Jackie Florrick wastes no time getting her Loudmouthed Old Bitches Club membership current once they release her into the wild. When she starts formicating in public, Eli assumes she's just acting out against his authority -- of course -- but a teary moment of grace and gratitude toward Alicia clearly proves that something is seriously, disastrously wrong. It's nice to see Alicia giving Eli tips on wrangling the old beast, but hopefully the campy "invisible bugs" thing won't be a major factor moving forward.
Kalinda, who is apparently ready to start doing her dang job again, gets that dummy campaign worker from last week to catch herself in a lie about her so-called affair with Peter... But notes some inconsistencies in Eli's story about that night, too. (This with the help of an unbelievably bizarre hotel employee you can't take your eyes off for even a second, which provided some of the levity.)
The case itself, a hate-crime blender of race, sexuality and fraternity rivalries, treads a little too close to demonstrating the same privilege with which the show itself sometimes gets a little too comfortable. But for a story centered on the It Gets Better/bullying meme it's a fresh take, and comes to a satisfying conclusion. If only we could say the same of Maddie Hayward's interest in Alicia, which continues to be this weirdly misty fascination that never results in anything resembling an agenda or intent of any kind.
Eli's paranoia throws some weird notes into Alicia's first friend-date with Maddie Hayward, as well as inviting more rage -- and possibly an anonymous tip to a muckraking blogger -- from Mandy Post, and at episode's end Eli's given a one-hour warning before the story goes live online. This mystery or whatever it is seems to have a lot more layers than at first appeared.
Nathan Lane's Trustee Hijinks this week involved a lovely testimony to the wonders of Cary, which ended up rebounding on a wary Alicia pretty hardcore: They're now sharing an office, which -- considering Eli's surgically attached to her ass at this point -- makes for some complicated shouting matches. On the other hand, Diane visits the now-desolate 27th floor and, seeing her dream in pieces, goes through some kind of spontaneous catharsis that leads her to join the Will Gardner School of Not Giving A Fuck.
Week: After all those years spent in praise of the Chinese Wall, L/G finally gets pulled into Lemond Bishop's criminal activities. Alicia appears to chill at his house for most of the day, hanging out with that great kid of his while the Bishops' life gets dismantled. If it's anything like the rest of the episodes this season, it should be awesome.
PREVIOUSLY
Nick Savarese got about one second into threatening FBI Lana before Kalinda told her husband about her girlfriend's day job. The enigmatic Maddie Hayward and, separately, the charming Trustee Nathan Lane, are turning Diane Lockhart's perennial "where does money come from" storyline into a real nailbiter -- we're losing entire floors and departments -- while old enemies may be smelling the firm's new weaknesses. On the homefront, plucky reporter Mandy Post believes beyond the shadow that Peter is not only up to his old tricks, but Alicia is an enthusiastic supporter of his extracurriculars. But in point of fact, not only is that completely outwith the realm of possibility, but the Florricks seem to be doing better than ever, maybe even unto Doing It.
JACKIE
The episode starts with a stylish montage of Jackie taking off the appurtenances of recovery and putting on her warpaint again: ID bracelet traded for Napoleon bee pin, hair did, etc.
Peter: "The doctor said the stroke did no permanent damage, so..."
Jackie, side-eye galore: "Are you sure about that? Because what I heard him saying was, I now have carte blanche to do every horrible thing that pops into my old bitch head."
Peter: "Oh, and I set you up in that house I used to live in with my wife, that we all kind of live in now. So it'll be just like before, only vastly worse."
Eli: "Hey Peter, I have Kalinda investigating that campaign worker you didn't sleep with. Is that weird?"
Peter: "Yeah, super weird. Go for it."
Jackie: "Hey, did you sleep with a campaign worker or anything like that?"
Peter: "I didn't actually sleep with her, but yeah. Her name is Indira Starr, which you'd think would make her an Indian person or maybe an alien from a space comic book, but in fact she just looks like a normal blowsy blonde."
Jackie: "Is there a way for me to blame Alicia about this?"
Peter: "Would it stop you that there isn't?"
SYNTH
Alicia: "...And this happened when?"
Synth: "You always answer questions with questions?"
Alicia: "Do I?"
Synth: "Anyway. This 'Indira Starr' person was in your apartment on August 21 and she said you found her boning your husband and said it was cool."
Alicia: "Nope. None of that. For starters, we were separated at that time."
