and taunted and left me gasping at each new twist before walking away, leaving me begging for more.
So it shouldn’t surprise me that this week, to mark our 100th get-together, you pulled out all the stops. From the promise of a tempestuous Kalinda/Damian/Jenna triangle to the episode-capping spittake, you were proving just how good you’ve gotten at delivering what I don’t even know that I want.
But it was in revisiting those steamy nights we spent with Alicia and Will that you really proved your love. Given the animosity that has grown between the two since her departure Lockhart/Gardner, I’d come to assume that your days of teasing me with a possible reunion between them were long gone. And yet in this episode, you used the notoriously thin line between love and hate to prove that while the steps may have changed, their dance goes on.
So happy 100th, my very Good Wife. And many happy returns.
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