IS THAT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT -- ENDEARMENT? In the real world, unlike The Good Wife, law firm managing partners work out all the issues before announcing a merger and we don't have -- but if CBS wanted to be realistic as to BigLaw it wouldn't have shelved its adaptation of Kermit Roosevelt's In the Shadow of the Law (though a pilot was filmed). The first season still held my interest, however, because it got the culture right-enough and the show did a solid mix of the long-term political/romantic plots with the trial-of-the-week, gradually moving away from the initial wife-betrayed premise to create a universe in which not everything has to revolve around Alicia Florrick. (Not that that's a problem, because Juliana Margulies is so damn good in this role.)
The question of season two may be how to handle this expanding universe, with Cary now working for The Smoke Monster in the Cook County DA's Office (but obviously can't be in court every week against Lockhart/Gardner), plus an election plot, new attorneys and an investigator at the firm as well as whatever develops for Alicia personally. So this week mostly moved the pieces around the chessboard while half-assing the courtroom scenes and all-but-ignoring Christine Baranski and the Florrick kids, not a great episode but one which suggests they've got a plan. There are worse ways to spend an hour on Tuesdays than a show with Archie Panjabi, "Stan's Chicken Shack" and an allegedly controversial sex scene, and I look forward to what's to come -- as long as Gary Cole's ballistics expert comes back. Please?
