'The Good Wife': Meow? Alicia comes face to face with Amber

Ladies and gentleman, meet Amber Madison.  This week brought a number of special guest stars to "The Good Wife," not all of them welcome — especially not the aforementioned Ms. Madison.  After months of hearing her name — and her filthy phone calls with Peter — Alicia finally comes face to face with her husband’s favorite call girl. If you were hoping for a cat fight, then you were probably disappointed.

Madison has not been taking the high road, even for a publicly disgraced prostitute.  She’s been hitting the talk shows — Chelsea Handler makes an appearance as herself in this episode — to promote her upcoming book and to dish the dirt on Peter, and she portrays Alicia as a cold fish who all but forced her husband into an affair.  The trash talking makes its way back to Alicia, and she is understandably livid.  She lays down the law and tells Peter, in no uncertain terms, to get Amber to put a cork in it.  I appreciated the fact that Alicia wouldn’t say Amber’s name, only referring to her as “your prostitute.”  It was clinical and cutting at the same time. 

Here’s where things get, well, a little creepy.  Peter, for once, follows Alicia’s orders and meets with Amber and his lawyer, Daniel Golden (Joe Morton).  They tell Amber that if she doesn’t stop talking, they’re going to spill some dirt on one of Amber’s other clients — who’s some kind of gangster.  They don’t directly threaten her with physical violence, but they come pretty close.  Call me old-fashioned, but I thought it was maybe a tad unethical. Nobody likes Amber, but threatening to out her connection to a gangster -- and possibly endanger her life -- is pushing it. 

Apparently, Amber feels the same way, and she confronts Alicia with this information.  Alicia, poised as ever, completely ignores Amber, gets in her car, goes to Peter, plants a kiss on him and leaves without saying a word.  It was pretty shocking and, like Peter, I was left speechless.  Could it be that Alicia was turned on by Peter’s thuggish threats?  God, I hope not, but how else are we to read this scene?  Someone, please explain.

On the homefront, Alicia has to deal with some icky adolescent drama.  Her son, Zach, has a “friend” over for a study date, and a meddling grandma tells Alicia all about it.   Alicia is upset to discover that the friend is a junior (the horror!).  I was disturbed to discover that she looked like a young Rose McGowan and that she seemed to be turned on by Peter’s extremely public indiscretions, as if Zach is a freak by proxy. The young Ms. McGowan does make one pretty astute suggestion, telling Zach the best way to freak out his mom is to play a CD containing some sort of Muslim chanting.  To her credit, Alicia seems more freaked out by Zach’s new study date than by his phony religious exploration, and she moves his computer to the living room. 

At work, things aren’t much easier.  Alicia has to defend her own boss, the elusive third partner Jonas Stern (Kevin Conway), on a DUI offense.  Stern looks a little like Phil Spector, and he behaves about as well. Naturally, the super-astute Alicia gets the case dismissed, and assisted by the super-sneaky Kalinda, she also discovers that Stern is suffering from dementia. She urges him to come clean about his ailment, but he’s not having it. In fact, he decides he wants to start his own firm, and he pressures Alicia to come with him — she’s that much of a commodity. When Alicia politely declines the offer, Stern applies some pressure — and things get decidedly more interesting. He tells Alicia that Peter was set up, that “a lot of people made a bad bet and now they’re covering their ass.” He also says he’s never going to let Peter out of prison.  Warms the heart, doesn’t it?

So, to put it mildly, our heroine has a lot of decisions to make these days.  Should she stay at the firm as a show of loyalty to Will, who kindly gave her a job when she was in need?  Or should she follow Stern in hopes of exonerating her husband and reuniting her family?  And should she be quite so worried that her son is studying with a junior?  What do you think?

-- Meredith Blake

Related:

Standing by her man

'The Good Wife': Alicia takes the stand

'The Good Wife':  How Alicia almost got her groove back

Friday scandal update: From Spitzer to Ensign to Sanford to Edwards

Photo: Amber Madison (Kim Shaw) confronts cold fish Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies). Credit: Jeffrey Neira / CBS

Comments

[M.]

