Well, that was... dark, no? After a string of intensely serialized episodes, we get this -- a one-off Thanksgiving bottle episode about gay marriage -- that couldn't have less to do with Nathan Lane, Amanda Peet, L/G's financial troubles, or anything else, really. Given the fact that it aired Thanksgiving weekend, maybe that's actually by design? All I know is, it was super weird. Starting -- starting -- with another big gay conversation between Cary and Nick where they threaten each other all kinds of ways but nothing actually happens.
And for the record they did touch Cary's face, so I am over it.
Alicia's mom Veronica has been gone for two years, never appeared on the show -- Stockard Channing! -- and is now back to fight for her late third husband's estate. Seems she got herself Anna Nicole'd by the son at the last minute, and he used her affairs to get his dad to change the will. Problem #1, she won't admit she had an affair at all. Problem #2, David Lee is her probate lawyer and does not understand conventional morality. Problem #3, Gay Brother Owen loves his mommy. So while Veronica makes off with the whole thing, Alicia's left feeling yucko.
Especially once Veronica and Jackie mix it up at Thanksgiving and Veronica -- who is, let's say, kooky -- fires random insights into the crowd about the Florricks' marriage that would have been insightful at almost any point before now. When Alicia, fed up with her mom's bullshit -- to the extent that she nearly bursts into tears and shows like three emotions we have never seen before -- finally takes Peter in the bathroom for a quick Thanksgiving fuck, it's about as unattractive and funny-sad as anything involving those two. Not so much a triumph as a tantrum. We'll see.
Meanwhile, a question of spousal privilege throws the spotlight on creepy old DOMA and the different ways we -- people who actually live in 2012 -- keep trying to find ways to deal with it. In a fairly telegraphed (point by point) series of twists, a grandstanding "liberal lion" of a lawyer aims to first help with and then tank Diane and Alicia's case for them, in order to take DOMA to the Supreme Court, but in the end they find a way to win the case anyway. Good for L/G, bad for America. Kinda boring for The Good Wife.
Props for the feint at parallel plotting -- Veronica's marriage might be real, whatever its problems; any marriage might be real whatever its problems -- but when you're so intently this middle-of-the-road about a touchy subject, maybe you just don't go there? Because what we got out of it is apolitical plot twists and a gross train of thought: Somebody is going to have to take the fall to get DOMA overturned, and it's only so often that white men this upscale make enough bad decisions that their marriage comes into question at all -- and then if they do, probably they'll have an open marriage because they are, after all, perverts, so I guess we have to be cool with open marriages too -- which means overturning DOMA is essentially a Perfect Storm that only comes around every ten years or so.
Not sayin' it's not true, just sayin' it's the pits.
I mean, it's all very ambitious -- though spare me Owen mawkishly gaying it up in the corner of every courtroom scene like a fucking ASL interpreter for straight people -- but in the end, just as privileged and blithely "tolerant" as anything else that keeps the queers down. I know we don't go to CBS for relevant commentary, but I do prefer the episodes of this show that actually have a point to make instead of just using my actual boring life as a daring edgy metaphor.
Week: Will walks Alicia through yet another moral conundrum, the aftereffects of the Florrick sex reunion, and it seems Laura Hellinger is once again, as they say, in da house.
PREVIOUSLY
Nick Savarese made damn sure Cary Agos knew it was one of his thugs that beat our boy up in the pouring rain that continues its "a storm is rising" foreshadowing this week. Other things also previously happened on this show, but this is the only one that actually comes into this episode at all, and even then just barely; presumably this is because week is the last one before the break and it's going to be even more continuity-dependent than last week. Alicia has a gay brother and parents we have never seen; Peter's mother Jackie has a new babysitter that is making Mama's Baby a little bit jealous.
HON JUDGE CLAUDIA "BEBE NEUWIRTH" FRIEND PRESIDING
Owen, outside: "I'm looking at this postcard you sent from St. Barth's so intently that I'm not really listening to you, Mom! I have to go randomly drop in on one of Alicia's cases that coincidentally has relevance to my interests, bye."
The Case: Alicia and Diane are having one of those connected-up cases where their defense is linked to another one, in this case two former executives of a fraudulent online tax company against horrible self-satisfied white person AUSA Bucky "Brian Dennehy" Stabler. Notably, Bucky's working with the CEO, which means L/G is stuck with the company's CFO, and so since this is an IRS case, their defense has to be about keeping Bucky from sacrificing their client for his: Either everybody wins, or L/G loses.
The Deets: Two years ago the company, online e-filer TaxLaunch.com, started accepting fraudulent tax claims using stolen Social Security numbers. Nobody, for example, apparently noticed that 86 of these bad refunds -- totaling $3,267,000 -- were sent to the same Chicago address.
CEO: "Like I'm the one checking the envelopes, I'm the CEO. Of course I trusted the people under me. Like for example the CF..."
L/G: "-- Objection! Clearly this is Bucky making him say this, which again is why we want to sever our defense from his. And why we will eventually just start going after his client like single-minded sharks if he doesn't cut this shit out."
