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Will's been gone a week before the partners start getting antsy about taking over his job as a named partner: Julius wants it because he deserves it, Eli wants it because everybody else wants it, and David Lee wants it because he's a dick. Diane's not having anybody replace the Gardner in her Lockhart just yet, no matter how scrambly and ratfucky and generally nasty they all get with each other. David Lee especially has his paranoia validated several times, both accidentally and less accidentally, which leads him to possibly involving Caitlin in the whole partnership mess.
Of course, it would really help if Will could just come and show some face, scare them back into the brush, but he's too busy being suicidal without the law. In fact, it's a smothering visit from his sisters (including brilliant-as-usual Merrit Wever) that drives him back into the firm: Once they decide that the woman he's pining for is Kalinda, the whole idea is so weird that he flees back to the office he can no longer use for its intended purpose. (Other fallout: Alicia cancels her divorce planning with David Lee -- surprise, he bitches! -- and takes up Kalinda's tax case, moving forward.)
After the longest, most boringest Cartier commercial* of all time, Donna Brazile convinces Eli that Peter needs to hire some friends into the SA's office if she's going to support him as the DNC keynote speaker. This is taken care of with a quick nepotistic phone call that ends up with Cary pissing off ASA Geneva Pine yet again, this time with a demotion. Everybody's all job crazy and mean and scared of everybody else. It's like Wendy Scott-Carr turned into a fog or fine mist and permeated the whole of Cook County with her stabby vibes.
(*How crazy is it that they'll sell this CBS ad time for shit like that and then you never even know if the show is coming on? I don't get how this works at all. Why would Cartier buy a five-minute ad space with a jaguar riding a biplane and a city riding an elephant and who knows what all, and then ask for the show that is only occasionally where it's supposed to be?)
The case itself -- something involving a suicide bridge and Dexter's brother filming the suicides there -- also leads into the upcoming ratfucking death orgy at L/?, with Alicia using Caitlin as a sort of fire-meets-fire weapon against good ol' Nancy Crozier. Yep, our favorite innocent young attorney fresh off the truck from Michigan is back, and let me tell you that she cannot handle Caitlin for shit.
In fact, Caitlin's so willing to play Crozier's "Help me remember how to be a lawyer, Your Honor Played By Josh Hamilton" game -- and so much better at it than Alicia could ever have been, even when she was an actual tween -- that she ends up impressing Diane and getting promoted to full litigator by the end of the episode: Sharing Alicia's assistant and taking up office space, not to mention Alicia's place in Diane's heart. So once again we have a sort of terrible tremble of the world at thinking about all the horrible places the Caitlin thing could still go... Especially if there's no bad guy.
week: BAD GUY! Colin Sweeney returns, Bebe Neuwirth is involved, I remember somebody I love got cast in this but I forget who. And more than likely Colin's going to be like, "Alicia you've changed. You're tainted and turning into a grownup and I no longer want to make a suit of your skin and wear it and be a pretty politician's wife," and Alicia will feel bad about it, and think about how maybe he's right, and then she'll be best friends with Kalinda again. That seems like the most likely scenario.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Everybody seemed to think that a six-month sabbatical would drive Will insane, and I don't think they were overstating the case, so even though that seems ludicrous I guess we're meant to take this to a "Will is constantly on the edge and this is why he gambles or vice versa" kind of place. The fact that there are very few scenes in which Will even really moves around that much -- and most of those are him kicking somebody's ass all over the place, or playing corrupt basketball -- possibly bears this concept out.
A second and third consequence of Will's break are, respectively, a power vacuum that is the majority of what this episode's about, and sudden reasons for Alicia and Kalinda to interact thanks to the fact that Kalinda's entire life is 100% secret problems. And actually, come to think of it, everything going nuts at the State's Attorney's office is also directly linked to the outcome of Wendy's nonsensical obsession with Will.
GARDNER RESIDENCE
I've never felt I understood Will very well, but that cuts both ways: His introspection and quietness are the equal of Alicia's much of the time, so there's a lot of guesswork, but we've seen how far he's been willing to stretch for her before, and the sequence of events leading to her breaking up with him was a lot of guesswork too. So maybe that's part of what's driving him nuts, which again seems ludicrous, except how do you know? Last time I went through it, I was the initiator and I still went crazy as all hell.
