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When last we left Lockhart/Gardner, it was with Eli Gold under the microscope of the Department of Justice for a nonexistent "discounts for donations" scheme. The investigation, intended to scare the DNC about Peter's gubernatorial campaign, has since had two major repercussions: First, Wendy Scott-Carr is the US Attorney now assigned to the case, which means a lot of head games and inner darkness, and the DNC is spooked enough to load Eli up with a second in command: Adorable political wunderkind Jordan Karahalios (TR Knight!). A warning shot from Diane gets Wendy Scott-Carr's dander up, and before you know it she's investigating both Gold & Associates and L/G, meaning that Eli needs to find another lawyer.
Not that Will and Diane have any more time than usual for Eli's bullshit, given that Trustee Hayden is still so pissed about his failed merger that he's requested a mediation to bring them down immediately as managing partners. While faith in both L and G eventually wins out -- they still have a five-week deadline before he can start up his mess again -- the devil is in the details. First, Cary has been tutoring Hayden so he can finally take the bar, which he must admit -- heartbreakingly -- he didn't do in the name of bromance. And the other bit we learn is a bit of a twist: Seems they've got about half of their $60M debt under control, but the remainder has been bought off by a single creditor. As though they have never seen this show before, Will and Diane think that's a good thing.
(But it is not! It is Louis Canning! More head games! More inner darkness! More Louis Canning!)
...Who spends the whole episode dicking Alicia around in even more grandiose style than usual, keeping her trapped at a fancy Minnesota B&B while his client -- the fairly awesome head of a bank who's accused of abandoning their foreclosures to the degree that a little ballerina gets West Nile -- waits for a merger to come through. You've got the intense Martha (of "Marthas & Caitlins" fame) facing off against Cary back in Chicago, while Alicia bums around the hotel getting drunk with Kalinda, responding to Canning's treatment with some truly gorgeous attitude and side-eye, and making friends with his wife. The eventual settlement is a relief, but the reveal that the Dream Team has acquired a major piece of L/G -- and more than likely will be making fast friends with Hayden -- makes all those pathetic fallacy stormclouds we've been seeing lately seem more ominous than ever.
So there's Louis and Patty at the door, and a heartbroken Clarke Hayden right here in the house with them, and then on the other side you've got Wendy Scott-Carr doing her best to use Eli against Peter and L/G both. All in all, a fine beginning to what's shaping up to be a total shitshow. At least we have Jordan now, and Kalinda's been invited to the Drink Entire Bottles Of Wine In Hotel Beds Club... And never forget the fact that Alicia remains estranged from giving a good goddamn about most of this stuff anyway.
Week: French people, swimming pools, marital frolics.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Louis Canning scooped up first-year Martha -- with whom Alicia once identified before being told she was actually more of a Caitlin -- and joined forces with Patti Nyholm to take L/G down. Kalinda has rid the show (and maybe the world) of Nick Savarese, but still has a way to go before earning back Alicia's trust and love. Trustee Clarke Hayden has fallen for both Cary Agos and the practice of law, and is still pissed at the named partners for undercutting a merger deal that would have dismantled the firm. The DOJ is showing marked but possibly fake interest in Eli Gold's political work, which is especially bad for our guys, now that the elusive but always troubling Wendy Scott-Carr has joined the US Attorneys.
SPENCE V ATLANTIC COMMERCE
Cary is working a case here at home, against a very pulled-together grownup Martha, involving a young ballerina's destruction at the hands of the West Nile virus, which she contracted from some foreclosed properties. We're suing the bank for not taking the proper precautions: Abandoned swimming pools and water features which ended up hosting the bug that got her. Alicia's out in the field, waiting around a Minnesota B&B for a meeting with the bank president, who is represented by Louis Canning. Because where there are industrial malfeasance or toxic torts, so too will you find Louis Canning.
L/G
Sensing a stormcloud gathering, Will Gardner excuses himself from the deposition of the little girl to have a quick skulk with his partner Diane Lockhart.
Diane: "How's the depo going?"
Will: "Martha is like, so annoying. Luckily, so is Cary."
Diane: "Check it. A notice of mediation, on our whole bankruptcy deal."
Will: "But we still have five weeks before we've absolutely proven we ruined this business!"
Diane: "I know, right? On the other hand, that's five weeks to raise a total of $60M, so maybe they have a point."
Will: "Does this mean we have to talk to Clarke Hayden? For being such an adorable little badger I have come to shudder in his presence."
Diane: "Well, if we're getting called to the carpet, so's he. I'd like to see what he looks like afraid. Listen, you just focus on pimping that little ballerina out. We need at least ten million from this one."
Bank Douche: "Sorry we didn't like cover the pools, but it's not like we stagnated the water ourselves. It was already stagnant."
Martha: "Plus [some precedent related to railroads]."
Will: "What I do have is a warning from the CDC that totally says your pools were the problem."
Banker: "For real? I didn't know about that."
Will: "Did you know about this letter written by the neighborhood busybodies, including ballerina Kaley Spence's mother, addressing the problem with your bank?"
Banker: "No, but it's not addressed to me, so."
L/G: "That's cool, since we're in the process of deposing the bank president."
MINNESOTA
Or are we? The transition from cement and standing water to the rolling hills and verdant whatevers of Minnesota is a bit of a shock. You expect to see Alicia standing there with a bluebird on her shoulder, whistling a jaunty tune. She has no idea what she is in for.
Will: "He just for sure kicked it upstairs to your guy, so good luck. Maybe we'll get lucky and lie about never seeing this letter."
Alicia: "It's really quiet here. It's nice."
Louis: "Or is it!?"
Alicia: "Aw, Jesus. You're everywhere. I hate that about you. There is so much that I hate about the person you choose you be. Your ubiquity is merely one thing on a long list."
Louis: "How's your bankruptcy?"
Alicia: "How's your tardive dyskinesia, you shitty little dwarf?"
They proceed into the Business Center, which even has a fax machine.
Louis: "Just to exposit, remember that you have three hours with Mr. Wilkes Ingersol, my client. He is very busy and needs to get back to his ranch."
Alicia: "Oh, for his vacation? Choppin' wood, milkin' cows? Flying a helicopter over the victims of Katrina, perhaps?"
Louis: "It is none of your business what he does. You got three."
Alicia: "Okay but for real three. Not counting breaks and the dicking around you are always doing. We have a judge on call for any objections, and I want to remind you that she will not have a lot of patience for your usual mess."
Louis: "Fine. Hey, are you getting a signal on your phone?"
