The lion's share of the episode involves a DC trip for Alicia and Cary, which has good results (an intense/gross reunion with Cary's selfish WASPy father, John "Lex Luthor" Shea, doing an uncanny impression of somebody who would be related to Cary) and bad (Christina Ricci as a person who is funny in any way).
That sense of unease you get when a show goes into overdrive with the stuntcasting, well, we've never had that because the show has always been like this. But if you ever wondered what happens with stuntcasting gone wrong, I point you to this episode: I love Christina Ricci. And I love shock-jock comediennes, unless they are fat. Put it together, though, and you have a tone-deaf, Scientology-type empty creepy manneredness that makes the entire plot kind of moot. Bitch ain't funny. She's funny looking, and she has it in her power to be funny, but I mean so does Emma Thompson. So does Gwyneth Paltrow.
Picture Gwyneth Paltrow on this show as, essentially, Chelsea Lately. Doesn't that make you sick to your stomach to think about that?
And so it goes.
Anyway, they have to go up against the Parents TV Council, which is like one ugly guy somewhere in a basement, because she flashed her boobs on TV. And then this devolves into going around to all these jerkoffs at the FCC and trying to first guess their moral code and then pretend to follow it, and it's so stupid, and the morality shit is so stupid and so financially motivated and whatever, eventually the FCC drops the case anyway so it doesn't matter. The only result is a lingering weird taste in the mouth.
Amanda Peet has left the military, and comes to Alicia for advice and references on getting a job in the mean ol' real world. After an interview with Lutz from 30 Rock provides an example of how gross men actually are IRL, Alicia gets the strange idea to send Amanda Peet -- surely one of the world's most desirable women -- to Peter Florrick -- her philandering husband -- as a present of sorts. He hires her on the spot, pissing off Geneva Pine and tripping nobody's bullshit alarms for some reason.
Hayden Clarke (Clarke Hayden? I don't think I will ever know) decides to sell the firm to F. Murray Abraham, whose Burl Preston character is one of my least favorite antagonists, but Will and Diane manage to use David Lee's evil as a weapon against Hayden. In the coming days, I presume Cary's love affair with him will backfire, since the Littlest Trustee has now openly declared war on both the L and the G in L/G basically for being shit with money.
Meanwhile, Maddie Hayward steps up her nasty feminist agenda in several key ways: First by maybe being a lesbian, then by being behind the entire "Indira Starr" scandal all along, by finally getting Kalinda to ditch Eli's manipulations to keep her on the campaign trail with him, and finally by releasing a rumor that Peter has a Brazil-shaped birthmark on his penis. Did you ever wonder what it would be like to hear Chris Noth say the word penis like fifty million times? I sure haven't ever wondered that. But now we know.
PREVIOUSLY
Maddie Hayward has something to do with Indira Starr, but nobody has noticed that yet, so the story that is not one continues to be one. Cary's cozying up to the Trustee just as Diane's losing all faith in him. Oh, and Alicia had another run-in with military justice which may well prove to turn into a major plot point.
LATE NIGHT
Christina Ricci is many wonderful things, but funny she is not. Impulsive, certainly she is not. Her character in this episode, a standup comedienne named Therese Dodd, is painted as this can't-control-herself sort of edgy comic type, which admittedly results in exactly one very neat moment down the road, but certainly doesn't sell the other 90 percent of the scenes where we're supposed to buy it. She's awkward, but the wrong kind. She's smart, but a very different kind of smart. I like Ricci, a lot, and I am a fan of lady comics -- as well as of people who can't shut up when they really ought to, as you can imagine -- but it's altogether an ugly little stuntcasting misfire.
Christina Ricci is a "get" to the precise amount that you're able to leverage her most basic quality as an actress -- her inviolable integrity, so much strength and intelligence in such a tiny, tight little package -- and this role is about the opposite, about a sloppy brilliant woman whose power resides in the fact that she's got nothing to lose. A lovely role, for a very different girl: Give me Amy Schumer, give me Mary-Lynn Rajskub. Give me my darling Natasha Leggero, she certainly deserves the world in my opinion. Give me, just off the top of my head, Zosia Mamet. She would have fucking killed this.
But worse, we'll never, now, get to see Ricci as a Tupperware sex-toy or vitamin-shake pyramid-schemer with a little square purse and razor-cut bob, or Parker Posey's rabid and righteous campaign manager (Those uncompromising eyeballs! That fierce/terrifying sexuality!). A lifestyle mommy-blogger/samizdat-publishing Anonymous anarchist who got brutally assaulted due to a Craigslist miscommunication. The fifth-column public relations lieutenant at ChumHum who betrayed and finally dethroned Neil Gross. Any of the literally dozens of roles she was born to play on this show. But no, now she will always be this.
Anyway, Therese Dodd was on a late-night, Jimmy Fallon type show hosted by Christian Finnegan, when she decided to pull a Silverman and demonstrate how to give a breast exam. Not exactly cutting-edge, but cute enough for this show.
Dodd: "My name is Therese Dodd and these are my breasts. Breast cancer is a serious matter. Early detection can save lives. And so, as a public service, I will now demonstrate a self-exam..."
Closed Captions: "(Drummer plays vampy beat.)"
Finnegan: "Oh, and there they are. Uh, we're live, so..."
DODD TRIAL
Dodd clarifies for the court -- Alicia and Will on her side, F. Murray Abrahams's horrible Burl Preston cross-examining -- that she thought there was a live delay, and grins at Will.
Burl: "Did you just smile at your lawyer because he coached you to say that?"
Dodd: "No, I smiled at my lawyer because he's cute!"
