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Alicia's first big management task in the firm regards reining in Lemond Bishop's legal team fees in a way that will look good to the client: That means bigger partner hours, less hours for the associates that are actually doing the work. And suddenly, all that fourth-year rabblerousing means Alicia's created an army of haters all her own. Once Diane explains that pandering to the rabble will only end making them hate her more, Alicia pulls it together, knocking Cary's feet out from under him once again as he tries to figure out her game -- which she is still figuring out as she goes -- secondhand.
The bulk of this whip-quick episode, though, concerns the burgeoning weird romance between weirdos Elsbeth Tascioni and AUSA Josh Perrotti: In order to determine the federal case against Eli Gold, Elsbeth takes Perrotti to court for defamation regarding a blind item in which someone -- that no-goodnik Frank Landau of the DNC, turns out -- was overheard telling Josh about Gold's supposed votes-for-discounts scheme. A dizzying array of witnesses (including Jackie Florrick herself) is called to the stand before Elsbeth wins the day -- and deepens Josh's conviction that Elsbeth is a creature like no other.
The Jackie stuff, bizarrely, ends up softening Eli a great deal once she admits on the stand that after her stroke she hardly ever knows what the fuck is going on. Softens him so much that, once Alicia steps in as a sort of bromance matchmaker, sees him nearly weeping with yearning to be back at Peter's side... And by the end, having given Peter a narrow edge in a Maddie Hayward debate, welcomed back into the fold. This part was crazy touching, which is not something you could have predicted going in. What it means for Jordan Karahalios's continued presence on the campaign, I don't know. But I worry.
In other firm news, Will and Alicia shared a cold with their kiss recently, but it doesn't cause too many eyebrows to raise -- and in the end, they decide they can handle spending time with each other without degenerating into sex monsters. Helping with this transition out of perdition is ASA Laura Hellinger, back with a hot new hairdo and running interference during an audition for L/G to handle some of the SA's business. While it looks like she's being disloyal, she's really only asking hard questions (Lemond Bishop-type stuff) to keep Geneva Pine from going for his throat. In the end, Hellinger and Will get every bit as flirty as Elsbeth and Muad'Dib, which I'm sure won't bother Alicia at all, even given Peter's cutie-pie attempts to court Alicia out of treating him like a series of one-night stands.
Week: I'd say it's been long enough since our last tuxedo fistfight. In this corner, Mike Kristeva -- who we'd nearly forgotten was linked to the tarnish-Eli plan in the first place -- and in this corner, Peter Florrick, who frankly deserves to let off a little steam after the rough ride Maddie's been giving him. Will there be pretty red dresses, Alicia? You know it! Will Cary try to kiss Kalinda? Why, of course! On Tuxedo Fistfight Nights, all bets are off.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
After much business and underhanded nonsense, Alicia is an equity partner at Lockhart & Gardner. Is that a great thing? Not even Alicia really thinks so, at this point, but it's the new status quo. It'll be interesting (read: scary) to see exactly how the name partners are lookin' to break her in -- especially since they're aware she and Cary started a revolution last week to manipulate them. Peter's in a state, since his wife's just using him for sex and his Eli's keeping his distance. Luckily, he has Jordan Karahalios to brighten up the place, and Eli's got an entire show's worth of castmembers blowing up his own voter-fraud storyline. In other news, I miss Kalinda Sharma.
LOCKHART
Diane's watching a Maddie Hayward soundbite on her local CBS affiliate and, hilariously, repeating her words back to her in an acid mocking tone.
Maddie Hayward: "I'm still beating the drum on Peter's diversity issues, which is ironic since they actually exist, but even more ironic is the fact that I'm talking about them by talking about how I'm not gonna talk about them..."
Diane: "...'Because I'm a big stupid stupid-head lesbian who was mean to Diane Lockhart at an Empowered Businesswomen function for Women In Business Who Are Empowered...'"
Alicia comes in there, sneezin' up a storm with a cold she's got going.
Diane: "How's it feel to be an equity partner? Power surging through you yet?"
