Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 114 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT As Cool As I Am
By Jacob Clifton | Season 5 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.20.2013
They produce an email from Lyman that reads, "Chrissy, I need to discuss something with you. Please come to my office at 1 PM, enter quietly, and sit down at my desk."
Viola: "Even though you had no cases with him. And then what happened?"
Chrissy: "He took off his pants! I saw it!"
Nobody Whatsoever: "That sounds unlikely."
Elsbeth: "We have a problem. Howard Lyman."
Will: "Say no more, and FML."
EXPOSITION HALL
Dan Lauria -- Food Service Union Chief Ronald Erickson -- is keeping the protest going even though Eli moved the Ball back to this place, because Peter showed support for his new and nearby colleague, Wisconsin's labor-busting, gerrymandering, vote-suppressing Governor Scott Walker (R). Eli calls this welching, which it is, and complains to himself that he even got Jackie Florrick to back off... And then Ronald's all ears, because guess whose wiles once entranced him long ago? Good ol' Jackie O.
LYMAN
Is fully pants-free, asleep on his couch, when they go to ask him if he ever takes off his pants in the office.
Elsbeth: "Oh my God."
Kalinda: "I hate you, Howard Lyman."
Elsbeth: "I saw it! Why don't you have underwear on?"
Lyman: "That part I'm not sure."
Elsbeth: "Is this how it happened with Chrissy?"
Lyman: "I didn't like, restrain her! The bitch started screaming, I was scared, I offered her some water. I'm just an old man, I never know what's going on."
C+C BULLSHIT FACTORY
Rando: "Yeah, Cary and Carey just got called into a partner meeting, so maybe today is the day we all get it in the teeth. But either way, go get those files. Download them, violate everything you hold dear. It'll be great."
Diane: "Hey, Alicia."
Alicia: "How's it going, girlfriend?"
Diane: "If I had never started this firm, I am finding out this week, life might have been pretty awesome."
Alicia: "I wish you had told me that several weeks ago."
It turns out that Lyman was not the entrapper, but the bait: Cary and Carey have more than once sent that "come in alone and sit down" email to plenty of paralegals -- male and female -- because what the fuck else is Howard Lyman good for except to be the gross punchline at the end of a fratty hazing joke? Frankly, I'm on their side. "If you're going to work here, you should know exactly how much respect the elder equity partners deserve, and how little they respect you or this office in turn." Although the fact that it was paralegals makes it a little nastier than necessary, I suppose.