I feel like we should talk about what actually happened, so that's what we'll do first. The main case is this biomed device where the lady had problems, and the whole thing's in mediation, back and forth between the two conference rooms, which are hotel rooms. The mediator is that guy from The Wire that keeps playing the guy from that show.
And then the opposing counsel is Celeste, née Cuddy, who used to date Will. So there's a lot of wiggly-piggly about them having dated, and will Alicia be weird about that -- uh, no, she's Alicia -- and will they use that to rattle Celeste in turn -- yes, but not that much -- and I guess she's here for at least three episodes? Which I like, because I like Lisa Edelstein, and she could do better, and this is her doing better.
Meanwhile, Eli gets pulled into this dairy thing where they're supplying listeria cheese to kids, so there are these -- fucking awesome -- things on TV where the kids are barfing and sliding down the walls and going zombie and it's so cool. They keep showing it over and over, like this endless footage of barfing and eyes rolling up in the heads and you're like, "I love my kids, but that's hilarious." And so it is, right until the (not so charming like usual, way more hair than a person should have) reporter contact makes Eli part of the story.
So suddenly it's about "This is getting spinned by Eli Gold, famous racist and otherwise spinmaker" and then it's not so funny anymore. Which is what Diane was trying to head off, in a way, when she went head-to-head with him, at the beginning. Anyway, he's suddenly tainted and you've got Kalinda trying to deal with it and also trying to deal with the Lockhart, Gardner case of the week, and failing on both, and really it's just a whirlwind of dysfunction for a bit. I honestly don't know if we'll hear about it again, but I am thrown and thrilled by this idea of Eli effing up this soon in the season. I don't like it, but I love it. You know?
Meanwhile, there's a really heartbreaking scene where -- out of nowhere, from where I'm standing -- Cary Agos rips Kalinda a new one about using his heart to get info. (Which, did he just start watching this show? Because it's always been both.) Which is what she stutter-speaks (considering she never says one single thing) but he's not having it, so finally she just has to bust a move, and it's actually really sad. I don't want Kalinda to be sad, but I certainly don't want Cary sad. Which is funny, because I thought we hated his ass; obviously it is just awful to see this go down from any angle at all.
What else is going on is, Brother Owen is taking care of the kids -- a goodwife for the Good Wife, if you will -- and is first to hear Zach's "theory" that Peter fucked another lady besides Amber, which Alicia only realized lately, which et cetera what's going on. He Owens it up about getting the real info, which he already knows and how Alicia is boning Will -- one very sexy kiss this week, if one were keeping track -- but mostly what's going on with Owen is that he is embroiled in a non-intercoursy tantric relationship with one of -- if not the -- most stupendous, fabulous, awesome humans in this entire universe, Michael Arden, whom I've adored, literally, since we were in junior high. You will not find a finer or a more talented man. He's so damned amazing. We have a godson and a best friend in common, the man is legit. Love that kid. Literally did circus flips tonight when I saw him, like a damned poodle. Keep your eye on him. Sings like an angel. Can't say enough; will say more.
Anyway. In the end, somehow, Owen's able to rip himself away from this Finn -- whom will hopefully be joining Owen as a major character involved in all aspects of Alicia's life so we can talk about him all the dang time -- long enough to ask the one question I feel like none of us were awesome enough to ask, thank you Owen, which is:
"Is this rebellion? Or is this love?"
Which is awesome enough, on its own -- haven't you wondered? -- but not as beautiful, or as necessary, as Alicia's answer, which is essentially, "Well? It's ... not love." Oh girl. We love you twice as much for saying it, even as we've found a whole new way to love Will Gardner for our own selves.
So let's fucking hear it for rebellion!
ACCIDENTS ARE UNINTENTIONAL
Alicia and Will are engaged in a court-ordered mediation, the kind where everybody stays in a hotel and meets in a central area; the mediation is administrated by Senator Clay Davis from The Wire, due almost entirely to the breadth of his moral character but also to the fact that this show will eventually cast every single person that was on The Wire. The res in which we find ourselves medias, bouncing back and forth between both rooms, establishes opposing counsel (Lisa "Cuddy" Edelstein as Celeste Serrano) as playing hardball, quite familiar with Will Gardner's tactics, and both sides trying to exhaust the mediator.
Celeste: "This was an unfortunate accident..."
Will: "I know Celeste works under the mistaken impression that if she says something enough times it'll make it true, but this wasn't an accident. This was fraud."
We skip around in time a little bit, throughout the case, which is one of the good things about this episode. There are some junky, awkward bits, some telegraphing and a fair amount of show-don't-telling that makes the now-classic "Alicia is confronted by moral bendiness" denouement pretty much unearned, but the guest stars are great and the cases themselves are fairly interesting. And no amount of slippery-storytelling would ever outweigh the stupid things CBS is doing to our timeslot anyway, so be grateful for what you get.
Will introduces text from a deposition, and then we jump around inside that deposition and out again, and it's easy to follow but not boring: The plaintiff, Maggie, was in a car accident four years ago which gave her a little misaligned-vertebrae bummer called "Degenerative Disc Disorder," which means chronic pain that basically ruined her life. (Will's constantly like, "Is it too painful to go on, Maggie? Are you hurting too much to continue talking right now?" which makes everybody's eyes roll but especially Celeste's.) A Dr. Farland suggested implanting a medical device called a Spinal Cord Stimulator, or SCS. He showed her a list of 12 FDA-approved options, and she assumed that he'd implanted one of them, but after the pain came back threefold she noticed the invoice for the device: The inventor was one Dr. Farland. He'd implanted his own SCS model in her, she says, like "a guinea pig."
Her point being that accidents are unintentional, and fraud is not. The most interesting part of the case, the device's wandering leads that we'll hear about later, makes a strong basis for both sides. Either way, it's about establishing the actual ground-level thing. Everybody keeps talking about the bottom line, what's your bottom line, what's their bottom line, don't talk about the bottom line, but really the bottom line is about establishing this essential fact: Accidents are unintentional, fraud is not.
During this part of the deposition, Alicia also figures out a few things. Number one is that Maggie is a brilliant performer; maybe because she's telling the truth. Number two is that Celeste is funny, and scary, and knows some secrets about Will. There's a familiarity and an Eli Gold-style twinkle in her eyes when she laughs at him and calls him out for trying to manipulate the record. I think -- we'll see in coming weeks -- but my immediate feeling is that if Will and Diane had a baby, it might be Celeste: Passionate, wry and worst of all able to access both the tools that Alicia can use, and those she can't. Or at least that's where I see Alicia going, for the time being. Everything and everybody are symbolic fodder for her self-interrogation.