Bebe Neuwirth sustains, but let the record show that she is, as any judge would be, charmed by Bucky the man-mountain -- and less impressed, as any judge would be, by Alicia and Diane doing everything in stereo: A tiny but important nod to Alicia's coming of age, I think. Maybe more, now that Trustee Hayden Clarke (Clark Hayden?) is giving Cary his undivided attention, but I think no. I think they just try to mix it up by having the most interesting people on the case. Usually it works, but this case is so rudimentary that it really doesn't matter who the lawyers are.
A wiretap from March involves another executive talking to his wife about nothing in particular, which Bucky asserts doesn't come under spousal privilege because this whole thing is a vast conspiracy, but Judge Neuwirth decides that he hasn't yet proven that, and they break. The CFO complains that the CEO is trying to scapegoat him, and from the fact that he looks like the finely aged corpse of the Cigarette Smoking Man you know that is the case. An hour from now, that will still be the case, and we'll have gotten so off-track that it will barely matter, but yeah.
Alicia: "So you're guest-starring on my show a lot, huh? I don't love it."
Bucky: "Why, just because I treated rape like a funny joke? Trust me, this show is set to revel once again in that kind of privilege quite soon, with twice the relish. Anyway, I'm going to win this one too, and you won't. Because you are a loser."
Alicia: "God, that guy. Hi, Owen. What's up?"
Owen: "What's up is, you were amazing!"
Alicia: "I literally just sat there, bro. Even the things I said, I was saying at the same time as Diane. God, I really hope a blustering entitled white guy joins our defense team, or else Diane and I are going to turn on each other."
Owen: "First of all, take the compliment, and second of all our horrible mother is coming into town for the first time in two years. And from what I understand -- which is dubious -- I think she's got a new boyfriend. Henry, an oil man from Alaska. Maybe getting a divorce or something."
Alicia: "Perfect, I'll send her to David Lee and he'll eat her alive."
TOWHEAD TWOSOME TOWYARD
The face! They got the face! But since it's Cary, he ended up with an adorable shiner that makes him look like a cute little puppy, like from Little Rascals or something.
Nick: "What an adorable shiner!"
Cary: "Yeah, I got it playing basketball with other tiny folks. Certainly not from the beatdown you made sure I knew was a present from you."
Nick: "If only you knew about my marriage, you'd understand that what I was saying was, I love you."
Cary: "Anyway, that suit you are insisting on bringing against that other company for being just as corrupt as you? I think it might hit a snag. See, I used to work for the SA... Oh, did you know that? Or what those are?"
Nick: "No, and yes. Carry on."
Cary: "...And so after this basketball injury, I went and asked them if they knew anything that could be used to destroy you -- speaking as your attorney, of course, and bestest friend -- and it turns out that Bill, the guy Kalinda beat up with her Ramona Flowers mallet in the season premiere, is somebody you know from drugdealer jail."
Nick: "Just like me!"
Cary: "That's right! And so I thought, is that all there is? And you know what, there wasn't. Turns out you're all kinds of fucked up, like, the JV version of Lamond Bishop."
Nick: "Good thing you're my lawyer, huh?"
Cary: "That's the thing. Now that I know all of this, I'm super worried about you! For example, one of your tow jobs* recently turned out to have 80g of heroin in the trunk. Not the tow truck, of course, but the thing it was towing. Which really explains basically your entire storyline, come to mention it..."
Nick: "Well aren't you a good lawyer. I hope you don't mind that I'm going to have you killed."
Cary: "I just wanted you to know that you should probably murder me, yes. Good day, sir!"
*(Snerk.)
FOSTER TESTIMONY
Bucky: "So you're pretty cagey on the phone, yeah?"
Foster: "No, just normal. I'm not into defrauding the government or being in a conspiracy, so I have no reason to be weird on the phone."
Bucky: "I'm going to play this wiretap of you talking to your husband now..."
L/G: "Objection! Disingenuous objection!"
Brother Owen: (Sad gay face.)
Bucky: "Um, gay marriage is not real marriage, any more than continental breakfast is actual breakfast. At best it's a condescending favor we're doing in lieu of acknowledging gay people's personhood. Come on."
Brother Owen: (Sad gay face.)
L/G: "It's 2012 and the straight married couple that wrote this show has the luxury of holding a fictional spirited debate on whether gay people are people. The fucking definition of privilege."
Brother Owen: (Sad gay face.)
Jacob: (Same.)
Judge Bebe: "Hang on, I have to think about whether gay people are people. It's okay though, because I am beloved by their imaginary, monolithic community. I was in that musical that time. I mean, I was in every musical, all the time. They love that shit."
Brother Owen: "Wait, so I'm not a person?"
Alicia: "No, honey."
Brother Owen: (Sad gay face.)
"Thank God for straight people like you! They tell us whether or not we're people!"
L/G
Jeremy Breslow is some kind of huge, horrible gasbag who fights the Good Fight in the most unctuous, horrible gasbag way. Cary is in love with him, basically, because isn't it interesting that Cary is the most liberal one. Judging by weight, I would say he's worth about four Carys, which maybe that's why Cary loves him so much: He is four times as entitled and white and straight and all the Cary things.
Cary has an adorable shiner that makes him look like a cartoon puppy, remember that.
Cary: "Jeremy Breslow, I love you."
Breslow: "I can't abide what they have done to your face."
Cary: "Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea? Continental breakfast? Maybe the chance to heroically argue before the Supreme Court while standing on the backs of some second-class citizens?"