Like the episode starts with a video of a very sad woman very slowly climbing over the railing of a bridge and then plunging to her death, while soft music plays and a voice talks us through that day; while her parents and boyfriend grieve for her, and the fact that goodbyes only look that way in retrospect. And we pull back, out into our show, and there's Will just watching, over and over, as this woman drops out of life.
Is he falling? Is he crashing? The show keeps saying yes, and he keeps saying he's okay. Is he watching this in a suicidal fugue state? He's watching it to close shop on one of the cases he's bequeathed Alicia -- but that doesn't explain why he keeps watching this pivotal part of the video, over and over again: The moment Kara Anderson was in midair, right before she disappeared.
Kalinda: "Hey! It feels crazy in here. Like, the vibes. I can't believe it's only been a week and you're already obsessively watching suicide footage. What happens three months from now?"
Will: "I'm fine! Mostly I'm just making notes on how long it's been since I last checked or answered my phone and thinking about how David Lee probably is right now. Anyway, I have this one case, and then this other case I'm not allowed to touch. The one that Alicia actually needs. How is she doing?"
Kalinda: "Hates me marginally less. Harried."
Will: "This isn't a note on paper, just a suggestion about that latter case. Tell her the judge on this episode is down with women more than men, and the defendent is kind of a pretentious douchebag that the jury won't like."
Kalinda: "Will do. Hey, are you going to kill yourself the second I leave?"
Will: "Not immediately after, no."
ANDERSON PARENTS TESTIMONY
Nancy Crozier, as per: "...I'm sorry.This is hard for me, and I'm... I'm just a girl from Michigan."
Alicia: "Give me a goddamn break."
Andersons & Crozier: "Our basic thing is that we took part in the suicide documentary Will keeps watching because we thought it would do some good, but now we're suing because it was about making money on our daughter's death. The artistry is a turn-off."
Alicia: "Be she a humble caveman or not, Your Honor, she keeps summarizing her case over and over so the jury will think it's real. Advertisement by repetition."
Crozier: "I don't even know what that means. I... I'm just speaking from the heart."
Alicia: "I hate your heart. Your heart is stupid, and a lie. And I am going to prove it by deploying Caitlin, who is actually what you only pretend to be."
Caitlin: "OR AM I?"
Kalinda: "Here's your notes from Will on past strategy."
Alicia: "Great, how is he?"
Kalinda: "Weirdly happy? He asked about you."
Alicia: "Whatever."
To summarize, the bridge footage exists because the artiste -- played by the Ice Truck Killa -- set up cameras there. And there's a part on the video where she stares up at the camera, so obviously the cameras forced her to commit suicide as was the ITK's intent...
Alicia: "Calls for speculation."
Crozier: "Sorry, Dead Girl's Dad. I know it's difficult after everything that you've been through not to speak from the heart, but in court, we do have to go by the rules. Let me ask something I think Mrs. Florrick will allow me to ask..."
Alicia: "Mrs. Florrick will allow you to eat a bag of dicks. You are the worst!"
The camera zooms in on the girl before she jumps, making it seem like there was somebody operating the camera at that time who, rather than calling the authorities -- or yelling into a microphone and pretending to be God telling her not to jump, which is probably what I would do in a pinch -- simply salivated and pushed in closer on her misery.
EXT COURT
Alicia: "Aidan, I know you're pretentious, but please don't fall for her crap. If she gets you talking about filmmaking or the art of the cinema auteur, you're going to look like somebody who curated suicides, and we're sunk. Just answer yes or no. Do you know those words and can you say them."
Aidan: "Sometimes. But I am very artistic."
Alicia: "Yes or no."
Kalinda: "Talk about why you made the film. Why suicide is a big deal for you. The actual shit."
Aidan: "Maybe we should just wait for Will. He's easier to obey, because of his penis."
Kalinda: "Will gave Alicia this case because he trusts her, and because juries -- among other people, some of whom may be standing here having this conversation while slowly dying inside -- also love her. Got it?"
ELI INCOMING
Alicia: "No."
Eli: "Alicia..."
Alicia: "No! I am busy! My job is my job, I am doing my job! Go away!"
Eli: "Whatever, I just dropped by to tell you that Peter might be the DNC keynote speaker..."
Alicia: "Parts of my autonomic nervous system still think that's a big deal. Pay no attention to the slight smile on my face."
Eli: "I take it as a compliment, considering how long I've spent this season working Donna Brazile. Anyway, are you divorcing Peter?"
Alicia: "The fuck?"