Alicia: "Yeah. If I stand on my bed and put my arms over my head. You gotta have some pretty crappy tech infrastructure for Alicia Florrick to bitch about it."
Wilkes Ingersol arrives, with a bunch of yes-men and ass-kissers in tow. Whenever he says anything, they laugh uproariously. Anybody else it would reflect poorly on him, but because you immediately get a positive read on the guy -- corrupt, but with heart -- it mostly just makes them (Canning included) look hysterical and creepy.
Alicia: "Nice to finally meet you, sir. You're a hard man to find."
Wilkes: "That's not what my accountant says!"
Everybody: (Laughs like they are being held hostage.)
Alicia: "What I mean is that we've been trying to nail your ass down for over a year."
Wilkes: "That sounds really inconvenient. My bad!"
Everybody: (Laughs like the Joker has detonated a laughing-gas bomb.)
Alicia: "Whatever. So, let's talk about these foreclosed homes and swimming pools..."
Wilkes: "Can I just say something?"
Alicia: "Only if it's super gross and makes me want to claw your eyes out."
Wilkes: "I think it's real crummy how everybody blames the banks for this, when it was these subprime people getting in over their heads. I mean, now I'm responsible for their bad decisions and their improperly drained water features? How many messes of my own creation do I have to clean up before you're satisfied? How many crass moves can one AIG be expected to make? I don't know about y'all, but I was raised in Minnesota. Here, we drain the pool and turn out the lights, once our lives have been destroyed by predatory lending policies."
Everybody: (Gives him a motherfucking standing ovation like he is Auggie the Dog accepting an award at the Cannes Film Festival.)
Alicia: "Yep, that was plenty gross."
Wilkes: "I'm not done. Because what I really have a problem with, even more than being held accountable for my pitiless and destructive greed, is when that's political. Like these communities that repurpose eminent domain to save themselves from quick-buck bank foreclosures, which hurts my feelings. Or this shit here, where you're pimping out this poor little girl to force me to change my God-given business methods into socialism. As though corporations weren't people! As though Citizens United never happened! Why, it's unconscionable. It's like asking the vultures to stop eating dead carcasses and feces. Birds gotta fly, Mrs. Florrick. Banks gotta screw everybody."
Everybody: (Hangs their head in shame for the way Alicia is personally and recklessly destroying small businesses and job creators.)
Alicia: "Uh, Kaley Spence is suing you. For $15M. Because she had a promising career as a ballet dancer, and now she needs full-time care. Here are some pictures of her in a wheelchair looking like hell, along with some Sarah McLachlan dying-puppy music."
Wilkes: "I have a fifteen-year-old daughter myself. Why, just the other day she turned her beautiful face to me and said, 'Daddy, when I grow up I want to outsource all of my datacenter and customer service needs to the third world. That'll be just the thing to help grow our American economy!' Then she set up a tax shelter for her birthday money, because taxes are for poor people."
Everybody: (Nods sagely, envisioning the day that Rafiki the Priest-Monkey will hold Wilkes Ingersoll's daughter up under the sun, far above the savannah, and they can pledge their allegiance and personal agency to a whole new generation of fuckfaces.)
Alicia: "Oh my God. Look, here's a letter your VP just kicked upstairs, detailing exactly how you are at fault here and were warned well ahead of time."
Wilkes: "Really? I have to go."
Then he vanishes. His posse vanishes. Just like that. Just a row of cushy faux-leather nailhead-trimmed Business Office chairs, spinning in their wake.
Alicia: "But what? Uh, the agreement was pretty specific. Three hours. I flew to Minnesota. I can't get a cell phone signal. Everything is quiet. I'm sitting in a room with a fax machine like it's goddamn 1860 in here. Why are you like this?"
Louis: "Who are we to judge? It was clearly an emergency. He'll be back at two."
Alicia: "I don't often get premonitions, but it seems to me almost undoubtedly that we will be spending this entire episode in this very Business Center, as the decades-old cigarette smoke smell slowly invades first my clothing, and then my soul."
Louis: "For a second I thought you were gonna hit me!"
Alicia: "For a second, little buddy, so did I."
GOLD & ASSOC
That super-creepy DNC guy Frank is here. That's never good. He seems so jolly and then instantly so very sociopathic. If only he brought presents when he came. Like, adorable tiny presents. Who are geniuses. Maybe like not-entirely neurotypical geniuses. I'm very into short, super detail-oriented guys right now. If there's one thing I learned this fall it's that my grandma was totally right when she said, "God never closes a David Petraeus without opening a Nate Silver." You know what I mean? It was really mysterious until 2012, but now it's like, "Wow. I totally get it, Grandma. Your wisdom."
Eli: "Maddie's polling is up, so what? We're still beating her above the margin of error."
Frank: "I know, and you're doing fine. Wouldn't change a thing."
Eli: "Then why are you here?"
Frank: "We need to change some things."
They dillydally. Eli's favorite activity, because it means being weird and snappy, but also chattin' about nothing. Overt friendliness, unspoken resentment and intense paranoia. All of the things he likes, all at the same time.
Frank: "We still believe in Florrick, of course. Maddie Hayward is the definition of a champagne liberal, which won't sell in Cook County without some serious demographic gerrymandering. But you, on the other hand, recently got raided by the absolutely adorable Hamish Linklater. And that's an issue."
Eli: "Pssh, raids. Who doesn't get raided by the Justice Department every now and then."
Frank: "People, Eli. People don't."
Eli: "Nothing to do with Peter!"
Frank: "How is that meant to be comforting?"
Eli: "I mean, obviously, that there's nothing wrong with me either. Certain forces, certain Wendy Scott-Carr type forces within the DOJ are after Peter. They can't get him because he's clean, so they're coming after me."
Frank: "The unclean."
Eli: "No, I'm clean too. It's about the implication."
Frank: "Are you being completely honest with me?"
Eli: "In no way is that statement true."
Frank: "Okay, I'm bringing in a second. You need backup, and somebody to still be standing once you've lightning-rodded yourself out of commission, and I need somebody who is too autistic to bend the truth with me like you always do. Think of it like I'm giving you a cute boy for Christmas."
INGERSOLL
Alicia: "So. Two o'clock, huh? How 'weird' that your client is still not here. I can't wait to tell on you to the judge. And possibly, I will harm you physically."
Louis, off the phone: "Uh, he says he's real sorry, but..."
Alicia: "-- Let's get the judge on the phone. If this keeps happening, I want her to be as annoyed at every turn as I assume I will be."
Louis: "No no no! It's okay, everything's fine. He'll be here at ten in the morning. Full three hours, promise. He wanted me to apologize to you, personally, and say he enjoyed meeting you."