Breslow: "That last one."
Cary and his adorable shiner bring Breslow to a meeting with Lockhart, Gardner and Florrick, where he proceeds to act all horrible and bullshitty: By exploding this minor point of law and acting all offended about the fact that gay marriage is not real marriage, he wants to challenge DOMA in front of the SCOTUS. Being that the CFO and his pretend husband are rich white guys, they actually have a shot at proving they are people. Downside: Jeremy Breslow is super fucking horrible.
"This is my right hand. I want you to look at it. It is with this hand that I promised my brother -- dying of AIDS -- that I would defend the rights of gays to my very last breath. I would use all my talents, my strengths, my treasure to advance the cause of Stonewall, Harvey Milk, Lawrence v. Texas, and now... Will Gardner. Diane Lockhart. Names that will mean as much in two decades as those two. For we, right here, right now... we are making decisions that will impact the future of gay rights. And all you have to do is say yes."
Barf. Epic fucking barf. Not just for Jeremy Breslow, but this whole episode. "My brother, dying of AIDS"? Fuck you. That's like how the only people who ever get mad about the word retarded are the maiden aunt or quasi-friend of the family who thinks being a champion about something that is not actually happening makes them interesting and moral, instead of a self-absorbed crank who thinks their nephew's existence is about them, and not himself. You cannot prove your worth on the back of somebody else, no matter what their misfortune or minority status is, and when you do that you're essential pimping out the person in question, which is disgusting. Which looks so much worse on you than any nasty word anybody could ever say.
Will hates him because he's essentially PT Barnum, Diane loves him because she always loves these kind of "liberal lion" figurehead bullshit people, and just as they're arguing out whether or not to take his free offer of co-counsel, we learn that Bucky has just dropped the charges against the CEO (thanks to the wiretap thing, since the CEO is a person and his marriage is a marriage), which means now the CEO can turn and testify directly against our gay dude.
HOME
You're thinking, the person who birthed Alicia and Owen, two geniuses with political righteousness oozing from every orifice? Played by Stockard Channing, most indelible former FLOTUS in all filmed entertainment, gifted rhetoricist? There are worse things they could do, you're thinking. But you're wrong. Because -- exactly like Ricci a few weeks ago -- this Veronica Loy woman as written plays to exactly zero of Channing's strengths. She's a flake, fairly deluded, ethically so-so, self-obsessed, and is like obsessed with the word vagina. Which if you made a list of things that would get on Alicia's nerves (and mine), that is a pretty comprehensive list. It covers all the bases.
I think about this all the time: How crazy would it be if your name was Stockard Channing? That would be so crazy. I would have to doublecheck every morning to make sure it wasn't just a dream I had. "I dreamed I was named -- get this, you guys..."
So while it's true that Alicia's mother is an unexpected twist, which speaks highly of the show and opens up Alicia's character in whole new ways, she also does things like bring a giant stuffed giraffe for Grace, which is the kind of shit that a spaced-out flaky mom on a CBS show would just naturally do. One thing this show was always pretty good at, before this season, was making sure every character in a scene was a real person. Even contradictory, mythological Kalinda is basically a person; the whole dynamic of the show originated with "The reason shit is complicated for Alicia is that Peter is not the devil."
But this season, increasingly, we're seeing people who are not real, merely used as sounding boards for our characters: I am so sure, Nick Savarese. I am so sure that Nick Savarese is a real person with parents, and hangovers, and a love of chess pie, and that he plays Angry Birds when he's bored, rather than finishing up his menacing Perrier and then simply absorbing himself, witchlike, into the shadows.
I bring this up because it's thematic to the episode: Once you start seeing people as props in your personal drama, you have lost a big piece of the human puzzle. You have lost a lot of what makes you alive, when you do that. Whether it's your flighty, slutty mother or your squawking hatred of the r-word or your personal self-styling as a "queer ally," you are sacrificing someone else's subjectivity to your own privilege. Casting them as bit players in the drama that centers on you. And I guess a lot of people probably think that's what life is just naturally like for people -- that everyone is this selfish, this solipsistic -- but the truth is that life is actually much better than that. People are much better than that. We are much, much better than that.
Veronica: (Obligatory mom bullshit, like about Alicia's hair or whatever. Moving the furniture around, making dumb suggestions. Oblivious to the passage of time.)
Alicia: (More peevish than you might imagine, in response. For Alicia, evincing even slight irritation is basically the equivalent of getting violent, so I guess this is Alicia being the Alicia version of bitchy. Not a great look on her, to be honest, but also in that spirit her mother actually is the worst.)
Veronica: "The kids are huge! Especially Zach, he's like eleven foot!"
Alicia: "That's what happens when you disappear for two years, asshole."
Veronica: "That doesn't sound right. I'm sure it wasn't that long."
Turns out that Veronica is not getting a divorce and moving onto a new beau, exactly: Her husband, Malcolm, died. Okay like this is an example of how this empty woman makes no sense: I think she lives on cruise boats, like Julian Assange* or L. Ron Hubbard, just traversing the oceans, forever, around and around. Do people actually do this? And if so, are any of them even slightly worthwhile people?
*(Did I make this up? Did I get him confused with Captain Hook again?)