THE ASK & THE ARGUMENT
Meanwhile, Ira just thinks the ask is too high regardless of the other issues. Which means that even though Celeste is refusing to negotiate, the burden is still on Will because they're starting out too high to deal with: They need to be wrong by doing right, which is to say they can have the moral victory and the settlement if they go lower, because they shouldn't be talking about $14M to begin with. Not lowering it for negotiation's sake, if you see what I mean, but for negotiations to begin at all.
Will's got a bit of a blind spot for this, actually; he refuses to believe that there are fundamental aspects of anything that can't be bargained. Is that fair to say? Tammy would certainly agree; after all, "You told me not to fall in love with you" is not a rational thing to say to a woman begging you to love her, because those are fundamental assumptions that have changed and must be acknowledged.
I call it arguing with gravity. Some things are just true, even if they're not fair, and you can't change the situation until you acknowledge the situation. It's also what made his fight with Diane so gross, in the wreckage of Stern and Bond: His idea that either everything is true and immutable, or nothing at all. And I won't go out on the limb just yet, but it's food for thought that gambling is an institutionalized argument with gravity and a classic tactic of the addict: You look at the facts, you consider the facts, you tell the facts to fuck off. In addicts, it's arrogant; in men, it's privilege; but in power players -- like Eli or Will -- it's a source of great power. But the rest of us actually have to deal.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
Alicia: "Maggie has three children. She is in constant pain. Her life has been shortened by a decade. Her husband left her, and she's being kicked out of her house, all because she cannot hold down a job or offer spousal companionship. Now, if that happened to me -- from a doctor who experimented on me without my knowledge -- I'm sorry, but I would be asking for twice as much."
Will loves that. Because the crux of this case is basically that you have the Will/Celeste fight, which is a classic rancorous mediation narrative we -- and Ira -- have seen a million times: Neither side willing to give, and just playing for time for something else to happen, and running backchannel manipulations to serve themselves like usual. (What eventually resolves it is so confoundingly obvious that it's mystifying why this even went to mediation, but whatever.) This is complicated, but not that much, by two facts about the Will/Celeste fight that become clear before anybody says anything: One, that Will and Celeste had a fairly tempestuous relationship at one time -- that "I know how she thinks" specter that's been haunting us since Peter got his job back -- and, I think, Will's gambling past, which he shares in some way with Celeste.
But the other side of it, and the through line of Alicia's story this week, is that Alicia's not even really engaging in the straight legalities of it, because her job is playing Good Wife, going straight for the mediator's heart with her ruined-woman semiotics and her big soulful eyes. Her role as Compassionate Advocate for poor old Maggie, as the Only Person Who remembers the Real Live Human Person we're all fighting for.
Which, of course, she plays to the hilt, because Lawyer Alicia and Our Alicia are still pretty much the same person. The moral quandary, then, is seeing whether Alicia's performance-as-herself moves from naïve and honest, which is where her power resides, to something a little more suspect, a little more Lockhart, Gardner. And if she catches herself doing that? Then the fundamental assumptions will have changed, and the character and integrity on which she trades start looking more and more like gambling. Like an argument with nobody there to fight.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
Guild: "Cheese."
Eli, twinkling: "A certain kind of cheese? Or all cheese?"
Oh no! Listeria outbreak in a Chicago grammar school, four hours ago, traced to infected cheese slices. Five children are hospitalized, four teachers are ill, and the government is all over them. Eli couldn't be happier. The Guild has a contract with an existing PR firm, Keyser & Associates who were -- until four hours ago -- building a magnificent EAT CHEESE campaign. Of course, Eli wants them fired immediately (and if you want to know what a good crisis manager goes for, he opens with a monthly retainer of $60K, plus hourly, which my goodness).
Eli: "Get me everything on listeriosis, anyone who will speak out against cheese, and I'll need more investigator time. Get Kalinda."
Kalinda is: Working on the SCS mediation.
Eli: "Not anymore."
He's imperious, of course, it's part of his charm and a good deal of his power is just being a tiny little steamroller, but what's cool about it this week is that it's actually a subject of conversation. For somebody like Diane, who counts her friends very selectively and evaluates people by a specific personal rubric, she doesn't give a shit about steamrollers because she'll steamroll you right back. It's how she became Diane Lockhart. But when you put Eli's obvious aggression up against Diane's invisible aggression, things get interesting real fast. As much as separating the named partners works to create more story time for us to learn about Celeste, it's also cool and important to have her be the only person in the office on the day Eli starts screaming truths.
Because there's another thing going on here, the Eli thing of it all, which is that he's not saying anything that's not true: You will be firing your PR company. You will be doing whatever I say the second that I say it. You will be doing exactly what I say and paying exactly what I ask, because they're no time to waste. You're plummeting at 32.2 feet per second per second, I'm the parachute, this will go easier if you stop asking me questions. You can't argue with gravity. Some forces are irresistible; time and gravity are only two.
It's the role that he's always played with Alicia, of course -- "If X, then Y, so stop bitching and do what I say" -- and generally it's sympathetic because the whole show is about double-checking your own shit (as a human) before you mess with other people's lives (as an officer of the court), but it's intriguing to see the ultimate pragmatist, Diane, unnerved by his upfront, no-bullshit bullshit.
Because there's another thing going on here, the Eli thing of it all, which is that he's not saying anything that's not true: You will be firing your PR company. You will be doing whatever I say the second that I say it. You will be doing exactly what I say and paying exactly what I ask, because they're no time to waste. You're plummeting at 32.2 feet per second per second, I'm the parachute, this will go easier if you stop asking me questions. You can't argue with gravity. Some forces are irresistible; time and gravity are only two.
It's the role that he's always played with Alicia, of course -- "If X, then Y, so stop bitching and do what I say" -- and generally it's sympathetic because the whole show is about double-checking your own shit (as a human) before you mess with other people's lives (as an officer of the court), but it's intriguing to see the ultimate pragmatist, Diane, unnerved by his upfront, no-bullshit bullshit.
A truly amazing phone-video by one of the lunch ladies shows a bunch of kids barfing, rolling around in agony, sliding down the walls like crackheads; it's marvelous. Eli just about punches himself in the nuts, but nobody can look away.
Eli: "You'll have to hire Lockhart, Gardner as temporary counsel."
Guild: Quibbles.
Eli, beautifully: "I can explain myself for now? But when things move faster, you're going to have to just trust me."
Essentially, they need to hire Diane to represent them so that the things they talk about in the crisis management stuff can't be subpoenaed later for a civil (or criminal) trial. I've always said half of what's great about this show is that the music makes you feel like you're having a heart attack even when you're not quite sure what's going on -- even today, the word "addendum" makes me feel like I'm losing my mind -- but watching Eli put the available tools to use faster than most of the people even know what or why, that is very exciting. Even above the thematic "These are the true facts" thing going on this week. So yeah, suddenly you've lost your PR and gotten a new law firm, and at some point he's going to stop explaining himself.
