Hamish Linklater's DOJ official, David LaGuardia, approaches Eli with what seems like an investigation into questionable contributions to ex-wife Parker Posey's campaign, if you can remember back that far. But once a very incredibly awesome Diane Lockhart gets involved, it turns out that once again the only thing anybody ever cares about is Peter Florrick.
The mysterious FBI photo of Kalinda and Eli, that Nick stole, is still not in play, but after Diane and Eli tell LaGuardia to go to hell, the fall season ends with the Department of Justice raiding Gold & Assoc. To be honest, I'm not even sure that was meant to be a storyline so much as setting up the 2013 half of the season; if there was more to it, I didn't catch it as it was happening. Still, tough times for Eli means tough times for Peter. Or actually for everybody, since he bitches so much.
Alicia spends her few minutes away from the very complicated case of the week trying to figure out who has been googling "types of condoms" on her ChumHum and throwing around an insane amount of made-up tech-speak, as is her wont. Zach is still dating Invisible Nisa, but they don't need the Talk; Grace is shoved into sudden curiosity about sex after Alicia makes the rare blunder of referring to abstinence as being a "good girl," which is so beneath her that I hope Grace fucked Hot Connor like that day. Gross me out, Alicia.
But really gross me out because eventually Zach's research turns up the fact that the person googling the condoms was in fact -- as you probably guessed -- good old Jackie Florrick. Their shared mother/son horror about this discovery is so adorable that it almost makes up for the Grace thing. Almost.
Alicia's conundra do not end there, though. The legal stuff this week is less complicated than it sounds, but basically there are two guys on trial for this chick's murder. One of them is in Chicago, where the girl died, and the other one is in her home county, where the killer dropped her body. In order to help Will defend the Chicago boyfriend against Captain Hellinger, Alicia runs info back to help prosecute the other boyfriend. (He is being defended by Becky Ann Baker, regulation hottie, whose appearance excited me even more than Linklater and about which I had no foreknowledge, and who deserves a TV show just where she goes around having sex with young guys and like solving crimes with psychic powers.)
Anyway, it's a whole thing where cats are lying down with dogs and prosecutors are working for defense attorneys and everybody's trying to screw everybody else's case. Hellinger continues to be fabulous, calling bullshit on Will left and right with such precision that I think he's developing a little crush. Once Kalinda figures out that we're defending the guilty guy, Alicia takes us all the way back to kindergarten once again about what a defense attorney actually does, but in such a way that it's actually valid this time: They are helping condemn the innocent and letting a murderer go free, regardless of who the client is. It ends probably as cleanly as it possibly could, though: After both cases are pronounced guilty, though, Will and the Captain agree over drinks that they'll help with the innocent one's appeal.
And in Kalinda News, Nick Savarese finally does the one thing. You know what I'm talking about: After getting fed up with his bullshit, Alicia fixes him with a steely eye and personally fires him again as a client, so he gets up in her face and threatens her. First Cary's face, and now Alicia? No way. Get him out of here. Certainly that's all Kalinda needed to hear, so after confirming that he's transporting drugs and smashing up his towyard, she provides him with money and an escape... Which he then refuses to take. Prompting her to, I think, kill him. You don't mess with Alicia, dude.
I mean, it's unclear. And my hope is that it remains unclear, and we never hear about it again, because it's actually a brilliant solution: The reason the Nick story got cut short was that people hated it, and the reason people hated it was that it made Kalinda look dumb and weak and boring, and also because it removed some of the Kalinda Mystery. So, how about you resolve it with a capper of total mystery? Preferably one that puts the Kalinda/Alicia bromance back at the center of things, the way it should be? I mean, it's really elegant. I'll always wonder what might have been, but if they had to shutter this early, I love the way they did it.
Year: Campaign stuff, presumably. We haven't heard from Maddie or Kresteva in a long time, and now that Eli's had his precious office supplies commandeered there's no telling how nuts he and Diane will go on the DOJ. I'm guessing if this Trustee stuff doesn't get wrapped up soon, Diane will just become a terrorist anyway, so this might be two birds with one stone. Mostly it'll just be nice to have Kalinda back in-house instead of running around having sex with ice cream and knives and whatever, considering the two people that make her wonderful to watch now share an office. Right? Can we just get back there already?
PREVIOUSLY
Kalinda's ex-husband showed up and didn't really do anything too bad until Cary figured out he was using his towtrucks to move drugs -- which makes so much sense it's amazing nobody thought of that before -- and he got beat. Now they are sort of threatening each other with death, and who knows what will happen. Peter's campaign continues apace, but it's hard to say what is really happening since this tail end of the Fall Season has been so schizoid about which parts of ongoing storylines come up in any given week.
A DINER
Eli's listening to BWV 808 on his earbuds, reading pollsterisms and eating lunch, cutely playing along with his fingers like nervous pianists tend to do when distracted.
Hamish Linklater: "I'm adorable! Take out your earbuds so we can chat about things! I nervously play air accordion sometimes. Although I am just a beginner."
Eli: "I don't care about you or your accordion proficiency. Leave me to my charts and graphs."