Alicia: "Heretofore invisible Court Reporter! Let the record show Mr. Ingersol refused to attend his second court-mandated deposition..."
Louis: "Since you'll have almost an entire day to sit around in this fecund paradise, I suggest you check out this revised CDC report. Seems there's another possible cause of the outbreak."
L/G
Will: "...A koi pond? Jesus with this nouveau riche bullshit."
Alicia: "And it wasn't foreclosed. Just badly tended. The CDC isn't positive, but it opens up their wiggle room."
Will: "I know you know this, but Canning's going to wait until you get breakfast and then say he tried to reach you about the ten o'clock meeting, so stay on his ass."
Alicia: "Am I ever coming home? What about the ever-present danger of my children not having me around for thirty-six hours? And do they even sell wine in Minnesota?"
Diane: "We'll send out clothes and incidentals. Just be glad it's not snowing."
Diane: "People and their motherfucking water features. I tell ya... Oh, shit. Hayden."
(He's squat but he's fast, our little badger. She only barely beats him to the elevator.)
Diane: "I have been trying to get your attention all day!"
Hayden: "It didn't work. I'm super busy doing shit."
Diane: "Have you received by any chance a notice of mediation?"
Hayden: "Nope."
Their standoff lasts so long it makes the elevator door do that angry buzz thing.
Diane: "Dude. Is there something I should know?"
Hayden: "I requested the mediation. I want you deposed. I can't merge the firm with you in control."
Diane: "Uh, what? We have been super awesome to you."
Hayden: "This is not about being awesome, this is about you dicked me over when I solved your problems, which made me feel stupid and make me feel like you are stupid."
Diane: "They wanted to break us up! Sell off the parts! Steal David Lee!"
Hayden: "I know. It was awesome. See, here's how it actually works. You owe creditors money. They don't give a shit about your self-fulfillment, they just want money. And you sabotaged..."
Diane: "-- Then stop fucking with us and let us make their money."
Hayden: "That's your argument in the mediation. That's how it's gonna go. But you're asking that the creditors -- who could get 70 cents on the dollar right now, from a merger -- to instead trust you, the people who fucked it all up, to pull some kind of Bad News Bears move at the last second. So good luck with that."
And the worst part is, you can't even say "Will Gardner was out of commission and now he is back as head of Litigation and regularly makes Bad News Bears plays, so it's actually doable," because then the question is, "Well, why was he out of commission? ...Oh, for bribing judges? Cool, that's definitely put me at ease."
B&B GIFT SHOPPE
Alicia's so concerned with keeping her eyes on the Business Center down the hill, as she combs the aisles for overpriced trial-size mouthwashes and whatever sundries, that she doesn't notice the other woman in there doing the same thing until both their hands fall on the same tiny toothpaste tube. (The other woman is named Simone, it's -- spoiler alert -- not our first time seeing her, and she's played by Rufus Humphrey's embattled and ultimately super-vindicated ex-wife.)
Ladies: "Ah! Another person! God, it is nice to see you, other person. Here, you take this last toothpaste tube, I demand it."
Alicia: "No seriously, I'm just spying here anyway, because I'm bored. I have incidentals on their way."
Simone: "No, no, you take it. Or we could, um, split it?"
Alicia: "That would be messy."
Ladies: "HA! Messy. We are funny. We are friends. Toothpaste friends."
Alicia spots Canning making his way down toward the Business Center and excuses herself in a flurry, hurling her sundries in all directions as she goes.
"It was nice meeting you! I don't have any friends! I love you!" she shouts, but thanks to the Doppler Effect all Simone hears is "Snisting! Vennifrens! Vloo!"
EXT BIZ CTR
Alicia: "Not so fast, leprechaun."
Louis: "Alicia! I was just about to leave you this note, under a rock, way over there. Wilkes is ready to meet with you! Right now!"
Alicia: "Great. See you on the other side of this door. Right now."
INT
Alicia: "...Right now, huh?"
Louis: "It's so weird. I don't know where he is."
Alicia: "Cool, let's just stand here until I get hungry enough to roast your body over an open flame."
(Tick-tock.)
Louis: "So I have a friend who's dying."
Alicia: "Um, what? Are you... Are we people all of a sudden?"
Louis: "He wants me to give his eulogy. Just emailed me."
Alicia: "He's in the process of dying and just dashed off a quick email, huh?"
Louis: "No, his wife. I hate that people our age are starting to die. It's the worst."
Alicia: "Mortality and such."
Louis: "He was my roommate in college, Ian Keyes. Smartest dude. Did you ever give a eulogy?"
Alicia: "Yeah. My father."
Louis: "Paydirt. I mean, sorry. How old was he?"
Alicia: "Oh my God. He was like sixty."
Louis, verbatim: "Am I upsetting you?"
It's not her dead father that's so upsetting. It's the fact that he's created a situation in which half-measures won't cut it. Death is a big deal. Illness is a big deal. And either he's trolling her for lulz, which is tacky when it's about this, or she needs to really feel bad about it, on his behalf. The compassion of St. Alicia, the cynicism of S4 Alicia: Which one wins? Because if he is fucking with her...
Alicia: "You're good. Let's call Ingersol, okay?"
Louis: "I promise you he's coming. I'm not playing you this time."
Alicia: "Okay, fine. I know. I know you're leveling with me. Unless you aren't."
(Ring-ring, guess what?)
Louis: "So yeah, two o'clock."
Alicia: "You little cocksucker. Fine, let the record show that once again, this dude has refused to attend a court-mandated deposition."
Somehow, she ends up being the one who is ashamed. Just like she kind of knew she would be.
GOLD & LOCKHART
Diane: "Eli, I realize you're feeling ruffled both as a man and as a professional, but do you really want to bring suit against the DOJ for harassment?"
Eli: "What could possibly be the downside to that?"
Diane: "Honey, I know you don't want to hear this, but you're not a huge priority right now. You'd basically be asking to be upgraded..."
The lights dim, the floor shakes on the edge of subwoofer perception. Shadows drip down the walls like puddles of molten night. A murder of crows dances outside the window, wheels within wheels, an orchestrated madness. One of them -- eyes white, blind -- taps a cruel beak against the glass, in a syncopated rhythm: Krik-krik. Krik-krik. Eli Gold throws his windows wide, sash fluttering in a sudden muggy breeze, and the crows enter, swirling around him, kissing him softly with decay before they land on the berber carpet and assume the pant-suited form of Wendy Scott-Carr right before your eyes.
