BWW Recap: In Any Other World on THE GOOD WIFE

Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in ...

I feel like when it comes to 'Iowa', Alicia has finally kicked off her shoes. In tonight's opening minutes, there is a shot of her slipper-clad feet, right before she takes a stack of plates and throws them at Eli's head, that makes me think about her being closer to the ground now, more real. The rage that comes after, the attacking Eli, and the sobbing in her bedroom, that's all so real, too.

So felt.

We always used to wonder what Alicia Florrick was feeling.

Tonight we see how Eli's revelation about deleting Will's declaration of love is essentially the straw that breaks our good wife's back - if her back is the pretence that all is okay in her world. In the aftermath of Eli's confession about the voice-mail, Alicia seems ready to finally face just how unhappy she is. An unhappy wife. An unhappy lawyer. An unhappy lover. And all that drinking and eye rolling we see, all the sport she makes of trolling Peter's campaign, has been a great, distracting lie. She's not into any of it. She's not the good wife. She's not Saint Alicia. She's not anything they need her to be.

Seems like now, she's given herself permission to drop all those roles inflicted on her and just be ... well, miserable about her fork in the road, and the cliff that she's come to.

Smile like you mean it

Except, well, she doesn't get to do that. Alicia Florrick is still the wife of a man running for president, and she still has to get on the bus to Iowa for the Iowa Caucus, even if it's a shoes-off, shades-on affair. She might be devastated, and she might want to hide behind Jane Eyre and loud music, but there's a campaign to be lost, and she's required to be a part of it.

Did we ever really believe Peter could be president? Was that Ruth Eastman's idea? Was it some twisted anti-idea of Eli's, one he made Ruth think was hers? I can't remember. I do remember it all seeming implausible until the real-life Republican presidential hopefuls stepped up last year, and I conceded that the narcissistic Peter Florrick would fit right in. Anyway, it's irrelevant now because Peter's team over-reached; they should have stayed on the VP trail. Despite having his very own number one fan, and despite some pretty favorable press coverage as he tours around Iowa in a day, Peter loses tonight - maybe for the first time in his life.

Fans are divided about political story lines on THE GOOD WIFE. I don't mind them, especially in an election year. It never hurts to poke some holes in the pageantry of it all. I find the political machine as interesting as any case of the week, and I'm all for an episode that both keeps the extraordinary Alan Cumming busy, and brings back Zach. But Peter losing so resoundingly tonight feels like an incomplete story, like a bait and switch with only half the switch revealed.

Is this the end for Peter Florrick? Was that the point of his defeat?

In any other world

It might be the end of his marriage, at least. Sure, Alicia rallies from her muted despair when she realises Peter really needs her help. But she also displays a strange, oddly contented smile whenever something goes wrong (never spit out the sandwich, Peter!). She also has less than a single care left for the capers of her mother-in-law Jackie, who is about to marry Howard.

(She might care later though, when she finds out David Lee siphoned off more than two million dollars to keep her from getting the exit package she deserved. Is this money issue going to come back around? How much of that two million should have gone to the oft-struggling Alicia Florrick?)

The thing is, there was a yes she didn't say way back when. Back when she was sitting in seat 35L at Georgetown, and a young man offered her a life. If Peter had been successful in this latest campaign of his, that yes might have faded in the glare of all that was to come. But Peter came in 4th in Iowa.

He lost.

Alicia doesn't have to be his good wife anymore.

Has the timing of Eli's confession finally enabled Alicia Florrick to begin the process of letting her husband go?

Let yourself let go

We'll see, won't we. We'll sit through more episodes like this one, with its brilliant parts, and its middling parts (sorry, I know Cary pulled a swifty on Howard, and there was a sub-sub story that dealt with the important issue of diversity hiring, but you can't start an episode like that and then head off with other people). We'll hold on, won't we. Till the Kings get us to whatever fork, whatever cliff they have always had waiting for Alicia Florrick.

I can feel the end coming, can't you? Alicia has kicked off her shoes. Now we get to see how far she'll let herself go ...

Sidebar: After all the focus on lost love and lost dreams tonight, there was something kind of beautiful about Jackie and Howard's heads together moment at the end of the episode. A little reminder, surely, that dreams can find you at any age.

P.S. I miss Will, too.

Image Credit: CBS

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