Hamish Linklater: "Hey, are you Eli Gold? I'm voting for Peter Florrick for sure!"
Eli: "Ugh, always with the fans. It's like campaign managers and fixers are the new rock stars."
Hamish Linklater: "Yeah, that's exactly what it's like. Listen, when you were doing crisis management, you had Wooster-Graff Industries as a client, yeah?"
Eli: "I have to go now. Goodbye, Hamish Linklater."
Hamish Linklater: "David LaGuardia is my name, and Justice is my game. Department Of. We're gonna be fast friends, I can..."
808 starts playing again. All that is left of Eli is a spinning diner-counter stool and a variety of papers wafting to the floor. But is David LaGuardia downhearted? No! He is plucky and adorable! As always! Even with his hair chopped off, which I always thought would be like Samson if that happened, and take away his powers. Luckily, it just makes him seem more like an actual man and less like your friend's older brother, who can drive, and poorly play accordion, and who makes you aware of a certain thing you will one day come to realize is called sexuality.
(I defy you to come up with a better description of the Hamish Linklater Thing.)
GOLD & ASSOC
Eli: "Batten down the hatches and get me Greg Leshoure from Wooster-Graff Industries! I have a gavotte in my head going faster and faster. I realize I am constantly flipping out like a poodle about everything all the time, but this is no drill."
Cary: "Um, also Killer Hobo works for a landscaping company. The trace amounts of drummer silt clay loam aren't actually that unique."
Alicia: "Wait so not only did I give his prosecutor inaccurate evidence, but I can't tell anybody?"
Cary: "Yep. Because then it becomes public record, and the Captain can use it against American Pyscho. Our client, who killed a girl in the woods."
Alicia: "Wait, explain it to me like a hundred more times."
GOLD & ASSOC
David LaGuardia, how nice to see you! Oh wait, it isn't. Oh wait, you're raiding the entire office and knocking cell phones out of people's hands. That's not so good.
HOME: THE CASE OF THE TYPES OF CONDOMS, PART III
Zach: "Mom? You know that whole thing about the condoms? So I 'ran' a 'cache search,' and I figured out when that person googled that thing. It was during Thanksgiving dinner."
Alicia: "That does not solve the Case Of The Types Of Condoms."
Zach: "Except immediately before that, Grandma Jackie logged into her Hotmail account."
(Or if that's not funny enough, he could say like, her Prodigy or her AOL. Because she is old, you see. That bitch is so old!)
Alicia: "Your grandmother has discovered Types Of Condoms?"
Zach: "I need a hug."
Alicia: "I need a drink."
VERDICTS
American Psycho: Guilty.
Killer Hobo: Also Guilty!
All Of Us, In A Sense: Guilty.
FERN BAR
Laura: "I guess we buy each other drinks, then?"
Will: "Sucks to be Killer Hobo."
Laura: "You know what, though..."
Will: "We can throw all of our combined evidence at his appeal, since we've discharged our own duties?"
Sometimes everybody gets out alive.
Sometimes.
L/G AFTER HRS
Kalinda Sharma sits in a room, in a chair, facing the door. In the dark. On the other side of that door is a tiger. This isn't the first time this has happened.
Nick: "time you want my attention, give me a jingle."
Kalinda: "Won't be a time, son. You're outta here. I just called the cops about your drug business. They're probably already at the tow-yard. Here's an envelope with money, and a key to a locker at the bus station, where you'll find half of my twenty grand you're always talking about."
Nick: "Have we not had this conversation literally a million times?"
Kalinda: "No, you broke it. You fucked it, you burnt it, you ruined it. That thin slim thing we still had, with the ice creams and the cast-iron cookware and the knives and throat-punching and all that, you broke it."
And the funny thing is, you'll never know how, or why. You heard that thing my voice did on the phone, you heard it every time. You heard it, and I never even heard it until you pointed it out. And you were right to be jealous. I will spend the rest of my life making up for what I did to her, for making her feel stupid, for making her feel like she wasn't worth loving. You were right to be afraid, lady. Because I'm somebody else's tiger now.
You spent so much time poking around trying to hurt whoever was on the other end of that voice, and when you finally did it, you had no idea. So this may come as a shock, but it's over. Really, truly over.
Please fight me on this.
Nick: "M / F / K? What's your Plan B?"
...Thank you.
TEQUILA SHOTS
Alicia looks around, feeling nervous. Not scared-nervous, excited nervous. Two shots, two limes. Kalinda nowhere to be seen. She shoots hers.
We don't know what happened in that room. I hope we never do. But it could have gone the other way. Always remember that it could have gone the other way. And Alicia will never, ever know.
Alicia: "Kalinda, I'm just wondering where you are. Give me a call?"
She comes, as she always does, out of nowhere. "Where Is My Mind?" starts to play, a sweet cover. Damning and celebrating, all at once. Love is like this: The person is a door, and you can open that door a million times and see a million things looking back at you. Everybody wants a pet tiger, but nobody wants to get hurt.
