The Good Wife - Dark Money - Review: "Filthy and Rich"

6.13 - "Dark Money"

This week, we got to see Alicia once again vie for campaign money when it seemed Prady had her on the outs, while Kalinda had to pay Bishop back for his favor. Colin Sweeney faced his doppelganger in court backed by Diane and Cary, who end up having to disprove the narrative that he killed his wife 6 years ago. 

"Who is @TobyZiegler44?"

As we return from another long break, Alicia is somehow late into the campaign run for State's Attorney. She decided almost 10 episodes ago, but given how frequent her sessions to "learn" how to be a politician are, it still feels like she's getting started. But, I digress.

After backchanneling some more with Frank Prady, she finds out that he's in contact with the incredibly wealthy Guy Redmayne, and she moves to immediately undo whatever deal Prady might have with Redmayne in order to remain in the race, as Johnny tells her that financially, she's not doing so well. (Which is odd, when your PAC is being funded by none other than Lemond Bishop?) Meanwhile, she's made aware of a robocall sent by her PAC to offend conservatives with an overdone lisping homophobic call that was smearing Prady's image. She immediately took Johnny to task and ordered him to call off the robocall through his ridiculous West Wing-themed twitter account they use to (illegally) get in touch with Alicia's PAC.

Staving off Colin Sweeney's attempts to have her in the courtroom on his most recent case of ridiculousness, Alicia prepares herself for wooing Redmayne to relieve him of his money. However, Sweeney will not be ignored, and threatens to out her source of funding to the press. So, she gives him a few moments of her time for advice in the courtroom. As per usual, she and Sweeney play off each other so well. If only it didn't feel like Colin Sweeney's character was running a bit dry on content (How many times can he really come that close to getting caught for something bad and still escape unharmed?)

"Kick that fruitcake while he's down..."

When she finally approached Redmayne, he turned out to be a CLASS ACT. And in case my italics aren't obvious enough, I mean he was more disgusting than Colin Sweeney this episode. Yeah. Not kidding.  He immediately leaned in and started touching her while she made her arguments for his support. She would deflect as much as she could with humor and with physical distance, but he kept on with his advances. However, he stated clearly that he was a fan of hers given how she was able to maintain her family values throughout her life, which was immediately juxtaposed with him calling Prady a "fag" -- multiple times. Alicia looked like she had the wind knocked out of her.

He just kept on with the touchiness, and his obviously warped definition of proper "family values" at the expense of Frank Prady's assumed sexuality. It was simultaneously unsettling and hysterical. How many times in this episode did they use the word "Fag?" That's got to be some sort of record for primetime television. It was almost comic how out of touch this man was, but in the end, Alicia was receiving his support, so she took his offer of support and got away from him.

"Right, I'm rich ... So it doesn't really matter, does it?"

"family values"

When Prady shows up to his interview with Redmayne, it was destined to only make Ed Asner's character even more loathsome, as he tried to antagonize Prady by saying sexually denigrating things about Alicia, and all the disgusting things he'd "Do to her" and he left Prady incredibly offended. He then, being a decent human being who couldn't handle that gross man's sexual rantings about Alicia Florrick, politely dismissed himself, and abandoned his pursuit of Redmayne's money. But not before he pointed out that the man was disgusting. Redmayne said, it didn't matter that he was filthy, just that he was rich.  As Prady walked out, Redmayne felt validated in his support for Alicia, as he told his daughter that of course he was right, and Prady was a "fag" because of how offended he got from their conversation. His daughter simply continued to stare at her phone, as she did the entire time she was there throughout the interviews.

Redmayne's claim to have strong support for people who represent positive family values is one of the most on-the-nose but still evocative pokes at American society the show's had in a while. Alicia's scene with him was very much to Asner's character a woman trying to earn his money by selling herself in some form, and he laid his hands on her, and told her how attractive she was, while also standing firm in his belief that she was a good wife as he was a good husband to his late wife. The irony of him creepily hitting on her, while she sat with the knowledge of her own extramarital affair weighed heavily on the scene. Seeing him outright in his bigotry to call the usually naive, but polite and well-natured Frank Prady a "fag" and using incredibly profane sexual imagery to describe Alicia... that just jolted me as a viewer.