Synth: "Other stuff that is similarly all made up, because Mandy Post has a Wendy Scott-Carr need to take Peter down for no reason, and she's obsessed with this story even though it makes no sense."
Alicia: "I have to go, you guys."
SYNTH FOYER
Eli: "That was so great in there, you're always so good at things. I could kiss you!"
Alicia: "That would be hilarious. But don't do it."
Ficus: "Please don't hurt me again, Mr. Gold!"
Eli: "Kalinda, check this part of the story about the St. Martin Hotel. I think I was in the adjoining room, with the door open."
Kalinda: "What an odd detail to offer out of nowhere. I sure hope it doesn't give me cause to be suspicious later."
LAWSON TRIAL
The case is that Tre Lawson was a 19-year-old freshman at Neil Gross's alma mater, Chicago Polytechnic, on a water polo scholarship, who was hazed to death by a teammate, Wayne Crockett. He taunted, bullied and drawned him, plead guilty, and is now serving eight years. But the parents are suing the school now, because this was at an annual water polo party known to get out of hand, and because of the ramping-up of the bullying beforehand. Opposing counsel is Lionel Luthor, because this show never met an openly gay guest star they couldn't shove in there somewhere, but they only choose the best ones, and it's for sure a good thing. Especially when they're hitting the It Gets Better button so hard and weirdly like this week.
You know who I miss? Owen's boyfriend that Michael Arden played, the Tantric guru from Scandinavia. Maybe he got hit on the head by a falling Kristen Chenoweth.
L/G: "What are we looking at here? It seems like water polo, but drunk."
Coach Shank: "It's called the Dunk, it's a swimming and horseplay party we have the night before our first match. We like to keep our festivities pretty thematic. And by 'we,' of course, I mean 'I had no idea this tradition even exists.'"
The eponymous Dunk is, the veteran players hold the freshmen under water, I guess just until they are almost dead. How fun! I had no idea the water polo subculture was so classy. Why, it's almost like regular polo.
Video Crockett: "Oh my God, he drowned! Because I was drowning him!"
Luthor: "But you say you told them not to do it this year? And then they took it off campus. So the school has nothing to do with it."
New Kid: "No, it's been a tradition for fifty years."
Alicia: "And did the university have a wink-wink attitude towards..."
(Objection sustained.)
Alicia: "So Shanks said no Dunk this year, but they say that every year."
Witness: "Well, but then also he sent me this text that says Don't get too drunk at the Dunk. Have match tomorrow. So."
THE HALLS OF JUSTICE
Diane: "Sorry about your dead kid. I just talked to Lionel Luthor and he offered a half million. But don't take it, okay? Six million is what we're going for."
Parents: "He keeps calling us greedy. Six million is twelve times more than that."
Alicia: "The more they call you names, the more you know you're winning."
Will: "Hey Diane, I just wanted to let you know how incredibly depressing it is on the boxed-up, burnt-out 27th floor. Just standing here makes me feel poor."
Diane: "We'll get it back, Will. You retreat to advance."
Will: "Yeah, but because every season there's some kind of fucked up financial thing going on at the firm, it feels like we've been retreating for four years."
Diane: "And we're still standing. Among all the firms, there's just us."
Will: "Okay. Actually, being in the shithole that used to be several of our departments is kind of invigorating. I feel like I have nothing to lose and everything to burn."
Diane: "Attagirl."
JACKIE FLORRICK, FORMICATOR EXTERMINAIRE
Homegirl's speaking at a Tea for the Alliance For Retired Americans, a terrifying concept but one which I guess is really just code for Eli still wants her to shut the hell up. One of Eli's dudes is standing at the back, nervously laughing at her crappy jokes and videotaping the whole thing, probably for uploading it later to a website.* It takes the old thing about five seconds before the slut-shaming begins.
Jackie: "I know that my son's rigorous sexual appetite and almost animalistic magnetism is no reason to vote for him for Governor. But apparently, it's reason enough for whores and slatterns to come crawling from the woodwork and the slutty gutters of Cook County, claiming to have tasted the heaven that is my child's sweaty, meaty loving. Even when he was a little child, a little junior high schooler that wouldn't let his mother bathe him anymore, I could see them. Staring, wanting him. The flames of desire in their tainted hearts. Did it really happen? Does he really sleep with everyone he meets? Is it perhaps all a sick fantasy of these lonely women with their incredible taste in men? Was this perhaps divine retribution for my daughter-in-law's occasional wearing of slacks around the house? At some point it just doesn't matter. Because I am crazy as all fuck."