Alicia: "Something is surging through me, I'll tell ya that much. Does power feel like you're too hot and too cold at the same time, and also a little nauseous?"
Diane: "Yep. Along those lines, thanks for coming in. I just wanted to let you know that I've designed a little management test for you that will hopefully turn your brain inside-out, make your virtues into liabilities, split your fourth-year coalition brutally in half, and burn every bridge you ever built with your compatriots. You will also feel self-annihilating shame no matter what you do. I hope you don't have anything else going on today."
Alicia: "That sounds like a problem. Wait, I mean an opportunity."
The rules of the game are thus: Cary's team is in charge of Lemond Bishop's defense (remember, Alicia hung out at his house all day and now he's in jail?), but their hours are coming in "a bit high," according to Diane. On the one hand, he needs to feel catered to, because he's a huge client, but on the other hand, they can't look like they're padding the bill. The management game here is twofold: First, figure out how efficient they're being without making it look like the Inquisition, and second, figure out how to make sure the bill looks like they've concentrated the hours on top-level employees. Alicia doesn't see the second part yet, but it's pretty obvious: Even with meticulous accounting backup proving it's legit, you still want to see partners -- like Alicia -- working on the case.
Alicia: "I guess since that's Cary's team I should go get Cary? Because you're talking nonsense if you're talking to me."
Diane: "No, it's your team. Cary is your subordinate now. You're the partner in charge. Do ya job."
Alicia: "What's weird is that this exact scenario played on the movie screen in my head at the exact moment I accepted this partnership. Tomorrow, I said, Or at least by week, I will have to at some point be bossy with Cary, igniting his white boy rage and bringing hellfire down on us all. And then I decided to let Future Alicia deal with that instead of worrying about it, because to be honest I was feeling a little underappreciated, which for me ends up feeling exactly the same as nihilistic."
Will Gardner comes in there, sneezin' up a storm with this cold he's got going. He and Alicia don't look at each other, because they randomly just ignited their Big Bad Idea recently and feel like jerks. Like horny, sexy jerks.
Diane: "Both of you got colds? What a world."
She slides along the back wall like maybe she has a germ fear we didn't know about, and runs away from them and their germs. They run in turn away from each other, and their germs. Their sexy, horny germs.
INDIAN RESTAURANT
AUSA Joshua Perrotti, of the United States Department of Justice, has invited Elsbeth Tascioni, of the Elfin Woodmoot and late defender of Eli Gold's pot of eponymy, to a working lunch of mango lassi, curries, the stuff with the raisins, unlimited naan and dessert that doesn't taste like dessert. She is forced to sit beside him at this banquet, as he shifts the table loudly on her approach to make room.
Perrotti: "Everybody thinks you're weird as a strategy, but I view it as an aphrodisiac."
Elsbeth: "Meanwhile you are the embodiment of chaos, which I find intriguing and also horrible. But also wonderful."
Perrotti: "What shall we talk about at this date?"
Elsbeth: "It's not a date. We will talk about how your evil plan makes even less sense than whatever the hell Wendy Scott-Carr is eternally/sometimes up to. I will tell you to leave Eli Gold alone, several times. Your wiretap has been ruled out and you have nothing."
Perrotti: "Or do I have everything? Stay tuned. I will increase the volume on my nonsense until nobody know what is going on."
Petra Moritz is the muckraker, played by the fabulous Lily Rabe, who couched her attacks on Peter and Eli as feminism back in the Blake days. One of Alicia's first attempts at being "normal" with a woman she wanted eventually to destroy just for being horrible -- which ended when she asked Mrs. Florrick if she'd gotten an AIDS test yet, which pissed Eli off so much he still hasn't quite used up the goodwill he engendered that day. In this case, she has published a not-so-Blind Item regarding a conversation Perrotti had with an unknown personage, to wit
"Is Florrick strategist Eli Gold off the hook yet? Not according to a conversation overheard at Parrillan between a certain unnamed source and AUSA Josh Perrotti... 'I know personally Eli Gold was buying votes. He's going down; he's going down hard.'"
