S01.E09: Sweeney Agonistes

[formerlyfreedom]

Diane and Adrian find themselves involved in another police brutality case, this time representing a surprising but familiar face, Colin Sweeney. Lucca represents Maia for her interview with the federal investigator seeking information on the Rindell scandal.

[Noreaster]

Okay episode.  I like Colin Sweeney but the character does feel like it's missing a little something without his weird obsession with Alicia.  The Maia storyline doesn't quite make sense to me.  The FBI agent (or lawyer?) trying to trap Maia in lies is weird.  There really isn't evidence that Maia knew about the Ponzi scheme.  I understand wanting to charge her for her involvement with the Rindell fund but the questioning was not compelling.  

[dippydee]

Jane Lynch's character was giving me Elsbeth-lite vibes and I have to say Elsbeth does it better. 

I actually felt pretty bad for Maia for once, but Id like to see her do something other than look distressed for once. Her family is terrible but they've been terrible for 9 weeks now and she needs to move on from the shocked gasp/sad face stage. 

I always like Sweeney but he was always best with Alicia. He just doesn't have the same chemistry with Diane. Still I did enjoy Diane and Adrian kicking some ass.

[fivestone]

This episode was really meh. Maybe it was intentional, to set us up to be even more wowed by a thrilling episode next week.

[orza]

Maia is annoying. She is 26, but looks older and acts too much like a helpless little girl. If she was smart enough to get through law school why was she acting like a clueless dummy. Her story line is also boring. I'm beginning to think she is just a plot device to feature the actors portraying her parents and uncle.

[themadman]

This Maia arc needs to end. It's boring me to tears. It's one of those things that should have been wrapped up in 4-5 episodes but has now gone on for 9 and is still not done. 

Incidentally, Rose Leslie is 30 in real life playing 26. Is that a typical age for graduating from law school in the US? Agree that for a lawyer, she is acting way too clueless.

[CrashTextDummie]

Totally unbelievable episode. Alicia would never refuse to take on a Colin Sweeney case!

I was fairly impressed by Rose Leslie's portrayal of a teenaged version of herself.

What happened to her other lawyer? Couldn't shake the feeling that Luca was only there because otherwise they wouldn't have had anything for CJ to do in this episode.

I liked it well enough.

[orza]

18 minutes ago, themadman said:

Incidentally, Rose Leslie is 30 in real life playing 26. Is that a typical age for graduating from law school in the US? Agree that for a lawyer, she is acting way too clueless.

25 or 26 is the typical age for first-year lawyers who went to law school right out of college. I think Rose Leslie looks older than 30 because her face is gaunt and she has those lines around her mouth that age her, so playing a clueless, immature 26 year old is not working.

[wendyg]

I think the bigger problem is that her character is under-developed. We're supposed to feel bad for her because she's been betrayed by both her parents and her uncle, and she's in a mess of trouble not of her own making (beyond trusting her parents), but we don't have much *other* reason to root for her. We don't see her producing insights that help solve cases, we don't see her supporting her partner at home, and we don't have much sense of what she herself is like other than "victim", and that's not enough.

The very first thing that made THE GOOD WIFE compelling to me was Alicia slapping Peter in that back hallway after the press conference. It was the sort of fight back you always hoped some of those harried women supporting their erring husbands would make, and I thought, OK, her I'll follow anywhere. Somehow, that moment got to the root of an interesting character: someone being beaten up by life who had the anger to fight back.

Here, they seem to be relying too much on sketching in circumstance and hoping that will do the job. Goes not only for Maia but also Diane and Lucca. Barbara is a hugely wasted opportunity so far.

[Ms Blue Jay]

I don't like Rose Leslie's acting style. The shaking and stammering, it's way too overdone for me.  She's cute though; I like her hair.

[riprock]

I was a little confused by the flashback device while Maia was being interviewed. We're supposed to think that Maia is reclaiming her memories, but then the Jane Lynch character points out that much of what Maia is saying isn't true. So what are the flashbacks for? There's no in-episode explanation. And I give this show more credit than to use flashbacks as expositional tools. There's too many times on this show and on TGW when we've needed to suss out whether a character is telling the truth or not. 

Hopefully the season finale is satisfying, because there's not much momentum from any of the storylines. 

They haven't done any new character development (Adrian, Barbara, Maia, Lucca), and I think the window may be closing. 

[auntiemel]

Yeah, that's not that's how Queen for a Day deals work. The agent who questions you can't throw it out because they don't get the "sense" you're telling the truth. They also can't throw it out because the date you remember your Mom taking you to the gyno 9 years ago when you were 17 doesn't match what's in your mom's datebook.

If those deals were that tenuous, they wouldn't amount to much. The point of them is to give real protection against consequences so the person being questioned can speak freely. If the protection was as thin as you actually needing to "convince" the agent you're sincere or the deal goes out the window, no one would take them.