Eli zooms in on the video and sees packaging; he calls for the CEO of Heather Farms, before he talks to a reporter, but it's been four hours. A lot can happen.
IMPERFECT INFORMATION
One of those reporters that you always wonder if you'll see them again -- this time the Vindicator's new Metro editor, Gretchen Battista -- has contacted Maggie asking if she knows anything about a leaked medical investigation of Dr. Farland. Apparently the FDA has moved it up a year, and apparently they're on Farland's side.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
Gambling again. Technically, a perfect-information game is one where you know all the moves your opponent has made, which means chess is one of them where poker is not, but you know what she means. If they can add up Will's Story, Celeste's Story and Ira's Story, they could plot it out realistically and it wouldn't be a gamble at all. But this also swings back around to Alicia's stuff later in the episode, because a stance of total honesty might create a set of perfect information, but this isn't a game: It's a fight. So if Celeste offers perfect information, she's doing that because she's playing a larger game outside the perfect-information game she's offered, and Will knows that too. She follows him down the hall, she starts putting the moves on him.
Edelstein's such a unique character actor that it's hard to separate her choices from her distinctive natural qualities -- the voice, the eyes, the quick moves behind the eyes -- but after having watched her for so long in so many things, I get to it like this: Cuddy was the only rational person in an extremely irrational narrative environment. (House is the only show I can think of that makes less sense to me, personally, than Glee. It's like watching anime or something, except I enjoy it.) She was like a prudent Alice, in Sherlock's Wonderland. Even when she made bullshit decisions, Edelstein rooted Lisa in the physicality and logic of a rational world.
Which is not, let's say, the case with Celeste Serrano. I find her slightly unhinged and a little menacing. Maybe less the child of Lockhart and Gardner and what might happen to Alicia if she's disappointed enough times, or hurt deeply enough, that her mind takes over from her heart. I mean, obviously that's all conjecture, but thinking about what the story needs this year and where Alicia's head and journey are at, I think a dark-mirror, lonelier version of herself is exactly what's needed. Especially in the middle of her complicated relationship with lonely, dark Will Gardner.
Will: "I'm going into my room now."
Celeste: "You haven't heard our case yet. It's a good one. My number, when you're ready to negotiate..."
And of course you know they will meet up, probably in the hotel lobby, because somehow Will's going to get cornered or Alicia will screw things up with the mediator or something, and in a last-ditch effort to avoid trial, he'll approach. Or maybe he'll do it just to burn her, throw her off. Or maybe both. She's a wild one. And even if you didn't assume, you could tell by the fact that the music goes nuts on them, and into the credits. A feint toward a romantic triangle? Barely. A teasing-out of Will's own ambiguous morality and willingness to use personal information to game the system? Always.
Which is not, let's say, the case with Celeste Serrano. I find her slightly unhinged and a little menacing. Maybe less the child of Lockhart and Gardner and what might happen to Alicia if she's disappointed enough times, or hurt deeply enough, that her mind takes over from her heart. I mean, obviously that's all conjecture, but thinking about what the story needs this year and where Alicia's head and journey are at, I think a dark-mirror, lonelier version of herself is exactly what's needed. Especially in the middle of her complicated relationship with lonely, dark Will Gardner.
Will: "I'm going into my room now."
Celeste: "You haven't heard our case yet. It's a good one. My number, when you're ready to negotiate..."
And of course you know they will meet up, probably in the hotel lobby, because somehow Will's going to get cornered or Alicia will screw things up with the mediator or something, and in a last-ditch effort to avoid trial, he'll approach. Or maybe he'll do it just to burn her, throw her off. Or maybe both. She's a wild one. And even if you didn't assume, you could tell by the fact that the music goes nuts on them, and into the credits. A feint toward a romantic triangle? Barely. A teasing-out of Will's own ambiguous morality and willingness to use personal information to game the system? Always.
WANTON WOMEN
Alicia parks Owen with the kids for the weekend, and he's being particularly incandescent. She asks him, mostly to distract him, if she should even bother taking a coat: The nights are hot, he says, steaming, sultry with the scent of jasmine and forbidden love, he says.
Alicia, not having it: "Coat? No coat?"
Owen: "No coat. So, you and Will in a hotel room."
Alicia: "Oh yeah, me and Will in a hotel room. With eight other lawyers and Ira from The Wire. That is going to be hot as hell. Are you just like super horny right now?"
Owen: "You have no idea. I'm picturing Will in the hot tub right now. The best sex I ever had was at a businessman's hotel."
Alicia: "T! M! I!"
Owen: "You are so funny! You are the most prudish Wanton Woman I know."
Two insults, simultaneous, from opposite directions. He's still giggling when she weighs her words carefully and takes off without saying anything else. Owen's disappointed and bored, so he follows her out.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
Alicia: "You won't get in a fight with Peter, right? He's picking up the kids for dinner Saturday night."
He apologizes, thinking he hurt her with "wanton woman," but really it's just because there's literally nothing she can say. If she doesn't get the hell out right now, he'll put it together. He may already have done.
It's hard to know when you've hurt Alicia's feelings, because generally she's too smart to let on until she smacks you in the mouth. For Owen, it's about crossing the line just enough that you haven't really crossed it, and without knowing generally where the line is -- without perfect information about her life and their relationship -- it's become possible for the first time for him to actually cross it. All the more imperfect for the fact that Alicia's not entirely sure either.
Owen: "Alicia, talk to me!"
Alicia: "Owen, I would if I had the time..."
Owen: "You have to wait for the elevator, so talk to me here."
Alicia, because how bad could it be: "Okay..."
Owen: "You're sleeping with Will, which is why you left your husband."
That bad. Sometimes discretion is not so much a virtue. She's not amused, exactly, but she's gone. Again. With a smile.
VINDICATION
Gretchen Battista is none too impressed with the scotch Will sent, to butter her up before the call. Kate Hanson retired three months ago, so he needed to start in on her early.
Will: "You contacted my client for comment on the FDA investigation. I thought I might help."
Gretchen: "You wouldn't happen to be fishing for what I might know, would you?"
Will: "I might be. I just find it odd that you'd be the only reporter leaked an FDA decision."
While she gets a gander at him online, Will agrees to meet with her on Monday -- after her deadline, of course -- so she offers him an appointment an hour from now, and just to keep the upper hand, he says two hours. They like each other; they haven't met yet.