Wendy Scott-Carr: "Am I late for our meeting? Did you spend the time in consideration of your mortal futility? Sands through the hourglass, sapping your vital forces and turning all future into ash-strewn tragedy. A child becomes a man becomes a withered creature and is forgotten. So it goes. For you!"
Diane: "Oh, shit."
Eli: "Security, we've got a level four!"
Wendy Scott-Carr: "I won't stay long. Only long enough to crawl into your dreams through your eyes!"
Eli: "Wendy Scott-Carr, you are not allowed to represent the DOJ on this. It's a total conflict."
Wendy Scott-Carr: "How so? I glory in conflict! War is my hearth, and my heart's true song!"
Eli: "Uh, because you spent like the entirety of this show trying to take down Peter Florrick in really confusing ways that fucked up everybody's lives? Because you overextended your morality and became an immortal half-woman, half-demon in pursuit of the State's Attorney position, which you lost?"
Wendy Scott-Carr: "Fool! That was like two seasons ago! I am over it!"
Diane: "I am so fucking sure."
Anyway, the proffer Hamish Linklater offered is not off the table, meaning there's no conflict now, and so Wendy Scott-Carr will be climbing right up Eli Gold's ass. Diane, sensibly, grabs the harassment suit they were just disagreeing about and brandishes it at her like a crucifix.
Diane: "This is a complaint against the DOJ and the US Attorney's office. You can go ahead and shove it up your ass on your way out. You're just being pathetic at this point."
Wendy Scott-Carr: "Do not presume you understand my consciousness!"
She throws down some kind of magical cloud of silvery-black smoke and vanishes, leaving behind only dusty blackened leaves from a desecrated mausoleum and some vague threats about coming after L/G . Which you knew her ass was gonna throw in there at some point, but doesn't make it less terrifying.
B&B
Simone comes running up to Alicia just outside her room, sundries in tow. Exactly the kind of shit that gets right up Alicia's sweater -- "What? Other people are capable of basic kindness? Are you sure?" -- so of course she's like, "Yeah, I knew you were the one. How do you feel about tequila shots?"
Simone: "Wait, are you the lawyer my husband's here to meet?"
Alicia: "Oh, goddamn it. You'll be Simone Canning, then. Why can't I have anything ever. Maybe Maddie Hayward wasn't actually a bitch, maybe I just deserve nothing. Maybe that's it."
Simone: "Oh my God, he loves you so much! I am so happy to meet you!"
Alicia: "And again, that's not the kind of thing you say unless you either mean it, or have no soul. And my instincts are telling me you're rad, so..."
Simone: "For real, he thinks you're fantastic. I almost got jealous there, for a sec. Anyway, we should have breakfast! Since we're going to be here forever and ever."
Alicia: "Are we? Going to be here forever?"
Simone: "I dunno! But breakfast."
Alicia: "Yeah, sure. That sounds amazing. You are amazing. I have been so lonely."
But okay, if she trusts Simone then transitively she kind of trusts Louis, but either way she can find out this way. This is the scariness of Alicia Florrick: Morally, she can do this thing she's about to do, because either he started it so she isn't really being a liar, just fact-checking, or it's all true, in which case what she's saying is also true. The scary part is that you can actually watch her work out this whole paragraph, in her head: The problem is either way it's a ruse, so by St. Alicia rules she still wouldn't be allowed to do it. But S4 Alicia?
Alicia: "Simone? I was so sorry to hear about your husband's friend. The dying one?"
Simone: "No idea."
Alicia: "My bad. Anyway, lovely to meet you. Breakfast Buddy!"
Simone kind of hops off down the path away from her room, and Alicia just shakes her head with how gross Louis is. Who just randomly makes up dying best friends? Who does that? And to what purpose? And how did he bag such a delightful, sweet, courteous lady?
(Hey, guess what show you're on. She might well be this awesome, but nobody is stupid and kittens always have the sharpest claws. Rise to the challenge, instead of mentally separating sheep from goats all the time, and maybe you could have a friend either way.)
THE KOI POND
Kalinda: "We have found a thing I don't know, which is how to say the names of various kinds of mosquitos. The whole scene is played like that itself is hilarious, but a more generous reading would be that maybe the point of this scene is how terribly annoying it would be to Kalinda, to find out she doesn't know all about something or have instant competence in it."
The snotty mosquito expert says that the breed at the koi pond doesn't carry West Nile, so that's ruled out and the CDC can revise their revised report once again.
Diane: "Thanks, Ms. Sharma. We have to go now, Cary's gettin' a bro-job from Clarke Hayden out in the hallway."
Will: "Cary, get in here."
Diane: "Lovers' spat?"
Cary: "No, he was just asking me about the latest round of deserting clients."
Will: "And what did you motherfucking say about it?"
Cary: "Nothing, I just listened. He went on and on. It was super cute, but you know, I worry. L'il fella's gonna have a heart attack!"
L/G: "More like a sneak attack, if he doesn't lay off. Are you prepared to be our double agent, being his boyfriend by day and our bitch by night?"
Cary: "I thought that was what I was doing."
L/G: "How about testifying on our side in this mediation shit he set up?"
Cary: "Sigh. I just know it's gonna end in tears. His. And then probs mine. I hate it when he cries."
ACTUAL CROWS CAWING
Alicia: "Two-thirty, and here we eggsucking are once again."
Louis: "You take a walk and I'll notify you when he comes."
Alicia: "Ha! Good one. Listen, how's your dying friend? Heard from him?"
Louis: "No, why?"
Alicia: "Because maybe you should call him because maybe he's dead, maybe he dropped dead."
Louis: "...What the fuck?"
Alicia: "Oh sorry, am I upsetting you? Listen, how's the eulogy coming? For your stupid friend who's probably already dead, and probably didn't even like you that much in the first place because you're awful. Maybe you should ask Simone for help."
Louis: "Ah. You met my wife."
Alicia: "She's fucking great."
Louis: "She's my better half!"
Alicia: "She's your only half. I don't even what I mean by that, but it sounded bitchy and that's how I'm feeling so I'm good with it. And she never heard of your dead roommate."
Louis: "I don't tell her everything."
Alicia: "Like your lies? You don't share your soulless lies with her?"
Louis, verbatim: "No. Those I save for you."
They both laugh. It's all she really needed, she's not all that judgey once you just come out with it. It's the not-knowing, feeling like a fool. Feeling suspended between rightness and foolishness, that's the thing she can't abide. What Peter did; what Kalinda did, too. In some ways it feels better knowing the truth. She doesn't have to hold it against him anymore, now that he's finally admitted it. They've come back to reality together.