And so on. He plays more of the appearance, in which she massages her breasts overlong, and the second most irritating thing about the episode pops up, in which every time somebody on our show says "tits" or whatever, the traffic outside the courtroom honks diagetically, like it's the Marx Brothers over here.
Now, there's a point to be made here about how safe-harbor laws and censorship clash reductively and dangerously with special-interest Crazy Christians and the FCC -- that being outraged is a race to the bottom, and that otherwise disinterested parties who are only concerned with monitoring other people's thoughts and sexuality can effect network policy through the almighty dollar. And maybe this honking thing is a wink the show is giving us about their own relationship to the grody FCC/network/value-voter threesome.
Except this show thinks that people eating ice cream while undetectably fingering each other is the height of depravity, so I can't see that they really have much of a soapbox to protest on. So I'm going to go with my gut, which tells me this was just a funny idea in the writers' room that got out of hand.
On the other hand, I think this scenario is actually more about that thing that happened a few months ago, when Lisa Brown got banned from the Michigan debate floor for referring to vaginas during a conversation about vaginas. The unbelievable privilege of crazy white men to be horrified by that kind of "confrontational" language that still makes me feel like I am on crazy pills when I think about it:
Michigan ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE Mike Callton, verbatim: "What she said was offensive... It was so offensive, I don't even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company."
Doesn't that make you feel fucking insane? This cannot possibly be the world.
Burl: "We have placed censor boxes over the offending [!] areas, but on that day, your routine was sent out to eight million households. But you didn't care, did you?"
Dodd: "I care about women being informed about breast cancer. My mom died of breast cancer last year."
Burl: "We can't prosecute people for being disingenuous, or I would jump up there right now and put you over my knee, little girl. But then, too, you have a book coming out in two months."
Dodd: "Yeah. You don't grind, you don't shine. So?"
Burl: "You didn't care that you were using vulgar language in front of..."
Dodd: "Vulgar language? What word in particular?"
Burl: "I think you know, ma'am. It rhymes with bits?"
Dodd: "Oh, honey."
Burl: "So you enjoy using vulgar language to provoke."
Dodd: "Uh, yeah."
Alicia questions her -- once again proving that I don't understand how the law works at all, because why would she be back up there after Burl Preston? -- about whether or not she intended to go the full Monty, and Dodd lies about how she didn't.
Alicia: "Did you feel the show pushed you to do something outrageous?"
Dodd: "Uh, yeah. That's my bag."
Alicia: "And you were told you'd be delayed by football..."
Dodd: "Fuckin' antediluvian CBS, scheduling shit like anybody watches TV live..."
Alicia: "Tell me about it, sister. So you thought it was subject to safe harbor? That time between 10:00 and 6:00 when networks are technically allowed to show nudity and say tits?"
Nobody: Knows about that. She'll explain why; it's pretty gross.
Burl: "Okay, Christian Finnegan Live tapes in Chicago, yes, but it broadcasts on the West Coast at 8. So it doesn't matter."
Alicia: "That's not Therese's call, it's the network's. She had no way of knowing she wasn't in the safe harbor."
That's when they get you.
Alicia: "Ms. Dodd signed a contract with the network, not with the FCC..."
Dodd: "Wait, so the FCC even says I can strip down naked and talk dirty like a cable show, but the network says I can't? For real?"
Will: "Yeah, for real. That's why this whole suit is bullshit. Preston and CBS know they can't get $2M from my client, they're just suing to look good for their advertisers. Same reason network Standards & Practices are crazier than the FCC."
Judge: "Yeah. That's kind of bullshit. But it is also math. But that means the only question here is premeditation, right? Bring me proof -- like an earlier and identical stand-up routine -- or I'm prone to dismiss."
Dodd: "I have clearly never premeditated anything in my entire life."
FLORRICK/AGOS
Alicia's ChumHummed Therese's old routines on ChumTube or whatever, I forget what their YouTube is called, and it's something about how weird it is that guys fancy breasts so much. I don't, um, know that it's that mysterious. She's hitting the best line when Cary comes in, and Alicia hilariously slaps that shit closed like she's watching porn:
Dodd: "I've decided to name mine. This one's Margie, Margie's the misunderstood one..."
Cary: "Anything?"
Alicia: "She talks about breasts, like, a lot. Do you even think she's funny?"
Cary: "Boob jokes are pretty easy, pretty hacky. Hey, has Whitney gotten cancelled yet?"
Alicia: "Guys make dick jokes all the time, though."
Cary: "Yeah, those are easy too. Also, they're attached to something that matters."
Thus begins the weird false equivalency parallel throughout the episode, wherein dick jokes and tit jokes are somehow two branches on the hilarity tree, which goes back to the rape rant last week: It is not actually progressive to complain that women making breast jokes is the same thing as men making penis jokes, and therefore women are secretly just as funny as men.
The whole concept is predicated on so many and such wildly warped premises that you end up shooting yourself with the privilege you thought you were skewering. A breast is not a penis, a woman is not a man, and proving women are funny is something you would only need to do after having already accepted that men decide what's funny. It's trying to prove to the person in charge of the unlevel field that the field is leveled, which is not how you go about doing things.
What's Rule #1 For A Happy Life? Say it with me: You never explain privilege to a person in the moment they're actively demonstrating it. Begging men to allow you to think women are funny is exactly how they keep you in check, and when you do that you're helping them.
Alicia: "Hey, what's the deal with you and Trustee Clarke?"
Cary: "We're in love, okay?"
HELLINGER
The Captain arrives, fresh out of work. Alicia is delighted to see her, in her little civvies. Also because seeing Amanda Peet is the best thing your eyeballs are gonna do today.
