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.
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 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.