*(I'm no dummy. I have learned a lot about technology from watching this show.)
Nervous Video Guy: "Holla at your girl, Eli. This shit is going south."
Jackie: "...Understanding is that the human body has ways of shutting that down..."
Eli: "Take her out. Killing force is authorized."
Jackie: "...You know and I just told him, these girls rape so easy..."
Nervous Guy: "Mrs. Florrick, Eli wants to talk to you."
Jackie: "But I'm in the middle of my remarks! My horrible, retrograde remarks!"
Eli on Phone: "Bitch, if you don't get off that podium I'ma give you something to stroke about."
LAWSON TRIAL
Witness Kid From Before: "I wasn't so much Wayne Crockett's best friend, no, but we were friends."
Crockett's text: "Is Mary bringing the brews?"
Luthor: "Because Tre Lawson brought the 'brews' that night, so... This was a gay thing, yes? From like a million years ago when people called gay dudes Mary?"
L/G: "What is the point here?"
Luthor: "I'm saying Tre Lawson was gay ["OBJECTION!" -- Everybody In The Courtroom] bashed, you idiots. And since it's a hate crime, the college isn't liable. Not an inevitable consequence of the Dunk, but of the bigotry of our times."
Diane: "This is stupid as hell."
Judge: "It's a question of law, not whether or not Lionel Luthor is a dick. You say the university is liable because it knew about the hazing and didn't stop it. He's saying the murder went beyond the hazing because it was a hate crime. If it's as stupid as it sounds, the jury won't have a problem giving you the trial, right?"
LATER
Parents: "Our son couldn't be gay, he's black."
L/G: "Two things you should have told us. Just kidding! That's really helpful."
Parents: "Also, we're black. So this is going to immediately make us settle, because it's very important that all gay people are white. It's called erasure and it's how straight white people retain their privilege."
L/G: "Aw, Jeez. We really don't have time to deal with all the ways this storyline is offensive. Just let us win this, okay?"
DESOLATE, HAUNTED 27TH FL.
Diane: "Well, ain't this a bitch."
TRUSTEE
Hayden Clarke: "So you and Diane will be sharing an office from now on..."
Will: "Nope. Feel free to screw us in many other ways, but not that."
Diane: "...What's going on here? I am fired up."
Hayden: "I just want to drop a wall and split this office in two. Some litigators are without offices now that we lost a floor -- I guess the ones I didn't also fire -- and that's going to hit you in the morale. So it's incumbent upon leadership to sacrifice."
L & G: "Good point, but we're not doing that. We have nothing to lose and everything to burn, little man."
Hayden: "I am still only trying to help you dicks."
JACKIE V. ELI GOLD
Jackie: "Mr. Gold, I was only trying to help!"
Eli: "I will help your ass down a flight of stairs if you don't cool it. I'm trying to stop an article about a fake assignation of Peter's, and you're going around talking about how women can't stop fuckin' going af..."
Jackie: "-- Don't you bark at me, Mr. Gold."
Eli: "[Sad, failed attempt at sounding enraged. I don't even want to talk about it. It's like breaking into a home a finding only a one-eyed Chihuahua guarding the place. You'd turn around and climb back out the window just out of pity. Don't ever make Eli act shouty again, it's embarrassing for everybody.] I hope you enjoy working events even more pathetically obscure than the Retired Alliance Tea."
Jackie: "Whatever. Having tea that late in the midafternoon, it just runs right into dinner. Throws the whole thing off."
MADDIE HAYWARD & THE CASE OF THE TYPICALLY POINTLESS FIVE SECOND DRIVE-BY
Eli: "Ms. Hayward, I hope you come hang around for no reason at our straw poll this weekend. Since you seem to have no interest in moving your storyline along at all, maybe you could justify your paycheck that way."
Maddie: "I still don't care about that, as a busy businesswoman, but I do have a question. What's this thing about 'Indira Starr'? The Busy Businesswomen's Business Society gave me the business about it."
Eli: "God, I hate this. It's like the one person he never fucked. The irony. If I were him, I would just say screw it and go back to being disgusting... Hey, where'd she go?"
Maddie: "I told you I am very busy!"
TRUSTEE
Hayden: "Jesus Christ, look at you."
Cary: "I know. I wish I could say you get used to it, but..."