Eli: "Donna Brazile wants to know."
Alicia: "Tell her, 'The fuck?'"
Eli: "It's not like that. It's just my backhanded way of tattling on David Lee for telling me he was administrating your divorce possibilities. Shorthanded, what I'm saying is that David Lee ratted you out, and I'm glad about it because now you will hate him more, and because it means if I know this and Donna Brazile psychically knows this, soon everyone will know this."
Alicia: "The worst kind of Eli manipulations are when you tell me you're doing it."
Eli: "That's how Rumpelstiltskins work."
GARDNER HOUSE OF BLUES
Diane: "Willlllllll, I missss you, please come hang out with meeeee, David Lee is a sanitary naaaapkin, I caught Eli sniffing my Louboutiiiiiiiiins."
Will: "I am writing my book on the Shock Doctrine as it applies to the Supreme Court and can't be arsed."
Diane: "I am not kidding! You get your ass here! We'll drink like Don Draper, you can play your guitar, I don't care. Whatever you want, buddy. I'll give you an office to write your book."
Will: "Instead, you should come play video games with me and we can both ignore the firm."
Diane: "Not at all sure I won't take you up on that."
Knock knock.
Merrit Wever! The best thing about Nurse Jackie and one of the best things about life. She is here to make her brother Willy cheer up again! And she is not leaving!
LOCKHART/QUESTION MARK
Julius Cain sees David Lee checking out Will's office -- as was prophesied! -- and runs at quite a clip, right to D. Lock. Apparently today's the day now that David Lee's not even being chill about it.
Julius: "Diane, I would like to throw my hat in the ring for Will's spot on the letterhead and also I want his office."
Diane: "I don't have time for this shit. I am going to hire somebody into Litigation by the end of this episode and it is going to be bonkers."
Julius: "I appreciate the help. But back to me replacing Will..."
Diane: "He'll be back soon."
Julius: "Yeah, and he should have to fight when he does."
Diane: "You are brazen, Julius Cain. Brazen indeed."
Julius: "I'm sorry, has there ever been a storyline where I didn't make it clear I want to be a named partner? Nature abhors a vacuum."
Diane: "And I abhor a swot. Listen, would you be pacified if I pointed out that you'd be more likely to get this nonexistent promotion than David Lee or Eli Gold, because they are both megalomaniacs whereas you're fairly cool? No? Then I'll just let you rave and act weird. All of you. Mama can take it."
David Lee sees Julius Cain chatting with Diane, and runs straight for Caitlin, because somehow she's managed -- perhaps by Alicia's reflected halo alone? -- to become central to, like, everything.
David Lee: "Caitlin, how far would you go? Would you kill a person if I asked you to?"
Caitlin: "Point me like a gun, Uncle David."
CREDITS! AND AIDAN'S TESTIMONY
Aidan: "Yes. Simply yes, no other words."
Crozier: "So you wanted your movie to be beautiful like a Scorsese film?"
Aidan: "Yes or no."
Crozier: "Man, I loved Hugo. Didn't you just love Hugo?"
Aidan: "Yes or no."
(No. It was dumb.)
Crozier: "You know what else Scorsese used to make movies about, though, is violence."
Aidan: "Yes or no."
Crozier: "So you'd say your suicide movie was about the beauty of violence."
Aidan: "No."
Crozier: "And?"
Aidan: "No. Simply no."
Crozier: "You're no fun! No further questions."
Alicia: "Good work pissing her off! Now, about that zooming thing..."
Aidan: "That wasn't a zoom, and there was no cameraman. It was just digitally edited to seem like we're zooming in. Of course I didn't want that girl to kill herself -- I made this movie because I found my aunt after her suicide when I was eight."
Alicia: "So you saw somebody on the bridge, and you..."
Aidan: "Called 911."
Crozier: "That's not in evidence."
Judge: "Get the call and we'll continue."
Kalinda: "The city erases those things after 30 days. I'll try for the 911 operator too."
Alicia: "And Cary?"
Kalinda: "No. Simply no."
DONNA BRAZILE
Eli: "Okay, if Donna Brazile asks about your marriage just say you're working it out."
Peter: "I can't lie to Donna Brazile, she's the best! Have you seen her Twitter?"
Eli: "Don't think of it as lying to Donna Brazile. Think of it as justifying my continued existence."
