Rabbits, Blinkity

The really interesting thing about The Good Wife is that the "wife" in question wasn't ever actually that good - at least not in the way that the obvious connotation of the phrase would indicate. "Principled," or even "Pragmatic" might be a more accurate choice of word, if less provocative. Alica Florrick is, in fact, so principled that her morals wrap from "good" right back around to "evil" on a regular basis. So it was something of a relief last season when she finally hooked up with Will and threw Peter out; at the least it should have relieved her of some of her tension. And it worked! Sort of.

Alica's Nerves

On to the episode: Alicia's been having sex, and is therefore enormously pleased with herself, complete with new bangs. She gets over herself pretty quickly, though, when she manages to get her client implicated for murder, via the usual shady-sounding leading questions. Add to that her... uncomfortable relationship with Kalinda, and not wanting to be seen with Will ever. Sure enough, it's business as usual. But with unusually passionate arguing.
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"Deals. Why, they're the very foundation of civilized existence."

This was a bit unexpected. Rumpelstiltskin... blew up the token black (seriously, TV Godesses?) fairy godmother. And then made the Rapunzel deal with Cinderella in exchange for the ball ticket.

This episode was all about favors, in fact, and who owes whom. Ashley/Cinderella owes Mr. Gold her baby. Shawn owes Ashley and their child a chance at a family, complete with tiny glass slippers. Emma owes Henry time, and a whole lot of slack for annoying but right. We already know that Regina owes Gold seemingly unlimited favors. Graham owes Regina his job and possibly a sexual harassment lawsuit. And now Emma owes Mr. Gold a favor as well. Not to mention, everybody owes magic (aka life?) a favor, starting with not leaving town. As in, it literally cuts them off at the sign by crashing their car.

But nobody scares Emma, so she plants her feet, shakes Mr. Gold's hand, and takes the sheriff's job offer.
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"It was the honorable thing to do."

So Snow White is entirely modernized in this edition. Instead of creepily keeping house for dwarfs, she's robbing stagecoaches to save up for a run to the border. Until she falls in love, at least. While it's possibly not quite at first sight, it's pretty close, but the part where Prince Charming - sorry, James - permanently dumps his fiancé is left for another flashback.

My jab in the deck of this review isn't quite fair - the Manic Pixie Dream duties are actually shared between Prince Charming and Snow White fairly equally. Sure, she convinces him that his arraigned marriage isn't all that, but he convinces her that there's more to life than running. Which is a nice twist. But neither of them grow up, which is my slight gripe about this episode, and Charming/White's characterization overall: the Evil Queen, Rumpelstiltskin, et. al. are all very complicated, conflicted, and interesting. Snow is still a bit 2D - her modern incarnation is a kindergarten teacher, for goddess sake! Couldn't they be a bit less, I don't know, like fairytale characters?
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"Who will protect Henry if you won't?"

In the opener, we see that clocktower (previously frozen) is now keeping quite reasonable time. Certain people are not so happy about this, as it turns out. So does our favorite fairytale town Mayor know she's an evil queen or not? Presumably she does, unless she has some other reason for not wanting the clock to run.

Meanwhile in flashback land, we see the first big deviation from the traditional tales. Snow White, it seems did something quite nasty to the queen - something worse than simply being beautiful, at least. Which explains a lot, I suppose; people don't usually destroy the world quite that randomly. I very much like where they're taking this: thanks to a nice combination of acting and writing, she's far more sympathetic and three-dimensional than might be expected. Which, in turn, makes her far scarier than your average villain. I rather hope they don't go the full tragic route, but we'll see. Very well done thus far.
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Here is is, folks!

Main Round Group 1

Larvik
Györi AUDI ETO KC
Grupo Asfi Itxako Navarra
FC Midtjylland

This group is going to be really, really fun. Three of last year's semi finalists, all playing at least reasonably well. Midtjylland, though, isn't up to the caliber of the rest, I'm afraid they'll be hard-pressed to even get to third. Of the rest, Larvik has yet to reach last years form, and with Löke on Györi their chances seem slim without a miracle (perhaps from Larson or Blanco?). Györi and Itxako will be a battle, though, and they'll surely be the ones to advance. Short another series of brain-farts, Györi should be in the top position.

Main Round Group 2
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And it's all decided: Buducnost, Midtjylland, Larvik, Krim, Györi, Metz, Valcea, Itxako.

Metz vs. Randers (25:20)

Metz jumped out to an early 2 point lead, and looked to be on the verge of running away with the first half, but Randers stayed with it, eventually taking the lead with a nice shot from Wörz. A 7-meter throw via Ognjenovic tied the match again at 12 for the half. In the second, Metz jumped out by two again, then ran away with it to 23-15. Randers finally decided to start scoring again (after a missed break, a missed 7-meter throw, and several easy shots,) but it was too little too late.

As might be expected, Masson De Souza played very well after missing the first game, but unfortunately for Randers, Leynaud was absolutely on fire. Randers' tentative offensive play didn't help their cause either. But the game was properly won by Metz's offense; Ognjenovic and Pineau both played quality ball, while only Dalby could seem to shoot for Randers - Cuadrado in particular had a terrible day.

Thoughts:
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This kid wisely avoids listening to people on the Internet for advice about whom their role models should be.

Over at the Good Men Project, Justin Cascio tries to ask "Are the Kids All Right?", but manages to make it all about teh menz, as per usual.

Cascio posits that Lisa Cholodenko's film "The Kids are All Right," contains a tragedy of sorts, in the form of the character Paul. That he missed a chance to have a parental role with the kids, Laser and Joni, that his own lack of family is dysfunctional, and that this represents a loss in society.

Read More...With all due respect to my friend, this is bullshit. Let's talk.

Grupo Asfi Itxako Navarra vs. Dinamo Volgograd (28:25)

Itxako fell behind at the very beginning due mainly to sloppy play, but some good shooting and a 7-meter throw from Martín evened things out. After that, an unusual number of 2-minute penalties for Volgograd let Itxako push ahead. Being bigger isn't always better.

Speaking of which, a general observation: what is it with handball players and the hands up, "wasn't me!" gesture? I mean in, say, basketball, it makes at least a bit of sense; it's supposed to be minimal contact, and a simple swipe on the arm is a foul, but can also be hard to see. Handball allows blocking, everyone saw you grab her by the shoulders and throw her onto the floor, so just own up to it, mkay?
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