Hi.

I was really dissappointed with CBS allowing the Muslim Prayer Call (Azaan) to be aired in such a negative context.

The prayer call is announced 5 times a day from mosques to call Muslims for their 5 daily prayers. All it means is 'God is great'. Let me know if there is anything rebellious about that.

While the 'freaking out' aspect is probably close to reality - people may not be familiar with it if they haven't travelled in a Muslim country - but must you really encourage the 'freakish' image of Islam and Muslims on TV? I think we have other channels who are doing a good enough job regarding that.

Full disclosure - I'm a Muslim, and this was such a favorite show of mine. I feel upset that they had to go in such a ignorant and disrespectful direction with religion.

Moving on, Alicia's kissing Peter was really shocking - is she forgiving him? I'm not sure if I want her to forgive him. But then I feel badly for the kids.

[Tom K Mason]

"Could it be that Alicia was turned on by Peter’s thuggish threats? God, I hope not, but how else are we to read this scene? Someone, please explain."

I saw it differently. Alicia was already on her way to kiss Peter based on her conversation with Jonas about Peter being "set up." Knowing how sharp/intelligent/plugged in she believes Jonas to be, I think the kiss was to confirm to Peter that she believes in him. The conversation with Amber in the parking garage was a side-issue, irrelevant to her decision to go kiss Peter.

[Lori]

I took it as a little bit of both of what you and what Tom K. Mason mentioned -- to me finding from Stern that her husband was set-up and then soon discovering that he effectively shut down Amber (without realizing or caring? about the details) led to the kiss. I think if she knew how Peter did it, she would be appalled, but because she does want to believe in him on some level, the Amber ambush probably upped the passion of her response to Peter after hearing he was wronged .

As for M.'s disappointment with the use of the Muslim Prayer Call, I feel the joke is on closed minded individuals like the grandmother who immediately suggested to Alicia that she should take the kids to church more. No one else in the family was at all freaked out. Alicia was simply exasperated that Zach was pissed and playing the cd at an overtly high volume to annoy her.

[Jayne]

I love this show. The conspiracy against Peter Florick is a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, and it drives the show! One scene rang false - I don't see how Peter could have a face to face conversation with Amber Madison. That seems like blatant witness tampering. The role of Peter Florick is meaty and it's nice to see what Chris Noth does with it. The thret scene could have been easy handled with Kalinda as the 'enforcer'. In fact, when she offered to talk to Amber, I was really hoping Alicia would say yes, because that would be some great dialogue!

Amber Madison - now there's a porn star's name. I suspect Grandma's dump of the pictures will come back to bite the family. I'm also suspicious of the Junior visiting Zach, she seems like a budding fame whore and could make life miserable later.

I'm interested to see where Stern's new firm takes the story line. I adore Josh Charles, but I think we're going to see the ugly side of a firm's break up soon. He and Alicia won't always be on the same page, though I'm rooting for them to get together.

I didn't see any previews for next week, so I assume the show is on hiatus until January. Can anyone confirm?

[erica stephens]

WEll she opened the series showing a bit of spunk and a tiney bit of personality,come on,the woman walks around like a zombie,I can,t stand that James Dean school of acting.A little less emoting and a little more dialogue would suit me.As for the kiss,I thought it out of character for the zombie.

[Jason]

The Good Wife returns Dec. 8.

http://www.tv.com/the-good-wife/show/76761/episode.html?q=the%20good%20wife&tag=search_results;eps;1

[M.B.]

Stern didnt say he himself would never Peter out of prison; he said they would never let him out of prison referring to the people who made bad bets. He may or may not have be part of that group, but he does not explicitly state so in the episode.

Also, logically speaking, Peter is not in the position to remind the world of his connection to Amber since he is trying to build back his political career. The point was to shut her up with blackmail, which is probably unethical, but not phsyically harmful. The threats were simply to scare her, and Alicia seems to be aware of that, and I think she was relieved that he chose her over Amber (now we just have to see if she even wants him anymore).