This Week's Top Three (Monday, 3/18/13 through Sunday, 3/24/13)

As The Walking Dead winds toward what will likely be a great finale next week, it just missed the cut in this week's top three, despite being strong yet again. It will be interesting to see the viewership numbers next week for The Walking Dead Season 3 finale going up against Game of Thrones Season 3 premier.
But, for now, this week belongs to a few other shows that are having really solid, if not stellar, seasons so far.


3. Spartacus: War of the Damned, Episode 8, Separate Paths. Outside of the Season 1 Finale "Kill Them All," this was by far the best episode of this show's entire run. It is tough watching a show knowing that there is a bitter end for all of the characters you love most, so it is important for the writer's to make that end seem worthwhile. For Crixus (Manu Bennett) and his band of men, we were given quite the fitting end. It was gut-wrenching television to show the break of Spartacus and his men and Crixus' group, because it was immediately made clear where this episode would be heading. I definitely could have went without the overdone rape-scene between Caesar (Todd Lasance) and Tiberius (Christian Antidormi), which distracted from the ending of Crixus and the capture of his womn, Naevia (Cynthia Addai-Robinson). All in all, this episode shows how focused the writing has been for the final season of what has been a good show. I am looking forward to the final two episodes.

2. House of Lies, Episode 10, All In. Quite simply, House of Lies has been great television this season. After an opening season that was solely focused on getting picked up for a second season, it is clear that the writers and top brass have been given a little more freedom and it has produced week after week of excellent character development while remaining true to the 30-minute comedy format. The evolution of every single character on the show has been perfectly done. And as good as the entire cast is, Don Cheadle as Marty Kaan is as good an acting job as there is on television right now. He better clear his mantle, because he is going to be adding more hardware to his Golden Globe from last season . The exploration of Marty's relationship with his family, his co-workers, his snake of a boss, his current love interest and his wreck of an ex-wife is fit seamlessly into every episode. Cheadle's remarkable flexibility is what makes this work so well. This episode explored Marty's relationship with his father and brother extensively and the drama it built up was fantastic. The final scene is Marty fighting with his dad, Jeremiah (Glynn Turman) over Marty's decision to bye his brother, Malcolm (Larenz Tate) out of Marty's house.  The tension Kaan has at home spills over at work as he is slowing losing his grip on Jeannie (Kristen Bell) who is essential for his desire to move onto start his own top flight consulting firm. This episode crammed so much stuff into 30 minutes that it was almost No. 1 for TWT3 this week ... but not quite.

1. The Good Wife, Episode 14, Death of a Client. For yet another week, TGW has reminded us how good it can be with witty, funny writing and a truly incomparable cast. Anytime a show can have GUEST STARS like John Noble, Stockard Channing and Matthew Perry it is doing something phenomenally well. This week centered around a very important political dinner for Peter Florrick (Chris Noth) and his opponent for Illinois governor Mike Kreseiva (Matthew Perry). As both of these guys maneuver for votes, Eli Gold (Eli Cumming) delivers some of the funniest lines a viewer can expect from a drama. Stockard Channing as Alicia Florrick's (Juliana Margulies) mother always ads intrigue and just brings more information to the table as Alicia continues to struggle with work, politics and being in love with two men. The writers are so excellent here that they still can squeeze in sexual tension between Cary (Matt Czuchry) and Kalinda (Archie Panjabi). And after all that, you have a remarkable performance by John Noble in a one-off appearance as an eccentric client of Alicia's that gets murdered, causing Alicia to have a number of great flashback scenes. This allows us to get a nice scene between Alicia and Will Gardner (Josh Charles) without having the two interrupt current storylines too much, but enough to keep the tension high. If the writing stays this sharp, TGW could make a run at the cable heavyweights that dominate season "best-of" lists.

Honorable Mention: The Walking Dead, Episode 15, This Sorrowful Life; Justified, Episode 11, Decoy