Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 112 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Already Gone
By Jacob Clifton | Season 5 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.13.2013
That's how "Women are people" becomes "Embryos are imaginary people who are more important than actual women." That's how "A woman owns her body just like real human beings do" becomes "Then you shouldn't have been such a whore." Emotional defensive attack, because the implications of what you're suggesting -- that women aren't people, that women aren't the owners of their bodies -- is tied so vitally, into so much of the way we do everything else, that it hurts intellectually to even consider.
I think in matters of privilege like this, you can't speak the truth utterly because they can't hear you -- just like Peter Florrick, asking Geneva endlessly to tell him he wasn't racist just because he doesn't hate black people, over and over, until he got that it wasn't about that. But in the end, negotiating the terms of a person's right to make decisions about her body is already losing the fight. You're moving deck chairs around on the Titanic; you're trying to get to a three-fifths compromise on personhood.
Which is the most brilliant thing about this episode, obviously, because that means Tara's on top here. We don't have to like it -- and the Isenstadts are free to use everything in their power to change her mind -- but this is one of those rare imaginative scenarios where the right to choose goes the other way. The horrible, stupid, jerk way. The right way.
David Lee: "So this is what we offered Jonas Stern when he exited in 2009."
Partners: "Fuck that, we had more money back then and our little feelings weren't hurt."
David Lee: "Relevant. He was a founding partner..."
Alicia: "As was Diane. There's no difference between her contrib..."
David Lee: "She's leaving, after pushing us once again into Nathan Lane's arms. Get it? She cast a damaging shadow on this firm knowing that she was leaving. It was a mea culpa that didn't exculpate anybody, and her hands are clean."
Alicia: "She's going to be a Supreme Court Judge. We shouldn't lifeguard that shit now, all of a sudden?"
Will: "That part's true. She also has our best clients, and we could earn some rancor there if we lowball her at the outset. Let's just be fair. You're talking about my wife."
Alicia: "Uh, you're also talking about a bunch of clients I could take with me, if I were that kind of person. Which I might be, I don't know today. Shit."