Hayden: "Uh, anyway. I hear you do a good job, so I am going to get you an office."
Cary: "I'm used to having things handed to me, so whatever."
Hayden: "Also, if you need anything. Anything."
Cary: "You mean like a backrub, or..."
Hayden: "Yeah. Also, if you have any suggestions on people to fire, or offices to hand over to other people... Really anything. Don't limit your scope. At all. Blue sky that bitch. I mean it. Anything you want. Any time. You want my number? Here's my number."
BETH
L/G: "So you're a lady."
Beth: "I am."
L/G: "With working lady parts."
Beth: "No complaints so far."
L/G: "And what was your relationship with the deceased?"
Beth: "We were more than friends, but less than exclusive."
Luthor: "Gay dudes can date or even marry women! This is the '90s!"
(Objection sustained. Slow your roll, Lionel Luthor.)
L/G: "And so when you were fucking him, did he seem super gay to you?"
Beth: "I would say no."
L/G: "Okay and did he also have sex with a bunch of guys?"
Beth: "No way, he was black. Uh, I mean 'religious.'"
L/G: "But you know everybody thought he was gay, right? Because he was so fancy."
Judge: Is very fancy, by the way.
Beth: "Yeah. Everybody thought he was gay because of his fanciness. Joke's on them!"
Lionel: "It doesn't matter if he was actually gay or merely fancy! The hate in a hate crime comes from the person, not the facts."
Diane: "Your Honor, this lawsuit has gone far afield..."
Judge: "That's true. And as a fancy, fancy man who happens to have a curvaceous, smoking-hot wife and a very happy, very sexual marriage..."
L/G: "...Aw, shit."
L/G
Eli: "So you're having drinks with Maddie Hayward tonight..."
Alicia: "The fuck you know that, little guy."
Eli: "I know everything. Now, tell her that Peter didn't really bone that girl..."
Alicia: "We are having a perfectly normal courtship, Eli. Just two women getting to know each other in a strictly heterosexual way by going on public dates and sharing intimate details of life lived under surveillance. I am not about to kill the vibe and just launch into some story about my husband's wayward peen."
Eli: "You will if you know what's good for you. Maybe she'll bring it up. By which I mean, now that I put a bug in your ear you'll be parsing everything she says for a reason to defend your husband, because it reflects better on you if your marriage is what you say it is."
FLORRICK OFC (FOR NOW)
Hayden: "What do you think of Cary Agos?"
Alicia, verbatim: "What do I think? I think he's great! ...[I like him] very much. I'm the one who suggested the firm hire him."
Hayden: "Oh, you still think I care what you think. No, this wasn't a trick to get your okay on other employees. Quite the opposite, actually."
Alicia: "What do you mean?"
Hayden: "You'll see in a second!"
FLORRICK/AGOS OFFICE
Cary: "...Uh, this is Alicia's office?"
Hayden: "Well, it was."
Alicia's response to this is so classic and wry, it's up there with the "all this paper" moment. Just like, "Annnnd fuck me. Got it. Come right in, buddy." Like she even accidentally calls Cary Eli and then apologizes for it and bites the inside of her cheek and waves one hand around and admits to being flustered. Fifteen things we've never seen her do, all in one movement. Alicia Florrick, flustered. What does that look like? Well I'll tell ya. You know how she's just so pretty? Turn that up like a half-click.
Immediately, just to get it out of the way, Cary and Alicia start their first dueling-convo situation, where both their phones ring at once and they both have to chat. Cary's is just boilerplate talk, since his story for the season is still warming up, and Alicia's is about sending Kalinda to find out if Wayne Crockett killed Tre for gay stuff.
Alicia: "Hey, Kalinda, sorry it's so loud in here. Hey, what are you doing where you are? I'm going to need a friend when it turns out that Maddie Hayward is secretly a lizard in a Wendy Scott-Carr costume in a Maddie Hayward costume."
Kalinda: "Oh I'm just at this hotel where your husband fucked that girl."
Alicia: "Do what?"
Kalinda: "I said I'm at Curves. It's a gym for ladies. Curves."
ST. MARTIN HOTEL
St. Martin Lady: "Hey, is your name Kalinda? I feel woozy, like a whole new world of desire has been opened within me that makes me act super unprofessional."
Kalinda: "Used to it. Although, you are particularly weird. You are like the weirdest person ever on this show. I can't even figure out why you're so weird, you just are. It's intense."