SERIOUS GAMBLING
Will and Alicia take back their lowered ask, in the hopes that Gretchen -- and Kalinda, who's on the loose somewhere out there -- will help bandage whatever secret things are happening. Ira takes that to Celeste and she laughs in his face, once again pinpointing Will's strategy: "Mr. Gardner has a tell. When he's in trouble he doubles down. So we're lowering our offer."
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
Ira: "You don't you think the issues here are too serious to treat like gambling?"
Celeste, and this is key: "No. Gambling is too serious to treat like these issues."
Separate what is unnecessary, strain out the feelings and sympathies and imperfections, and what you are left with is perfect information. A game that plays itself. It's not that Maggie's pain is a distraction, even, it's that none of the details of the case matter anyway. That's not what we're here for. This is the secret that Celeste holds, if Alicia can see it; it's what makes defense law both so easy and so hard for her.
In the hallway, Kalinda gives one headachey Ira a concerned smile just before Diane calls her. Apparently, she's in the hotel to figure out Celeste's bottom line -- but now Eli wants her to investigate Heather Farms, while the slow-moving FDA ramps up their own.
Kalinda: "Well, which takes priority? Cheese or mediation?"
Some objects are immovable. Diane's answer is the other pivot on which the episode turns, because the answer is, of course, Both.
Kalinda can handle that, of course; she's just as pragmatic. But the call takes place right outside Celeste's hotel room, where it sounds close to a discussion of the bottom line, which is why Kalinda's there. In the absence of guidance, Kalinda must prioritize for herself. For one reason or another, with a nearly regretful knuckle-on-wood, Kalinda heads off to the factory, leaving Celeste's bottom line in the air.
GENERATION LOSS
There is no Heather Farms, it's a division of Karpwell Foods. None of which matters to Eli, of course, who keeps having to explain his single objective here: "I'm not your rabbi, sir. I'm merely trying to keep your cheese from damaging the image of all cheeses." Stop arguing with the facts and do what I say. But Karpwell can't do that yet.
CEO: "It's not even clear that we're responsible. I mean, what else did these kids eat? That's what I want to know."
Eli, laughing: "Oh yes, that's a great line of defense. With images like these people love to hear that the kids are really the problem. Do you know who Tony Hayward is?"
CEO: "Do I what? Um, yeah, the CEO of British Petroleum."
Ex-, of course, CEO. Eli calls him the man who oversaw the destruction of a brand. It's central to the story that we agree with him, although I think it's a false equivalency that all scapegoats can be turned into figureheads. But anyway, Eli wants to work on his attitude, second, and first he needs the CEO guy to shut right up and stop arguing with gravity.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
"The first rule of managing a crisis: The top man answers the questions. That is the only reason you're here, that is the only reason I am talking to you. So, in ten minutes' time, you're giving a press conference where you'll order all your cheese products off the shelves. We need a split screen of that image with you looking strong -- wrong tie, get him a red tie -- then you'll apologize for any missteps and say the buck stops here."
Diane, as temporary counsel for the Guild and I presume Karpwell, now, finally steps up, because that is a world of legal issues. Of course, Eli doesn't care about that, because he's going to get sued either way, but as the lawyer in the room Diane wants to limit his vulnerability. They fight, it's ugly, it's in front of the clients, and this is the worst part:
"Diane, you're only here as window dressing. You're only here to keep us from getting subpoenaed."
Supernaturally calm in the face of that, Diane tries to explain that behind the images that are Eli's capital and reason for existence, there's a foundational truth -- a fundamental precept based in reality -- that he's ignoring. That Eli's arguing with gravity because he's more concerned with spin than the fates of this man and his company. But Eli is making the same argument: That without spin and containment, without the crisis to be managed, they won't have a company to represent and there won't even be a client to fight over.
So cross-apply to Alicia's story. It's interesting. You have a concern with image, saving the maybe blackened remains, and you have an equal concern to preserve the bottom line over the spin and performance. There's a fight to be had in the media, and there's a fight to be had in the future. Both have financial and personal outcomes, scary ones, but they're not compatible. Like Celeste, Eli is interested in selling authenticity rather than having it; offering perfect information to game a bigger board. And like Alicia, for the moment, Diane's more concerned with the real and the concrete; with saving what's worth saving.
Eli: "The images take precedent right now."
But Diane was right the first time: Which takes priority? Both. You can't have one or the other; you can't have one without the other. You can't be Alicia Florrick without both. But every time you change or copy the image, it degrades. That's generation loss: Pretty soon you're looking at a picture of a picture of a picture that doesn't even matter anymore. Taking those products off the shelves is the right thing to do, obviously, but Eli could care less about that. So the question, across the board so to speak, becomes: If you do an authentic thing for inauthentic reasons, what changes?
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
The things that attach the thing to your thing can sometimes wiggle about, causing infection, which -- Farland maintains -- is where Maggie's spinal damage came from. Turns out he prescribed hydromorphone for post-surgery, but Maggie kept using them long after. Celeste's move: Asserting that Maggie's self-medication long after she should have meant she missed the signs of the infection, and didn't seek further treatment. L/G and Maggie are grossed out by that one, but I don't know that we ever get anything conclusive one way or the other.
<>Will & Alicia: "Why not blame the victim for having pain in the first place? The device malfunctioned, the pain returned. Only then did Maggie take the painkillers. Celeste reverses it so she can make it seem like the painkillers caused the problem."
Ira offers to try and get Celeste up to $8M, which accomplishes his needs of lowering the ask and returns us to the baseline concept of lowering L/G's demands in the first place. Will refuses to answer, because he doesn't want Ira or Celeste to know their bottom line. While Will heads out to meet the reporter, Gretchen, Alicia tries to figure out where Kalinda went, instead of bringing them Celeste's bottom line.
LISTERIA HYSTERIA
Is the hilarious chyron on the news, as Owen spits out a mouthful and pizza and screams for Grace, in the other room, to put down her pizza and walk away. Zach, who's ever more concerned with who is "bad" and who is "good," returns to their conversation.
Zach: "Really? You were the bad one?"
Owen: "Um, obviously? Have you met either of us?"
Zach: "Bad like how, though."
Owen: "You don't want to hear this."
More than anything, of course, he does. He couldn't have looked away from the Amber video if he'd tried. He couldn't cut loose from Becca for the longest time, just because of what she might do .
Owen: "Ecstasy. Driving my car into a lake, stealing stuff, juvie."
And Alicia? "She was perfect. Homework done, room clean, never did drugs. Never did anything."
Zach, grinning: "She's still like that."
She was a good sister, always covering for Owen; she's a good mom, a good lawyer, a good wife. Never did anything. There's this in-bred deference to authority she's working on.