Alicia: "What was even the point? You are a freak."
Louis: "I just wanted to have something to say. Like, to connect with you on some kind of emotional level. What I'm trying to say is, I was bored. I am awful, and I got bored. Sorry about your dad."
Alicia: "How does a bastard like you end up with such a wonderful wife?"
Lous: "Women like bastards. Didn't you notice that? It's like a challenge."
Oh, she noticed. It's in the title of her TV show; it's the headline of her life. It wears earrings, and kisses her daughter every morning. Every girl grows up thinking she's going to tame the tiger; every single person grows up thinking the tiger exists somewhere outside our bodies, and we go looking and looking for it, and when we find it we have the balls to complain that it bit us. Again and again and again. Women don't like bastards, people do. And even then it's not that, really: It's just that we secretly don't believe too many bastards really exist. Everybody else is just a toad waiting to get kissed. Not a tiger at all. Not a beast.
Alicia: "That is so cynical and so accurate to my situation, oh my God Louis, oh my God I might throw up Louis. I am having a ball right now. I am officially punchy."
(Ring-ring.)
Alicia: "Oh, there's Godot now!"
Louis barely meets her eyes before she's grinning that hard grin, still loathe to relinquish her delirious hilarity in the wake of this absurd overextension, and snatching up her stuff. "Let the record show Mr. Ingersol's refused to attend a court-mandated deposition for the fourth time..."
Louis complains that Wilkes was only a minute away this time, and she's just like, "Oh, for real? Cool story" and then hands him the re-re-revised CDC report about the various kinds of mosquito.
Alicia: "You can read that tonight, before our ten o'clock pretend meeting. Where the judge is going to be super pissed about all the delays anyway, and also you just lost your case, so maybe you should come up with a better strategy."
Immediately, of course, he does.
L/G
Martha: "Kaley! I just learned all about mosquitos. I bet you know more than most fifteen-year-olds do about them, since they destroyed your life, but did you know about all these kinds?"
Cary: "Stop being a bitch. She's not a baby, stop talking to her like that. Like a baby."
Martha: "I know you're sensitive to that, ya little charmer, sittin' there in your big-boy suit, but point taken."
Martha: "Okay so this is the kind of mosquito that carries West Nile -- we didn't even know about this until your attorneys pointed it out, so thanks guys -- and then over here I have diagrams of the infected swimming pools they lived in..."
L/G: "So you're agreeing to all that suddenly? Yay. Or boo? Or yikes! Go on."
Martha: "Now, I've lined out on these property diagrams how far each pool is from the fence. Got that?"
Kaley: "Yeah, I've seen a diagram before."
Martha: "Interestingly enough, the Ædes ægypti is peridomestic. They can't fly more than fifty feet. And see on these diagrams, that means even if all five pools were just seething, swarming, fleshpots of disease... They'd never get over the fence. Did the mountain in this case, Kaley, did the mountain come to Mohammad? Did you climb the fence, with your little ballerina legs that used to work so very well, absolving us from liability for your criminal trespass? Are you in fact to blame for everything that has befallen yourself and your family? Aren't you the stinker here, a little bit?"
Kaley: "Aw, damn. You got me. You guys, the bitch got me."
MEDIATION
Serafina: "My name is Mediatrix Serafina Norvey, I'm played by the super weird and awesome Tamara Tunie, and I will not be having any of your mess. Are we clear."
L/G/H: "Yes."
Serafina: "I said are we clear."
L/G/H: "Yes!"
Serafina: "Great. Now Mr. Hayden, it says here that Ms. Lockhart and Mr. Gardner hurt your wittle feelings after you forced them to torpedo a very nasty merger in which you were prepared to sell them piece by piece to an enemy who would then suck the very marrow and raven-ripped flesh from their bones?"
Hayden: "It was a good merger! It would have solved the problem!"
L/G: "A merger which overstepped your authority and our entire arrangement, yes."
Hayden: "My job was to satisfy the terms set down by the court..."
L/G: "Actually, it was against the terms of the court, in that it did not honor the original timeframe, plus it worked to undermine our progress."
Hayden, nasty: "What progress?"
L/G: "Um, the tons of money we've brought in since Will came back?"
Serafina: "Oh yeah? Cool, like how much?"
L/G: "$20 million of the $60 we owe. In like ten minutes we did this. And we're very close to finishing up another $10 on this West Nile thing, which means half."
Hayden: "They are not 'very close,' they're in deposition..."
Will: "Oh my God, you little idiot. If you were a lawyer and not just assuming that you are the Great Brain of Everything, you'd know that negotiations happen in deposition because you don't want to go to court... Mediatrix, if we had a trustee who understood the law..."
Hayden gets very uppity about that, but we won't know exactly why for a bit. It's a very interesting moment, maybe one of the most interesting moments in the episode, because he does look like a martinet who is overstepping, right now. And while that's still true, this little "stop acting like you're better than me" snit right here is about something so much closer to the bone than him being officious. Which is how they've always treated him, but I can't think of a single time -- before the merger stuff -- that he ever was actually being officious or weird in the way they think he is. You know what I mean?
Serafina: "Serafina doesn't run marriage counseling, Serafina doesn't care if you like each other. But you will shut the fuck up when I am talking to you. Now listen, you're missing the big picture. This isn't about Will and Diane, Great People. This is about your creditors."
Diane: "Yes, Your Honor."
Serafina: "Call me Ma'am. Serafina is no judge. That is not Serafina's vocation. Serafina listens, she watches, she suggests. She brings compromise. She does not judge."
Diane: "Ma'am? Um, okay. Ma'am, though, I have a bit of a twist to tell you about, which is that our creditors are voting with their pocketbooks and buying up our debt."
Everybody: "Whhaa?"
Will: "Yeah, we called them about this mediation, and they were like, Oh, sorry, we're not actually your creditors, your debt got bought out by a consortium called Encinal Equity."
(Uh, which is clearly an anagram for whoever wants their nuts this week. Actually, how funny would it be if it literally were, like, if Kalinda just randomly was moving refrigerator letter-magnets around and suddenly went buckwild hollering about "This equity consortium's name spells MADDIE ... HAYWARD ... FOREVER ... SUCKAS! Call the bank immediately! Call Eli! Call everybody!")
Diane: "People don't buy bad debt, unless it's a conspiracy like this one will be."
Hayden: "But by that logic, your first creditors are fleeing your debt by selling it. People don't sell good debt..."
Diane: "Ma'am, all we need is a minute to get our shit together for this sneak attack mediation. Like we don't have enough shit going on all the time."