"Oh, and also his son is suing me for all of my dead husband's money. Here's a subpoena for yesterday, I guess that's probably not valid anymore. I'm so flighty and dumb that I don't even care about this legal suit that will put my globetrotting boat fancies to a halt. Also, here is the word vagina a hundred times, in various situations that do not call for it."
TAXLAUNCH
Everybody rides Jeremy Breslow's jock for like an hour. Bebe loves him, Bucky loves him, nobody seems to notice that he is 100% bullshit.
Bebe: "Oh my God you guys have like twelve lawyers over there just for this one gay dude, that's hilarious."
Breslow: "For my first witness, I would like to call the former Attorney General of the United States."
Bucky: "Oh, I get it now. You are a freakin' douchebag."
ATTY GEN TESTIMONY
Bucky: "So what is the deal with DOMA? Let's talk about it for a really long time."
Atty Gen: "Okay, that sounds good and not at all boring."
Brother Owen: (Sad gay face.)
Bucky: "Is DOMA good or bad?"
Atty Gen: "Depends on if you think gay people are people. Not that anybody really thinks they are. The whole DOMA conversation is really just a disingenuous way of condescending like they are, like when you tell your housekeeper she's just like family."
Brother Owen: (Sad gay face.)
Bucky: "Right, or like when the GOP primary turned into gross little boys trying to see who could pee on more girls. Pretending women weren't people, like that?"
Atty Gen: "It's really the same thing. Gay rights are feminism."
Bucky: "Still, the US government officially says that breakfast does not exist, continental or otherwise."
Atty Gen: "Yeah, isn't that bullshit? Let's talk about it and be real patronizing about it."
Bucky: "But let's in mind that shitty stupid old people are CBS's main demographic and if we don't pretend there are two sides of this issue -- which there actually aren't -- they'll write letters. With pens, on paper, in tiny crabbed WWII handwriting, and stick stamps on them, and mail them to CBS."
Atty Gen: "Yeah, that false equivalency shit they've trained Democrats to indulge. Like pretending Creationism is anything more than a red flag that you're a literal moron and that your opinions don't matter."
Does the government enforce DOMA? No, because it is evil. But does the government think gay people are people? Also no. Well, Biden.
Bucky: "So let me get this straight*. The current administration considers the Defense of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional and discriminatory and it should not be enforced... Except when it comes to money."
Alicia objects to Bucky holding forth on this irrelevant shit, but is reminded that the Atty Gen is Breslow's witness and therefore he's the only one that can object. A thing I did not know. Breslow hisses at her for pretending she's a person when there's a man sitting right there, which gets Diane's hackles up and provokes barely any response from Alicia, beyond the fact that he is now dead to her.
Judge Bebe: "It seems to me there are mixed signals on the constitutionality of DOMA, and it is left up to the individual courts to decide on the veracity of a marriage. Please present me with evidence on their pretend gay marriage so we can have a referendum on whether or not they're people. A rousing debate, with them in the room! And then we can all go home to our real lives and forget all about it."
LEE & LOY
David Lee: "Are you Veronica Loy? Alicia handed you over to me, Family Law."
Veronica: "Do you want to hear me say vagina a bunch of times? It's like my only trick. Wait no I have a worse one, hang on. It goes, Hey, are you Jewish by any chance? Let's have a frank chat about your penis."
David Lee: "Whoa, I can't believe there is a person alive who could actually blow my mind."
Veronica: "Am I going to lose all my husband's money to his son, like Anna Nicole Smith?"
David Lee: "It seems like he changed his will at the last second because the son told him you were cheating on him and/or wanted a divorce. Any of that true?"
Veronica: "No. And by no, I mean yes. Oh, is that not creepy enough? How about I'm so flaky and dumb that I might actually believe the answer is no."
LATER
Veronica finds Will and Brother Owen chatting in the hallway and Owen instantly realizes that she thinks he and Will are gay on each other. Why? Because whenever a gay dude talks to a man of any kind, he's imagining having gay sex with him or trying to trick him into having gay sex with him, obviously. Alicia gets back into the office just as Veronica is finishing up some story about Alicia's swimming career as a child, and his horrified that Owen is letting her talk to people.
Alicia: "Oh my God, how many times did she say vagina?"
Will: "Eleven. She said vagina like eleven times. I'm so glad you're here."
LOY DEPO
David Lee and Veronica agree that they'll let him do the talking, smash-cut to everybody yelling at everybody else, of course, Veronica included. David Lee gets the son to confirm that his tattling on Veronica brought about the change to the dad's will, and then notifies him they'll be bringing suit for "intentional interference with expected inheritance." More yelling, and then the guy's lawyer drags him away.
David Lee: "You're going to get everything. He has no proof of this cheating."
Veronica: "Yes, and I am a crazy person."
Alicia: "David Lee, can we talk? Because this whole thing is a lie."
David Lee: "Oh my God, every day is like your first day. This is a law firm, not a playground. He doesn't have proof of the affair, which is what you need to prove things in a court of law, which is where we do our jobs because we are lawyers. Am I confused? Did you think perhaps you were sending your mother to a baker or haberdasher? Because I am a lawyer. And so are you. So pull it together."
Alicia: "Maybe this is also because I resent her blowing into town after two years with giant giraffes and drama and so much of the word vagina."