He never even knew why. He never even got to know what that sound meant, in her voice, or why it happened sometimes. That it was as full of pain, and regret, as it could ever contain anything else. She never let him know what that might sound like, her pain. Too sure she'd be devoured if she did, for showing weakness. Nick Savarese stood at a door, in enemy territory. In the dark. On the other side of that door was something. Maybe a lady, maybe something else. Maybe something that would feed him until he wasn't hungry anymore. It wasn't the first time.
Alicia: "Where were you?"
Kalinda, smiling: "Out."
Alicia: "You seem... Relieved."
Kalinda: "Very much so."
Alicia: "He's gone. And you're safe."
Kalinda: "You're safe."
Real love isn't about sex, or parents, or children. It's not about men or women or gay or straight or marriage or how well you know the person, even. It's not about the things you want from them. The test, if you're ever wondering how much you love someone, is whether you could, for example, die for them without ever getting credit for it. Ask yourself: How far you would go, what you would risk, without them ever finding out.
Alicia: "And he's not coming back?"
Kalinda: "He's not coming back."
For just a moment, she collapses into the Kalinda Sharma version of grief: She looks over to the side, and calmly exhales.
Ask yourself.
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 fall on Tor.com.
Nora: "My name is apparently Nora. I am awesome, like one of those assistants on The West Wing where you realize you've totally been crushing on me for like two years without even noticing it, until they say my name or I have a storyline of some kind and then you're like, 'Yeah! Nora! That's the ticket!'"
Eli: "...Actually, instead of talking to Greg Leshoure, I need to talk to Mommy. Give me your phone."
Nora: "But I am talking to my literal mother."
Eli: "I will hit you. I'm tiny but I'm quick."
He dials Diane's number. By heart.
COLAVITO CASE(S)
Okay, this is thrilling to watch but probably more trouble than it's worth to recap literally, so I'll just tell you what's up. This girl Brandi Colavito was at a cringingly titled three-day music festival in Chicago called, are you ready for this, "Alt-O-Rama." I love it when they make up names for things on this dorky show, because it always makes less sense than just calling it what it actually is. Like "ChumHum." Fuck is a "ChumHum"?
I'm sorry to tell you this, but Brandi died at that event. But then the killer transported her dead body 50 miles south, to Grundy County -- her little hometown called Minooka -- and dumped her there. Brandi had a stalkery ex-boyfriend back home, Gary Kuharski who looks like a killer hobo, and was at the festival with her current boyfriend, Troy Mallick, who looks like your future husband. (Guess which one did it!) Two tigers, one of whom turned and bit her. Both, actually -- spoiler alert! -- but only one of the times was it fatal. The other one, she managed to escape.
Both of these boys are on trial for the murder, Killer Hobo in Minooka and American Psycho in Cook County. I don't know how that could possibly happen, but it has happened. Further, we've already had a lot of rulings on both cases that will come into play later, like, certain evidence has been excluded by the bench in a given court, for example. Because this show pretends it's a procedural, we don't get to know any of that until it becomes relevant to the twists and turns, so it's sort of 1/3 thrilling, 1/3 like watching a succession of Perry Masons popping up out of nowhere all the time, and 1/3 like a little kid telling you a story and she keeps forgetting to mention the details: "So the King says... Oh, I forgot to tell you, but this puppy is also a princess. That is important."
I'm going to refer to Grundy County, rather than "Minooka," because no offense but "Minooka" pisses me off, as a word, whereas "Grundy" is delightful to both write and say aloud. Grundy Grundy Grundy. If for some reason you want to hear everybody say "Minooka" like a billion fucking times, watch the episode because you will not be disappointed. Anyway, we learn all of this as, like this show is wont to do, we cross-cut and segue and fade and screenwipe back and forth between the two courts. It's a lot of people to get to: There's the two defendants, their two lawyers, the two judges, and the two prosecutors. Here's the rundown.
Cook County (American Psycho): Captain ASA Laura Hellinger vs. Will Gardner, Judge Jane Alexander presiding.
Grundy County (Killer Hobo): Becky Ann Baker vs. Some Guy Named Tripke, Judge Stephen Root presiding.
Now, you probably know that very few ladies have the key to my personal pair of rollerskates -- and long-time readers have bravely faced this Becky Ann Baker thing with me many times before -- but what you may not know, or even find that interesting, is that the only episode of the show Star Trek: Voyager that I can clearly remember seeing, I remember to a great extent because Becky Ann Baker, in it, caused me to radically reassess the basics of my situation. Not even that long ago, actually. As endlessly fascinating as I do find myself, I think it's encouraging to note that one can still be surprised every now and then. I recommend that episode vociferously. It's very good in many ways, even if it doesn't spontaneously demonstrate to you that human sexuality is a moving target. Suffice to say that, when I wed, there will be only one name on my List, and it will not be a fella.
(What you might find more relevant than my psychosexual issues, though, is that the "Baker" in "Becky Ann Baker" also stands for "Dylan Baker", i.e., Colin Sweeney is her husband. Although isn't it so funny that BAB and Jane Alexander are on the same episode? Throw in Helen Mirren and you'd have a MILF Attack Squad of a size equal to the average episode's list of Out Gay Man Guest Stars.)