Peter: "I guess technically since she hasn't filed for divorce or discussed that with the head of Family Law at her firm -- and since our daughter was kidnapped recently by Jesus -- there are ways in which we really are working it out."
Donna Brazile: "Please stop saying how amazing I am or we'll never get any work done!"
Everybody: "But we can't!"
Peter: "This small talk was fun, but I want the keynote address. Give it to me."
Donna Brazile: "Sure. Impress me. Why do you want it?"
Peter: "I want to talk about a country that gives second chances. It gave me a second chance to do some good..."
Donna Brazile: "Listen Eli, he's great. But everybody I've called is either lukewarm or downright weird about him. Why doesn't he have any friends anymore?"
Eli: "Who are these motherfuckers?"
Donna Brazile: "I'm not doing your job for you, Eli. Just help me out and get some people to support him. Support breeds support."
Eli: "Cool. Bothering people is what I am all about."
A GATHERING OF GARDNERS
Aubrey: "Let's start a band! Or do anything that's not being a lawyer."
Will: "Only in our family would being a partner at one of the city's biggest firms be considered dropping out."
Aubrey: "I just think you were meant for better things."
Will: "Speaking of judgment and disappointment and being up my ass, why is our sister Sara calling me?"
Aubrey: "I may have invited her here to also come stay with us until we both drive you insane."
Ring ring!
Alicia: "I was just calling to ask you about this case and things I already know about it, because really I'm just worried you're going insane and also because Kalinda told me you asked about me, and I wanted to make sure you are still pining in misery for all this I got going on."
Will: "You're going to do great!"
Aubrey: "...That's your sweet voice. You are sweet on somebody when you use that voice!"
Will: "Shut up. And when is Sister Sara arriving? Let's go pick her up."
EDITOR TESTIMONY
Crozier: "So what exactly did you do to make suicide seem incredibly romantic and appealing?"
Editor: "Um, what we did to the video is make the sky bluer and add mist to a waterfall."
Alicia: "These images in evidence are the result of a suicide, not the cause..."
Crozier: "Yeah, of this particular suicide, but that's not what we're arguing."
Turns out that while usually there's 15 suicides a year on that bridge, for whatever reason during the nine months of filming he only got one, so they put up this YouTube video we've been watching over and over, for marketing purposes. Which is apparently somebody else killing herself? I've been back and forth through the episode trying to figure out who's actually dying there and what it has to do with Kara Anderson's parents, but I can't seem to make sense of it. Which is fine, since it doesn't really matter in the long run.
Crozier: "Okay, music."
Editor: "He wanted romantic, sad music for it. We tried like thirty, including the song from Titanic, which proved too expensive."
Crozier: "And after all this effort, and the video here got onto the internet?"
Editor: "Five suicides in two months. It was like the Gold Rush, but with suicidal people."
So the first suicide was the star of the promo, after the promo there was this spate of deaths, one of the deaths was Kara Anderson, and that's what the case is about. But then why in the video at the beginning of the episode was the voiceover talking about Kara Anderson? Whatever. It has no bearing on the case, and I usually get confused by the case at some point anyway. Just not usually this early.
GOLD & ASSOC
Eli: "Horton, tell me why you are telling Donna Brazile you don't like Peter?"
Horton: "Because he didn't give me a cush job at the SA when he got reelected."
Eli: "Do you not understand the appearance of corruption that Peter Florrick drags everywhere he goes? Due to his immense corruption? Peter had to hire on merit..."
Horton: "Did you seriously just say that to me?"
Eli: "Look..."
Horton: "Boo hoo, I work at a think tank now! Get me a job or else. They call it patronage for a reason, Eli."
Eli: "Yes, I imagine the best way to impress Donna Brazile with his sterling character is to do some governmental nepotism. I'll just call it patronage, there's the ticket. It's not unclean to offer patronage."
Horton: "Don't give me that shit. It's only nepotism or cronyism when people other than affluent white men do it."
FLORRICK/D'ARCY
Alicia: "How would you like your first day in court, cross-examining their witness?"
Caitlin: "Uh..."
Alicia: "Caitlin, Mentee, Darling, you're a legal powerhouse and a tremendous human. You can do this. You can do anything!"
Alicia: "What I'm not telling you is, I want to beat Crozier at her own game, and the best way to defeat lies is through truth. She acts like a sweet little blonde idiot, but the perfect thing is that you really are one!"
Caitlin: "...OR AM I?"
(Nope. Not on this show. Ever.)