TAXLAUNCH
Bucky comes after the pretend marriage of the gay men because, like all gay men, they have no concept of monogamy. This show that acted like it invented open relationships last year or whenever it was, that blushed and covered his mouth like a geisha when Sarah Silverman invented open relationships, just breezes right through their fake open relationship this time, because gay people are just like that.
...Which is bullshit. Open relationships are not relationships any more than continental breakfast is real breakfast, and this is also not a thing endemic to gay people. It's a cliché, that's true, but the reason it's a cliché is that Baby Boomers are gross people, not because of anything having to do with being gay.
So many of the creepy expectations left over from the '70s -- leather daddies and Marlboro Men and backroom sex and bathhouses -- are so oppressive now, like this cargo cult of received wisdom from that time that is not actually even relevant. The degree to which gay culture is stuck in the '70s is not a fun story, because it has to do with HIV and how the creators of progress and innovators of our culture -- yours and mine, gay and straight -- all dropped dead, and left nobody driving the bus. I swear to God you could draw a line from AIDS to Sarah Palin if you really think about it. The loss of a fraction of a percentage point is all it takes to plunge this country into the Dark Ages, when that fraction of a fraction also happens to be the very people who historically have always defined art, literature, fashion, aesthetics, and all the rest of Apollo's specialties.
But the thing is that we don't really need most of that stuff, because it's not relevant, not even the kinks: We didn't grow up at a time when being gay was so shameful that it made you want to do things like get spit on or peed on, or whatever it is you creeps get up to. Or whatever Madonna told you to do in the '90s, that you're still doing simply out of a lack of imagination. Our gay kids for sure won't need it. Because by then they will be almost entirely people.
But being told -- again, by straight people -- that I'm fundamentally unable to have a stable relationship, to enjoy monogamy, or have great old-fashioned vanilla sex with my boyfriend, makes me feel again like that lady who got thrown out of state Congress for saying vagina in a conversation about vaginas: "Hush, honey. The grownups are talking." It's not edgy, it's not good storytelling, and at this point it's not even realistic. Just another thing you heard about gay people twenty years ago that lends credence to the retarded false equivalency that there are two sides to the DOMA "debate."
L/G: "But the CEO cheats on his wife, too! Everybody cheats on everyone, that's not why gay marriage is a joke. In fact, we just threw that into this episode to lend our fun gay story even more horrible flavors."
Bebe, verbatim: "I'm ready to rule. It is true that the courts have been allowed leeway to discern whether individual marriages are legitimate, but I find the facts here to suggest nothing more than equivalence. Some heterosexual marriages are... messy. Some homosexual marriages are equally so. That proves nothing. DOMA is the law of the land. That is all I can depend on. For that reason, I must rule the wiretap is admissible."
Brother Owen: (A million sad gay faces, because I guess he's too stupid to understand what she just said, which frankly she could have said at the top of the episode because it's the only possible way this could come down. I hate it when this show gets so emotionally overwrought with itself that everybody on the show forgets how the law works, even though they are all lawyers.)
ALICIA & VERONICA
Alicia: "Mom, you cheated!"
Veronica: "I didn't cheat! I am just a flirt. Why are you holding me accountable for my actions, what is this. Are you mad because I vanished for two years? I can't be responsible for that either. Malcolm had, quote, the soul of a vagabond."
Alicia: "Just please don't start saying the word vagina at me..."
Veronica: (Swiftly says that word sixty-seven times in a row.)
Alicia: "You're such an old asshole."
Veronica: "Are you mad at me because you have a crush on your boss, Will?"
Alicia: "First of all, that doesn't even make sense. And second of all, OWEN!"
Owen: "I'm sorry! I had to tell her something! You know how all gay men are secretly imagining having gay sex with every man they meet or trying to trick them into having gay sex? It was one of those times."
Veronica: "Where did you get your penchant for discretion, Alicia? It must be a recessive gene or something. Vagina."
THE BIG GAY WIRETAP
Makes it sound pretty bad for our li'l gay guy. He is innocent, but it catches him admitting that he's having doubts whether he's to blame or not. Conscientious, this one.
Breslow: "No questions."
Alicia: "Uh, you can't let that stand. It sounds bad."
Breslow: "The judge is smart enough to see he was just being conscientious."
Alicia: "Please, CFO client, let us cross-examine you so the judge will have to face it right now."
Breslow: "I cannot believe women are trying to tell me how to do my job. thing you know, this gay guy's gonna tell me this whole thing is none of our business."
Diane: "Oh shit, you want to lose. You want us to lose this so you can get to the Supreme Court."
Breslow: "Are you just now figuring this out?"
He pulls out a sword and waves it around, sprouting gleaming white wings and a breastplate of finest gold, yelling about how much fun it is to be self-righteous on other people's behalf.
Back in court, the CEO totally bones our guy, like, he actually just says the whole thing was the CFO's idea. Total lie. Breslow, again, sits it out. But have you heard about Alicia's fucks this year? Because she is not giving any of them. Over both portly white rich guy's protestations -- Breslow and Bucky, both for the same basic reason that they want to make this about gay marriage -- Alicia plays the original wiretap between the CEO and his wife.