Gardner's client, American Psycho, is a respected executive with no motive or record, while Tripke's client, Killer Hobo, clearly has killed many women just from looking at him -- and, Becky Ann Baker's protestations aside, was stalking Brandi and maybe followed her to the festival.
BAB: "The murder didn't take place in Minooka, it took place in Chicago. Yes, the body was transported here, but this is big-city business. Not our business. I'll tell you why Gary's being prosecuted here. Because Cook County didn't think there was enough evidence to charge him..."
Objection: Sustained.
Will: "...And another thing Ms. Hellinger won't tell you, not only is my client innocent, but there is someone in another county being tried..."
Objection: Sustained.
Jane Alexander calls up Will and the Captain to yell at him about playing with the rules. Last time we saw her, she was a little cowed by his charm, and even as she's threatening him now with contempt there's still a twinkle in her eyes: "It's not that I mind you doing this incorrigible act, exactly, but we would all like to go home at some point."
Will: "But but but they're mentioning our trial there, Your Honor!"
Jane: "That is Stephen Root's prerogative."
Laura: "He wants a mistrial, Your Honor. He's delayed this court date for months, hoping the other trial would result in a guilty verdict."
Jane: "I know that. And he's not getting one. And if he does this shit again, I'm fining him ten grand. And after that, jail for contempt. When and if Grundy County finds Killer Hobo guilty, we can talk."
Will & The Captain: Flirty flirts.
Alicia: "State's Attorney Tripke? I'm Alicia Florrick..."
Tripke: "We don't need you. I don't want you. Go home. You're only helping me so that Gardner can win his Cook County case."
Alicia: "Uh, yeah. So? Look, we have access to the Cook County ME's files, we have outside forensic analysis..."
Tripke: "-- I am an SA! I hate defense attorneys! Go home!"
Alicia: "Will, the Grundy SA's being a real tool about this."
Will: "Kalinda's working on it. He'll need us eventually, considering his opposition's spellbinding mature sexuality. Hey, but will you google 'clay loam' on ChumHum? Since you're not being helpful at all in Grundy County?"
Alicia: "Sure. How's American Psycho?"
Will: "Flipping out. I wish you were here to do your Alicia Stuff to his mind."
Alicia: "I'm sure you can handle it. You're not entirely uncomforting."
Am Psycho: "My parents think the jury hates me."
Will: "Fuck your parents."
LOCKHART
Eli: "Diane, I had a very scary lunch moment. I was approached by an adorable DOJ guy."
Diane: "Approached how? Like off the record?"
Eli: "He mentioned Wooster-Graff Industries, whose IPO I crisis-managed."
Diane: "So, you dirty little goblin. How illegal was it? Because if not, then they're just fishing. He's just Wendy Scott-Carring you to get to Peter or something."
Eli: "Okay. Hey, Kalinda gave me this picture of me and her in her office which I don't know that Nick stole from FBI Lana's apartment. It may or may not have anything to do with this."
Diane: "Just from looking I can tell this was taken from the skyscraper across the street..."
Eli: "Floor's empty. Bankruptcy. Imagine, a law firm or accounting firm just over there, having to shutter their 28th floor..."
Diane: "Too soon, brah. This was taken what, a year ago? Based on the position of the painting in the background? Okay. Do you want me to lead an assault on the Department of Justice, or..."
Eli: "I just need this gone. The rumor of an investigation is often worse than the result. And also, this needs to be super confidential."
Diane: "No Alicia? No problem. That's my new motto, at least until Cary finally lets Nathan Lane blow him."
Eli: "No but like not even Will, okay?"
Diane: "I figured that was implied. Also, like Will would ever do anything for you."
CHUMHUMMIN'
Alicia: "Okay, Alicia. You can do this. You took that class at the Annex. Just breathe and talk your way through it. Refer to your laminated index card if necessary. Step one. Turn on the computer. Check. Step two, open up ChumHum using a web browser. Check. Wait. First open the brows... Got it. Step three, type in 'types of clay loam...' What?"
ChumHum Autocomplete: "You mean types of condoms?"
Alicia: "ChumHum, no! Loam!"
Zach: "Hey Mom, can I use the computer? It's for homework."
The '90s way they administrate computer usage in this show is insane. Parents! Stop treating your children like criminals and form a respectful relationship with them! Trying to protect them from the internet -- when the internet is inside everything in your house, at all times -- is like trying to protect them from thoughts!
Alicia: "Is it really for homework? Or is it for the loss of your cyberinnocence?"
KILLER HOBO
Tom Szabo, Evidence Tech, Grundy County: "I found the same shoe impression at both the murder site and the place we found the body, which matches a shoe I found in Killer Hobo's closet. So."
BAB: "And what about American Psycho's sneakers, did you check those too?"
Objection: Overruled, because Stephen Root is not Jane Alexander and does not jurisprude in the same way as Jane Alexander.