St. Martin Lady: "I've been so damned alone. Me and this haircut. Ever since I got fired from my job as Headmistress of the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic."
Kalinda: "Take me all over this hotel and tell me private information about your most high-profile guests like it's no big deal."
St. Martin Lady: "Can do. And after that, could you bash me in the head with a frying pan and then hold a gun to my throat while we do it?"
Kalinda: "If we move fast."
Was Indira Starr in the hotel fucking Peter Florrick? No, of course not. More interestingly, though, was the door between Eli and Peter's rooms open? I like to think that they prefer to sleep that way, just in case Peter has a bad dream. But the answer is no.
Lady: "Our staff has to open the door connecting the rooms. There was no such request."
Kalinda: "Can't the occupants open it on their own?"
Lady: "Not the regular normal ones... I'm sorry. I have disappointed you."
(She really said that and it was so weird.)
Kalinda: "No, it's just odd because of this random unnecessary thing somebody said to me. What is the real clue I am here to find?"
Lady: "You have to have a special keycard, a Concierge Card, to get onto the floor where Peter was."
Kalinda: "But this chick wasn't on that floor, so how would she get there?"
Lady: "Only with a Concierge Card. I seem to have pleased you now."
Kalinda: "You sure have, Ms. Ledger."
(They both really said that, and it was super weird but also pretty awesome.)
FERN BAR
I don't know why I refer to every bar on this show as a fern bar. I don't even know what that is, really, I just think of it as "a bar like they have on TV sometimes." I don't know that anybody has used that term since the '80s, or precisely what it meant even then. I can distinctly remember my father using the term. Or an episode of LA Law, one or the other.
For most of my childhood I thought it had to do with lesbians, or maybe it was lesbian lawyers? That a lesbian lawyer would take a lady to a fern bar, that was all I knew of them. And I made that up, so.
Or maybe it wasn't a lesbian but Frasier Crane. Oh, I'll never figure this one out. It's like the time there was a folk cover of that song "Fields Of Gold" on an episode of Dawson's Creek and I got so misty talking about how my mom used to sing that song to me when I was little, and then I had to be like, "Wait, no. That was Sting."
Alicia: "I can't pronounce Pedro Almodovar!"
Maddie: "The poor are so uncultured, I love it."
Alicia: "Why do you keep pouring alcohol down my neck? Do you have some kind of agenda in this fern bar?"
Maddie: "I can understand why you're curious, since I just keep hanging around not doing anything. But Jacob's starting to form a theory. It has to do with Peter, the campaign, even Kalinda is part of this theory. It may result in everything becoming awesome again if he is right."
Alicia: "But for now we are the best of friends!"
Maddie: "Drink more of these free drinks they keep bringing us. Isn't it so ironic that they give rich people the most free stuff? I'm like, Occupy this gift bag! Just kidding, I love it."
Alicia: "Oh shit, I am drunk. On the upside, I can ask you why you want to be my friend. Because clearly you have an agenda in this fern bar."
Maddie: "Do you not love it? Do you not enjoy the attention of another human being?"
This part was so sad, but also kind of awesome, because this only ever comes up in conversations with Owen, this idea that Alicia is partly sad but also totally gets off on people thinking she's boring. Like the more boring she is, the more of a middle-finger it is to everybody else who wants her to be interesting, and she can save the fun shit for life at home.
Alicia: "Why are we here? I'm not very interesting."
Maddie: "That's certainly not true! You are a very interesting ingredient in whatever witch's brew I'm cooking up."
Alicia's face makes a face. Oh shit she is drunk. I wasn't sure how drunk, until she actually expressed an emotion. Girl, get out of there! You are in danger!
Maddie: "What."
Alicia: "Thanks for giving to Peter's campaign."
Maddie: "Nothing to do with you. And very close to over. And also... What else."
Alicia: "They keep saying I was part of this affair he didn't have. Like I was into it."
Maddie: "That's pretty nuts. I can see why you keep drinking these drinks. You're like Diana Barry with the raspberry cordial, my homie."
Alicia: "Speaking of quasi-lesbian obsessive friendships. I have to go now."
Maddie: "Hey but did Eli tell you to tell me that?"
Alicia: "Kind of, but that's not why I did. I just haven't ever had a friend or a conversation before. Did I do wrong? I'm really embarrassed now."
Maddie: "No, I guess not. I guess agendas are normal, for ladies like us. For ferns like these."