Alicia: "Laura! You're out of uniform..."
Laura: "Yeah, I quit. It got kind of shitty after I pulled that rape bookshelf over onto myself. Turns out the military is still working some gender stuff out."
Alicia: "And you're looking for a job? Because Nathan Lane is about ten minutes from his daily routine of turning this place sideways and shaking it until an entire department falls out..."
Laura: "Here? Hell no. I just came to pay my bill for that case you didn't win."
Alicia: "Listen, I got started as an attorney in the real world kind of late. And as you can see, I've done a bangup job since then. So if you wanna talk..."
Laura: "Did another best friend screw you over somehow?"
Ring ring.
Alicia: "Hello?"
Unctuous Dude: "Hello. What do you think of Brazilian food?"
Alicia: "That's kind of nosy."
Unctuous Dude: Click.
CAMPAIGN MORNING CALL
Based on the way we didn't Robert Altman some minor character from that scene into this conference room, but accomplished it by editing in Eli in voiceover, I'm guessing Eli's set up camp elsewhere thanks to the Trustee? Anyway, he's on a conference call with what sounds like about ten reporters.
Eli: "Yeah, Gus, we take Maddie Hayward pretty seriously, but we're still more on the ass of Mike Kresteva."
Lady: "She's worth $180M, that's a lot of ad buys..."
Eli: "She's Ross Perot. These millionaires always burn themselves out in the end, and money only gets you so far. Plus, she's a woman. She'll get bored. Can we please talk about the issues?"
Mitch: "What about Peter sleeping with a campaign worker?"
Eli: "Mitch, for Chrissake. Every episode this season we have gotten that one squashed. Get crucial. It was a blogger and a disgraced reporter, a non-story, Peter's categorically denied the charges, and that chick has been proven to be a liar and nutcase. C'mon."
Wexler Turner, NSW News: "What about that campaign worker's latest thing where she identified a distinguishing mark on Peter Florrick's anatomy?"
Eli: "Give me a fucking break. I have no dignity whatsoever and you'll still insulting my dignity. And yours."
Turner: "No, I heard he has a birthmark on his penis shaped like Brazil. Confirm or deny?"
Eli, verbatim and grossed out: "...How dare you, sir?"
Mitch, laughing: "At long last, how dare you?"
Eli: "Seriously, you guys are gross. Journalism is in such a sad place right now. I'm out."
Eli: "I like that everybody at this table just immediately scooted out of slapping range. That shows good initiative. Now I need somebody to call Alicia, somebody to call the candidate, and I need Peter Florrick's dick on the phone stat."
DODD TRIAL
Rebecca Stokes: "I've been the makeup artist for Christian Finnegan Live for ten years."
Burl: "And did you do anything weird with Christina Ricci's makeup that night?"
Stokes: "That's just her face, Your Honor."
Burl: "What I mean is, what about her boobs?"
Stokes: "I did those breasts up real pretty, sir. I thought she was being weird or maybe sexually harassing me, but then when I saw the broadcast I was like, Oh, I get it."
L/G: "Well, shit."
Dodd: "Sorry guys."
L/G CONF RM
L/G: "Fine, how much?"
Burl: "Uh, still two mil."
Alicia: "She can't pay that shit! She is a hot mess!"
Burl: "With a book contract."
Will: "So CBS is cool with bankrupting a comedienne -- essentially the traveling bard of our technology-dependent era -- whose mother died of breast cancer?"
Burl: "No, it will look like they care about decency."
Diane: "Then have her apologize! Do a PSA! It could be real classy!"
Burl: "Fuck that."
Clarke Hayden: "Ahem."
L/G: "What."
Clarke Hayden: "Nothing."
L/G: "Ugh."
Will: "Then get out of here."
Burl: "See, the Parents' Television Council has been bombarding the FCC with complaints about Ms. Dodd's little stunt. Presumably the FCC will fine CBS the max, which is three million."
The Parents' Television Council is about as necessary or valid as the Catholic League or the Tea Party. The global hallmark of fundamentalism -- whether American, Christian or Muslim -- is the desire to return to a pristine state of things that never actually existed: Going retrograde to a safe harbor, where women did what they were told and men were in control of everything. The PTC is an arm of this fundamentalism that uses intellectual dishonesty, and occasionally flat-out lying, to make choices for other people, with the most hyped-up volatile language imaginable.
I'm a member. And whenever they send out an alert, I use their system to send a message of encouragement to whatever body they're trying to manipulate -- stations, conglomerates, advertisers -- in support of whatever part of our real natural lives they're obsessing on now, and their servers make sure that shit goes exactly where it needs to go. Passive insurrection, but it keeps me from starting a riot.
And the thing that I know from being a member and reading my newsletter every week is that they are a house of crazies with no concept of real life or what is actually happening to anybody anywhere except in their homeschooled, sexually-warped nuclear-family bomb shelters. My favorite, and they've been ramping this up lately, is their predilection -- and this is straight-up lying -- for portraying "bleeped" curse words as though they were said aloud. They report these numbers as though they are real: 67 instances of four-letter words aired in primetime cartoons meant for children.
Think about that. They get just as up in arms about a bleeped "tits" as they do actual tits as they do teens losing their virginity with the support and respect of their single Wiccan parents. There's no scale to it whatsoever. The list of things that are unacceptable to the PTC, all told, is about 100 percent of everything that happens on TV, and their "recommendations" are always these bizarre low-budget TV movies about farmers and talking animals that air on channels you've never heard of in your life. They think Family Guy and late-night cartoons on Adult Swim have been sent to turn your children into gay perverts. And who's been called by God to keep your toddler from watching that in your home? Not you, not the parent, no: The PTC, who has no clue what they are talking about. It's so stupid and so futile and so obnoxious. But the money and free labor these jerks pull in, from frightening targeted people who believe this crap because they don't know better, is straight up amazing.