Perrotti: "She spelled my name wrong. But yeah, I am going ahead with my evil plan, because I do know in my heart that Eli is guilty of discounting his crisis management work in return for votes for his ex-wife's Congressional campaign. And since you won't let me just manufacture evidence to prove that case, I'm now approaching it as a conspiracy."
Elsbeth: "Which would require a co-conspirator, okay. So is that the person this is talking about?"
Perrotti: "I don't feel like telling you that."
Elsbeth: "It's called discovery, bro."
Perrotti: "Fine, take me to court."
Elsbeth: "You're telling me to take you to court?"
Perrotti: "Yeah, baby. Take me to court. Take me to the bench and show me what for."
Elsbeth: "I have to go now."
MOCK DEBATE
Diane is playing Maddie Hayward in a mock debate staged for Peter's benefit by Jordan Karahalios, putting a neat spin on her opening scene where she mocked Maddie: Her words in Diane's mouth are now her words, in Diane's mouth.
Peter: "I went to jail on a false corruption charge. Trust me when I say I take this shit carefully."
Diane: "I don't need two minutes to respond to that, just two words. Eli Gold."
Peter: "I don't work with Eli Gold. He resigned."
Diane: "Sure, but I mean, you talk a lot about intolerance for corruption, for somebody who until very recently relied on that imp for..."
Peter: "I wouldn't characterize him, or me, exactly that..."
Diane: "So you fired him?"
Peter: "No! God no, I love that little shit. He resigned..."
Diane: "So you would still be employing him otherwise. Meaning you are cool with corruption."
Peter: "Oh my God, Maddie Hayward."
Jordan: "You're very tall. Not even compared to tiny little wonderful me, just in general. And Maddie's even shorter than Diane, who you look like you're about to beat up."
Peter: "You're saying I need to what, to crouch? In case I look like I'm menacing that little monster?"
Jordan: "I'm saying, don't come off as a bully. Make her look crazy and desperate to break your numbers because she's still down, even after all this time."
Peter: "Like how Obama pussed out with Romney? Something like that?"
Jordan: "God no. But you're looking for the woman vote, and if you get pissed you're going to remind them of their first husbands."
Peter: "There's still a way I haven't already done that, when I bought a hooker with government cash?"
Diane: "Sorry I kept saying true stuff and pissing you off."
Peter: "Are you kidding? This is great! Kind of like Red Team/Blue Team, but you're smarter and faster than me, and my wife's boss."
Diane: "Speaking of reasons to promote your wife, have you thought about making us your outside firm for civil suits?"
Peter: "Yeah, our current guys went bankrupt. Good thing that doesn't constantly happen to you!"
Diane: "Well, whoever you've got figuring it out, send a little our way."
Peter: "I can do that. Geneva Pine is real good at doing whatever I tell her."
PARRILLAN
Elsbeth: "So, the restaurant where the conversation supposedly took place. What are you going to do now that we're here?"
Kalinda: "I don't know. I don't really plan these things. I just vibe until something falls apart."
Elsbeth: "All this time I thought I was the only one, but now it's like everybody I meet is also just going Zen on shit. I had no idea you were also crazy."
Hostess: "Table for two?"
Kalinda: "I'm Mr. Joshua Perrotti's personal assistant, and he came in here yesterday for lunch. He was supposed to give his number to his waitperson regarding a personal matter, but he doesn't remember the name of his waitperson..."
Elsbeth: "Hee, hee! That's a lie! You're lying to the hostess!"
Kalinda: "Yeah, but we both have British accents, so it's working on a whole other level. Now instead of just being some hot chick in boots working politics and trying to get this girl fired, the story becomes two British chicks who hate their bosses."
Hostess: "I don't see his name on the..."
Kalinda: "Just let me see the computer screen, okay? Pip pip."
Elsbeth: "Oh, shit. Frank Landau? He's always up Eli's ass about everything, I bet this is the thing. I'm going to tell Eli, on the off chance that he doesn't pull a total Eli and run directly to the DNC HQ for a throwdown."
DNC HQ, ASAP
Eli: "[High-pitched leprechaun squealing, to the effect that Frank Landau has pissed in his morning oats for the very last time.]"