JAIL
Crockett: "But surely you see that I am in jail because of the Lawsons, why would I help them?"
Kalinda: "Well, for one thing you're in jail because you filmed yourself murdering their child. So. And then second of all, if this becomes a hate crime you're looking at federal charges, which means it's not a double jeopardy thing. You can totally go to trial a second time for this."
Crockett: "I mean, the kid wasn't gay. But I'm not getting on a witness stand, my lawyers say no, because there's too much that could go wrong. But you know who you should talk to..."
LAWSON TRIAL
Chad Minson: "I'm a friend of Wayne Crockett's, who is now in jail. We used to play video games together, and this one time I saw Tre Lawson coming out of Beth Alexander's room looking very heterosexual. We laughed about it, because Beth was hot, and Tre had no game, so..."
The Court: "What is the point of any of this?"
Chad Minson: "Because I am super gay, you guys. And Wayne Crockett was the first person I came out to in tenth grade."
L/G: "And to your knowledge, has Mr. Crockett ever gay-bashed you or committed hate crimes on your person?"
Chad Minson: "No. He's a fool who videotaped himself drowning a kid, but he's not a bad guy."
REGIONAL SENIOR CENTER OF GREATER MORTON GROVE
Jackie: "Well, this place is a shithole."
She's right, but she's also wrong: The insects she's seeing, that are interrupting her stupid speech about whatever? They are not, precisely, real. Of two minds, about which, I am. Because on the one hand, give me a break she's seeing insects. And on the other hand, like, if she were going to go crazy in this particular parish of Crazytown, it makes sense that she would see insects. You know: Filth, secrets, bugs, rotting, disease. She's always imagining things are dirtier than they are anyway, right?
Eli, watching video after: "What the fuck is she doing?"
Video Guy: "I know, she did it the whole time. I think she's formicating."
Eli: "If that word means being a horrible old bitch because I took her off center stage, then yeah. That's exactly what she's doing."
Video Guy: "This is a common thing with lots of drugs, actually. Maybe we should..."
Peter: "Whoa, who's the crazy old lady you're watch... Oh crap, is that my mom? Why's she acting like Billy Bibbit?"
Video Guy: "Can we at least check her dosage, though?"
Eli: "-- That's enough of that. This is clearly about me."
Peter: "I think you'll find it's about me, and my pleasure with you. So let's please me."
Eli: "Once again, I am caught between a rock and a harridan."
LAWSON TRIAL
Luthor: "Maybe you weren't his 'gay' friend, just a childhood friend. Or his 'white' friend. Maybe he overlooked your gross gayness."
Chad: "I mean, maybe?"
Luthor: "And like you said he had 'no game.' Elaborate, please?"
Chad: "He wasn't, like, a man's man."
Luthor: "He was fancy."
Chad: "Very. But so what? Wayne wouldn't drown a person for being fancy. Everybody's a little fancy."
Diane: "What the hell are we even doing here? First it was a hate crime against a gay dude. Then it was a hate crime against the fancy."
Luthor: "Exactly. The swishy."
(I'm sorry, but "Mary"? "Swishy"? What the fuck kind of time traveling yokel nonsense is this? Do people somewhere still use words like that? How embarrassing and dumb. Baby Boomers, once again you can eat my entire fancy ass. Grow the fuck up.)
Diane: "...Ah. So now it's a hate crime against 'swishy' people, who are not gay..."
This Show: "If an effeminate man marries a woman and doesn't sleep with men, then yes, that man is not gay."
Wrong. If any kind of man at all says he's not gay, he's not gay. He can sleep with men all he wants, doesn't matter. I'm not one for identity politics or social justice, at all -- quite the opposite really -- but in this situation that's the correct call, and there's a solid basis for it: Anything else, and you're setting up the binary so that gay is less, that anybody tainted by sexual acts is less, that one gay act makes you irrevocably gay because you fell, and all of that is wrong. Not just childishly naïve but logically wrong, ethically broken. You are baking those assumptions into the cake, and they are bad assumptions.
Dispassionately speaking, they're faulty, because like every social inequity we struggle with in this country, they come from the same pet tiger question: As long as you consider Cary Agos the baseline human from whom the rest of us are measured, Cary always wins. As long as any minority is less rather than different, Cary always wins. And the ways you get into, or out of, that trap aren't always apparent: In this case, it seems like you're having a progressive conversation by admitting that gay people exist at all, but you're not. The privilege still lies in your ability to give and remove permissions for the rest of us to exist, in your conversation among yourselves.
