Old Colin Sweeney's up to his old tricks: This time, he fired a gun during an orgy -- a misdemeanor that could spiral into life-imprisonment if the SA's office is able to extend the trial past a conservative IL Supreme Court decision that Cary figures out is about to come out. Basically, it's a three-strikes situation, so Will and Alicia have to rush through the entire trial in like 48 hours.
Mostly the charm here relates to Colin Sweeney being a pervert, Morena Baccarin's return as his archly gross fiancée, and a lot of very spicy language. If you love Colin Sweeney, and I loooove Colin Sweeney, this was a fun little grody outing. If you are too skeeved out by Colin Sweeney to enjoy Colin Sweeney, I do not blame you at all. In fact, this episode is the closest he's ever come to losing me, and that's really just because I don't like Laura Hellinger getting objectified.
Cary and Robyn Burdine are kind of the Kalinda this week, in a neat twist: As recompense for seeing Alicia move into her monumental new office, Diane asks him to interview new associates. One of them, a sexy/smarmy law clerk, ends up being the twist who tells them about the Supreme Court secrets -- first by way of interview braggadocio and then when Robyn Burdine, who by the way is a crazy person, flirts the rest out of him.
The guy's incredible, for being such a small part, and the whole story gives Robyn Burdine and Cary a lot of room to play. I think probably that was the best part of the episode, just watching Cary deal with Robyn and Robyn deal with the guy. Very funny, almost broad comedy, but with a wit and a sweetness to it that the show's really bringing back lately.
Also pretty great -- and a rare treat -- was the emphasis on Diane's personal storyline. She hires Kalinda to vet her for this judgeship, resulting in three revelations: Thanks to her housekeeper's sad extracurricular activities, Diane could be exposed as a fan-fiction writer of The Vampire Diaries Delena porn. Kalinda actually reads some of the housekeeper's steamy fictions, and it's amazing.
The second thing is really sad: Turns out Diane's dad turned in a buddy to HUAC and the guy eventually killed himself -- which rocks Diane, who thought her dad was a perfect liberal, harder than anything I can remember on this show. It's awful, but still not as embarrassing as the first thing.
The third revelation -- that Kurt McVeigh got a little too rowdy on-camera at a gun rally -- comes down only after Diane has accidentally proposed marriage, and he's taken it seriously, and now suddenly they're talking about getting married, and of course he's going to get in the way of her career path or whatever... Except that's not the show you're watching, and that's not a choice it would ever force on its women, so instead she says fuck all of that, and reiterates that she would like to marry Kurt as soon as possible. So hot!
After last week's Alicia-centric outing, it was a little funny to see her in the back of the company for most of this episode, but her few scenes -- mostly dealing with having dumped Will slash formally handed him over to Laura Hellinger -- pack a bit of a punch. It's so weird to care about this again after so long, but then: Same could be said of the show.
In Two Weeks, because why not schedule an episode for Easter and then take a break: The lead-up to the finale begins, Peter and Will discuss their feelings for and about Alicia and each other, Anonymous brings a rape trial into the public eye -- which I cannot effing wait to see and talk about -- and "Kalinda becomes suspicious of Robyn," whatever that means. Oh, and the Jason Biggs tech guy that I can't even remember what his deal was because I don't care about tech guys who are not ChumHum because I hate tech guys who are not ChumHum.