GARDNER
The sisters bother Will about: The contents of his refrigerator, the logistics of his kitchen, whether he fought his suspension hard enough, whether Sara's husband -- a "portmaster" of wherever -- can help him get a real job, whether Lockhart, Question Mark is really as good as he thinks it is, why he doesn't have a girlfriend...
Aubrey: "He does! Sweet voice on the phone! And he won't tell me about it! It's a lawyer on this suicide case and he refuses to talk to me about it!"
They grab his yearbook, with the caveat that usually he likes them younger. Sometimes eternally younger, like, "sparkly yellow-eyed mother figure to a coven of vegetarian vampires in the wilds of Washington state" younger.
CHAMBERS
Crozier: "Your Honor, it is somehow a desecration of Kara's memory to show her Facebook page in court!"
Alicia: "Caitlin. Act stupid. Go."
Caitlin: "Your Honor, I'm just a sweet little blonde idiot and I'm confused!"
Judge Josh Hamilton: "What is it, sweetie?"
Caitlin: "Well, with one finger in my dimple and the other twisting my hair, I just wanted to ask how on earth you could look at her Facebook Wall as anything other than a timeline establishing her mental state leading to her suicide?"
Judge: "Little lady, that's because there is no good reason. Nancy Crozier, stop being mean to this little girl!"
(A curl of black smoke rises from Nancy Crozier's head. It's so weird to see her lose her composure! It almost feels like we're losing her, my most favorite nemesis, now that Alicia's applying her homeopathic remedy, but I wouldn't worry: I've thought that same thing every time Colin Sweeney's shown up, and he's still kicking around.)
Alicia: "That was awesome. You can just drive this whole bus. Question the boyfriend to within an inch of his life."
Caitlin: "Man, that bitch hates me!"
Alicia: "Yeah, for real. That's usually the face I'm making when she pulls that shit. I don't envy her at all right now."
DEREK'S TESTIMONY
Derek -- who by the way has a face made for punching; he's just horrible -- was Kara's tutor and they started dating two weeks ago. Caitlin pulls a bunch of Nancy Crozier shit, asking Judge Serena how to go about doing some things and how it's her first day in court, and Nancy just about starts throwing stuff, it's awesome. Then -- just as Diane's coming in the back to watch -- a lightning bolt goes through Caitlin and she climbs right up onto the witness stand in his face like a gargoyle and reads him all these maudlin quotes from the Facebook page -- Ethan Frome, Kurt Cobain, the usual dreadful shit -- until he's about ready to admit he killed her his own self just to shut Caitlin up. It's gorgeous.
Crozier: "Are you seriously blaming Ethan Frome for her death?"
Caitlin: "Sounds about as retarded as blaming a YouTube video, doesn't it."
Crozier: "..."
Seriously. It's just this like, buzzing noise coming out of her. Maybe we broke Nancy Crozier this time.
Everybody: "HELL YEAH! That was AWESOME!"
Diane: "Caitlin, that was masterful. Come talk to me later."
Alicia, look at your choices here. Because when you pay for this -- and you are going to pay for this, for playing the same card you hate when it's Nancy, or Patti Nyholm, or Louis Canning doing it; for using another woman the same way they've been using you for three years; the same way they've been using women for thousands of years -- you're going to want to remember this moment.
It's not unclean to offer patronage, as they say, but that's not what you did.
GUBERNATORIAL PISSINGS
Eli: "...Then by all means do whatever you want. Be 'clean,' whatever that means."
Peter: "I don't need you telling me to pick random people for my office..."
Eli: "He's not random, he's your friend and a great lawyer. If you think about it -- sufficiently -- it almost starts to look crazy, that the elite people you trust get penalized by knowing you, while people you hate are succeeding."
Peter: "Just do your job and stop telling me how to be good. You're no expert. Frankly, it's weird to be reminded that we have an entirely storyline together."
Eli: "I can't do my job if you won't do what I tell you, because Donna Brazile wants you but won't take you. I guess you could still get a spot earlier in the week at the DNC, rather than the keynote..."
Peter: "Eli, fess up. What are you even talking about?"
Eli: "Your friends hate you. They're talking shit. Now offer some affluent white men some jobs -- it's not unclean to offer patronage, for God's sake -- or I just might quit the campaign."
Peter: "How much time would you need to give notice, if you did?"
Eli: "...That is not what I expected you to say."