"When Mr. Foster was a defendant, the tap could not be played. But he's no longer a defendant. He's a witness, and I am using this tap for impeachment. There is no spousal privilege with impeachment."
Which is handy, I like that. Both Bucky and the CEO's attorney kept trying to play their defenses off each other, so now she's handing that shit back to them. Bebe likes it too.
L/G
Bucky offers the CFO four months, admission of complicity, and $500,000 in restitution. Which is tough because he's innocent, but it's the Dept of Justice and those guys are kinda scary, so it counts as a win. There's a cute moment where Diane tells him not to cheer until Bucky's turned the corner, and then they do a happy dance.
Out in the lobby, Sad Gay Owen approaches the CFO's gorgeous husband and thanks him for being such a hero as to... Do the nothing that he is doing? The whole point is to set up the scene, where their Inner Gay Nobility suddenly causes them to turn down the deal so that Breslow can ride on their backs all the way to Scalia like big gay pack mules, but Sad Gay Owen is really fucking useless and gross in this episode, so it doesn't really matter what he says or why he's talking to the husband.
Breslow: "Gay husband, I would like to use you and your fellow upper-class white gay guy to see if we can make the Supreme Court admit that upper-class white gay guys are the best kind."
Gay Guys: "Sure, no problem."
Problem: What is with this dude and gay guys. He's like more into them than I am, and I am a gay guy. I don't trust these motherfuckers that do that. Get your own thing, man.
Diane: "Then fuck it. We'll just have to win this case so that the Supreme Court can continue to ignore DOMA and gay people will still be officially not people."
Alicia: "Are you sure? Actually, you're right. It's more important to win this case than it is to hand Breslow a way to fix something broken with our country that should never have happened in the first place."
Owen: "Hey, I just got subpoenaed about Mom cheating."
Alicia: "But you're going to tell the truth, right? Like people always do? Until they let you down eventually?"
Owen: "Let's let this one ride, sis. Maybe I will tell the truth and doom our mother to a life on land, or maybe I will lie and get her annoying ass the hell back off this show."
THE IT GUY
IT Guy: "Thanks for calling me as a witness. I can, and always could have, use technology to prove that the gay guy is innocent. That, plus the tape of the other guy admitting he was the one that did it, may just provide clues to who did it. Spoiler alert, it was not the gay guy."
Bucky: "Hey, did you ever have gay sex with him?"
L/G: "Oh my God you guys. What is the deal with this. Why do all these fat white guys keep trying to make everybody have gay sex with everybody. I don't understand it."
L/G
Kalinda: "Also, that wiretap had a second person from the State Department listening in. I could tell by the number of clicks but mostly because I am a wizard."
Alicia: "And they have to turn that stuff over to me because I have an ongoing trial!"
Veronica: "Vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina."
Will: "Alicia, your mom is the worst!"
Alicia: "I know, right? Get away from him, MOM."
Veronica: "Fine. Vagina!"
Lawyers: "Hey Owen, did your mom slash stepbrother ever tell you about these affairs?"
Owen: "No. And by no, I mean I am a liar."
Son: "Oh my God, we're just straight up lying now?"
Owen: "Yeah. Yeah, Stepbrother Guy. That's how it's rollin'."
BUCKY'S OFC
The CEO, former defendant and now star witness for the prosecution, loves boats as much as Veronica Loy. So much so that he got a yacht as a kickback for the whole scheme. You know how we already knew that he was the perpetrator of the entire scam? Because of how we heard him say that? Yeah, well, it was him. Surprise!
Bucky: "You bitches. Now we're even, from that time I made Captain Hellinger seem like a slut for getting raped."
Breslow: "All I care about is how DOMA is never going away, because I am the only person who could have accomplished that and I'll never have the chance again. It's so rare that upper-class white men get litigious about things and/or have the privilege of tossing hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into throwing a Federal-level tantrum."
BUT ALL MARRIAGE IS ALREADY GAY
Here's the thing. You're reading this, so probably you already know it, but one thing that is very hard to explain is why this kind of thing gets on my nerves. We are not conditioned to question things that feel good. So if you are a straight person, for example, who does not actively hate gay people, that feels good. You are not one of the bad guys, you are one of the good guys. Or, to look at another form of privilege (without necessarily equating them), if you're not a racist -- if you've given yourself the admissions test to Not Being A Racist and passed -- then pretty much whatever you do is okay. If you do not harbor malice in your heart, it is true that you are doing pretty good.
But empires do not continue based on malice, they are built on and subside on privilege. The overlooked ways in which we all contribute to keeping the status quo in place. The Human Centipede that has us fat Americans at the front of it and everybody else on Earth supplying the blood and misery that keeps our lives fun and frisky and full of iPads. Institutionalized racism is baked into the cake, misogyny and sexism are baked into the cake. And anybody who tells you that things are fair, that we have Obama now in the post-racial era, that the Paul Ryan budget gives everybody a fair shot at bootstrapping themselves or whatever it is, they're benefiting. Which is why it looks fair to them. Because they're not bad people -- they're not lynching black guys or bashing fags, they're not physically abusing women -- so when you question their privilege, what they hear is you accusing them of something they are not actually guilty of.