Owen, drawn by the jungle sounds of Grace's fucked-up weirdo girlfriend, goes in and gets an eyeful. This time, Tutorbot is doing a video more like the ones the girl does in real life, freestyle dancing in various locations. Shaking her tits at terrified couples, doing sudden intense splits on her head. Pretty mesmerizing stuff. And troublingly adult, from Owen's perspective. He finds Grace as mystifying as usual for a while, and then heads back out into the living room, zoned.
Zach, immediately: "Dad slept with somebody else. Someone other than the hooker."
Owen, gobsmacked: "So... Wait, how do we know?"
Zach, unmoved: "He told me. That's why Mom kicked him out. You didn't know that?"
Owen did not know that. One of the reasons -- again, conjecture* -- he didn't like Peter was that Peter was a safe place for St. Alicia; with Peter around, Alicia could be boring as hell. That fire he loved in her; the ways she protected him. But it was nice, too, because that meant Owen could keep being the bad one. And because they, in turn, represented something of a safe place for him. He could have fun, because Alicia was still the adult. That nice married couple, two kids and everything, where Owen could go and exasperate Peter and exhaust Alicia and torment Jackie. See what Alicia had created; finally see what a family is supposed to look like.
But now he's uprooted, dumped for cheating, dating awesome freaks, and the safe place is insane. She's basically admitting she's sleeping with Will, for reasons he didn't know and now seem even further away; Grace is moments from hoochie-dancing in the public square and Zach knows more about everybody's shit than Owen ever did; Peter's entire rehabilitation left out these important facts, this perfect information. Even the dead issues are coming back to life. And so if Owen doesn't have the power of experience, the wisdom of bad behavior -- if he doesn't have access to the information -- then everything is suddenly upside-down. Replacing Jackie as the live-in second mom, even for a weekend, shouldn't necessarily mean you miss out on all the dirt.
*(At some point I'm going to stop saying that, but the fanbase for this show includes a fair amount of literal thinkers, and I have compassion for the fact that some of us might need a little "in my opinion" every now and then. Just in case some hypothetical, ignorant soul forgets for a moment that all of this is automatically in my opinion, of course. I mean, without its inveterate fact-checkers officially registering their complaints, the Internet might suddenly become fallible, and then who knows what chaos would happen.)
THE SOURCE OF OUR MISSTEPS
Just in case you wondered where Kalinda's priorities were this week, when Alicia phones her at the factory she ignores the call. Blink and you'll miss it, but my thinking goes, if Alicia swallows her whatever-you-call-it and actually offers to call Kalinda, it's going to be important and it's going to be time-sensitive and it's going to be case-relevant. And Kalinda knows all of that. So maybe this is a little game Kalinda's playing with herself, where she tests the limits of how far she's willing to let Alicia dangle on the line like that. Not even necessarily a quid pro quo, I'm saying -- that seems way too petty for her -- but literally a question she's asking herself.
Owen did not know that. One of the reasons -- again, conjecture* -- he didn't like Peter was that Peter was a safe place for St. Alicia; with Peter around, Alicia could be boring as hell. That fire he loved in her; the ways she protected him. But it was nice, too, because that meant Owen could keep being the bad one. And because they, in turn, represented something of a safe place for him. He could have fun, because Alicia was still the adult. That nice married couple, two kids and everything, where Owen could go and exasperate Peter and exhaust Alicia and torment Jackie. See what Alicia had created; finally see what a family is supposed to look like.
But now he's uprooted, dumped for cheating, dating awesome freaks, and the safe place is insane. She's basically admitting she's sleeping with Will, for reasons he didn't know and now seem even further away; Grace is moments from hoochie-dancing in the public square and Zach knows more about everybody's shit than Owen ever did; Peter's entire rehabilitation left out these important facts, this perfect information. Even the dead issues are coming back to life. And so if Owen doesn't have the power of experience, the wisdom of bad behavior -- if he doesn't have access to the information -- then everything is suddenly upside-down. Replacing Jackie as the live-in second mom, even for a weekend, shouldn't necessarily mean you miss out on all the dirt.
*(At some point I'm going to stop saying that, but the fanbase for this show includes a fair amount of literal thinkers, and I have compassion for the fact that some of us might need a little "in my opinion" every now and then. Just in case some hypothetical, ignorant soul forgets for a moment that all of this is automatically in my opinion, of course. I mean, without its inveterate fact-checkers officially registering their complaints, the Internet might suddenly become fallible, and then who knows what chaos would happen.)
THE SOURCE OF OUR MISSTEPS
Just in case you wondered where Kalinda's priorities were this week, when Alicia phones her at the factory she ignores the call. Blink and you'll miss it, but my thinking goes, if Alicia swallows her whatever-you-call-it and actually offers to call Kalinda, it's going to be important and it's going to be time-sensitive and it's going to be case-relevant. And Kalinda knows all of that. So maybe this is a little game Kalinda's playing with herself, where she tests the limits of how far she's willing to let Alicia dangle on the line like that. Not even necessarily a quid pro quo, I'm saying -- that seems way too petty for her -- but literally a question she's asking herself.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
Eli hates it, because the sacrifice needs to be over as quickly as possible. Mea culpa, fresh news cycle. The CEO loves it, because he can at least say he's tracing the source of the outbreak. That's what he's doing. That's the authentic thing that he is doing.
THE IMMOVABLE AGOS
Will swears to Gretchen that the leak isn't true, or at least that it's not going Farland's way. How does he know? Because Celeste has an agenda, the only agenda, and must be the source of the leak. He offers to give Gretchen back-channel on the case, implying that you can drum up a better story on big-medical money leaking FDA information against a pretty little lady in constant pain than the opposite.
She laughs, pointing at her monitor: "As pulse-racing as that is, get me back-channel on this."
There's a moment where Will jokes that she's talking about her computer, not the images on it. There's a moment coming up when Will makes a choice.
They flirt a little; Gretchen quickly fills him in on what's been going on back home at L/G -- he gets a headache when she mentions Eli's position in the story -- and says she'll delay the FDA story in exchange for info on the cheese thing.
Will: "I'll have to talk to Eli..."
Gretchen: "Well, then it wouldn't be a back channel, would it? Get me something behind the scenes."
In return for his promise to try, Gretnchen tosses him this: "It's not the FDA investigation that's concluding. The call I got was about the State's Attorney. Turns out, they decided not to bring fraud charges against Dr. Farland."
Which is quite a tidbit. Really demands a quid pro quo, after all. Doesn't it?
Kalinda speeds over to the SA, now that she's investigated cheese for the day and it doesn't involve that hotel, for a little sitdown with Cary. I feel like there's a scene missing here, maybe from last week, or I'm just forgetting something, but the tone is really abrupt and weird and he seems to be having off-screen character development I'm not sure about. Maybe Sophia just told him some more true things? Maybe he's only here, in this scene, to deliver a message from gravity.