KALINDA'S DAY OUT
Cary: "You know that the city erases 911 calls after..."
Kalinda: "Yes, but I also know you're doing a robbery from the same night, so you have the tape."
Cary: "Issue a subpeona. You know the drill."
Kalinda: "I need it today! God!"
Cary: "I'm more worried about the fact that Eli Gold just left my boss's office. Everything always goes to shit when that happens."
Kalinda scopes the bridge ; there's a phone with a sign about how you should call somebody to talk to instead of jumping, but it's out of order. She calls 911 about an imaginary man about to jump...
Alicia: "...It took then 42 minutes to send a car?"
Kalinda: "Yeah, and I found out it takes 48 minutes on average, plus the broken suicide hotline phone."
Alicia: "We'll implead the city -- make them co-defendants -- and then they'll give us the 911 tape we need. Good work."
Kalinda: "Oh my God, thank you."
Alicia: "Miss Sharma? I also need to talk to you about the case Will gave me, your tax thing. You claimed income from companies that don't exist?"
Kalinda: "Um, they do. And I can prove it. Later. Not right now. Goodbye."
LOCKHART/QUESTION MARK
Alicia: "Hey, David Lee? I just wanted to tell you that you can fuck off. I'm not getting a divorce, and if I change my mind you'll still be the last person I'd trust."
David Lee: "If I had feelings, they wouldn't be hurt by this! Luckily, I have the partnership question to obsess on or else I would be destroying you. For not hurting my feelings, I mean."
Blaming Eli and nursing his unhurt feelings, David Lee spots Julius in Eli's office, chatting, and... Pulls up a chair so he can stare a hole through the glass of Eli's wall, while they talk. It's pretty much amazing. David Lee is fucking crazy.
Julius: "Basically this is about the good of the firm. Diane's do-gooderism was balanced by Will's hardcoreness, so somebody needs to replace him."
Eli: "You want me to support you for partner. And what do you get in return?"
Julius: "Whatever you want."
Eli: "Because you hate David Lee too, right?"
Julius: "Let's stick to the subject."
Eli has this whole scary silent conversation with David Lee over Julius's shoulder, that is mostly curse words. Julius has no idea. Even up to when Eli finishes the conversation with a stagey handshake, mugging directly at him, at which point Julius finally clues in that he's being used to rile his enemy, and asks Eli to be cool. No matter how many times you ask Eli to be cool, he won't. Just give in.
Eli: "Keep me in touch on this secret plan, Julius!"
Julius: "Soooo the part about you being cool was... Nothing good ever comes of shaking hands with Eli Gold. Nothing."
Eli: "David Lee! Would you like a magazine while you watch me build alliances all around you?"
David Lee: "What I would like is to throw this chair."
GARDNER FAMILY
Aubrey and Sara have followed Will to a coffee shop, where they are going through his past exes to see what's going on. The funniest is Jane Trout:
Sara: "Didn't you give her your class ring?"
Will: "I didn't give her my class ring, she stole it. She was a kleptomaniac. Look, I swear I'm not dating, or anything. I'm not doing the law, I'm not into girls, I'm not doing anything of any kind. I am resting. Being Will Gardner is hard work!"
Sisters: "So is being up your ass about everything! But we will prevail."
STATE'S ATTY
Peter: "Cary, we need to hire a new ASA."
Cary: "Um, we don't, but go on."
Peter: "It's my friend Horton Baker."
Cary: "So we're back to being corrupt, I take it. Whatever. Where you want him?"
Peter: "New Head of Felony Review."
Cary: "Aw, man, you know Lodge is already pissed at me and now I'm supposed to take out Geneva Pine too? We're running out of minority women for me to fetishize."
Peter: "That's not what this is about. Just take care of it."
CHAMBERS
This is pretty representative of how the Anderson case is going:
Crozier: "Your Honor, the defense is just trying to shift blame..."
Caitlin: "Yes. To the guilty party."
She summarizes all the reasons this is actually a good thing, since the city is the real culprit and that's who Nancy's trying to find, and Nancy's getting more and more pissy, but the numbers don't lie and Judge Serena is appalled by the 48-minute response average.
CAITLINS & MENTORS
Diane: "So first of all, you've been a great mentor."
Alicia: "She is very promising clay. For a child. Who has been working here five seconds."
Diane: "Yeah, see, I'm making her a full litigator under Julius. We need more like her."
Alicia: "Uh, that's a terrible idea! For reasons I will think of in a minute."
