Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 63 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT An Airbag Saved My Life
By Jacob Clifton | Season 5 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.17.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.America Ferrera (!), now working for a powerful NYC lobbyist, shows up in town with a time-sensitive immigration matter. After being stonewalled by David Lee and insulted by Howard Lyman, she tracks down Alicia Florrick to help with a "snitch visa" for a man in danger of deportation. While they get the deal signed, the criminal he's testifying against jumps bail, and then a mix-up puts our snitch on a bus -- to the same location on the Texas border as the criminal, essentially a death sentence.
Per Nathan Lane, Florrick/Agos needs to lose a full-time employee, which means Robyn Burdine. Panicked, she reaches out to Kalinda for help or advice, and then does her best to demonstrate her worth to F/A by attacking Natalie's case from several angles over the course of the day (most of them at or above Kalinda levels of illegality). So while Cary and Alicia are tromping from court to court trying to get this bus turned around, she's impersonating assassins, starting domestic disturbances, and generally being a crazed bad-ass. In the end, she wins the guy's safety and -- at least for now -- her own.
L/G -- which Will is rebranding, KFC-style, as simply "LG" -- is set on opening a New York branch in the near future, which sits well with the partners but also puts David Lee on high alert as far as possible infiltrators, complications, etc. He puts a bug in that horrible tattoo girl's ear about Will's heartbreak over Alicia, and in the end Will admits to sleeping with Alicia at some point before she left the firm. Because tattoo girl's all about self-respect, they have a conversation about how she is "made of chocolate" (?), and things go back to their nasty status quo. Plus, there is the struggle to take away F/A's first new client when they realize who Natalie works for (but in the end, no dice).
But over at the Governor's office, things have never been wilder. Struck mad by Natalie Flores's reappearance in an otherwise dry season for him, storywise, Eli Gold runs around Chicago acting romantic and antic by turns, and eventually kisses her in a restaurant. So into the middle of that, Marilyn Chambers wedges herself as usual, amping up friction between Peter and Eli while also plying her various pregnancy tricks to keep them both on edge. It's annoying mostly because it centers on a redistricting speech and they all act like there are two fair and balanced sides to gerrymandering and vote suppression. Which I guess they have to, being what they are, but it's still sleazy as shit.
In the end, a visit to the new F/A from the Governor involves about ten of his employees, and a newly buddy-buddy Peter and Marilyn. While Peter loves Alicia's new offices -- and loves just how delightedly and excitedly she herself loves them -- there's a little bit of dissonance. The last thing Alicia needs, on this greatest of days since the split, is another horror story on the horizon. But we end with Matthew Ashbaugh's Jawbox playing a lightweight cover of "Dream Dream Dream," and a very happy Alicia (and Car/eys) indeed. For now.
Next Week: Jackie Florrick starts shit with Idgie Threadgoode, an Alicia client is accused of domestic terrorism, and the great LG headhunt begins with a quirky Irish lawyer (whom we can hope isn't too quirky). As the penultimate episode before the next nuclear event (and winter hiatus), one imagines it will move some more pieces around -- and that Marilyn will continue to barf, of course -- but other than that, who knows.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Alicia and Cary grabbed a bunch of fourth-year associates and left Lockhart/Gardner for greener pastures, which turned out to be her living room. A week later, Will was still pretty hard up, emotionally speaking, as evidenced by his sorrows-drowning with a repulsive tattooed yoga enthusiast. It has now been a month or so, we've lost a couple of unlikeable recidivists to the mothership, and over at the Governor's Chicago Office they're slowly becoming acquainted with the barfing, Pop-Tart scarfing concept of Ethics.
LG
Will: "In three months we're opening a New York office! And so we're rebranding. The firm is now called LG, just LG. Like KFC, or The Former Learning Channel."
Lyman: "I remember one time Jon Hamm was on like Colbert or something and it was so hard watching him struggle to explain this basic concept about AMC and then I realized it was because he wasn't entirely clear on..."
Will: "Not now, Howard. Nobody wants to hear your hater talk. That man is a legend. Okay, now which of our clients are next to leave Florrick/Agos?"
Bonus Dick -- will you never disappear? -- explains that Sonya Rucker from The Wire and the Wabash Fund are wavering, but ChumHum is still settled on F/A because of how the new Governor of Illinois is so delightfully corrupt.
Bonus: "Imagine that I am here because I hated working out of a living room, and not because the only word I understand is bonuses."
LG: "But how did clients not figure out that your law firm was imaginary?"
Bonus: "Over lunch, that's how. Corporate bitches be hungry as hell! But now they are finally moving into their real, sad offices. An old t-shirt factory on Grand that has played home to a literary 'little magazine,' a suite of sets for a gay adult film series with a vampire theme, and multiple hauntings by historical child laborers."
David Lee: "That is so ghetto. What is that, twenty bucks a foot?"
Will: "Oh, Alicia."
Bonus: "Part of but not the entire story is that Marilyn Chambers is ruining everything for everyone. Peter's unearned and laughable reputation for squeaky-clean living has really got our corporate clients on the run."
David Lee: "I hope you understand what it means when I, David Lee, pronounce that guy a fucking putz. I miss Carey Zepps."
SPEAKING OF