My good friend, Mr Anonymous (aka Barry), raved on at me for months about this tv series so I decided to give the new season a try and started with the second episode as he'd forgotten to tell me it was starting again. It seemed quite interesting but obviously I was missing a lot of nuances so I decided to pick up the DVD.
And I watched the entire thing in a week.
Initially, it seemed a little bit formulaic -new case to win, more revelations about her imprisoned husband (for corruption) and his extra-marital affairs, new eccentric judge -but while it never did really vary much from this formula, I stopped caring because on the whole the show was just too damn good in every other respect. This is down simply to good writing, involving characters, and a damn fine cast of actors firing on all cylinders.
Julianna Margulies (Alicia Florrick) is a revelation as the main character: she's very self-controlled, trying to keep her family together (she has a teenage son and daughter), trying to decide her feelings for her estranged husband and for her new boss (who is an old friend), trying to do a good job as a lawyer and beat off competition for a permanent post from a confident younger man, and more.
Josh Charles (Will Gardner) is an actor I've never come across but he's terrific as one of the (financially vulnerable) firm's three partners. Overtly charming, you're never sure if he's genuinely nice or wearinga false face. Is his interest in Alicia genuine or opportunistic. Christine Baranski (always good value) is the second partner (the third is mostly absent) and less than altruistic.
Chris Noth (Peter Florrick) is appropriately charismatic as the disgraced and imprisoned D.A. but again his motives are always suspect. Is he innocent of corruption, has he repented his liaisons with prostitutes, does he genuinely love his wife, etc?
And then as the firm's investigator Kalinda, there's Archie Panjabi an Anglo-Asian actress whom I was vaguely familiar with but can now state I think she's brilliant. And hotter than hell. Her character is intensely private, strong, cynical, with lots of contacts. Her sexuality is a matter for much speculation (particularly in the lesbians in the media website AfterEllen). Panjabi steals scene after scene and well deserved her Emmy for Best Supporting Actress.
Here she is in a scene with Chris Noth and Joe Morton. Look at her body language -both men are very strong characters and Kalinda isn't the slightest bit intimidated.
I could go on listing the various other key characters and how good the actors are but that would get boring. Suffice to say that the rest of the cast is uniformly strong. Alan Cumming arrives late in the series, but to good effect, as Peter Florrick's new manager.
This is a genuinely rivetting show packed with characters whose motives and allegiances are uncertain, a murky swamp that the vulnerable heroine has to negotiate in more ways than one. The various crimes/trials themsemselves are always interesting and, again, often morally ambiguous. One minor quibble is that the law firm tends to be on the side of good a little too often for plausibility and they also win a little too often. But despite that I really do highly recommend this show.
Oh, and here's a picture of Kalinda with, perhaps, her object of desire, FBI agent Jill Flint. And in the scene that this is taken from it becomes clear that Kalinda is most definitely Flint's.
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