Of my many issues with Ringer (the laughable special effects, the meandering plotline), my biggest beef with the now-canceled series is that, except for one too-brief appearance last spring, it kept Mike Colter away from The Good Wife. Colter returned as complex bad guy Lemond Bishop in “Waiting for the Knock.”
The show opened with Bishop preparing lunch for his son. The scene provided viewers with the domestic side of the drug kingpin. The whole “this mega criminal is also a father who is upset that no one is coming to his son’s birthday party” was a little heavy-handed, but Bishop remains a fascinating character who defies the customary TV stereotype. Now that Colter is free of Ringer, perhaps he’ll be able to spend even more time on the show.
Bishop’s accountant has been arrested, and he calls in the lawyers he uses for his legitimate businesses (that’s Lockhart Gardner) and the lawyers he uses for his illegitimate businesses (guest star Annabella Sciorra). Surprisingly Sciorra didn’t have much to do in this episode. Maybe her appearance is laying the foundation for future episodes.
While Alicia and Diane try to sort out Bishop’s mess, The Good Wife experienced an hour that was similar an episode of 24—a lot happened in one day. The action kept going back to the Democratic straw poll. If you thought too much about the timeline, it didn’t make any sense. There was no logical way all that happened could have taken place in a less than 24-hour period.
Eli is desperately trying to stop a blogger from going live with a post about a national magazine not running the story of Peter’s alleged affair. When Eli can’t get ahold of Diane, he asks Will to threaten the blogger with a cease and desist order. The blogger isn’t fazed by threats of lawsuits. I’m intrigued that the Indira Starr story has yet to go away. Maybe Indira isn’t lying? Maybe she did sleep with Peter and then embellished the facts? The show certainly has laid the foundation for viewers to doubt Peter.
When Peter finds out that Eli went to Will for help, he tells Eli, “Don’t do that Eli. Don’t have Will do anything for me.” I’m still waiting for the Eli/Will showdown. There is so much between the two men that needs to be said.
The mysterious Maddie Hayward (Maura Tierney) also returned. She’s upset with Eli that the Indira story is out since it reflects poorly on her. She meets with Indira (viewers don’t get to see what they talked about), pulls her money from the campaign and calls Alicia to tell her she hopes they can still be friends. So obviously, as we have long suspected, Maddie is up to something. Is she working with Indira? I’m beginning to think so.
Cary finally had more to do. (As a side note, I loved the casual Cary Saturday look). He teamed up Clarke, the firm’s court appointed trustee, to find the accounting discrepancies in Bishop’s books. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a boring storyline for both characters. The drama still hasn’t figured out the best way to use guest star Nathan Lane. I’m simply not that invested in Clarke.
In interviews last week, The Good Wife showrunners conceded that the Kalinda/Nick story arc wasn’t working. They have heard the fan outcry and plan to wrap up all this nonsense early. Phew! Maybe the knowledge that it will all be over soon made the storyline more tolerable, or maybe it’s because the show has already started to course correct. Kalinda was back to investigating, and no food products were involved in her scenes with Nick.
Viewers were provided with some insight as to why Nick is still lingering around. It’s not merely about the money Kalinda stole from him. “I can’t love anyone else, alright. I’ve tried. You are in my head,” he tells her. So that’s Nick’s part of the story. But what’s Kalinda’s? Before Nick goes away, I would love to understand what their relationship was all about and why she married him in the first place. But mostly I just want Nick to go away.
Programming note about next week’s (Nov. 4) episode: Once again due to an NFL game, The Good Wife will air at 9:30 p.m. EST, 8:30 p.m. CST and 9 p.m. PST.