Burl: "Just to say, I've got more on my plate than just this one thing. But I'll tell you what. Over the two days I'll be in DC, lobbying three FCC commissioners. The three swing votes. Team up with me, bring Therese to kiss their asses and talk about her dead mom, and if we get two out of the three I'll quash the suit."
AFTER
Diane: "Well, we gotta do this."
Will: "Yeah, but what about her? She is a hot mess, Diane. We'll all end up in jail or something. Can we send Alicia to babysit her?"
Diane: "Yes, but also take Cary, okay?"
Will: "Wait, what?"
Alicia: "I don't have to go, you guys..."
Diane: "Get out, please."
Alicia runs off to get a diaper bag for Therese Dodd and tell Cary the good news.
Will: "Hang on, does this chick really need two babysitters?"
Diane: "First of all she needs a hundred. Second of all, we need to use Cary more. The fans of this show are shitting themselves, and also he's working the angles on this Trustee thing."
Will: "Is he manipulating you using Hayden's man-crush?"
Diane: "Yes, but I can't see it yet. Let's just say that you're the head of Litigation and you need to use Cary more. But speaking of Hayden, what the hell's he doing talking to Burl Preston?"
TRUSTEE
Clarke: "You know, L/G is a good firm. The feel of a dysfunctional WASP Christmas, but the client base of a real live law firm."
Burl: "Why are you talking to me? Do you understand that I am your antagonist in this episode?"
Clarke: "Yeah, but you're expanding from LA to the Midwest..."
Burl: "We're looking to build, not buy."
Clarke: "A quick remodel can do wonders. Anyway, just FYI, remember that I have input in the court's decision to put L/G up for acquisition."
CAMPAIGN
Jim Moody, that super shifty DNC guy that is always doing scary stuff for Eli -- he's the one that figured out about Wendy's breast implants and I think printed the racist "miscegenation" flyers, and was recently the one taping Jackie in her first major off-book moment after the hospital; I feel bad that I never recognize him -- is there for a closed-door about Peter's penis.
Peter: "You wanna know what?"
Eli: "We don't want to know anything..."
Moody: "I do."
Peter: "How do you even have a birthmark shaped like Brazil on your dick?"
Moody: "So you don't?"
Eli: "Anyway, this isn't like the affair story. It's late-night joke stuff, it has legs. Plus it's politically a great trap. We can't have him say that he doesn't, we can't have anybody else say it because how would they know..."
Moody: "The wife!"
Peter: "Gross, no. What is wrong with you?"
Peter: "Okay but like, here's my kicker. Indira Starr is crazy and stupid. She didn't come up with this."
Eli: "Yeah, it does kinda sound like Mike Kresteva."
Peter: "I'ma go tell my wife this and also leave this scene."
He does.
Eli: "Jim Moody, do your evil voodoo and tell me something super fucked up."
Moody: "Maddie Hayward might be sleeping with her aide."
Eli: "Not even this show is on-the-nose enough to do a double-standard Dueling Banjo about..."
Moody: "Her GIRL aide!"
Eli: "Go with God. And take pictures for me to masturbate to."
Guys, they just love that girl-on-girl stuff, don't they? I tellya.
COMMISSIONER #1 (PREP)
Dodd: "I don't want to tell three different FCC ghouls my dead-mom story."
Cary: "I believe in you!"
Dodd: "That wasn't a complaint, it was a fucking warning. I am a lunatic."
Cary: "I know, it's great."
Dodd: "You like Coldplay?"
Cary: "Look at me, of course I like Coldplay. But don't tell anybody."
Dodd: "Well, I fuckin' hate 'em. When I get to the part about my mom's hair falling out, I want you to hum 'Fix You.' It'll be a gas."
Cary: "Girl, you so crazy!"
Alicia: "I mean, we'll see. If she only fucks up 33 percent of these grownup meetings we'll still be okay."
Burl: "Right. So how is your firm's bankruptcy going?"
Alicia: "Uh, fine?"
Burl: "And you've lost 40 percent of your attorneys?"
Alicia: "But not our major clients..."
Burl: "How about Family Law, they're still going?"
Alicia: "These are some nosy questions, mister. I'm starting to think you're not asking purely out of professional camaraderie."
COMMISSIONER #1 (GILL)
Gill: "Don't even worry about it, I'm on your side."
Dodd: "They had me thinkin' I'd have to give you a blowjob!"
Burl: "Uh, stop please. So we're good here?"
Gill: "I think you network people are real pussies. You're the ones infantilizing entertainment, not us."
Dodd: "I know, right?"
Gill: "Oh, I'm just getting started! I have quite the axe to grind. Like how come CBS only has shows about people getting raped to death? You're cool with nudity as long as they're bruised and covered in blood..."
Dodd: "I know, right? You are the coolest!"
Burl gets a move on, needless to say. But Dodd's not quite done.
Dodd: "But I haven't talked about my mom dying yet!"
Everybody: "It's cool, Jesus. Simmer down."
Dodd: "Nice paperweight, retard."
Gill: "Um. That's debris from 9/11."
Dodd, in a good save really: "...Oh. Damn those terrorists and their paperweights, right?"
L/G: "You are worse than that chick Cuddy played."
Dodd: "My bad! I think I may be mentally ill. Or just awful."
AGOS REUNION
Having heard from Lionel Luthor recently, I guess it's only fair John Shea would show up .
Jeffrey Agos: "Cary? What are you doing here in this building in DC?"