Cary: "Hello. May I help you?"
Kalinda: "You ... May?"
She's tentative, at first. Just asking, open-handed. There's something scary in the air. The smile he puts on for other people.
Cary: Silent no on the fraud thing.
Kalinda: "Are you sure?"
Cary: "Am I sure I have nothing to offer you about our fraud investigation? I am."
Kalinda, almost bristling: "We just need to know if this leak to Gretchen Battista was faked, Cary, that's all. And if it was, then we need to get her to hold her story."
Eli's Take: "I offer my deepest, sincerest sympathies to the families... I'm doing everything I can to trace the source of our missteps."
Diane's Take: "I offer my deepest, sincerest sympathies to the families... I'm doing everything I can to trace the source of the outbreak."
Eli hates it, because the sacrifice needs to be over as quickly as possible. Mea culpa, fresh news cycle. The CEO loves it, because he can at least say he's tracing the source of the outbreak. That's what he's doing. That's the authentic thing that he is doing.
THE IMMOVABLE AGOS
Will swears to Gretchen that the leak isn't true, or at least that it's not going Farland's way. How does he know? Because Celeste has an agenda, the only agenda, and must be the source of the leak. He offers to give Gretchen back-channel on the case, implying that you can drum up a better story on big-medical money leaking FDA information against a pretty little lady in constant pain than the opposite.
She laughs, pointing at her monitor: "As pulse-racing as that is, get me back-channel on this."
There's a moment where Will jokes that she's talking about her computer, not the images on it. There's a moment coming up when Will makes a choice.
They flirt a little; Gretchen quickly fills him in on what's been going on back home at L/G -- he gets a headache when she mentions Eli's position in the story -- and says she'll delay the FDA story in exchange for info on the cheese thing.
Will: "I'll have to talk to Eli..."
Gretchen: "Well, then it wouldn't be a back channel, would it? Get me something behind the scenes."
In return for his promise to try, Gretnchen tosses him this: "It's not the FDA investigation that's concluding. The call I got was about the State's Attorney. Turns out, they decided not to bring fraud charges against Dr. Farland."
Which is quite a tidbit. Really demands a quid pro quo, after all. Doesn't it?
Kalinda speeds over to the SA, now that she's investigated cheese for the day and it doesn't involve that hotel, for a little sitdown with Cary. I feel like there's a scene missing here, maybe from last week, or I'm just forgetting something, but the tone is really abrupt and weird and he seems to be having off-screen character development I'm not sure about. Maybe Sophia just told him some more true things? Maybe he's only here, in this scene, to deliver a message from gravity.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
Cary: "Hello. May I help you?"
Kalinda: "You ... May?"
She's tentative, at first. Just asking, open-handed. There's something scary in the air. The smile he puts on for other people.
Cary: Silent no on the fraud thing.
Kalinda: "Are you sure?"
Cary: "Am I sure I have nothing to offer you about our fraud investigation? I am."
Kalinda, almost bristling: "We just need to know if this leak to Gretchen Battista was faked, Cary, that's all. And if it was, then we need to get her to hold her story."
Still nothing. Kalinda leans forward and tries to act like a person -- "How have you been?" -- but either she's so bad at it or she's still trying to work him that it just comes out needlessly slimy, and he finally breaks.
Cary: "Oh, come on! Kalinda, you can fake somebody else, but you can't fake me."
Kalinda: "What am I faking?"
Cary: "Interest. Concern, friendship."
And what if she's not? What if she's not faking? What if she's lonely, and scared, and getting boxed in on all sides? What if she's relying, as usual, on Cary being the one person who will care about her without needing respect in return? His eyes are so mean, you know the mean-eyed look he gets when he's hurt. It's sad.
Cary: "Then let's be friends. But I still don't have anything for you about this fraud investigation. Check with Matan, it's his case."
Kalinda, almost to herself: "Hmm, he's no use."
Cary: "Because he doesn't want to sleep with you?"
Kalinda: "But you do?"
Merely an observation, he says. Her hackles are up. You tend to use people's feelings to further your investigations, he says. And is that what she did to him? I have to get back to work, he says. Welcome to the new normal.
Kalinda: "Cary, whatever I felt, I didn't invent..."
Cary: "That's great to know, Kalinda. Now I have to get back to work, and I think you do, too."
Kalinda, angrier than she has been yet this season, slams out of there like a stolen car. If you're looking for a message, that's the message: Whatever you're not willing to do, to punish yourself, the universe will do for you. That's gravity; the new normal. When you do the authentic thing, for inauthentic reasons, you'll know. And that knowing accumulates.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
WHAT HAPPENED THIS MORNING
Turns out that this morning, four hours before the Cheese Guild showed up at Lockhart, Gardner, our CEO took his garbage out. There were already reporters there; he hadn't been counseled on gravity or the sacrifice, hadn't changed his tie, hadn't met Eli Gold. And when they descended on him, he gave them the same line he'd prepared when it happened, the authentic answer Eli hated so much: "What else did these kids eat?"
Eli storms into Diane's office and down the guy's throat. It's scary. Even though she doesn't react to this screaming in her office, Diane's a little thrown, just watching the guy saying it's not fair for them to play this footage so late in the day, as if he'd just said it. Playing it after his carefully prepared statement. Like there's some big book of what's fair and what's not.
Eli: "Oh, where do you live? Fairyland? Of course they can do that."
It's a better story; it's a more competitive image. Eli burns our CEO as their spokesman and calls for an immediate recall of all the cheese on all the shelves in Illinois. The Guild lady argues with gravity -- "I don't think that's possible..." -- and Eli explains, once again, the new normal, the fundamental assumptions that just changed again. "He just blamed the victim. It just became possible."
ZACH IS FINE
Alicia: "How are the kids?"
Owen: "Good! Grace is bonding with a shy dance teacher and Peter told Zach that he slept with another woman."
Alicia: "What?"
Owen: "Oh, Grace is bonding with a..."
Alicia: "No. What did Peter say."
Owen: "Oh yeah, he told Zach -- your son -- that he -- Peter -- was at fault for you kicking him out, because he slept with somebody else. And so now I'm wondering who that somebody else was..."
Alicia: "Zach told you this?"
Owen: "He did!"
Alicia: "And what did Zach say to him?"
Nothing, of course. Not our little surveillance expert. Owen presses her for this latest bit of news, but it's too awful to think about, much less say.
Alicia, staring into space: "I have to go back work..."
Owen: "Work is your new avoidance tactic."