Because certain self-victimhood factions, both online and in real life, have turned these discussions and definitions of privilege into a dog whistle -- a way of calling somebody a racist without actually doing it -- which is the opposite of healthy, or contributing to meaningful change. Privilege isn't something to be ashamed of, it's something to be aware of. You have to understand the part you play in the world, and that means understanding that gravity pulls down on each and every one of us -- Rihanna and Chris Brown and you and me and Rush Limbaugh and these rich gay white dudes -- and that each and every one of us is given different tools to relieve that pressure. Straight white rich dudes, they have the most. Birth control moved (white) ladies nearer to the top, for the first time in all of human history, then ever before. Everybody fights over who has the least, because at some point we got sold the idea that being a victim is glamorous and bitching is the new bragging.
None of that shit matters. At all. In fact, you can leave out racists and homophobes and actual misogynists altogether, because their opinions don't matter. They are not part of this conversation. They are not invited to this conversation. And once you've gotten rid of them, what's left? The privilege. Skinny people telling fat people how to diet. "They can say the n-word all they want, but..." Male feminists offering women advice on feminism. Straight people telling me how to be a gay man, straight people having discussions about my personhood right in front of me. White people who don't "see race." White people who feel screwed by Affirmative Action. Saying that calling somebody a racist or bigot or homophobe or bully is every bit as hateful and hurtful as actually being those things, that's a favorite of mine. That boycotting Chik-Fil-A is essentially committing financial terrorism against Christianity, remember that?
Or the ones that come to bear here, which can be the trickiest ones: Straight girls who think they're "basically" gay guys, which entitles them to a vacation in my exotic life and a ticket out any time they want to go home. Straight men who presume that every gay guy is sizing them up, or secretly wants to be a girl, or thinks gay dudes are adorably prissy, or emotionally volatile, or incredibly negative behind people's backs, or obsessed with appearances, or any of the other things in the Bitchy Gay Bundle they try to fool us into thinking is a viable personality. Or, you know: Straight people who think writing an entire episode of a usually fantastic TV show that mentions DOMA more times than Veronica does vaginas entitles them to throw around clichés about gay men's infidelity and promiscuity, because they're "keeping it real" and because they balanced it out with Sad Gay Owen fuckin' crying in the corner of the screen the entire time.
These are the things that keep empires in place: Not the bad guys, but the good guys. The decent folks who are so convinced of their unerring ethical upper hand that they get to overlook the million ways they are still working, passively or actively, to keep themselves on top. You are never going to find the Bond villain that is keeping people in poverty, that is keeping the glass ceiling over our heads. You can try, you can go after Madoff or Bain Capital or whoever the monster is this week, but you'll never actually find the supervillain pulling the strings. Because he's in the mirror, and he's looking right back at you.
And nobody wants to hear that, because it sounds like you're being called an asshole -- that you should be ashamed, not simply aware -- which is what keeps the empire in place: you shut your ears and go lalala, because you don't want to be confronted with your privilege. (In fact, a lot of you reading this will either gloss over this part, as a rant, or detect a mean and hateful tone, when neither of those things are accurate.) There is a finite and precious amount of victimhood to go around, and nobody is going to take away your share -- the War on Christmas, the persecution of Christians, the evils of Affirmative Action, all that blind and self-serving bullshit just to get in on the complaint conversation; that weird, mean-eyed moronic jealousy of minorities and "entitlements" and whatever they're bitching about now -- because that would mean you're a bad person.
But you're not a bad person. You are not an asshole. Chances are you're pretty great. Shit like this drives me insane because they have us trained to always have somebody to blame, to always find the bad guy in every situation, to join Team Aniston or Team Jolie, to join Team Riri or Team Breezy, that everything is even and there's always one person to love and one person to hate, one person to identify with and one person to demonize, and that whole thing is childish and stupid. It keeps you in the mindset of being owed, of being a victim, of being powerless, when none of those things are true. It works against you.
You, working overtime to make sure somebody else is the bad guy, so nobody can ever call you the bad guy. How about for one day you stop trying to identify the bad guy, and operate on the assumption that there's no such thing? Just one day without a single finger pointed. Could change your life.
THANKSGIVING
Everybody's drinking, Veronica is nit-picking some more, still drunkenly yelling about how whether or not she lied or Owen lied, the principle of the thing is that she deserved the money.
Alicia: "I'm fine. I didn't say anything."
Veronica: "You don't have to say anything, with that look of yours."
Everybody Ever On This Show: "I know, right?"
Jackie shows up with some kind of Cuban alcohol and Fabulous Cristian, who tells her she can't drink any wine and she's only allowed to take one pill, etc. Alicia, at home, and Diane, at work, both crack up at Breslow's ongoing bullshit on TV:
"...Not every case is built for the Supreme Court. Sometimes you just have to win it. And that's what I decided here. We discussed the possibility of a test case, but in the final analysis Mr. Lamborne's freedom was key..."
Oh, this was amazing. In the kitchen:
Jackie: "I'm so glad you decided to visit! Zach and Grace were wondering about their other grandmother..."
Veronica: "I heard you nearly died."
Jackie: "A stroke. From helping out with the kids, by myself..."
Veronica: "Well, at least you got a young companion out of it. How much does he charge?"
Jackie: "$40 an hour. You should consider it. You won't have to go begging for male attention."
Veronica: "Yeah, paying for it seems to run in your family."