Serafina: "How long."
L/G: "Like a week?"
Serafina: "Serafina doesn't have a week to give you. Assemble your witnesses for tomorrow."
Chung-chung. She may not judge, but she sure does gavel. Or maybe that was a joke because she's on a Law & Order? I don't ever understand this show's jokes, because I am from a different planet than this show. But speaking of, I was in one way disappointed and in another way thrilled that the car-honk joke didn't resurface this week.
ICILY TAN QUEEN
Cary: "Like for example this property. It wasn't just a pool, it had a grotto and a waterfall and all kinds of crap. So was that all boarded up after you took possession?"
Banker: "No."
Cary: "And did you hear about the skateboarders using the waterfall for gleaming their cubes and whatnot?"
Martha: "What's your point?"
Cary: "Attractive nuisance. Which Jacob just learned is, in tort law, anything that lures children into a dangerous area, like a trampoline, or a crate full of diseased and disillusioned puppies, that makes the owner -- the bank, now -- liable for the injury."
Martha: "She climbed the fence!"
Cary: "Textbook definition of attractive nuisance. Children are stupid. It takes a village."
Martha: "There was already a fence! She's a bright girl!"
Will: "She's a bright teen, certainly. But three years ago? Who can say."
Martha: "So Kaley, were you a fucking idiot three years ago?"
Kaley: "I ain't bein' deposed right now, I ain't under oath. Suck it, Martha."
CLEAN YEN? I QUIT!
Jordan Karahalios!: "You're so well-dressed!"
Eli: "Thanks, first of all. You're dressed meanwhile like a tiny little Andrew Wylie, with a hoodie under what seems to be more hoodies. Also, who are you and why are you in my office."
DNC Frank: "This is that cute boy I got you for Christmas."
Eli: "Ah, the Boy Wonder."
Jordan, boy-wonder Jordan: "That ol' Rahm Emanuel. Always handin' out nicknames."
First of all, he's giving a kinda barefoot Huck Finn vibe -- totally hot -- and then on top of that, do you realize the Peter Jackson Hobbiton levels of camera cheats you have to do to create the illusion of Alan Cumming towering over anybody? James Cameron maybe had to invent an entirely new kind of camera to create this illusion. I don't know how tall TR Knight is -- my answer would be "the perfect amount, like five eight maybe" -- but I do know that people don't come in So Tiny a Size that Alan Cumming should be towering over them. Would that he would leap, Elijah Wood-style, directly into Eli's arms. Or anybody's, really. Sir Ian McKellan's, Kellan Lutz's, mine, whatever. Preferably on a horse-driven cart of some kind. I just really want to see that shit.
...Okay, even though I hate googling Alan Cumming's name because it always makes me do the extra click like I am a pervert -- think about it, there you go -- I have looked it up, for you. He is 5'10", easily twice the height I've always imagined, while TR is either 5'8" or 5'6" -- the perfect range of height, as suspected, and thank God; my worst most heartbreaking day ever was finding out the otherwise entirely perfect Sebastian Stan is a walloping 5'11" like me, and thus not a Sexy Hobbit at all -- so it's not that drastic. But they still did something, I know it. In this scene, Eli Gold looks about a hundred of tall.
Frank: "Anyway, we're going to see Peter and I wanted you to meet him."
Eli: "Uh, why? Am I the attractive nuisance? Do children come to see me now?"
Frank: "You know why, dude. Don't start with me."
Jordan, spacy Jordan: "I like Peter Florrick! He seems realistic!"
Frank: "He's had offers from everybody, Maddie Hayward..."
Jordan, wonderful Jordan: "She is nice! But not a winner!"
Eli: "Uh, don't you like to work alone? Given your... Whatever thing you've got going on here?"
Jordan, lovely Jordan: "I do! But I also like to learn! From OLD PEOPLE!"
Eli: "Yeah. Great. And I think we've settled who the attractive nuisance is."
What Jordan is like, so far, is like ... maybe he has a rocking-horse at his house, old Jordan. And when he climbs on that thing and rocks on it for a certain amount of time, maybe he can see in his mind who's going to win the race. Do you know what I mean? And is there anything hotter than a tiny psychic guy on a rocking horse? Probably not.
I QUIT, CANNY EEL!
Martha: "Would you ever steal something from a store?"
Kaley: "Uh, no."
Martha: "Would you ever murder a person and take that secret to the grave?"
Kaley: "Not within the peridomestic swarm radius of the Ædes ægypti. Learned that lesson the hard way."
Martha: "So you understand right and wrong. You know what trespassing is."
Kaley: "Am I on trial here? Am I the one on fucking trial here? In my goddamn wheelchair?"
Martha: "Yeahhhhhhh we're not settling. We're taking this to a jury."
B&B BIZ CTR
Cary: "Hey Alicia? They're doing a merger with Corsica Pacific and they don't want the stink of a settlement. That's why they're stalling."
Alicia: "Great, I'll find proof."
Louis: "Guess who's not coming?"
Alicia: "Cool, let's depose some other people. Just for fun."
First deposition is a housekeeper, Rita Neves, who was cleaning Canning's room when she overheard him say, "No, don't come now, I'll call you when Florrick steps out." Louis whines about this but won't on the record lie about it exactly, until Alicia pushes him into yelling that it was a call with his partners back in Chicago. So then she calls in Ed Jeffries, Front Desk Hottie, who tells us that Louis made four calls from his room, three to the Ingersol Ranch and one to a local number. Nothing to Chicago.
Alicia: "So do you want to leave and I'll just get you declared in contempt in absentia, or do you want to stick around and get yelled at by the judge?"
Louis: "God damn it."
Judge: "Look, dude. Produce your witness and stop stalling, or you're in huge trouble. Get me?"
Louis: "Fine. Ten AM."
TOBIN ELLSTROM
Is a campaign manager whom Diane has invited to lunch, to offer him legal services.
Tobin: "I don't need a lawyer, though."
Diane: "Not quite yet, no. But the DOJ is [quote] making moves against past and current campaign managers, so I think you should review your past campaigns."
Tobin: "Oh shit, like what?"
Diane: "Specifically discounts for donations. Campaign managers offering discounted legal services in exchange for campaign contributions."
Tobin: "Ah, that's just Chicago. It's just politics."
Diane: "Oh, so you're definitely dirty. Awesome. Now, you worked on Wendy Scott-Carr's campaign, correct?"
Tobin: "This is about her?"
Diane: "No, it's about campaign corruption. Pay attention."
Tobin: "But it's about her."