Cary: "Aw, shit. Uh, I'm here lobbying the FCC. Anyway, nice to see you..."
Alicia: "-- Hey, Cary's Dad! Nice to meet you!"
Jeffrey: "Hey, how's your girlfriend?"
Cary: "...You mean the one from law school? Um, that was five years ago. Things have gotten weird since then."
Jeffrey: "Cool, I don't actually care."
Alicia: "Um, Cary is a very good lawyer?"
Jeffrey: "Whatever. Listen, I've lunched with two of your FCC Commissioners if you want me to say something to them..."
Cary: "Yeah, no. We're good."
Alicia: "Whoa, I never saw somebody get Alicia'd like that. That was hard-ass."
STALKING MADDIE HAYWARD
Jim Moody: "How long you been doing this?"
Kalinda: "Sitting outside Maddie Hayward's house?"
Jim Moody: "No, doing super scary crap."
Kalinda: "A while."
Jim Moody: "Yeah, me too."
Indira Starr -- of all people -- comes waltzing out of ol' Maddie's house. Could this be a clue? Mmmmmaybe it is.
COMMISSIONER #2 (PREP)
Burl: "Can we agree on no 9/11 jokes? Wait, never mind, the head of the PTC just walked in so probably nothing matters."
His name, excellently and by the way? Sutton Punch. Everybody gets chills. Hellinger calls.
Alicia: "Captain Hellinger! What on earth can I do for you right now?"
Laura: "I maybe just nailed an interview with Lutz from 30 Rock and I think it went well."
Alicia: "I guess they're okay guys. You want me to call him?"
Laura: "I am just very nervous. I feel like I'm on Rumspringa."
Alicia: "I'm sure your first interview will get you a sweet job. That's what happened to me. So congrats!"
Laura, adorably: "Don't jinx me!"
COMMISSIONER #2 (BIX)
Punch: "We have over thirty thousand complaints..."
Alicia: "Yeah, all drummed up by you, freak. Meanwhile, there is tons of nudity and profanity in Schindler's List."
Punch: "Are you totally joking right now?"
(Dodd: "..."
Cary: "Don't.")
Alicia: "Breast cancer is a big deal, man."
Burl: "That's ... ridiculous."
Alicia: "What's ridiculous is making an exception for one filmmaker and not another!"
Dodd: "I don't really think I'm any less 'decent' than Stephen Spielberg per se..."
Everybody: "Oh my God, cram a sock in it already."
L/G: "Tell the Commissioner about your dead mom. Now."
Dodd: "Well, my mom was really funny. She got breast cancer, and on the day she died, she let out a massive fart..."
Everybody: "You are the worst."
Dodd: "I mean, she kept cracking jokes about it. I am actually trying to be sincere, which I'm even worse at than being funny. She was just so close to death, and still making jokes, and I just..."
OUT
Dodd: "I can't do it. This is like a sales speech, it just won't come out. I can do a lot of mortifying shit, but I can't kitsch up the worst thing that ever happened to me. I can't sell that for you guys."
I have a lot of sympathy for that, actually. It's the only thing she pulls that I really like in this whole episode. Burl Preston, not so much.
L/G
Alicia: "Gill's still with us, and Bix is the one we just told the fart joke to, so it comes down to Martinez tomorrow... Oh, hey. Do you know why Burl Preston was asking about the firm? He asked about the bankruptcy, and I just said we were doing well and we still had our major clients, and then he asked about Family Law... Did I do wrong?"
L/G: "Uh, hang on while we mute you."
(L/G: "He's after us, kid. That's why he was talking to Clarke.")
Will: "Alicia, tell him we lost Edelstein."
Alicia: "Our top client? You want me to emphasize we're not doing great? Okay, boss."
Diane: "Thanks."
Diane: "Preston's mostly about divorce..."
Will: "That's why Family Law. Let's fight this in court! Let's fight everything in court, all the time!"
Diane: "The judge will listen to Clarke. It's time for a coup, Will. Where are we going to get the other $48M of the $60M we need to get out from under him?"
ROOM 206 (FLORRICK)
Alicia: "Wait, so you told her there was a job, maybe, and there was no job?"
Lutz: "Have you seen her? You gonna say no to all that?"
Alicia: "Everything's the worst! And now I got call-waiting..."
Jeffrey: "Is Cary there?"
Alicia: "You want Room 207, sir. Thanks."
Lutz: (Has hung up.)
Feeling brutalized by the ways of the world, sucking down lonely red wine in a DC hotel, Alicia finds the time to listen through the walls as Cary's muffled voice tells his dad some kind of lie designed to make him go away. You know homegirl's not gonna let that slide.
ROOM 207 (AGOS)
Drinkin' cozy in a hotel room with Cary Agos. Just sittin' on the bed, shirt cuffs rolled up, socks and slacks. What a world DC has turned out to be.
Cary: "Gimme some more of that hooch. And yeah, I am not a fan of my father."
Alicia: "They're both lobbyists?"
Cary: "Yeah, him and my stepmom."
Alicia: "Well, I think you should have breakfast with him."
Cary: "Well, that's not happening."
Alicia: "Cary, just do it. You only get so much family in life."
Cary: "Why do you even care? Listen, my dad kicked me out when I was 18. For the reason that his dad kicked him out at that age. And so on, back to when we conquered this land. Your capacity to romanticize the unromantic..."
Alicia: "Maybe he's trying to make amends. People change on you, you never know."
Listen up. He's the only one that never notices this, which I know I always go on about, but it is just so kick-ass:
Cary: "You changed on me. You don't notice it? You're tougher now, you're ... smarter about things."