They can only break the deal if you lie about something, and they can prove two elements with cold, hard facts: 1) what you said wasn't true, and 2) you knew it wasn't true.

An exchange like the agent asking her about her emotional motivation for not telling her dad about her partner's parents' money, her answering, and the agent just deciding she's lying about her own feelings? Umm....yeah. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works!

[NutMeg]

I did like the Maia part of this episode because we got to see her realize that whether she was consciously aware of if or not, she had unconsciously registered facts that fit with her new reality but that she had dismissed at the time as just "noise" because they didn't fit the reality as she knew it. (It actually reminds me of Big Little Lies, where a victim of domestic violence is adamant that she is no victim of such while deep down she knows she is.) I thought that was fascinating, because more often than not we all interpret facts to fit the reality that we know, unless they are so outrageous that we just cannot do it. And it makes sense that she wants to see her loving parents as in the good, so she minimises anything that doesn't fit with that image.

But now I'm starting to wonder why uncle Jax introduced Amy to her and whether there was a nefarious purpose behind all that. 

Oh, and otherwise, I very much like the rapport that Adrian and Diane are building up too - shades of Will/Diane, but even better somehow! 

[Ladybyrd]

This is maybe a weird nitpick, but I wish either Maia or Amy were played by a gay actress (or, at least, someone better at playing gay.) They both seem straight to me, and it doesn't make for compelling chemistry.

I wish also that I found Maia more compelling. She's mostly been just a scared little girl, without much strength or humor. And yes, this makes some sense given the character's ordeal. Maia is having a really crappy year. But I still just don't care very much.

Was happy to see Colin Sweeney, and enjoyed Jane Lynch. I hope they figure out how to better use Bernadette Peters. I've always loved her tv appearances (ugly betty, grey's). I think we haven't seen her full potential yet on TGF.

[stonehaven]

The teenager in me "Woohooed" over Mark Linn Baker as the judge....that man delights me every time he's on screen..and reminds me of my younger crush on him....So, for me, that made the episode a winner for me..everything else..not a bad way to pass an hour...

[Mabel]

I am not sure how sequels/spin-offs should be made but this feels distinctly like Good Wife 2.0 - rehashing the same scenes / characters / antics / mannerisms. same old, same old. it's entertaining, sure, but somewhat lacking. In The Good Wife all storylines were anchored around Alicia, and even though she became truly unlikeable in the later seasons, there was a sense of coherence and purpose. I don't see it in The Good Fight - it's so disjointed and all over the place. Maia's storyline is very loosely connected (if at all) to the cases-of-the-week. It's annoying. and Maia is not strong enough to carry the show like Alicia did.

bottom line: less Maia, more Diane. the show should stop building on The Good Wife and venture into some new territory.

[love2lovebadtv]

On 4/14/2017 at 11:05 AM, stonehaven said:

The teenager in me "Woohooed" over Mark Linn Baker as the judge....that man delights me every time he's on screen..and reminds me of my younger crush on him....So, for me, that made the episode a winner for me..everything else..not a bad way to pass an hour...

Cousin Larry! 

[John Potts]

OK, how stupid is Maia supposed to be? If you're in ANY situation where you're being questioned by the authorities, you don't let them inveigle you into perjuring yourself with vague questions about events that happened years ago, you insist that they ask you exact questions about specific events - and if necessary, you respond with, "I don't have any clear recollection of that." I understand that she doesn't want her parents to go to prison, but getting herself locked up trying to protect them is not going to help. And she's meant to be a lawyer! As for not wanting to invest her girlfriend's money, how about, "I thought they should be investing in something lower risk" - I wish the show would stop pretending that it was the ONLY fund that was worth investing in!

Also (and feel free to chalk this up to me being a clueless single man!) but just how many OB/GYN visits does a rich teenager typically make if it's being use as cover for a affair? It looked like she was visiting the clinic every month, which seems excessive unless she's either trying to get pregnant (unlikely) or being treated for an STD (not impossible, I guess).

Colin Sweeney is at least amusing, though I can't imagine why they thought he might be prepared to testify on the firm's behalf in a civil suit - Diane KNOWS he's only interested in himself and isn't going to appear in court just to help her (or her firm).

[Hanahope]

Yeah, I think its a bit bullshit to harp on Maia over her recollection and 'sense" of events that occurred 6-7 years ago, before Maia had explicit knowledge of the ponzi scheme.  Even if she had a "sense" that there was a problem (i.e. when she overheard something about the SEC), what young adult is going to understand what that meant and suddenly jump to the conclusion that her parents were running a ponzi scheme?  That's just so far fetched.  And what was Maia supposed to do about it anyway?  Who would really believe her if she told someone (who?) omg, my parent's fund has some sort of SEC problem,  There must be a crime!  Maybe she was a bit too naive, but what kid doesn't trust their parents?