Tom Szabo: "I didn't compare the shoes, but the Illinois Crime Lab did, and they said it was also a match for American Psycho. Isn't that weird? Eight different shoes, four different footprints, all matching. Just think, I could be in your shoes and you could be in Juliana Hatfield's, just like that beautiful recurring metaphor in My So-Called Life."
BAB: "So you think the shoe impression matches my client's shoes, but the Chicago team thinks... ["Objection!"] Nothing further, hee hee."
Alicia gives up and just whips her forensic analysis at Tripke's face. White Man Pride is nothing to DGAF Alicia anymore.
Tripke: "Okay so um, what about a soil analysis?"
Szabo: "Chicago wouldn't give me a sample from the murder site, which by the way is just jurisdictional bullshit."
Tripke: "You want it right now? Let's call it Exhibit D, shall we?"
BAB: "Hold on..."
Judge Root: "Hi, Alicia. Nice to see you again. And sorry, Becky Ann, but it's okay."
The murder site had a type of condom called "drummer silt clay loam," which is what was in Killer Hobo's shoes also. Oh, and we learn that Killer Hobo said he was never even at the concert, and also that drummer silt clay loam is like, a totally unique condom type.
Tripke: "Thanks for not listening when I said I didn't need you. Keep doing that."
HOME: THE CASE OF THE TYPES OF CONDOMS, PART I
Alicia: "Hey, Zach!"
Zach: "Why are you in my room? Is everything okay?"
Alicia: "Yeah, of course. I just love you. So anyway, how are you and Nisa doing? We haven't seen her in like two seasons, is she still fifteen?"
Zach: "Yeah. Do you hate her all of a sudden?"
Alicia: "Quite the opposite. It's just that..."
(One hundred years of awkward vibes.)
Alicia: "Listen, do you know about clay loam? Do we need to have that talk?"
Zach: "Jesus Christ, Mom! She's fifteen!"
Alicia: "I was ChumHumming, and..."
Zach: "Talk to Grace. She's the one dating Hot Connor."
Alicia: "Oh, gross. Still? That guy is danger."
Zach: "Nice talk, though. Does it help that I would never, ever do anything that embarrassing on your computer? And that if I did, I would scrub the search cache?"
Alicia: "No, but also I don't know what that means, so. Bye?"
L/G
Admin: "Mrs. Florrick, Nick Savarese is in the conference room, drinking Perrier in a way that makes my flesh crawl."
Alicia: "Good God. Why?"
Admin: "I didn't ask. I thought he would hit me."
Nick: "I want Cary off my case."
Alicia: "We still represent you?"
Nick: "Yeah, and I want you now. Or one of the partners."
Alicia: "I'm super busy working for free for another lawyer right now. Is there anything in particular he has done to piss you off? Besides being himself."
Nick: "He accused me of running drugs."
Alicia: "That doesn't sound accurate."
Nick: "He came to my lot and told me that, as my lawyer and as a friend of the State's Attorney's office, he knew what I was doing. Using the cars we towed to move drugs."
Alicia: "That sounds more like him. And also pretty bad-ass. I'll be right back, okay?"
She heads out of there with purpose, but the second she's out of his Vibe Area, she rethinks it and is like, "You know what?"
ONE MIN LATER
Alicia: "Oh my gosh, Mr. Savarese, so I just talked to the partners and here's the thing. You are fired as a client."
Nick: "You already tried this, and they took me back immediately, complete with gift basket."
Alicia, indiscreetly: "Yeah, but um, that was when you had a $25M governmental bid."
Nick: "You didn't talk to the partners at all! It is a ruse!"
Alicia: "Whatever, sorry. Bye."
Nick: "You know what? Regardless of your relationship with the SA, we have attorney-client privilege. By which I mean, I will have you killed if you say anything about the drug deals."
Alicia's DGAF thing that's been happening all season becomes so intense that she bursts into flames, like Galadriel at Lothlórien when she's like, "I sometimes have a feeling I can do crystal meth, but them I'm like mmmm... Better not."
Alicia: "Here's the thing, you little shit. Privilege is voided if I'm threatened. So let me ask you this, and I suggest you take a moment before answering. Are you threatening me?"
He whimpers and runs, but the second he's gone she collapses into the Alicia Florrick version of a panic attack, which is to say she looks over to the side and exhales calmly.
COOK COUNTY (AMERICAN PSYCHO)
Brandt Claussen, OLS Security: "We are first, and we are fast."
Laura: "Okay, so you were at what we're calling Alt-O-Rama that night. Did you see Brandi hanging out with American Psycho?"
Claussen: "Yeah. They were fighting and they went into the woods and she started screaming."
Laura: "Screaming? Goodness. Screaming what, pray tell?"
Will: "Hearsay!"
Laura: "Insofar as he's 'saying' what he 'heard,' Your Honor."
(Actually, the Captain gives them a res gestae exception, which is when the things being reported as said are "so spontaneous as to belie concoction," which I include since I have never and maybe will never understand how hearsay works. I mean, he's just testifying that he heard the chick talking, not saying it's evidence that anything else was going on. Right?)