Alicia: "Is that good or bad?"
Cary: "Probably neither. Just necessary."
Alicia: "I guess you've changed too. I used to think you were a jerk, but you're wonderful."
Cary: "Ha! You are drunk."
He remembers Therese Dodd was on Bill Maher tonight -- which, if you thought Christian Finnegan was gonna egg her on, it's the reason Bill Maher was hatched out of whatever miserable self-righteous egg he came out of -- and flips it on.
Alicia: "You two certainly seemed to hit it off."
Cary: "Who doesn't like boob jokes?"
Alicia: "Jesus, apparently."
Maher: "Say something ludicrous and unworkable that will make my privileged audience cheer for themselves for being so naughty! I am into fighting authority figures like an oversexed teenage boy who just discovered atheism! Even though really I am a grown-ass man."
Dodd: "Well, I personally stripped today for each and every FCC Commissioner today, and boy are my tits tired. Commissioner Gill took pictures, but he said it was for educational purposes... Commissioner Bix, she slipped me her number, but you know, that can mean anything..."
Maher: "And did you settle anything? Just kidding, I hate solutions. So much less fun than endless bitching under the guise of liberal intellectualism."
Dodd: "Yes, we did. No more censorship. Anywhere. Ever. These breasts can do anything when they set their minds to it."
I wouldn't hate her if I didn't like her so much. Same for Bill Maher, come to think of it.
BREAKFAST
Jeffrey: "So your old boss Florrick, shit's going pretty crazy there. You like him?"
Cary: "Yeah, he's a good guy. Hard to be a good guy in that town. Guess it's necessary."
Jeffrey: "Your mom sent me some deal you wrote about plea bargains. Negotiation Techniques With A Human Face? It was smart. I didn't understand all of it, but..."
Cary, too chuffed: "Trust me, you're negotiating with my (barely) human face just fine. We done?"
Jeffrey: "I want to talk about you. I'm showing familial concern for you."
Cary: "You're playing the familial concern game. Which either means you're dying, or people really do change on you. Either one would be a win for me."
Jeffrey: "The plan's to make you think it's both."
Sudden Alicia: "-- Hey guys! Um, so DC is cancelled and we have to go home. Martinez doesn't really care to chill with Therese Dodd's stupid ass after last night, so..."
Cary: "Darn. Well, bye."
Jeffrey: "I'll call to jerk you around more later, okay?"
CAMPAIGN
Eli: "Well I'm aghast -- aghast -- that Maddie Hayward the genius billionaire is acting all genius-y and playing politics with her billions of money."
Kalinda: "Neighborhood Watch said they've seen Indira Starr's car there for the last month, meaning even before we ever met Mandy Post."
Jim Moody: "Politics! Let's do horrible things."
Kalinda: "Uh, fuck you guys, I'm out."
Eli: "But I thought you were doing this for Alicia!"
Kalinda: "That had a time limit on it. I have like ten other jobs, little man."
TRUSTEE
Diane: "So you're selling us to Burl Preston? He's awful!"
Hayden: "I'm just considering options."
Diane: "Your options."
Hayden: "Yeah, after six years of squandering yours. Listen, I know it galls you when I tell you true things over and over but the thing is that you don't have any money. Look, I'm a trusty guy. It's right there in my name. But you are rapidly turning this into a shitty place to work."
FLORRICK/AGOS
Laura: "How was DC?"
Alicia: "Great! Wait, we're just being people, my bad. Actually girl, it was horrible."
Laura: "Well, thanks for helping me with that job I nearly have."
Alicia: "Oh right. Also, you have no job. Sorry. They lied to you because you're pretty."
Laura: "Rumspringa! Men in the real world are dinks!"
Alicia: "Trust me, I know. That's how I got the job I have now. Listen, I'll see if I can think up the worst plan I ever thought of, okay?"
DAVID LEE
Laughs his devilish scary David Lee laugh.
David Lee: "You motherfuckers want my help?"
L/G: "You hate Burl Preston as much as we do, David Lee. Maybe more, given your outsize capacity for hatred."
Diane, referencing herself also: "David Lee, Burl Preston is buying this entire firm in order to control you. Do you want to be controlled?"
David Lee: "Not by Burl Preston, no. But not by you either."
Will: "You have complete autonomy now, you will continue to have..."
David Lee: "Let's talk about my capital contribution. The only thing I care about, after Nathan Lane's righteous elbow drop a few weeks back."
I, AGOS
This motherfucker. It's like they took a poll and decided that everybody loving Cary 100 percent was just not enough people loving Cary enough percent.
Jeffrey: "Cary, I thought you were going back to Chicago!"
Cary: "I am in Chicago. I had the sound of your death ringing in my ears the whole way. Spill your business."
Jeffrey: "It's very hard to talk about it, son. Your mother thinks that I should wait..."
Cary, tearing up: "Dad, I am here. And I'm listening."
Jeffrey talks. And the more Jeffrey talks, the closer Cary comes to crying. Not from sadness, but from built-up tension and from rage and from being ashamed that even after all this time, that motherfucker can still get in. Safe harbor's where they get you.
"You know Senator Byers of Illinois? I have a chance to work as her press secretary, but I need someone to put in a good word with her. Now, I know that her best friend is Diane Lockhart at your firm, and I was hoping that you might ask her to put in a good word... Senator Byers depends a lot on personal recommendations. And I could talk to Martinez for you, if that would be helpful...?"
FLORRICK (DGAF)
Alicia, loopy: "Do what?"
Peter: "Yeah, shaped like Brazil."
Alicia, giggling: "What am I supposed to say about it?"
Peter: "I don't really know."
Alicia: "I mean, No."