DNC Frank: "Eli, you're acting crazy. So what if I fed Petra Moritz a straight-up lie about your chances of going to jail forever? So what if I am sabotaging the exact same campaign I've spent four seasons of this show bear-baiting you into, so what? I am afraid of the DOJ and almost unbelievably compromised in every way you can think of."
Eli: "The thing is that I have never done anything wrong-wrong that you didn't actually show up at my office and force me to do. Santa Claus Blowjob? That was you. Forcing Peter to come to Jesus? You. Turning our backs on the blacks, pissing off the religious contingent and the notoriously even-tempered Donna Brazile? You. Attacking Wendy Scott-Carr's residency for no reason but shittiness? You. Becoming friends with Alicia so she'd give an amazing interview? All you, but thanks for that one. Not to men..."
DNC Frank: "-- Yeah, I'm evil! Hands up who didn't know that. No takers? Why are you whining now?"
Eli: "Because you literally sat in this motherfucking restaurant and lied to sell me out, because you think Peter can win this race and need me in quarantine long enough that it doesn't get on him. Since you can't stop the DOJ legally without exposing yourself as the dealmaking politicians you are, you're burning me to prolong the agony just long enough."
DNC Frank: "Think of me as the scorpion to your frog. The Jackie to your Alicia."
BISHOP TEAM
Cary: "Bail's a no-go because Bishop's clearly a flight risk. So we've created three briefs in three directions for pretrial hearings... Oh, hey Alicia. Hey everybody, look! It's EQUITY PARTNER ALICIA FLORRICK. Shall we applaud, or simply throw ourselves onto the ground in your honor?"
Alicia: "Actually, let's... Hmm. Okay, your first and second briefs seem pretty redundant."
Cary: "Really? Because five seconds ago, you were down for all three. Proletariat, let's hold a democratic vote about whether or not Alicia can go fuck herself."
Team: "[Unanimous yea vote.]"
Alicia: "Managing is hard! Okay, let's say we keep the three briefs. But can we maybe think of ways to be a bit more conservative, as far as hours we spend on them?"
Cary: "Sure, great. You can be in charge of that, little miss micromanagement."
As if there was any way Cary wasn't going to be an ass-ache about this, and honestly you can't blame him. Not getting the promotion is, the way it went down, pretty much a demotion, but if you can't rest in the knowledge that you are at least a known superstar -- non-financial compensation of a sort -- then you really do have nothing. How is this any different from his experience of being Deputy SA for five seconds? Well, for starters, the person whose opinion he respects most and who's basically always been firmly in his corner just showed up to question his judgment in front of his entire team. So there's that.
FEDERAL CASE
Elsbeth and Perrotti engage in a furious battle over whether or not she's due discovery on his witnesses and what they do and do not know. Her point is, this is the way the law actually works. His point is, this is a special case because Elsbeth is going to send Eli to beat up all of his witnesses. Case in point:
Perrotti: "Mr. Landau, you were a witness to Eli Gold purchasing votes? And you conspired with him? And you had a pang of conscience, and came to me?"
DNC Frank: "Indeed, all of these things are true. And then yesterday, he came and menaced me at my office."
Elsbeth: "You've got him by about a hundred pounds and three feet of height. How is it that he menaced you?"
DNC Frank: "He knocked my keys on the ground, it was terrifying."
Elsbeth: "Give me a fucking break."
Perrotti: "The point is that the defense can't be trusted with discovery this early in the game."
Elsbeth, later: "My bad. I assumed you wouldn't attack him like a rabid dog. What the hell does he have on you, Eli? You are so cagey all the time that even four episodes into this storyline it could still go either way. It would be sickening if you weren't so goshdarn likeable."
Eli: "Seriously, there was no vote-buying."
Elsbeth: "I mean, I myself heard that wiretap we got kicked out, so I know for a fact that isn't true."
Eli: "But he doesn't. If he says it happened, he's lying."
Elsbeth: "What I need is to find out who's corroborating this story, then. And then get them to stop it, without accusing you of something even more awful and provable. So we take the thing that's pissing me off, and we make that the new issue."