Diane: "Well, it's happening. So. Oh, and hey, could you share your assistant with her, also? Until she gets her own?"
Alicia: "I'm going to miss having one of David Lee's family members as a hostage, but of course I trust Diane's judgment. So why is Caitlin's promotion hitting me more like it's a demotion for me? Maybe it's because I was defining myself against her, using my image of her as an unqualified toddler to make myself feel more competent and grown up. I hope all of this doesn't bite me in the ass!"
Something here, again, about how you can have a woman v. woman fight without it being girl-on-girl. Like, people are jealous of people, people minimize people, all the time. That's going to be true regardless of the genders or relative ages of the players. So at the risk of repeating myself, I'm again drawn to this idea that the show is, in a sophisticated way, proving its feminist bona fides by doing this exact thing, pitting our protagonist against a younger woman and then like, daring her to attack.
It's kind of like on a cop procedural when you see a guest star playing somebody innocuous and you're like, "No, that person is capable of being intense as hell, they're not getting paid to just play some art gallery owner" and then by the fourth act they're setting shit on fire: That's Anna Camp.
You don't cast Anna Camp as a dumb blonde, or even a secretly smart friendly youthful blonde, because guess what, Hollywood has those. You cast Anna Camp because she's what everybody secretly fears: A smart, friendly, youthful blonde who is coming after your ass.
LOCKHART/LEE
David Lee, fakely: "Hey, Diane!"
Diane: "Fucking of course. Come right in."
David Lee: "It's not that I am interested in management -- after all, I'm a misanthropic lunatic -- but I am worried about all these people trying to make partner. I'd like to help you out by solving that problem myself."
Diane, chortling: "David Lee, that is the worst idea in the universe! Have you ever met yourself?"
David Lee: "Valid. Okay, last point. When he comes back, I will give him back his place because I never wanted it in the first place. Doesn't that make sense?"
Diane: "Yes. Trustworthiness is your hallmark, after all."
ANDERSON CASE
Kalinda: "Cary! Thanks for the tape."
Cary: "Yeah, for this and a hundred other reasons -- notwithstanding the beautiful smile I'm zinging all over the place right now -- I am in a terrible mood. Give you this tape, and you leave the city out of it, okay? I am having the worst day."
911 Call: "Oh my God! I am very concerned about this girl who is about to jump off this bridge! This is not artsy at all! Please save her from committing suicide!"
Crozier: "This tape is fake! Maybe!"
Court: "Oh man, that's just sad."
Caitlin, aside: "This is so fun! She's just about to jump off that bridge herself! We did that to her! With words!"
Alicia: "I just wish I could be happier for you. I really do."
STATE'S ATTY
ASA Geneva Pine: "No sir. No way are you fucking me over. I barely got back on the show and you're bumping me out for some... You are the trouble! You and Lodge fucked up that grand jury, I told you not to do it, and now I'm the one still getting punished? I'm going to tell Peter, that's what I'm going to do."
Cary: "Well, that's going to go poorly for you."
LOCKHART/GOLD
Eli: "Lockhart/Gold. Sounds almost regal, doesn't it?"
Diane: "Oh my God, I feel like Wendy Darling with this shit. Look, Eli, like I told the others..."
Eli: "I am not the others!"
Diane: "You are the new kid. You've been here five minutes, you're an equity partner for reasons that have nothing to do with this kind of thing, you don't even work for us..."
Eli: "I might be dumping Peter, actually. Which partially explains my passion, which even for me is a little OTT. I need a new job, and it can't just be Vanessa."
Diane: "Okay, well, either way the spot isn't open. You're all fighting about a job that doesn't exist."
Eli: "And what if we outvote you?"
Diane: "Who's this we, kemosabe?"
Eli: "Me and my allies that you made me be friends with."
Diane: "Must feel good. Not being left out of the mutinies anymore, I mean. You must really feel like a man now."
GARDNER RESIDENCE
Kalinda: "Hey, is Will here?"
Sisters: "He's in the shower! We're his sisters! You're so gorgeous we want to have sex with you! Just like everyone else that's ever met you! Or at least leave you unattended near our incriminating papers like everybody on this show does."
Kalinda: "Yeah, I just... Can I talk to..."
Sisters: "Come in! You are probably Sweet Voice! Oh my God, how exotic!"
Will: "Sisters! Scatter! Kalinda, whom I am not dating, I see you've met my sisters."