Peter: "Yeah, but like with some outrage."
Alicia, verbatim: "Yeah, I don't do outrage well these days. How about laughter?"
Alicia: "Oh hey, a horrible plan. Do you need somebody to replace Cary over there?"
Peter: "Eventually, like maybe sometime after everybody in Chicago stops finding things to say about my dick."
Alicia: "You're still into gorgeous leggy brunettes, right?"
Peter: "I mean, I guess so."
There's a lovely moment, sort of obligatory in this new configuration, where Alicia vibes at Cary until he turns around, so she can be sad with him. It's great.
(But Also Alternately: "So yeah, I guess I should apologize for shoving your entire face into the bear trap that is your awful father. Guess I should just keep my stupid mouth shut time, huh?")
Kalinda: "You both look like hell in here. Guess what, it gets worse. I made some calls -- just grateful to not be doing Eli work, really -- and while Commissioner #3 cancelled you guys, he's still meeting with the PTC."
Alicia: "That little shit Punch Sutton? What would even be the point?"
Cary: "Let's just blame our assistant, say we didn't get the message, and crash their little censorship party. You know Dodd's got nothing going on."
(Airplane sound effect.)
COMMISSIONER #3 (PREP)
Dodd: "I promise, Cary. Smell my perfume, it's called 'Accommodation.'"
Cary: "Smells good. Oh hey, my horrible father. See you in there."
Jeffrey: "You're ignoring me? What am I, your 18-year-old son?"
Cary: "Yeah, it occurred to me that fuck you."
Jeffrey: "What? That's crazy! I just need one call to Diane Lockhart!"
Cary: "I just needed one call on my birthday, you selfish Baby Boomer piece of shit."
Jeffrey: "But the cat's in the cradle! The silver spoon!"
Cary: "Suck it, homeboy. Like I have any reason to impress you."
Jeffrey: "But I should have everything I want!"
Cary: "You got what you wanted. An independent kid."
Jeffrey: "Don't think I'll be calling you to beg for other things!"
Cary: "Um, okay."
COMMISSIONER #3 (MARTINEZ)
Martinez & Punch: "Hey, but what about our secret meeting without you?"
Alicia & Cary, essentially: "Look at all this paper!"
Burl: "Nice, actually. I mean, I guess since you're here..."
Dodd: "I was raising awareness."
Commissioner: "And this did that?"
Dodd: "Provocation is memorable, sir."
Commissioner: "Class answer. But my particular bugaboo is rape jokes. See, what sets me apart from and makes me better than most other people is that I'm firmly against sexual assault. I know that's a controversial stance, but I have my convictions."
Women Everywhere: Are amazed and astounded by this powerful declaration. Many of them even rethink their own pro-rape stance as a result. We're changing lives here, people.
Commissioner: "And a long time ago, in a completely unrelated context, you told a rape joke that goes, Rape is never funny, unless you get raped by a clown. Your explanation?"
Dodd: "...That was before Twitter? I have much stronger material now? Because I know your ignorant ass isn't asking me why I think getting raped by a clown would be funny. That's not how jokes work. That's not how rapes work. That's certainly not how clowns work. Getting raped by a clown would be like getting raped squared."
Alicia: "What the fuck does this have to do with anything?"
Commissioner: "It doesn't! But I sure do like talking about rape. [He proves this.]"
Cary: "The difference between a joke that makes light of rape and a joke that simply uses the word 'rape' can be subtle. Especially if you're more interested in making the conversation about you, or incapable of thinking in terms that aren't about yourself, or just used to derailing all conversations into being about what a hero you are."
Dodd: "Nah, you know what, it's a stale bit. Rape's not funny."
Commissioner: "Then why did you tell the joke?"
Dodd: "If I could get into a time machine and somehow erase you from ever having to hear that scary bad word that scares you so bad even though it's a word, I would. But since that is retarded and you are retarded, I'll simply call myself a bad, bad girl and hope you forgive li'l ol' me."
Commissioner: "The reason we have standards is to protect viewers -- me -- from indecency -- as I define it."
Burl Preston: "Um, if the point is about protecting viewers, they voted with their remotes. Christian Finnegan's ratings have been through the roof ever since the tits."
Commissioner: "I am not listening to a word you're saying. I just want Miss Dodd to sign a pledge that she will never rape a clown with her tits again."
Therese Dodd, in her first sensible move in the entire episode, lays a big wet one on Cary Agos and leaves the fuckin' room, because that is ridiculous. This whole thing is ridiculous. I guess the only real difference between a tit joke and a dick joke is that if it's a woman telling it, you can still find a way to put her over your knee.
But points to Burl Preston, who tries to spin her silent smooch-and-bounce as an unqualified yes, so that CBS won't get fined three mil. That part was pretty hilarious.
STATE'S ATTY
Geneva Pine: "Nice to meet you, gorgeous white woman. You know we just had a hiring freeze after some of us -- ahem -- objected to race-preferential hiring and promotion practices here at the SA. So let's say you're going to need to dig out of quite a hole right now."
Hellinger: "I'm Amanda Peet."
Geneva Pine: "And yet I'm going to find a way to have a problem with that."
Hellinger: "I can't tell if you're being rude or just normal."
Geneva: "Well it was nice meeting you and we'll keep your résumé on file, but maybe you should try the PD's office..."
Peter, entering: "Captain Hellinger? I'm assuming. Anyway, you have the job."
Geneva: "The hell?"
Peter: "Yeah, whatever. She's white, she's hot, what else is there. I am a very busy gubernator right now and she comes highly recommended."
Laura: "Thanks for all your help, Geneva Pine! The real world isn't so scary after all."
