The Good Wife: Season 7, Episode 1 – “Bond”

“Two people bump into each other on a sidewalk, and it’s nobody’s fault. It’s completely an accident. One person succinctly says, ‘I’m sorry.’ And the other one says, ‘Watch it.’ … You’re the apologizer.”

Leave it to Michael J. Fox’s Louis Canning to bestow such wisdom on the unforgivingly independent Alicia Florrick. Season six ended with yet another proposition for the governor’s common-law wife aimed at achieving yet another new start with yet another new law firm. Mere minutes into season seven, and we’ve learned that Alicia has swatted the idea away in the interim, unknowingly following suit with her former firm’s older coalition as they poo-poo an emerging technology proposition that Cary Agos helped facilitate in a wayward attempt to feel young again. Mrs. Florrick doesn’t need anyone’s help, she persists. She can do this on her own.

Which, in addition to being a common denominator throughout a lot of her evolution, proves to be a central point in the show’s seventh season debut, “Bond”. These lead characters love to think that they can manage on their own — Eli without Peter, Cary without his associates, Alicia without … well … everybody — but the truth is that it’s an impossible feat. Cary wants to encourage new ideas as a means to both further the firm’s success and reestablish his connection with age-appropriate co-workers, but the Old Guard aren’t open to them. Alicia needs so badly to have control over her own fate, be it professionally or personally, but even she, stuck at bond court, has to rely on Cush Jumbo’s Lucca Quinn to sit in on a case in her absence. And Eli Gold, in a somewhat surprising move, vows revenge on Peter Florrick only after he realizes that in order to achieve as much, he has to get back in good graces with the camp of … Peter Florrick.

Oh, and about that …

Seven seasons into this series, and somehow creators Robert and Michelle King continue to find ways to surprise. Every time The Good Wife appears to hit a sticking point, it comes back with an endless ability to make us sit up straight and take notice that Something Big is happening. This time around, the great Eli Gold (Alan Cumming) stares down Chris Noth’s towering Peter Florrick with a level of drama not commonly used on the series, zoomed-in camera work and all.

“You just lost your greatest asset and made your worst enemy,” Eli snarls, and holy shit, you believe him. The only guy who can make the monster is always the only guy who can adequately stand up to the monster, and should that dynamic play out through the entirety of this season, count me among the many #TeamEli hashtags such a narrative is bound to produce. The (now-former) campaign manager didn’t just lead Peter to the water; he forced him to drink at times when the Illinois governor absolutely refused to bend over and get his hands wet (cough, Ramona, cough).

Eli deserves his time to shine and Peter opting for the new, More Established Thing only reminds us all why it’s so hard to root for him to succeed in the first place. It’s a coup for the storytelling — I’ll happily take a season of Alan Cumming’s Eli Gold versus Margo Martindal’s Ruth Eastman any day of the week — but it also reinforces how childish and narcissistic the Peter Florrick character is. He’s always looking for something newer, something better, something to fill the hole. All that mindset supplies is a lifetime of emptiness, and at his age, we should all know better than to think he’d ever change.

Speaking of change, The Good Wife‘s relationship with it is perhaps what makes it the best show on television today. Why? Because in real life, people don’t like change. We blur the edges every now and then, but our core self is both complicated and contradictory, lovely and ugly. There isn’t another series on television today that shines such a bright light on how life changes us as The Good Wife.

Alicia has always been striving for, and ultimately earning, respect. Peter has always been a snake in the grass. Eli has always been a relentlessly hard worker. Cary has always been forward-thinking. Dianne has always been a born leader. All of these characteristics popped up, for better and worse, in this first episode of season 7 with, much like real life, mixed results. Nobody ever really feels good, even by the time the story winds down. The same can be said about everyday life.

Which sets us up now for more of the same while using the illusion of something different as a conduit. Peter wants to be president (or, well, vice-president). Eli seeks revenge. Cary feels that his youth is being wasted on his not-so-young soul (that’s what going to prison, losing the love of your life, and death threats will do to you). Dianne and David Lee appear to be settling in to their positions as elder statesmen. Lucca appears to look up to her new drinking buddy all the while showing enough assertiveness to earn admiration.

And then there’s Alicia, who’s starting from scratch, again, as a bar attorney in bond court, refusing to (willingly) take help from anyone else … but inevitably (and unknowingly) submitting to it once it’s revealed that Canning pulled the strings to get her the case against her former employer. Can we envision a scenario where Lucca and Alicia go into business together? Sure, that seems most likely from a narrative standpoint, but it also brings front and center a key component to the series’ success, which is this: The only way to enforce change is to bring new blood into the mix. Yet at this point, we know all the core characters too well. Thus, it must be asked: How will these new players move the game?

Or, more importantly, how many times will an unsuspecting person inadvertently run into Alicia before she learns she needs to stop apologizing?

Approaching the Bench

If nothing else, this episode reinforced one thing: Alicia works best when she has a drinking partner. The dichotomy between her old life with Kalinda, who would sit and drink everyone under the table, and her new life with Lucca, who immediately just wants to get up and dance, is a welcome and refreshing touch from the Kings.

Also of note during the final sequence: The call-back to Canning’s story about running into people as he ran into Alicia, who was already sitting down. The Good Wife has tons of those moments, but this one felt just a little smarter than some of the others.

Please don’t reduce Diane to a bit role. Christine Baranski is a top-shelf actress and if she’s just going to be used as a member of the Old Guard … what a waste.

Ditto for Cary. The sixth season story with him behind bars allowed Matt Czuchry to shine and something about his use this week felt dismissive.

Boy, that moment with Peter and Eli was (pardon the pun) gold. I can’t recall a more affecting scene Alan Cumming has given this series.

Lucca Quinn is no Fin Polmar, but I like her quite a bit.

So … we’re just going to forget about Lemond Bishop? Should Cary be worried? It kind of seems like Cary should be worried.

Grace acting like Alicia’s secretary was solidly adorable. The calling one phone with the other bit was funny and heartwarming.

Of course Eli watches something called Snow Nazis when he’s angry. Of course.

Cary: “We need to listen to new ideas. This firm is becoming a laughing stock. We’re seen as being old and out of touch. The associates don’t think we listen to them.” A shot from the Kings to CBS? Maybe? Possibly? OK, that’s probably a stretch.

Crazy Prediction of the Week: Cary comes out of the closet, outlives his peers, and eventually works for Grace, who inherited her mother’s firm, a firm that is by that point named Florrick/Jumbo.