Claussen: "Get away from me! Stop it! And that was the extent of her screaming, which ended abruptly, so I ran out there into the woods and found no Brandi, only bloody clothes. I guess American Psycho had taken her body..."
Objection: Sustained, obviously.
Will produces earplugs, which are provided by the stadium and which he was wearing that night, and then has him put them in and sends Kalinda out into the hallway. Not quite as far away as he is testifying the screaming took place, but that just better makes the point
Kalinda: "I'm not being murdered! I'm just screaming in the hallway!"
Everybody loves it, even the Captain, in large part because Kalinda is wonderful. Heading out, the Captain puts on a brave face for Will, but the second he's gone she calls Matan for more help. To be the Alicia, in fact, and run interference for the other side. Which, Stephen Root will point this out later, but that means that the two defense teams are now helping the two SA's, cats are lying down with dogs, etc.
GIRL TIME
Kalinda: "Alicia, aren't you supposed to be in Grundy County?"
Alicia: "Yeah, I'm running late. Hey, should I be afraid of your husband?"
And that, my friends, is all she wrote. Simples things up real goddamn fast, doesn't it?
Kalinda: "Uh, not in about five fucking minutes you shouldn't."
Which I said this in the recaplet already, but what an elegant and moving solution to the Season Four Kalinda Problem. So much so that it seems like this would have been the endgame of the Nick story no matter how long it went on: He can dick around all he wants, throw all these fits -- K doesn't even seem to have noticed the Cary part -- but you come after Alicia? Oh, hell no.
Or to put it another way: She might not have been able to protect Alicia from Peter -- or, more sadly, from herself -- but she can damn well protect her from Nick. Especially when it was Alicia's freely offered, tentatively tender advice that helped her reassess the Nick situation last week anyway: That Kalinda deserves better than just another wounded, angry little tiger. And this solves both; it solves everything.
I mean, regardless of where their relationship was at, the end result of threatening Alicia would be Kalinda going ham on Nick, because they are the central romance of the whole show, but it adds another layer to think about it in terms of the husband/pet tiger equation: Kalinda and Nick are the feral versions of Alicia and Peter, in this way at least, so there's a quadrille of Beauties and Beasts in play that makes this even more beautiful: Save your girl, save yourself.
KILLER HOBO
Captain Tim Resnick, Chief of Investigations, Minooka PD: "Uh, I actually knew Killer Hobo from before this murder arrest, thanks to him beating Brandi up three months ago."
Tripke: "Not the whole story, though, right? She didn't press charges at that point, and he posted bail, and this was not a solitary incident. But later on, thank goodness, she got a restraining order. I mean, she's dead, but..."
Matan hands BAB a folder, having shown up to be the opposite of Alicia. Hi, Matan. I don't like you, but it's kind of nice to see you.
BAB: "Hey, did you maybe prejudge my client, Killer Hobo, based on that stuff?"
Resnick: "No way! I didn't form any theory of the case until I saw the murder scene evidence, as is SOP."
BAB: "Because this folder my Cook County Evidence Fairy just handed me has the Chicago detective's notes, and right here it says, Received a call from Detective Resnick in Minooka. Strongly believes killer is ex-boyfriend."
Tripke & Alicia: "Damn you, ASA Matan!"
BAB: "You bitches started this, remember?"
AM PSYCHO
Will: "Matan's helping the defense? What a topsy-turvy world!"
Laura: "Trouble? Heh."
Will: "Wonder what the taxpayers would say about you helping a murderer in another county get off."
Laura: "Probably the same thing your creditors would say about you sending the State's Attorney's Good Wife?"
Will: "Whoa, you kind of just said two pretty mean things at once. Want to date?"
Laura: "Uh, yeah. We're both gorgeous. How about loser buys the winner drinks."
THAT DINER AGAIN
Eli, surprise, looks like he's having a heart attack. Diane looks like Miranda Priestly, staring down old David LaGuardia through these giant awesome bug-lady sunglasses she never once takes off.
LaGuardia: "I'm chatty and adorable! Accordions!"
Diane: "Mr. LaGuardia, I have asked my client not to speak to you. So quit."
LaGuardia: "No prob!"
Diane: "Why is the Public Integrity Division looking into my client?"
LaGuardia: "Who says we're doing that?"
Diane: "Then stop bothering and/or surveilling my client."
LaGuardia: "It was like one time!"
Eli scoots the Lana Photo across the table, and LaGuardia goggles at it in a convincing way. I wonder what is going on?
LaGuardia: "Um. This is a photo I have no knowledge of. If what you showed me is indeed DOJ work product, whoever gave you that photo broke the law."
True, but it's gone through so many cagey hands -- Kalinda never tells anybody anything, and Nick is so sketchy, and Lana, who the hell knows what's ever going on with Lana -- that nobody at this table may ever know the actual details. Which explains why the scene where K handed it over to Eli was so black-ops and mysterious. I remember finding that odd.
Diane: "Cool, thanks. So what's actually going on?"
