The Good Wife: Season 7, Episode 11 – “Iowa”

“At the end of the every fork, there’s a cliff. Go ahead – take the road less traveled. You’ll still find that cliff.”

That’s a pretty good line, and it’s even better that it comes from Ruth Eastman (Margo Martindale), heading in the direction of Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies). It comes in the midst of Alicia pouting about how Eli (Alan Cumming) only recently told her about the now-earth-shattering (that was sarcasm) voicemail from Will Gardner (Josh Charles) that Eli deleted seemingly forever ago. This week, Alicia is still playing the “good wife” (see what I did there?!?!) by campaigning for her husband in Iowa (the state also being the name of this episode), but she can’t shake Eli’s confession.

Enter Ruth, who’s doing all she can to set Alicia’s mind at ease. The above quote is uttered after a poignant-yet-predictable soliloquy regarding how none of us know what life is truly about. The whole idea behind what Ruth is saying? “Yeah, think that if you heard Will’s voicemail, your life might be different, but you’re wrong. That relationship would have had problems, too. Duh. The only reason your memory is clouded is because it’s literally impossible to ever talk to him again. You guys would have found your own cliff eventually. It would have been inevitable”.

Which, in essence, is what I opined the last time one of these The Good Wife columns ran. OK, so Eli obviously shouldn’t have kept that message from Alicia. But Will and Alicia had the opportunity to run their course even after she never heard the message. And run their course, they did. By the time he was shot, those two had grown to hate each other. Why this is somehow not remembered in the spirit of maximizing a level of drama for the sake of television is becoming more and more annoying (to me) by the second.

Or, in other words, Ruth is right, Alicia. Take off those sunglasses and stop acting like a disappointed child on Christmas morning.

Fear not, though, friends, because all is never lost in The Good Wife land. “Iowa”, the seventh season’s 11th episode, is, for all intents and purposes, a throwaway hour of TV. Which, it should be said, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The wheels were becoming increasingly wobbly throughout this season’s first half, and with this week’s developments, it’s safe to assume we’re in store for a whack at the reset button as all of this moves forward.

The Great National Nightmare that has become the Peter Florrick (Chris Noth) presidential (or vice-presidential) campaign is, mercifully (seemingly) over. Iowa was a disaster. It’s Ruth’s fault (or so says Eli, who smartly acknowledges that Alicia has always been and will always be the true star of the Florrick show). Even Jackie (Mary Beth Piel), coming down from a day of bickering with fiancé Howard Lyman (Jerry Adler), has to wipe away tears as she watches the Iowa results on television.

And speaking of those results … thank god creators Robert and Michelle King, as well as the episode’s writer, Erica Shelton Kodish, opted to play this outcome realistically. The last thing The Good Wife needed was Peter finishing second in the caucus, leaving the door open for this part of the narrative — a part that, in hindsight, hasn’t exactly caught on the way you might think a presidential run would; it’s criminal how much of a non-factor Martindale has been — to extend through the rest of the season.

First, it was Eli announcing his intention to extract revenge on Peter, but that idea found a way to fade throughout the weeks. And then, it was Eli vs. Ruth, which could have been great television, but the angle never really expanded the way it felt like it should. Peter has hardly even turned up for a lot of this season thus far, presumably being busy with I-want-to-be-president-type things, and that has actually hurt Alicia as a character. She almost needs the murky, oftentimes unsettling presence of Peter to remind everyone, including herself, of how far she’s come as a lawyer, as a mother, as a woman. It’s hard to do that when the other end of that equation is doing something as demanding as running for president.

But that’s probably over now, considering how even Marty O’Malley gave the dude a beatdown in Iowa. So, what happens next? Does Peter go back to boinking a state house staffer? Did this run at the White House somehow inject a spark into the Florricks’ dysfunctional romance? Is Alicia really going to be hoisted into a national political spotlight? Will Jason (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) ever make it back from California?

These questions take a backseat to the mere prospect that the Worse Half of season seven might be over. It’s been three months and 11 episodes since there appeared to be light at the end of The Good Wife tunnel, since we’ve felt some exciting energy for what might happen next. A reset is precisely what the doctor ordered. Not only does this week’s episode inspire optimism for the rest of this season, but it also offers reason to believe that course-correcting, from a story standpoint at least, is something everyone involved with this series knows they have to do.

Thus, it must be said: let’s hope that after Iowa, this is a television series not quite ready to find its own cliff. Or, well, not yet, at least.

Approaching The Bench

Speaking of course-correcting: I have hope that the new life exhaled into the stories of Cary (Matt Czuchry) and Diane (Christine Baranski) can carry over into next week. Cary did what he needed to do in order to save the firm, but are we to believe that the move might ultimately end up splitting the Agos and Lockhart names for good? It was a tiny, nice touch to have that plot turn, thanks to something done by Cary. If The Good Wife wants a mulligan for the first 10 episodes of this season, it’s mandatory that Cary and Diane have more substantial roles, moving forward. This, hardly anyone could deny.

I hate to say it, but Alicia’s reaction to Eli was just … a little … blah? The voicemail revelation was supposed to be enough to make us all view the midseason finale as something memorable, but all we really got after nearly a month away from the show was a bunch of smashed dishes and petulance from Alicia. Even when she tried to force a cry in her room, it just didn’t feel honest. Also of note: who else was hoping Alicia would invite Jason in when he stopped over?

Zach Florrick (Graham Phillips) lives! Zach Florrick lives!

Another reason to be encouraged? The turn on David Lee (Zach Grenier). I’ve never been a fan of that character (though, to be fair, Grenier has done a tremendous job at being detestable), and his Oooops Moment with Howard Lyman and that money suggested that there may be larger repercussions for him somewhere down the line.

So, wait. What exactly was that exchange between Lucca (Cush Jumbo) and Jason about? The way they were talking, it felt like she knew him far longer than we were supposed to be led to believe. Plus, there was that weird, “I know you like to flirt with Alicia” line. I couldn’t tell if that was supposed to be in jest, or if there was something deeper to that, but a pinch in the stomach makes me want to think the latter, not the former.

Speaking of Jason, he’s not going to be phoning it in every week from California now, is he? That could get real irritating, real quick.

You know what? For the first time in its history, I thought the Jackie/Howard story had a nice, connecting moment. Her comment regarding being worried about not having enough time was touching in its own way. Can we just let those two be, now? Please? Pretty please?

Do we think that the plan all along was to end the presidential angle once the actual, real-life presidential season kicked into gear? Kind of feels like that, doesn’t it? Like, “Oh, we’re not even going to try to pretend that Peter is competing against Bernie and Hillary because we’d probably need them to do a guest spot and there’s no way in hell they’d ever do a guest spot this time of year”.

But … either way, does this mean the end of Ruth Eastman?

Crazy Prediction of the Week: Eli and Alicia end up sleeping together, Peter finds out … but only after Alicia becomes the vice-president of the United States of America.