Diane: "Nice meeting you. Here's my card."
Oh, the beautiful smile on her face as she's walking away; knowing without looking that he's already got his phone out.
Wendy Scott-Carr: "Tobin, how nice to hear from you."
Tobin: "Do you know a lawyer named Di..."
Wendy Scott-Carr: "Son of a bitch. What did you tell her?"
Tobin: "Nothing, she just said that the DOJ was..."
Wendy Scott-Carr: "She wanted you to call me. This is a warning shot... You're a pawn, she just wanted you to call me so I'd know she's after me."
Tobin: "I'm pretty sure as a white man that I am not a pawn between ladies. That's not how America works."
Wendy Scott-Carr: "Whatever, I'm not going to argue it. Just keep your head down, maggot. Oh, and Tobin? We ran a clean campaign, right?"
Tobin: "I mean, basically..."
(His nose starts bleeding just from her being angry on the other end of the line.)
Wendy Scott-Carr: "I said, We ran a clean campaign. Right?"
(Blood drips onto his necktie, he doesn't even notice; he can't concentrate, the lights have become very bright in this diner.)
Tobin: "Yes, Wendy Scott-Carr. Yes. Bless you, and bless the bright knives of your mercy."
KALINDA & CLOTHES (& INCIDENTALS)
Alicia: "Kalinda. And clothes."
Kalinda: "...And incidentals? Wine and tampons and sundries? And wine?"
Later on, they are sprawled on the beds, killing a bottle of red wine. Is there anything better than imagining that, chilling in Alicia Florrick's hotel room with some wine? You got your socks on, legs curled up under you, maybe hugging a pillow. Just drinkin' and chattin'. After Cary and now Kalinda, I don't know who else gets to be in this club. I just know I am lime-green jello about it. Or oh my God what if Jord... Nope, no. Reel it in. Don't fly so high.
Alicia: "So very quiet."
Kalinda: "You've had two days of this?"
Alicia: "Yeah, and two nights. Honestly I kind of like it."
Kalinda: "Really? I'd kill someone."
Alicia: "...Nope, not gonna ask. But I will reward you with a story."
"You know what I miss about my old life? Before the glamour of the law? The quiet. At home, in the afternoons, I would drink every day at three, a glass of red wine. Waiting for the kids to come home. I miss the silence in the house at three, just ... nothing going on."
I mean, it's Alicia so when she says one glass only you know she means it. And I guess that was a kind of reward for getting through a silent day. I can't tell if it's sad or wonderful. If instead of waiting for people to come home, if instead of red wine it were, I don't know, a bout of mindful yoga or yard tai chi or something, would you question it? Either way it's meditation.
It's the quiet, it's something you'd miss. A peaceful place of calm, in the middle of the storm. It's what she used to be:
Kalinda: "I miss... This."
Alicia smiles, but won't give it up yet. Not even Alicia, I think, can hear how naked that makes her right now. How brave she is. But what do you say?
"I'm giving you this. This is happening, right now. Don't stir it all up again. Don't push the bruise. Be in the quiet."
Alicia: "Yeah."
You'd be asking a lot, to want Alicia to actually say it. Too much, frankly. And to ask things of the people we love, that we know they can't give, is a failure of compassion. Kalinda knows Alicia won't say it, not because of fear -- like Kalinda -- but because she's Alicia. Her silence is a fragile peace, protecting a storm. Break it open, the whole world ends. But that doesn't mean Kalinda can't say it, and know that she's heard.
Kalinda: "I'm sorry."
Alicia: "I know."
She does. They do. They are, for a second, together in the quiet. Maybe it's as simple as this. They both risked so much, during the Nick times, just to help each other. The murder, or whatever, was the loudest secret thing Kalinda did, to us. But really, Alicia fought just as hard from her side, in her way, and never really let on either. Both on opposite sides of the wall, trying to figure out how to get over it. Covering for each other the entire time.
Alicia, chuckling: "You know, I'm starting to have doubts that bro is showing up tomorrow."
Kalinda: "On the off chance it's not just stalling, do you want to give me that other number? The local one that's not the ranch? Not every emergency is a joke."
INNATE CLIQUEY
Cary: "...Agos, fourth-year associate at Lockhart/Gardner. For the last three months I've been helping Clarke Hayden with a personal project. About ten hours a week."
Diane: "And this was done on your time?"
Cary: "I'm a fourth-year associate. I don't have 'my time,' per se. But I managed. He asked me to tutor him. He went to law school, as it turns out, but never took the bar. L/G reinvigorated him."
Diane: "And... Did you feel you had any choice in the matter?"
Cary looks over at Hayden, suddenly so old and shabby and small, and tries to make his voice say everything at once, both yes and no, to satisfy everyone: "No." No choice at all.
Clarke: "Fourth-year associates rarely have time of their own, yet you found the time to help me?"
Cary: "I mean, you held sway over the entire firm..."
Clarke: "Didn't I offer to pay you? And you refused."
Cary: "Of course."
Clarke: "Did I ever state or imply that you would be afforded preferential treatment for your help?"
Cary: "Not with this one thing, no."
Clarke: "Did I ever state or imply that you would be penalized if you refused to help me?"
Cary, again multivalent: "No sir. You did not."
They do both seem pretty close to tears, at this point. Not in my joke about how they are in love, but in actual reality: Cary, frankly, closer to Clarke. All Clarke has to lose is his dignity, at this point. But Cary's affection for the old weirdo is leveraged against so many other things that he's losing an entire friend: "It's not that I didn't like you, it's that I was scared of you also, and you are coming after my people, and not in a way that works to my advantage. You are a toxic association at this point, which renders the rest of it meaningless. You are asking me to shame you, and I am going to have to do it."
"Just because we're friends in study hall doesn't mean we can hang out after school," kind of. "I'd invite you out more often if you just made an effort," almost. The kind of fight where the question has to beg itself, because one word rips the whole thing apart. And there's no explaining that: "So you never actually cared about me" is the only question Clarke is asking, but it's so far off-base that the answer has to be No, because it's the wrong question.
And all Clarke Hayden can see, stretched out across that whole horizon, is that Diane Lockhart and Will Gardner have, once again, locked ranks to make him look bad. Done whatever they can -- can't you see how it lines up for him? -- to make sure that he looks as foolish as possible, downright unethical, because of their obsession with winning, with beating the bad guy. With beating him, no matter how he tries to help. And honestly, at this point, he's almost correct. You can't see a man down like this, a spiral like this, and not change your approach, or else you're part of the problem: Asking somebody for something you know they can't give you is the biggest failure of compassion there is.