Well, what we find out is maybe not the whole thing, but basically it's another left turn out of nowhere: Some of Eli's biggest crisis clients have started donating to Vanessa Gold/Parker Posey's campaign -- which I barely remember what she's even running for, because it was a million years ago and also I vaguely remember being confused about it even at the time -- which the DOJ thinks might be a quid pro quo where Eli was giving them illegal discounts for campaign contributions. My heart leapt for a moment when I realized this might bring Amy Sedaris back, as I only recently remembered how she ended up as Vanessa's campaign manager. Anyway, maybe it is about this, maybe it is still really about Peter, but who knows. There's a cliffhanger afoot! It's not the time to be telling us what is really going on.
KILLER HOBO
Everybody says "fruit of the poisonous tree" over and over and over until you are going nuts, but the basics of this scene are that Matan gives BAB evidence from American Psycho's trunk, which Cook County threw out because the cops who gathered it didn't have a warrant. They fight about this for awhile, and then Alicia (and Matan, too) just gets frustrated, wades the fuck in, and starts lawyering in the middle of somebody else's case, and it's amazing even though I don't really know what the actual words mean. In the end, Judge Root allows the evidence, and a disappointed Tripke is reduced to just begging Alicia to do more magic.
HOME: THE CASE OF THE TYPES OF CONDOMS, PART II
Grace: "Oh my God, why are you in my room? Is everything okay?"
Alicia: "Why does everybody act like this?"
Grace: "Everybody who?"
Alicia, verbatim, adorably: "My children. My various children, throughout Chicago."
Grace: "That's pretty kooky and adorable, for you. Are you high? Have you been drinking wine, or doing pot?"
Alicia: "No, I'm just exhausted from running two separate justice systems by myself. And I might get murdered by a tiny. And there are these types of loam. About which, we need to have a discussion. Tell me about Hot Connor."
Grace: "Beyond what you know -- that his girlfriend, the other me, committed suicide -- and the fact that he is hot and has an earring? Um, he wants to take a gap year in Thailand. Which I am too young to know what a huge fucking red flag that is, so I'll tell you some dorky shit about a citywide water fight they have over there. Sounds like a gas!"
Alicia: "Is he, um... What's that dumb thing you're into..."
Grace: "Christianity? No, he's not. Where is this headed?"
Alicia: "CONDOMS!"
Grace: "Gross, Mom. Get out."
Alicia: "Not that sex is bad or anything. It's only bad if you do it. So don't do it. Because you will die."
Just kidding, but there is a weird moment where she says, "Are you being a good girl?" Which is such a loaded phrase that maybe she meant it one of the several ways it's not the grossest thing imaginable, but it's still a tin-eared line of written dialogue regardless of what it means inside the show. It begs the question either way. But I think she did just forget herself, and actually said a thing she shouldn't have said and knows she shouldn't have said, based on where the show goes with it:
The time we see Grace, she'll be looking at all her school papers that say good and good job and good girl, and she'll think about earrings and the smell of Polo Sport, and she'll open up her web browser and she'll go to ChumHum and she'll google the word "SEX." Which retroactively confirms this phrase as a mistake on Alicia's part, I'm pretty sure. Right?
AM PSYCHO
Brock Dalyndro, Burnout, Alt Fan: "That concert last May was killer! Bad choice of words!"
Brock testifies that just after "Sabbath" (so "alt"!) finished their set, he went back to the campsite and there he saw American Psycho carrying a corpse, wrapped in a blanket, which he shoved into his trunk, which would later be searched without a warrant.
Will: "So you're a total burnout, huh? How many beers that night?"
Brock: "Not a huge amount, like seven or eight. Plus a shitload of drugs."
Will: "And it was in the dark."
Brock: "I saw all these colors, man. And the blanket had a mountain peak on it."
Will: "Your Honor, this man is high right now. Nothing further."
The Captain asks for another approach, and her logic is both valid and sexy.
Laura: "Your Honor, it gives me no delight in saying this, but I believe the defense is prepared to contravene your ruling. Mr. Gardner intends to show this witness a photo of a man wearing an identical shirt to trick him into IDing him as the killer, then reveal that it's a picture of Killer Hobo."
Jane Alexander: "How do you know this? Are you a wizard?"
Will: "This is ludicrous!"
Jane Alexander: "Is it, though? Show me the photo in your hand right this instant."
Will: "Um, no! I can't! Somebody else did it! I am incorrigible!"
Jane Alexander: "Okay, so you owe me ten grand. Wanna go for twenty?"
Laura: "How's it feel, being so predictable?"
Will: "Kind of like sexual arousal, actually. Weird."
TOWHEAD TOWYARD
Kalinda drives an SUV into the tow-yard while some kind of raucous music plays, and then abruptly goes Lyla Garrity on that shit, slamming into cars and having a big old time. One of Nick's guys -- Bill? -- comes running out with a gun, and she just aims directly at his ass. Out of the car in her little boots, over to grab the gun, and then she shoots a hole in one of the car's trunks that he was messing with, opening it up to reveal drugs. So yes, she nods. Alicia is for sure in big trouble. She beats up Bill a little bit, for old time's sake, and then tells him she'll be waiting for Nick at L/G, for their final showdown. Yeah! Yeah, Bill! You tell him!