In the last scene of the episode, Alicia was mulling over the sins of the day when her incredibly naive daughter Grace popped in and said the sweetest thing about how her mother was the best person she knew. Unable to hold back the self-disgust, Alicia started crying right in front of Grace. I found this to be a little overblown but still heartfelt. Grace can range from strangely wise to a complete buffoon on this show, although her actress does her credit. I guess that's what you should expect from a teenager, though? She accidentally knew exactly what to say to make her mother feel atrocious, that's for sure!

"All-American Mike says my dad killed my mom."

"Gimme your lunch money, punk!"

Lemond Bishop called Kalinda early in the episode to call in his favor (which she ended up not using in the first place, so what gives?) and it turned out that he needed someone to pick up Dylan from school for the next week or so. It was likely due to a "business' transaction that required his full attention for some time. So, much to her dismay, Kalinda picked up Dylan -- who remains quite a precocious and insightful boy -- and ferried him back and forth to and from school.

The first day, she noticed a Cadillac SUV following the two of them, and made note of it. When she reported to Bishop about it, he also pressed her for details about what Dylan discussed on the way home. It was never fully explained why, until one day Kalinda caught "All-American Mike" hitting Dylan in the face. After she scared the piss out of that bratty child, she took Dylan home again, only to see a Cadillac sedan following them this time. -- This aspect of the car rides is still unexplained -- perhaps Bishop knows more and will clue us all in later...But it seems as though Dylan has someone's attention that might want to hurt Bishop in some way.

When Bishop sees that Dylan has a black eye, he calls Kalinda in immediately. She plays dumb, but he loses his temper a bit, and gets scary. He tells her to leave so that he can handle it, but as she leaves, she turns around -- a fiery but frightened look on her face. However, the phone call she witnesses him making is to Mike's parents, who he asks politely to speak to their child about bullying Dylan. It's the hardest thing he'd ever done, he claims -- having the one thing, the one person in his entire life he was proud of being bullied by a "nobody" and he couldn't do more than act as a father would and talk it out like suburban parents with people of whom he had no opinion. Kalinda seemed relieved, as she expected things to play out differently.

"Call it Murder..."

I'm going to summarize the Colin Sweeney case as: Been there, done that, killed the wife. Dylan Baker brings his A-game to this episode as the magnificently slimy Colin Sweeney, and Colin, with his Wife Renata is a match made in hell (in a good way?) but they've literally had this situation played out in more than one episode...To have Renata end up being the one feeding the prosecution information -- I was disappointed... Morena Baccarin's character had already done that several seasons before... His doppelganger actor was both absolutely ridiculous (THAT HAIR? what IS that HAIR?) and somehow still funny enough to not make me change the channel. But, I think that Colin Sweeney has about 1 episode left before I'm just completely done with watching his antics. They are so overdone at this point, it is ill-fitting on this show. Similarly to other characters like Josh Perotti becoming unbelievably creepily obsessed with baby lotion, and Louis Canning showing up almost completely disabled to court, these people are becoming cartoonish, rather than hilarious-but-nuanced characters. Of course, Colin Sweeney was always over the top, but it's wearing thin at this point. Diane and Cary were barely fixtures in his case, as neither had represented him nor did they know him well enough to handle his antics. I do wonder, however, if this trend to have all the characters become more dramatized is intentional? The show has become more and more self-referential and ridiculous with the comedy in the last 2-3 years. Maybe the world of TGW is just spinning out of control and will paint the beginning of the "comedy horror political series" the Kings are currently developing?

Sidenotes:

- "I have the testicles of a 20 year-old!"
   "Where -- in your briefcase?"

- Marissa is almost always referred to as crazy, or childish, etc. but she's usually the most balanced/mature character in the scene, how interesting is that?

- So, it seems that sex scene Alicia was having in the promo last week is really going to be part of an episode-long "dream" or "inside-the-mind" episode... A lot of the footage looked like a dream, so that fits.

- Have you ever heard that word said on a primetime tv show so many times?

- Ed Asner did a damn good job of playing the most unbelievably repulsive character we've seen in The Good Wife in quite a while. 

What did you think of this week's episode? Start a discussion below in the comments!

About the Author - Wilson Crawford

Wilson is an avid fan of television, music, and the occasional video game. He enjoys well-written, thought-provoking characters and series that get better with age. Current favorites include The Good Wife and Mad Men. Past favorites include Damages, Fringe, Breaking Bad, 30 Rock, and Veronica Mars.

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