Geneva: "The fuck it isn't."
DODD TRIAL
Burl: "Your Honor, we've really been negotiating hard for you, but there are still things in play that..."
Will: "No, bitch. Your Honor, Burl's dicking you around. We agreed to team up with him to lobby the FCC, to save CBS's bacon. He's playing us off each other."
Judge: "Okay, and they're still chilling on that?"
Will: "Yeah, but whatever because there aren't any damages so there's nothing to decide here."
Burl: "But affiliates dropped our show! Thanks to the PTC bothering them with nuisance calls and the weird Jesus pressure emitting at all times like radiation from their homeschooled, depressive genitalia."
L/G: "Right, which has been more than offset by a corresponding rise -- as Mr. Preston recently argued in front of the FCC, boom -- in viewership. Prurient viewers hoping to see more tits, no doubt, but this is a question of damages, not whether or not CBS's demographic is good people. There are no damages; this is just Burl Preston being a dick to Therese Dodd on behalf of the network on behalf of crazy people from an imaginary era who need everybody else to follow their weirdo rules."
Burl Preston: "Ah, me! The most dastardly enemy of all. I fall before my own brilliance; I am the conqueror... of myself."
Will: "Get the mouse, F. Murray."
MOUSE HUNT
Burl: "Fine, I will take on the debt of L/G and pay out the capital contributions of equity partners, but all severance packages will be the responsibility of the existing partners, because fuck those guys, because now I gotta pay $3M instead of $1M if Dodd's little 'bad girl' act with Martinez didn't do the trick. Bad day in court. I will take these bitches apart like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman."
Clarke: "Okay and also you agree to honor the contracts of existing partners?"
Burl: "For a year. And then I will chase them through the tattered concrete remains of the 27th Floor with a shotgun and hungry hounds."
...But what's this? David Lee, forming out of the shadows, hanging upside down like a bat.
David Lee: "Hellloooooo, Burl Preston."
Burl: "Hey bitch, I was just buying you."
David Lee: "No prob, go on. I just want to bear witness to my emancipation. Once you buy us, I'm free of these jerks!"
Burl: "Uh, no you're not. I'm buying you."
David Lee: "Partners just rewrote my contract! If they're sold or absorbed, I'm out."
Hayden Clarke: "You can't do that!"
David Lee: "Like we say every episode, you can veto their hiring decisions. Not a nonfinancial side agreement in a partnership contract."
Clarke: "Um, the firm is still in good shape, with or without..."
Burl: "Nah, over it."
"Good luck with this place. Unfortunately they enjoy intrigue more than they do making money."
True. True that, Burl Preston. And thank goodness.
FLORRICK
Laura: "Did you tell your husband to hire me?"
Alicia: "Out loud? No, that's not really how things work on this show. I just kind of want things, and then they happen. And then later, everybody pays for it in blood."
Laura: "This corrupt world out here, I kind of hate it."
Alicia: "C'mon, don't be such a 'St. Alicia.' Friends don't do favors for each other in the military?"
Laura: "Look at me, Alicia."
LOCKHART
Clarke: "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
Diane: "Can I help you?"
Clarke: "You are SO FUCKING STUPID!"
L/G: "Why, for protecting our firm?"
Clarke: "Do you know how hard it is to find and beguile a suitor like that?"
L/G: "Uh, yeah. So that means you won't try it again anytime soon."
Clarke: "You're losing this fucking firm, bros. I should just murder everybody myself, since that's what you're doing. Fiscally."
L/G: "Jesus. You're way too invested in this. Step back."
Clarke: "I DO NOT STEP BACK! AND I DO NOT NEGLECT MY FIDUCIARY DUTY AS A TRUSTEE!"
L/G: "Look, you will never care about this firm more than we do, so you might as well stop trying to prove that you do."
Clarke: "I AM GOING NUTS AND I AM TAKING EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU BITCHES WITH ME."
L/G: "...Wow. So whose autobiography do you think he's reading now?"
FLORRICK/AGOS
Dodd: "So it turns out the FCC isn't even going to..."
Cary: "That's right. You're off the hook."
Dodd: "Awesome. I just wanted to say thanks. And like bye or whatever."
(Airplane sound effect.)
Alicia: "Ooooh-oooooooo!"
Cary: "Can it, Titicaca. She just came to say goodbye."
Alicia: "Just goodbye? Man, I thought you were going to date a celebrity crazy person, I was gettin' all excited and up in your business again. Wait, so then like why did she even kiss you?"
Cary: "Look at me, Alicia."
Later on, Alicia catches Therese Dodd's latest routine. It's pretty good.
"I've spent the last week with my lawyer, trying desperately not to say anything about Brazil, and penises. I suppose there are worse birthmarks to have. Like Greece. I mean, who wants a penis that's always in recession? My lawyer says it really only looks like Brazil when it's erect, otherwise it's more like New Jersey..."
She may not be doing outrage too well lately, but girlfriend sure can laugh. She was right about that.
WEEK
Will starts shit with All the Judges in Chicago, because it's been five minutes and he can't help himself, and of course he drags Alicia into it as well. Grace Fucking Florrick develops a hundred problems, because ditto and of course she ditto. Zach does technomagic and/or pulls some Kalinda shit, while Nick does something that's presumably both menacing and pitiful and Cary gets knocked about, looks like. Don't touch the face and we won't have a problem, unknown assailant.
TWO WEEKS
Thanksgiving episode! Basically on Thanksgiving, thanks CBS! Gay Brother Owen! Fabulous Cristian! Smitten Racist Jackie! Stockard Channing! Oh man, how good is that gonna be.
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 recently on Tor.com.