It's not ever the hate that keeps things from changing, it's the privilege. Every empire rests on privilege, not bigotry, because hate is something you have to justify and feels gross, whereas privilege just feels like the way things are.
So, the person in question is the one who decides, no matter how weird that may sound to you or how it works out in practice, because it's the only ethical answer to the question that also satisfies the requirements the questions is intended to satisfy. This is one of the few minorities where that's the case, but it's a big one. Now, this conversation is about perception, so that doesn't really apply here, except you keep losing track of that in order to pursue these ridiculous, offensive, privileged conversations about hypothetical matters of hypothetical interest to people who don't identify as gay, but are pretty fucking important in reality. So how is it that you've managed to make things simultaneously both more and less complicated than they are, and still be wrong in both directions? It's like watching cats do algebra. Why do you even need to do algebra, Kitty? Just go do cat stuff.
I mean, it goes on for a really long time but it's all so weird and retro that there's not much point for what you and I are doing here in this recap. Debating whether there are effeminate gay men or celibate straight men or whatever the hell. So stupid. So CBS, like that one time the two hackers on that show were hacking so hard they were both using the same keyboard. What? This is what I always imagine shows are like, on this channel. I haven't been this mortified for old people since Carrie went to that party at Alanis Morissette's house and boys were kissing on the mouth and she was like, "What is going on here, Alanis Morissette?" And Alanis Morissette was like, "Human sexuality is a moving target, you gross old weirdo." And then they made out and it was so hot, because when you think "sex symbol"...
AGOS/FLORRICK
Eli's up Alicia's ass about six things over here, and Cary's over there talking a prostitute through her first felony, and they're all in this tiny office, and it's just ... a shitshow. A beautiful, glorious shitshow.
Eli: "Jackie is off the reservation and Peter is asking the impossible and I have no leverage over her..."
Alicia: "Fuck makes you think I have leverage? And why do you keep asking me to do things?"
Eli: "OMG that's right! How'd it go with Maddie?"
Alicia: "Get out of my office, I have to work. If you want Jackie, you have to buy her. Make her feel valued, important, useful..."
Eli: "She is literally none of those things."
Alicia: "Yeah, and you made sure she knew it."
Eli: "Ah. Humans."
From here, the room descends into chaos.
'INDIRA' 'STARR'
Kalinda: "So what can you tell me about 30 Sep?"
Indira: "I went to his floor to discuss my career, and also blowjobs."
Kalinda: "Did you have a key to his room, on that floor?"
Indira: "The fifteenth floor. And no, I just knocked."
Kalinda: "Was anybody else in the elevator?"
Indira: "No, how embarrassing would that be?"
Kalinda: "So how did you get a Concierge Card for the elevator?"
Indira: "Do what?"
SYNCH
Gold & Assoc: "So this bitch is crazy, yes?"
Mandy Post: "Well, or she forgot that part."
Gold & Assoc: "Yeah, or she could be an alien. Either way Kalinda got her on tape, telling whoppers, so..."
Synch: "The tape's not conclusive either way. Ms. Sharma, you seem to have magic powers that cover every area of human existence, what can you say about Starr's demeanor?"
Kalinda: "She was lying like a rug, dude. We already covered this like a bunch of times."
Eli: "Look, jerks. I made the Florricks available, I played ball. Mandy got to talk to Peter twice..."
Synch: "Cheers for that."
Eli: "And they both told you this is made up. And all you have are this lying, crazy girl's crazy lies, which are uncorroborated at best."
Synch: "Are you gearing up to threaten a lawsuit?"
Eli: "No, that would be silly. The point is that you're journalists and you don't have actual facts. You don't, and you won't, no matter how weirdly zealous Miriam Shor gets, because it didn't happen."
LAWSON TRIAL
Crockett: "What I didn't like about Tre Lawson was that he was weird about money. He was cheap, he was bitchy about people's clothing, he whined about two-a-days, he was arrogant..."
Alicia: "Arrogant. Is it okay to use that word?"
Crockett: "Yeah, because I'm... Anyway. Look, I was from the suburbs, he's from the south side of Chicago. He treated me as though I weren't black enough. He had a lot of insecurities about stuff this show is maybe not qualified to be talking about."
