Judge Kuhn, the military lady that scares Will so bad, approaches Alicia with a particularly rough case: Amanda Peet, a JAG lawyer who wants to bring civil charges against a reservist (Brian J. Smith, whom I always love) who attacked her in Afghanistan. The basics of the fight comes down to whether civilian contractors are part of the military, because you can't sue your own, and after a bunch of twists and turns Judge Abernathy (King Russell; quirk is that he's kind of a hippie) dismisses the case. It's a nicely brutal little meditation on women vs. women vs. men stuff, which parallels straight down the barrel into...
Maddie Hayward throws her hat in the ring to split Peter's Democratic vote, swearing she still loves Alicia and this was an unplanned move. Nobody's all that happy with her, but it's a really cool direction for the story to take -- especially in the end, where Peter turns down an offer to be her running mate based on the way she hurt Alicia's feelings. And that's not the only twist with the Indira Starr stuff this week: Eli gives Kristen Chenoweth the scoop of a family tragedy that connects Mandy Post back to Peter Florrick, losing Mandy her job and hopefully putting the story to rest for good.
Diane notices that Hayden and Cary are falling into man-love, and quickly gives Cary opportunities to do the social-climbing careerist thing he's so good at. As she pulls away from mentoring Alicia -- and Alicia and Cary have never been closer -- it's nice to see such dangerous developments happening outside her view. Especially considering the Alicia Florrick version of "loose cannon" she's been playing with lately.
Meanwhile, Alicia floats the idea of getting Jackie a male caretaker, resulting in some highly amusing and discomfiting flirtation that gets under Peter's skin. And in Savarese news, Alicia's overjoyed to be able to tell Nick and Kalinda both that his bid's been turned down and he has no reason to stick around in Chicago -- and then stressed out once again when Cary realizes he's got information that could reverse that judgment.
Week: More media attention for the Florrick marriage, the beginning of the Kresteva-Florrick-Hayward race, and Christina Ricci's Insane Face as some kind of shock-jock comedienne?