QUIETLY CANINE
Kalinda: "Sooo... They're not just dodging because of the merger. Wilkes is here getting experimental cancer treatments for non-Hodgkins."
L/G: "...Which isn't public knowledge. And he runs a publicly traded company, so."
Alicia: "So let's use it. Poor old dude."
A scuffle! A sound of a million wings, the piercing gaze of a million eyes, a light brighter than heaven and louder than hell. It is Wendy Scott-Carr! She comes for your documents!
Diane: "Ms. Scott-Carr. Do you have an appointment?"
Wendy Scott-Carr: "Eli operated his crisis management firm out of these offices, which makes Lockhart/Gardner open to investigation as well..."
Diane: "That's tenuous. Bizarrely tenuous, really."
Wendy Scott-Carr: "Well, if it weren't for your warning shot with Tobin I wouldn't have had time to get this warrant. Which you can go ahead and shove anywhere you like."
MINNESOTA
Louis: "This time I mean it!"
Alicia: "Ugh. I am too hung over for this bullshit."
(Vroom-vroom.)
Wilkes: "No, I am really here. You look great."
Alicia: "You look like you have total cancer. Did you know it's an SEC violation to withhold an illness from shareholders?"
Louis: "Um, objection?"
Alicia: "Noted, motherfucker. Wilkes, are you aware that's an SEC violation."
Wilkes: "Sure. But who cares?"
Alicia: "Um, your doctor that I totally talked to, for one..."
Louis: "Have you no decency, sir?"
Alicia: "Oh, fuck you. Say it in my eulogy."
Alicia: "Court Reporter, do you mind bouncing?"
Court Reporter: "My name's Mika. Hey, remember how your whole thing earlier was about embarrassing Louis with the housekeepers he overlooked as subhuman? I've been in exactly as many of these scenes as you have, diligently doing my invisible job, getting my time wasted just like you, so. Just for the record. I mean, not the record -- that's my job, apparently it's my entire identity actually -- but like, for your personal record. Of whether or not you're a dick."
Alicia: "Yee. Point taken, girl. I am really sorry about that. Good call."
Alicia: "So you're defrauding the public, that's fine. Your health is your own. But listen, do you want me to tell everybody?"
(Such staring.)
Alicia: "I mean we've been negotiating this shit for years at this point. We can end this whole thing right now. Approve the settlement."
More staring. Canning gives in with as much grace as he can muster, and wiggles his fingers at Ingersol as if to say hello to defeat.
(Spoiler alert, this is also a trick! He has tricks within tricks! Louis Canning! He will piss on your leg and tell you it's raining, but also somehow will have managed to make it rain, in secret! Attractive nuisance!)
GOLD & ASSOC
Will: "Guys? $12M settlement, $3M to us."
Diane: "Good deal. Pass my approval on to Alicia. Now, Eli. The main deal about Wendy Scott-Carr infiltrating our defenses is that we can't be your lawyer now. Get it?"
Eli: "I already tried to figure out a way that wouldn't be true, and yeah. Got it."
Diane: "I've already called the top three lawyers in Chicago -- probably they are people that have already been on this show, come to think of it -- so we'll see. Maybe you'll get lucky and it'll be Elsbeth, and she can take you on a unicorn ride to Cupcakeland or whatever."
Jordan, unfathomable Jordan: "Guys! Do you know where that old guy is?"
Eli: "I'm right here, kid."
Jordan, horse-rockin' Jordan: "Let's talk about debate prep, Eli! Maddie Hayward is doing it all the time! But you don't have Peter down for prep hardly at all!"
Eli: "I don't even... Whatever. I don't know what to do. Like with my entire life."
The funny thing is that Cumming (1965) isn't even ten years older than Knight (1973) in real life, so I guess we're also artificially spacing them apart age-wise, in addition to height-wise. I like the idea that Jordan is Eli's Kid Problem given hideous, adorable life, like, if the only thing Eli can't handle is kids, how about a giant genius grown-up kid who still acts all golly-willikers about everything. Maybe? I don't actually know at all what Jordan really is yet. Besides marvelous.
SERAFINA!
Will: "We got a settlement for $12M today..."
Diane: "And meanwhile, Encinal Equity has completed their purchase of our debt."
L/G: "They're invested in our financial health, and we intend to honor that commitment! Plus America! But not Clarke Hayden, who can suck a fattie."
Serafina: "I get it, Clarke. You wanted a huge merger under your belt, and you maybe even thought you were helping. But if the financial community has faith in management, that's enough for me. Five weeks from now, if these crazy kids haven't gotten their act together, you can try and play with the big boys again. Until then they keep their jobs, and so will you."
Everybody: "Ugh, fine."
Serafina: "And you play nice! Serafina will know."
NICELY ANTIQUE
Diane: "Whew! Let's get drunk, bitch!"
Will: "For sure. But also, you know we can't make this deadline, right?"
Diane: "Totally! I just want to see the world burn, basically. Do you not remember how I became a militant anarchist a few episodes back?"
Will: "No, I did. I just wanted to make sure you hadn't started giving a fuck."
Diane: "So I guess we should talk to the new creditor..."
Will: "...Ask for an extension. That's a great idea, since they have shown such good faith in us and couldn't possibly be a villain of some kind whose company is an anagram for..."
INSULIN CONGA
More pathetic-fallacy stormclouds!
Simone: "Sorry we didn't get to have breakfast."
Alicia: "Well, we both live in Chicago, so..."
Louis: "Oh yeah, we'll be seeing you real soon."
(Thunder, lightning, signs, portents.)
Alicia: "...What do you mean, you?"
Louis: "LOL I am Encinal Equity. I own you. Literally."
Simone: "Sweet! We're going to be hanging out all the time!"
A bird falls out of a tree. Breakfast eggs all over Minnesota run with blood when they are cracked. A cow is born with two heads, one of whom always tells the truth and the other of whom spouts unceasing eulogies for the fictional. It begins.
WEEK
French people bein' dicks. Wives scandalously boning their husbands, much to Eli Gold's chagrin. Wendy Scott-Carr taking bites out of faces, having just about had it. Jordan Karahalios jumping into the arms of a variety of wizards for like a good ten or fifteen. Nun Logicians. Nag Inclusion. Union Scaling. All of these and more. Oh, and as it turns out: Elsbeth gets arrested. And I don't mean like funny elf-jail, but an actual arrest by human cops and the whole nine.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Deception, and Pretty Little Liars 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, and a novelette, "The Commonplace Book," appeared this fall on Tor.com.