Damn, ladies. No quarter, huh? It was just both barrels, the entire time. And the only possible scenario in which I wouldn't hate Jackie Florrick, so, well done in many ways.
Peter takes the opportunity to menace Cristian, as the storm rises; turns out Jackie's extended his hours because she enjoys his company. For what it's worth, Cristian mostly seems to enjoy making Peter uncomfortable, although you can tell he thinks Jackie's a hoot. I would not put the likelihood too high of anything hinky going on, because it is better and funnier if Peter just slowly goes insane agonizing over the ludicrous prospect.
Veronica: "So Peter, he's over a lot? And you go over to his house, too?"
Alicia: "Yeah, he's my husband. So."
Veronica: "Is this because of me?"
Alicia: "Oh, for Christ's sake. Fuck you, you old bat."
Veronica: "I mean, is it because you can't let go of anything, ever? You can't leave Peter because that's how you've always been? Like, you wouldn't go after Will for example, because that would make you like me? A whore?"
Alicia's sigh is an angry gust. Her eyes are welling up, at this point. I don't know that she'd be able to put words to the things her mother is doing to her. Reaching into her works, with those little old lady hands, pushing buttons and pulling levers. Pressing old bruises -- Will -- and calling into question things that are already decidedly undecided -- Peter. Coming into her house, after two years of nothing, telling her shit she already knew. Shit that was barely true back when it was true. The sheer nerve, of this flighty idiot, to turn the telescope around and focus on her daughter for no better reason than she feels judged, accurately, as a liar. Like she's the bad guy; like she's the asshole.
Alicia, verbatim: "I look at you sometimes, Mom, and I am just ... amazed."
Veronica, verbatim: "I'm happy! I never do anything I don't want to do."
Alicia: "That sounds terrible to me, actually. The only things I like doing are things I don't want to do. I'm sort of a gladiator in that way."
Veronica, pressing: "Can you say that you're happy?"
Alicia, in tears: "I can say that I'm living the life I want, and I can say there are a lot bigger things..."
Veronica: "Wrong. All that matters is happiness."
It's like the last four years never happened. This woman breezes in, this tiny woman you love so much, and calls bullshit on your entire life. Not metaphorically, not metonymically: She actually looks at your life and pronounces it bullshit. That this four-year journey to the white-hot center of Alicia Florrick, where no fucks are given, is really just Alicia fooling herself. That she is no more of an adult, no more of a person, than she was the day she left him. Or any of the days before that, when she overlooked the telltale signs. That she has every reason to be ashamed. You silly, dumb girl. We're all still laughing at you, just quietly and behind your back. Even Maddie Hayward played you for a sap. Every time you get on that campaign bus you're embarrassing yourself. Ugh, just typing that sentence made me feel sick. I've always loved Alicia, but I've never once felt sorry for her, until this moment. That is some deep, ugly mojo.
If you asked me what could cut to the heart of Alicia Florrick I would have said nothing. That she is strong, and that she feels deeply, but that at least -- most of the time -- she knows what she feels. You can't be caught off-guard very easily, when you're this discreet and quiet and self-aware. If you asked me what could cut her to the bone, I would not know how to do it.
Veronica Loy knows how to do it.
Veronica: "She's never gonna divorce you, you know."
Peter: "Um, hello, Veronica. Nice to see you too! That is how a human would say hello."
Veronica: "She is a good person, and you are exploiting that. Exploiting her."
Peter: "Uh, by not leaving her? By trying to make it work?"
Veronica: "Yeah. That's just life support. DNR that bitch. You're selfish for leading her on."
Peter: "I liked it better when you were all about vaginas. Do you care to tell me anything about vaginas right now instead? ...No. Okay, hey Alicia? Can I help you with something? Anything?"
She drags him back, back into the bedroom, back into the master bath. His mother has a Cuban boyfriend; her mother stabbed her with a knife made of ice. So when she takes off her clothes, there in that room, and when he asks her if he's sure, and when she says she doesn't give a fuck -- actually says those exact words, this time, with a callback to the honking gag -- and when she pushes him down and climbs aboard, and they begin to fuck, he asks the question that should never be asked, in this one, incredibly rare situation where it's actually okay.
Peter: "...This is about your mother?"
Alicia: "Yeah."
It's nothing, this one time, to be ashamed of: Just aware.
WEEK
Hopefully this is the beginning of Alicia informing people explicitly that she no longer gives a fuck. Because I can see that clearing up a lot of conversational deadwood and unnecessary complications, if more people in Alicia's orbit were just hip to this one thing. Alicia jumps counties in order to get somebody convicted for the crime of which Will's client is accused, which sounds like it could go really wrong. Oh! And Hamish Linklater! As a Justice Department person. I hope he's adorable! Just kidding, he is always adorable.
Nick Savarese gets in trouble with Kalinda, which I'm so sure. What would that even look like? What, they have the same conversation for the millionth time about how she doesn't want him to be her boyfriend and he's like, "But I am though" and she just kinda lets it slide again? And Nick proceeds to eat everything in the refrigerator in a mean scary way, and it takes like twenty minutes, and they're both like, "Why is there Activia in here? Who would have bought that?" and it's super riveting and when he's done, he moves a full three millimeters closer to the door and out of this fucking show forever.
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.