Cary: "Um, also Killer Hobo works for a landscaping company. The trace amounts of drummer silt clay loam aren't actually that unique."
Alicia: "Wait so not only did I give his prosecutor inaccurate evidence, but I can't tell anybody?"
Cary: "Yep. Because then it becomes public record, and the Captain can use it against American Pyscho. Our client, who killed a girl in the woods."
Alicia: "Wait, explain it to me like a hundred more times."
GOLD & ASSOC
David LaGuardia, how nice to see you! Oh wait, it isn't. Oh wait, you're raiding the entire office and knocking cell phones out of people's hands. That's not so good.
HOME: THE CASE OF THE TYPES OF CONDOMS, PART III
Zach: "Mom? You know that whole thing about the condoms? So I 'ran' a 'cache search,' and I figured out when that person googled that thing. It was during Thanksgiving dinner."
Alicia: "That does not solve the Case Of The Types Of Condoms."
Zach: "Except immediately before that, Grandma Jackie logged into her Hotmail account."
(Or if that's not funny enough, he could say like, her Prodigy or her AOL. Because she is old, you see. That bitch is so old!)
Alicia: "Your grandmother has discovered Types Of Condoms?"
Zach: "I need a hug."
Alicia: "I need a drink."
VERDICTS
American Psycho: Guilty.
Killer Hobo: Also Guilty!
All Of Us, In A Sense: Guilty.
FERN BAR
Laura: "I guess we buy each other drinks, then?"
Will: "Sucks to be Killer Hobo."
Laura: "You know what, though..."
Will: "We can throw all of our combined evidence at his appeal, since we've discharged our own duties?"
Sometimes everybody gets out alive.
Sometimes.
L/G AFTER HRS
Kalinda Sharma sits in a room, in a chair, facing the door. In the dark. On the other side of that door is a tiger. This isn't the first time this has happened.
Nick: "time you want my attention, give me a jingle."
Kalinda: "Won't be a time, son. You're outta here. I just called the cops about your drug business. They're probably already at the tow-yard. Here's an envelope with money, and a key to a locker at the bus station, where you'll find half of my twenty grand you're always talking about."
Nick: "Have we not had this conversation literally a million times?"
Kalinda: "No, you broke it. You fucked it, you burnt it, you ruined it. That thin slim thing we still had, with the ice creams and the cast-iron cookware and the knives and throat-punching and all that, you broke it."
And the funny thing is, you'll never know how, or why. You heard that thing my voice did on the phone, you heard it every time. You heard it, and I never even heard it until you pointed it out. And you were right to be jealous. I will spend the rest of my life making up for what I did to her, for making her feel stupid, for making her feel like she wasn't worth loving. You were right to be afraid, lady. Because I'm somebody else's tiger now.
You spent so much time poking around trying to hurt whoever was on the other end of that voice, and when you finally did it, you had no idea. So this may come as a shock, but it's over. Really, truly over.
Please fight me on this.
Nick: "M / F / K? What's your Plan B?"
...Thank you.
TEQUILA SHOTS
Alicia looks around, feeling nervous. Not scared-nervous, excited nervous. Two shots, two limes. Kalinda nowhere to be seen. She shoots hers.
We don't know what happened in that room. I hope we never do. But it could have gone the other way. Always remember that it could have gone the other way. And Alicia will never, ever know.
Alicia: "Kalinda, I'm just wondering where you are. Give me a call?"
She comes, as she always does, out of nowhere. "Where Is My Mind?" starts to play, a sweet cover. Damning and celebrating, all at once. Love is like this: The person is a door, and you can open that door a million times and see a million things looking back at you. Everybody wants a pet tiger, but nobody wants to get hurt.
He never even knew why. He never even got to know what that sound meant, in her voice, or why it happened sometimes. That it was as full of pain, and regret, as it could ever contain anything else. She never let him know what that might sound like, her pain. Too sure she'd be devoured if she did, for showing weakness. Nick Savarese stood at a door, in enemy territory. In the dark. On the other side of that door was something. Maybe a lady, maybe something else. Maybe something that would feed him until he wasn't hungry anymore. It wasn't the first time.
Alicia: "Where were you?"
Kalinda, smiling: "Out."
Alicia: "You seem... Relieved."
Kalinda: "Very much so."
Alicia: "He's gone. And you're safe."
Kalinda: "You're safe."
Real love isn't about sex, or parents, or children. It's not about men or women or gay or straight or marriage or how well you know the person, even. It's not about the things you want from them. The test, if you're ever wondering how much you love someone, is whether you could, for example, die for them without ever getting credit for it. Ask yourself: How far you would go, what you would risk, without them ever finding out.
Alicia: "And he's not coming back?"
Kalinda: "He's not coming back."
For just a moment, she collapses into the Kalinda Sharma version of grief: She looks over to the side, and calmly exhales.
Ask yourself.
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 fall on Tor.com.