Alicia: "Then it's about the kids. How are they, how is Zach?"
Owen: "Uh, Zach is fine. Zach is wondering how you are. Which is how?"
Alicia: "I've got to get back to work."
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
THE LOBBY
Celeste is dealing out cards for a game they abandoned nine years ago -- "You always hated my memory thing," she smiles, which will undoubtedly matter later -- and Will sits.
Will: "So I heard you got married."
Celeste: "Twice. Heard you didn't."
He counts out his Cheerio ante and refuses to comment, or show any expression, or do anything at all. She laughs at him and asks about his "lady friend," the lawyer: "I get a strong possessive sense there." But is that more perfect information? Undoubtedly true, but is she bluffing in another game entirely? Either way, he says, she'll use it in negotiations. She chuckles at him, they move on.
Will: "So how do you know Gretchen?"
She pretends not to know what he's talking about; she doesn't know what he's talking about. One or the other. He shrugs and moves on. They deal the cards again, and back to negotiations.
Celeste: "You lose this hand, you convince your client to take my deal, vice versa. $10M down to $500K."
Will: "So that's your bottom line?"
She likes it. She misses him. "Why did you drop out?" she asks, but he says he didn't. Just moved on. To what? "Adulthood." I couldn't say why, but something about her face for a second makes me think that one hurt. "Come on," she says, leaning forward: "One bet." Like it's a drug they used to do together. She swears his "lady friend" will be impressed when he comes to her door with $10M. Too much going on, he takes off. He eats the Cheerios, they turn back into food. She calls him a wuss and checks the cards as he's walking away -- perfect information -- and laughs. He would have won.
BOTTOM LINES
Will and Alicia celebrate, upstairs: Their bottom line was five, not ten. On the other hand, she most likely didn't plant the story with Gretchen. Anything else of note?
Will: "She's gonna try to play you. Jealousy."
Alicia, grinning: "Using your past? To what end?"
Will: "Rattle you, get you to admit the bottom line just for the kick of it."
They laugh. How perfectly impossible. Jealousy, of all things.
Alicia: "So you and her, huh?"
Will: "Two years."
Alicia: "I just don't see it."
Will: "I was a different person."
Alicia: "And she's the same?"
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
Oh yeah. So, Alicia thinks. By redefining the game for her own amusement, now that they've pretty much won based on the fundamental assumptions -- based on the perfect information Celeste just gave up -- Celeste is asking for it. She's put that on the table, and it pisses Alicia off. "What if I play jealous?" she asks. Would you like that? We could fight. Rile me up and set me off. St. Alicia, slamming out of there like a stolen car.
"For the mediator," of course. Not for Will, this new Will for a new Alicia. Not to get the power back from this new information, not for the authentic jealousy nor for the inauthentic playacting of it all. Just for the case. Just to spice things up. Will doesn't see the problem; it could even help the settlement. Diane could use some good news. Alicia doesn't see the problem, either. Which is the problem.
FINN'S OPINION
Is that Tantric sex would be a good thing to try. Owen is not so sure. Finn is European or something, clear-eyed and sweet, but Owen is not so sure that he's interested at this juncture in the day in eschewing "frictional orgasm" for a higher form of ecstasy. Finn doesn't know what the weekend's been like, or how long he's been with Alicia's weird kids; Finn doesn't know that Owen has somehow, over the course of a day, become the boring one. He still looks the same to Finn.
Finn: "We don't touch, we don't undress. We talk about our childhoods. Anything but sex. Delaying gratification is to increase gratification."
They argue about it for a while, awesomely; he might as well be talking about the last two seasons.
Owen: "Yeah, but I've spent the last three hours doing laundry and the kids are gonna be home in a couple of hours so I don't really have time for delayed gratification."
Of course, the door opens immediately. Owen fusses and runs to the door, but it's just Jackie. Jackie Florrick, who is not allowed in the house, Jackie who is picking up the kids for Peter, using her old key to let herself into the house on his behalf. Jackie who's arrived early to clean up the place. Jackie, who called this place home for a while. Who knew the house would be empty. Jackie who is probably quite lonely.
Finn's excited to see her, to ask her all about herself, to talk about childhoods, fully clothed. To drive Owen insane. And it is working. He sits her down, this unwelcome enemy and this sexual distraction, and loves every second of it. More Finn, please! Get a load of this shit:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
Jackie: "Where should I start? Chicago was very different when I was a girl..."
THE BOX
Alicia walks Ira to the conference room, where he's just been through another round with his two children -- a boy, and a girl -- who've been missing him all weekend.
Ira: "You think this mediation is hard?"
Alicia: "I'm really sorry about all of this..."
Ira: "Hey, they're all tough. We just have to remain human."
One thing I do love about Alicia is that she actually listens when people talk. "How do we do that?" she asks; she really needs to know. "Find a box for this, and keep it in that box." She thanks him, honestly; she digests it and nods and thanks him. But he's wrong, this time. This time, it's the opposite.
Inside, it doesn't take Celeste too long at all, to once again do exactly the things Will said she would. "You failed, Will," she says. "I know what it looks like when he fails, and he is failing," she says. "Alicia, talk to him," she says. "I'm just saying, Will and I talked last night, and we were trying to negotiate a deal, but clearly his ego got in the way, and... I used to be able to talk to him. I can't talk to him now, so you'll have to talk to him."
The world untwists into a new shape, for Ira and for everyone. Celeste has rewritten the fundamental assumptions. Ira's response is human, authentic. Will and Alicia are "horrified."
Will: "Celeste, what are you doing?"
Celeste, wild and high: "I'm talking to her! I'm just saying that Will and I got together, we had a productive session, that's all, and I was thinking we should do that again..."
Will blushes; Alicia stares at the floor. They roll their eyes, conspicuously. Ira, appalled, tries to rein them in but it's too late: Poor St. Alicia heads for the door, looking sickened. Ira has two kids, and he wants to go home. Outside, Alicia smiles to herself, a secret little smile; it's sweet and it's sad.
Inside, Ira takes Will's side as firmly as possible. He tells Celeste to raise her offer because the overdose defense won't work, but he's clearly just checked out of the whole thing. Celeste gets it, sees what she did wrong -- although not the box Will and Alicia put them in, with her -- and changes tack.
Jason Doyle, the manufacturer's project manager on the SCS, was deposed as saying that according to FDA rules, they and Farland were both operating legally. "But Mr. Gardner seemed to imply that Dr. Farland was Josef Mengele," Celeste spit in the deposition, not that Doyle knew who that was. Doyle stated that manufacturers are allowed to decide which devices need to be submitted, and that if it's just a minor modification, they don't have to bother. At the deposition, Alicia pulled out another SCS, already approved, and compares it to Farland's SCS, which looked pretty different, not minorly different at all.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
Kalinda, really off her game for once, drops off the wrong file folder at their table and then backs away again, ducking; shuffling. It's kind of a bummer to be honest. Inside the file folder is Dr. Farland's original patent application for the device -- for which, by the way, he's getting 30 percent a pop -- where, of course, he had to insist on originality. To get the patent.
