BWW Recap: It's A New Wife On THE GOOD WIFE Premiere

Alicia Florrick is back. Really back. And not just Season 7 premiere back, either. She's back to basics. Back to where she came from. Back to being the good, good wife.

Kind of.

She tried to steal an election. Where else would she go?

Season 7 of THE GOOD WIFE begins with Alicia Florrick handling - or attempting to handle - a case every 90 seconds, which seems to be standard practice in bond court. Bond court is fast, and a little bit furious (Judge Schakowsky), and everybody except Alicia seems to know how it works, including the petty criminals Alicia hopes to represent, all for their $135 per case.

For any other woman, falling this far from grace - losing her firm, losing her bid for State's Attorney, losing her reputation, or rather gaining it back in all the wrong ways - being sent to the back row would be enough to make them flee the building. But Alicia Florrick was made for this stuff. She always did best when she had to prove herself, when she could surprise people by proving she was one of them, or better than them in ways they hadn't yet considered.

So that's what she does all over again. It's Season 1 Alicia Florrick, with a hell of a lot more experience, and a lot less patience for those who get in her way. She soon challenges Judge Schakowsky, whose desire for alacrity causes him to wilfully ignore her when handing out those $135 cases, and before long she makes a nearly-friend of Lucca, a capable, fast bond attorney already in good favor with the Judge.

With Lucca's help, she almost gets the hang of her new job by the end of it, too. Despite having a regular Alicia Florrick case to manage on the side, involving an $8 million Chagall sketch. And despite continuously fending off the professional advances of Louis Canning, who wants her to join him in representing Tobacco companies and Big Pharma, instead of fighting the good fight from the bond trenches.

Alicia doesn't want to dance with the devil, even if she kind of likes this particular devil, so she turns Canning down yet again. For now. If he keeps handing her $8 million clients, like he did tonight, some dancing may eventually be had, don't you think?

They need to make you a wife again.

Alicia's not the only one with a new gig in tonight's episode. Grace has clearly done some growing up over the summer, and she's now Alicia's at-home paralegal, helping her mother research her first big solo case, and fielding fake phone calls like a pro. It's Grace, as we've never seen her before. It's Grace, likeable. There wasn't a scene I didn't want her to be in.

Then there's Eli, tonight's player of the match. Peter fired him. Peter fired him. After getting the green light from Alicia to campaign for Vice President, Peter hires national election expert Ruth(less) Eastman, the woman Eli was initially trying to woo on the Governor's behalf. When Eli realises that fellow finger-clicker Ruth has already been hired to replace him, he delivers a truly beautiful speech to Peter about narcissism, and banging all the wrong people, and loyalty, and I basically said "Yes!" the whole time, because I have never liked Peter Florrick, and without Eli, I like him even less.

After making his speech, Eli retreats to his horror movies (we've seen this stress mechanism before, so we know it's serious) and appears to have no more schemes left in him. Until he gets a brain wave, and a cool hair cut, and approaches Alicia with an offer to be her chief of staff in preparation for Peter's next political move. By Eli's reasoning, he can get between her and the desires of Ruth, who already wants to frame Alicia as the good wife, standing dutifully at Peter's side once again.

Alicia may be back at her beginning, but she doesn't want to play that role again. So she hires Eli to prevent such a 'rehabilitation'. And, one would imagine, to stick it to her disloyal husband, just a little.

Eli's going to help her as yet another political season begins. He may also end up helping Peter along the way - but this, he hasn't yet decided. Unlike his old boss, Eli knows where his loyalty lies.

I'm not sure they'll like the real me.

We're not even an hour in, and we've got new roles for Alicia, Grace, Eli and Veep-wannabe, Peter.

With all that change, some people were bound to stay the same. Though some might find Cary and Diane more stuck than anything else right now. Everyone in their firm has inexplicably aged into their Howard years, and they've lost a fair few of their biggest clients. There is a lot of staring at the wall, for Cary in particular (and a few stares at short skirts, but we'll let that slide for now). One gets the sense that both Cary and Diane wonder whether they've made the right choice in capitulating to mega client R.D's requirement to dump Alicia. One also wonders what the Kings are going to do with these two, now that both characters have been isolated from the title character.

I hope they don't get left alone too long.

Tonight, Lockhart, Agos and Lee are brought into Alicia's world by virtue of the case of the week, involving that $8 million Chagall. With Alicia's old firm as opposing counsel, both sides know each other's tricks too well. They try to outwit each other by presenting more and more specialised experts - think adhesives, industrial suction, and Roombas - much to the bemusement of my new favorite judge, whose name I don't recall, because she was played by Jane Curtin (Jane Curtin!).

This case of the week is amusing enough, but its main purpose is clearly to advance the Lucca/Alicia plot. When Alicia is held up in bond court after covering Lucca's clients, Lucca returns the favor by covering Alicia in the Chagall case. Because this is THE GOOD WIFE, and people know really random things at just the right time, Lucca pulls out an important fact about inheritance limits ($20K if you are a caretaker, just so you know), immediately trouncing any expert witness that came before her.

Grateful for her help, Alicia takes Lucca out to a bar. Lest we get too excited, our new nearly-friend for Alicia orders a beer, and then heads straight to the dance floor, leaving Alicia alone with her drink (er ... is that a Millennials thing? Don't you at least finish the beer?). Alicia doesn't stay alone for long though, because Canning pops back up, after following her from the courthouse.

He still wants THE GOOD WIFE, and he's not giving up on her.

After this first hour, I still want THE GOOD WIFE. If this were a brand new show, I'd love it already - and in a way it is a new show. A good, good new show about a character we already like, a lot. Especially as we get to see more of who she really is.

Next week Jeffrey Dean Morgan joins the cast. Will you be tuning in to see his debut? Are you as happy as I am to have THE GOOD WIFE back?

Photo Credit: CBS

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