‘The Good Wife’ season 7, episode 12 review: Matthew Lillard returns; Alicia’s offer
It is easy for us to say that we are thrilled with “The Good Wife” Sunday night, starting with one simple observation: We have always been an enormous fan of the great Matthew Lillard. He was magnificent on “The Bridge,” and he has been great through two appearances now as singer Rowby Canton … even if the case tonight did not go according to plan.
Canton was at war with his former record company, who was trying to claim ownership of his latest song by claiming that it fell within the threshold of when he was under contract with them. He was able to win this battle, but they were able to make another strike against him by claiming that it was similar to another song and he was effectively stealing with it. Given that Rowby seems to be at this point in his life a fairly nice guy, this was a bummer to see him hosed like that in court … even though we do presume that he will find a way to figure all of this out.
The one thing that made this story even more delightful to us was the weird / wonderful relationship that we saw spawned between Rowby and Lucca Quinn, who has a certain attraction for artistic types. She briefly became Rowby’s new muse, and they had a nice moment together … at least before she “returned to reality,” where she knew that such a perfect coupling would be impossible. It showed off a sweet side to this character, and this is part of the nice picture that Cush Jumbo has created of her.
In the midst of speaking about the greatness of this particular case, it is easy to ignore the other key events that happened in this episode: Alicia fired her own daughter so that she could focus on other things, despite her managing to keep her from getting evicted for operating an office at home. Meanwhile, Cary has presented both Alicia and Quinn an opportunity to Lockard, Agos, & Lee, offering her a chance to work with some old clients and have more power than she does at her small firm. This is the cliffhanger that will stick with us until the show returns in two weeks, and we have to say it’s a rather great one. Grade: A-.