Kalinda: "They're a lot."
Kalinda: "Okay, you need to get your ass back to work now."
Will: "Suspended."
Kalinda: "No, I mean your physical ass needs to be at work. Now."
Will: "Oh, what. David Lee and Julius Cain? Whatever, That's so obvious."
Kalinda: "No, for real. Eli too, and I know that's gotta scare you. Forces are rising. Just go show your face."
Kalinda: "Okay, but I mean it. Now, what's this about you giving Alicia my case? Is that about making us be friends again?"
Will: "No, it's about I can't be there for you and Alicia can. Trust me, she'll fix it."
Kalinda: "I know. It's just weird."
NORRIS TESTIMONY
One of the film's crewmembers explains that the rule was, if somebody stepped on the railing of the ledge, you call 911.
Crozier: "So if somebody stood there crying and acting suicidal for forty minutes, you'd do nothing. They have to step on the rail."
Norris: "Yes, that's the rule."
Crozier: "Did you know that it takes about 48 minutes for the cops to come when you do that?"
Norris: "No. I did not. I never needed to call one in..."
Crozier: "If you wait until someone is on the ledge, how many lives do you actually save?"
DONNA BRAZILE
Donna Brazile: "Hey, support bred support and now your friends can't seem to stop calling me. So that's nice. Now, on a separate note, are you still living apart from your wife?"
Peter: "For the moment. But we're committed to making our marriage work."
Each individual word is a lie, but you put them all together, it's not really a lie. It's not the truth -- it's not even the half-truth he gave himself permission for in the earlier discussion with Eli -- but it's certainly not a lie. It's also not what she -- what any of all three of them, Eli and Peter included -- expected to hear. But it does the trick.
ANDERSONS AGAIN
Turns out Derek left one 37-minute phone call out of his testimony, right around the time Kara was wigging out on him, that Kalinda would now like to discuss. Not a fight -- he was just talking her through the fact that her parents were taking her out of school.
Alicia: "When did you inform your daughter that you would no longer be paying her college tuition?"
Crozier: "Objection, relevance."
Alicia: "Financial pressure is relevant to a lawsuit about her motivations for suicide."
Mr. Anderson: "Her grades dropped below our agreement, after Finals..."
Alicia: "What I asked was when you told her that you were no longer supporting her."
Mr. Anderson: "...Two days before she died."
Shortly thereafter, Nancy Crozier agrees to a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie, and donation of half the profits to a suicide awareness campaign. Which sounds like a win to me... Except for how it was Alicia Florrick just hounded a man, a father, who brought suit out of his own grief, into admitting that he probably killed his fucked-up daughter. Alicia Florrick, who found something unclean in patronage; who's starting a war in her own house in ways she hasn't even recognized yet. Who has gotten so good at shifting the blame she could have one leg over the rail before anybody even noticed.
GARDNER RESIDENCE
The Sisters bother Will so much -- about Kalinda, about his broken heart, about girlfriends and women and loneliness and pain and fear and aging and unemployment -- that he finds himself walking into Lockhart, Question Mark, in his civvies, feeling lighter all the time.
Diane: "Wow! You lasted a whole week. Thank God for your awful sisters."
Will: "Why's Caitlin carrying a box of her stuff around? Did we fire her?"
Diane: "No, we promoted her. It was awesome, total bloodbath. I can't wait to tell you about it."
Will: "And now we got Julius and Eli Gold standing outside your office hand-in-hand, staring at us like the twins in The Shining. Any news there?"
As David Lee strolls by from another direction, smiling.
Diane: "Oh, right. I sort of buried the lede. Um, they are coming after you. After your ass. All of them."
Everybody smiles at everybody else, like they weren't just fighting on top of the casket; there's something underneath it, too. Eli's newfound friendships, that are more about perception than they are about reality. Diane and Alicia, wondering about Caitlin's eventual destiny and who's going to shape it. Julius, always the bridesmaid. David Lee, who's made himself an enemy. Sometimes you don't know the shape until the pieces are done moving. Sometimes you don't connect the dots until it's too late. But if you wait until somebody's already on the ledge, how many lives do you save?
Alicia watches as Caitlin walks to her new office, smiling. Just passes her by.
WEEK
Colin Sweeney! Nothing else one really needs to know.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife, Pretty Little Liars and True Blood for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, most recently A Friday Night Lights Companion and Fringe Science.