Alicia: "But you didn't hate him for being gay?"
Crockett: "He wasn't gay, he was just a little fancy. And a huge asshole."
Luthor: "You were in Omega Delta Omega, the black fraternity? Would you say the kids in your fraternity are light-skinned like you? Or dark-skinned, like Tre?"
Diane: "Objection! First because I'm not sure we should be talking about this. And second because what's the hate crime today?"
Luthor: "Black on black, Your Honor."
Judge: "I guess."
L/G
Cary: "So they were in rival frats, and there were fights? Awesome, because think about it. This case isn't about hate crime, it's about liability."
L/G: "Got it. Good job."
LAWSON TRIAL
Diane: "Coach Shank, thanks for coming back. Now, tell me if in fifty years the water polo team ever had members of both Omega Delta Omega and Pi Gamma Phi on its roster at the same time?"
Coach: "Uh, we've had like three black players ever, so..."
Diane: "But you got this email in 2008 about them fighting at a bowling alley..."
Coach: "I don't read those emails. It makes me feel weird."
Diane: "Well, okay. Did you know that Crockett was an ODO? And did you know that Tre pledged Pi Gamma Phi a week before his death?"
Coach: "Did not know the second one, no."
Diane: "Really because I have this picture of you standing to him and he's wearing their rush shirt."
Luthor: "Hang on, you can't prove Mr. Crockett drowned Mr. Lawson because he was black..."
Judge: "No, you already did that. All Ms. Lockhart proved was that the university knew about the animus."
Luthor: "...How much?"
Diane: "Still six million, ya queer."
Just kidding, she didn't really say that. But it made me laugh anyway.
LOCKHART/GARDNER
Will: "So today feels pretty good, huh?"
Diane: "I like the law. I like how he tried to make it do something stupid, and we made it work out to not be stupid. I like how seeing the 27th Floor all naked like that made me feel like Jean Grey, the Dark Phoenix. I like how we're going to track Louis Canning down on his little crutches, and then we're going to open a New York branch, and then a DC branch. I like how I can feel like this without having done coke."
Will: "Feels good, huh."
Diane: "Winning? Shit yeah."
Will: "No. Having nothing to lose. Welcome to the lifeboat."
Diane: "Rawr!"
STRAW POLL
Eli: "Okay, volunteers. Having gotten a look at you I can safely say that you're in no danger of Surprise Peter Sex. So just hand out these t-shirts and make everybody feel valued, important and useful."
Mandy Post: "Helllloooo Eli."
Eli: "Oh Christ, what now. What now, Mandy Post."
Mandy Post: "I worked on that story for two months and you ruined it with a single conversation."
Eli: "Two months of made-up nonsense, taken down with the power of reality. Get your ass together, Mandy Post."
Mandy Post: "I still believe that she was sexually harassed or seduced by power or some crazy shit that will probably turn out to be true."
Eli: "Oh, Mandy Post. I know you think I must relish this moment, but it gives me no pleasure wasting my time to prove you wasted yours. Have a free t-shirt or a sausage or something and just chill."
Jackie: "Alicia, hello."
Alicia: (Quick visual check for weaponry.)
Jackie, tearing up!: "The two of us, I know we haven't always seen eye to eye, but I just want you to know how much... I'm sorry I doubted you, Alicia. Standing by Peter the way you're doing. He needs you now. And I'm just... I'm just so glad you're there for him."
Alicia, worried: "Oh, no. What the fuck is wrong with you."
Jimmy V: "Is this Eli Gold? I am Jimmy V. I run a political blog..."
Eli: "Let me just hand you over to absolutely anybody..."
Jimmy V: "No, I'm good calling you on your cell. Listen, I'm about to publish a story that a national magazine is sitting on a piece about Peter Florrick's latest indiscretion, and I want a quote from the campaign."
Eli: "Good Lord. Did Mandy Post do this?"
Jimmy V: "An anonymous tip."
Eli: "A lie, a defamatory one, and you need to think before you post anything actionable."
Jimmy V: "Is that the quote?"
Eli: "Oh, hell."
Jimmy V: "PoorAnarchy.com, all one word. One hour."
WEEK
He posts that shit! Maddie Hayward becomes even less helpful than the zero helpful she already is. Kalinda and Nick inch toward the end, thankfully, of their confusing misfire.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife and Homeland 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, his novel The Urges, and a novelette, "The Commonplace Book," appeared this month on Tor.com.