Will: "'This SCS is a truly original development in severe back-pain management. It is not a mere modification' -- How nice of him to use those words! -- '...Of existing SCSs on the market...'"
After some grumbling and tussling, Celeste agrees to eight, and then changes the subject again: "I need a new home. My firm is going under. Breaking up. Litigation's going one way, acquisitions another." A total of nine in litigation, including Celeste; he says he'll check with Diane and, once again, she says how much she misses him. Maybe she does. Maybe she doesn't know the difference right now, and just needs a home.
THIS GOOD MAN
Alicia stops Ira on the way out to thank him for everything, and he's just a little sad.
Ira: "You don't have to thank me. I wasn't the one who played them."
Alicia: "We... That's not why we won..."
Already, she knows what he's talking about. Already that secret smile is fading. It's when you call her out that she can feel herself slipping; as long as it's a secret she can do what she wants. As long as it's polite, unstated, as long as you don't show her what she's doing. But he holds up a mirror, for a split-second.
Ira: "You won because of the facts. You got your client rich because you played them. And me."
Alicia: "That's not fair..."
Ira: "It is fair. It may not be polite, but it is fair."
Gravity. The ground comes up to meet her.
Ira: "Don't worry about it. If I needed a lawyer I'd probably hire you, too. Very nice to meet you."
And all those desperate people, flailing around in a world where they have to know these things all the time. Where the image and the reality are the same thing. Where this man can point out the difference between behavior and intention: To say out loud that excusing yourself for doing the thing is not the same as not doing the thing. And worse: To know that this man, this good man who taught her a little bit about the world this weekend, that she liked, this father of two whose values she shares and whose values she manipulated?
This good man has just put her in a box.
HOME
Zach, in bed, sleepy: "Hey, Mom."
Alicia: "Just wanted to see how you were doing."
Zach: "How's your thing?"
Alicia: "It was good... I don't know, I go back and forth on work."
Zach, smiling: "Yeah. Same with Dad."
And if she rushes upon him, then, without warning, to kiss him on the forehead, can you blame her?
Owen: "I'm getting boring."
Alicia: "Getting?"
Owen: "I mean, when did this happen? You're the one out having sex with your boyfriend..."
Alicia: "Owen."
Owen: "...And I'm the one at home with the kids..."
Alicia: "And it's much appreciated."
Will Alicia be hurt by this guy? She doesn't know. She has no perspective on that. No thoughts to offer. She goes back and forth. She puts it in a box; she takes it out again.
Owen: "You should have rebelled in high school. Then you wouldn't have to do it now."
Alicia: "Is that what this is? Rebellion?"
She listens, when people talk. She wants to know the answer.
Owen: "Or love."
She thinks, she digests. She actually thinks about the answer to this question. She opens the box and thinks about it. Only Alicia Florrick would actually make that face -- eyes up and to the left -- to wonder about the answer to this question. Accidents are unintentional.
Owen: "...It's not love, is it?"
Alicia's not so sure. Not worried; not happy either. Wedding ring on her finger. This isn't about the law; it's not about the image either. It's about gravity.
Alicia: "...No."
Owen knows her better than that. That knowing accumulates, too.
"Good. Because that would make it very complicated."
And if she throws her arms around her brother, without warning, and holds onto him like she's drowning, just for a moment: Can you blame her then?
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife, Pretty Little Liars and True Blood for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, most recently A Friday Night Lights Companion and Fringe Science.
THIS GOOD MAN
Alicia stops Ira on the way out to thank him for everything, and he's just a little sad.
Ira: "You don't have to thank me. I wasn't the one who played them."
Alicia: "We... That's not why we won..."
Already, she knows what he's talking about. Already that secret smile is fading. It's when you call her out that she can feel herself slipping; as long as it's a secret she can do what she wants. As long as it's polite, unstated, as long as you don't show her what she's doing. But he holds up a mirror, for a split-second.
Ira: "You won because of the facts. You got your client rich because you played them. And me."
Alicia: "That's not fair..."
Ira: "It is fair. It may not be polite, but it is fair."
Gravity. The ground comes up to meet her.
Ira: "Don't worry about it. If I needed a lawyer I'd probably hire you, too. Very nice to meet you."
And all those desperate people, flailing around in a world where they have to know these things all the time. Where the image and the reality are the same thing. Where this man can point out the difference between behavior and intention: To say out loud that excusing yourself for doing the thing is not the same as not doing the thing. And worse: To know that this man, this good man who taught her a little bit about the world this weekend, that she liked, this father of two whose values she shares and whose values she manipulated?
This good man has just put her in a box.
HOME
Zach, in bed, sleepy: "Hey, Mom."
Alicia: "Just wanted to see how you were doing."
Zach: "How's your thing?"
Alicia: "It was good... I don't know, I go back and forth on work."
Zach, smiling: "Yeah. Same with Dad."
And if she rushes upon him, then, without warning, to kiss him on the forehead, can you blame her?
Owen: "I'm getting boring."
Alicia: "Getting?"
Owen: "I mean, when did this happen? You're the one out having sex with your boyfriend..."
Alicia: "Owen."
Owen: "...And I'm the one at home with the kids..."
Alicia: "And it's much appreciated."
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
Will Alicia be hurt by this guy? She doesn't know. She has no perspective on that. No thoughts to offer. She goes back and forth. She puts it in a box; she takes it out again.
Owen: "You should have rebelled in high school. Then you wouldn't have to do it now."
Alicia: "Is that what this is? Rebellion?"
She listens, when people talk. She wants to know the answer.
Owen: "Or love."
She thinks, she digests. She actually thinks about the answer to this question. She opens the box and thinks about it. Only Alicia Florrick would actually make that face -- eyes up and to the left -- to wonder about the answer to this question. Accidents are unintentional.
Owen: "...It's not love, is it?"
Alicia's not so sure. Not worried; not happy either. Wedding ring on her finger. This isn't about the law; it's not about the image either. It's about gravity.
Alicia: "...No."
Owen knows her better than that. That knowing accumulates, too.
"Good. Because that would make it very complicated."
And if she throws her arms around her brother, without warning, and holds onto him like she's drowning, just for a moment: Can you blame her then?
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife, Pretty Little Liars and True Blood for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, most recently A Friday Night Lights Companion and Fringe Science.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24