DNC HQ, ASAP
Chicago's one bike courier, apparently the only process server who is working this week, immediately subpoenas Frank Landau himself, on grounds of defamation. Frank has the balls to sigh to himself, as though this isn't exactly the truth.
GARDNER
Will: "Why, Laura Hellinger! How is it over at the SA's office?"
Laura: "You sound sick. You got a cold? Hey, and do you want our civil business?"
Will: "We do constantly best you in all the courts of the land."
Laura: "Yeah, that one time you beat us was really awesome."
Will: "We are flirting. You have no idea it's because I just kissed a girl and I liked it. Atchoo! Also, you are neither my subordinate or my faux-equal partner, so it's like a fun game."
Laura: "I'm unaware of all that, and think you're actually flirting with me. This new job is fun!"
L/G
Elsbeth: "Alicia! Boo! I need help. It is an Eli Gold issue."
Alicia: "You know we can't help with that. Especially now that I am an equity partner."
Elsbeth: "You can't help with the federal case, but I just invented a civil case you can help with."
Alicia: "Wait, how did a money-for-votes accusation from the DOJ somehow become..."
Elsbeth: "No, it's both. I'm doing both. No big deal, I'm just suing the head of the DNC."
Alicia: "Oh, is that all?"
Elsbeth: "He defamed. He was defamatory. Toward Eli."
Alicia: "Defamation cases are like, impossible."
Elsbeth: "Oh, we don't want to win. I just want Frank Landau on the stand so I can figure out what he's going to say in federal court."
Alicia: "That is some Elsbeth Tascioni shit right there. Okay, I'm in!"
CIVIL COURT SHAM
Landau's civil attorney is weeeeeird. From her clothes to her hair to her way of speaking, she is very much like Sean Young in Blade Runner.
Alicia: "I am not kidding around, Your Honor! We take this defamation very seriously!"
Nexus-6: "They are nakedly obvious! This is a sham!"
Alicia: "Anything but, Replicant!"
Judge Marx: "Stop screaming at me and let me work this out. You're talking about third-party defamation, correct?"
Alicia: "Yeah. He didn't print the comments, but he said them out loud and knew that people could hear him say this stuff."
Nexus-6: "We move to dismiss with prejudice, Your Honor..."
Perrotti: "No we don't. We want to use this case to further our federal one. And for flirting."
Judge Marx: "I hear you, and I hate you. This is not a federal court, and you have no power here."
Landau: "Yeah, I said it. I said I personally know that Eli Gold bought votes."
Alicia: "Why did you say that!?"
Landau: "It is totally true."
Alicia: "And so how do you know that?"
Perrotti: "Shut up! Don't say anything!"
Elsbeth: "What are you, gonna Wite-Out his face?"
Judge: "I don't care what you want, Perrotti. Siddown and shut it."
Landau: "To answer your question, I know this because I set up the meeting myself."
Alicia: "Okay, with whom?"
Landau: "Hugh Saxon, the CEO of Greengate Retirement Centers."
Eli: "Are you nuts? That wasn't about buying votes!"
Judge: "Eli, be quiet. You're not a part of this."
Landau: "Jackie Florrick was giving a speech at Greengate, getting on everybody's nerves as usual. Eli talked to Saxon about bussing 600 senior citizens to a straw poll. For your husband."
You know that I don't know anything about anything, but um, isn't a straw poll pretend? We all love the process, of course, and to see democracy in action, but what is the point of ballot-stuffing when you toss out all the ballots at the end of the day and drink champagne? I honestly don't get it. On the other hand, this is going to matter for about five more seconds, so whatever.
L/G
Alicia: "I'm going to stand right here while you explain yourselves."
Elsbeth: "Actually, you need to get out of this room. You could be subject to subpoena."
Alicia: "Attorney-client priv..."
Elsbeth: "I'm talking about the real case, not your pretend one. And you're only privileged in what you hear now, not what you might have known about the straw poll before today."
Eli: "Alicia, Peter doesn't know about this. Also, there's nothing to know. This was merely Democratic outreach, to involve seniors in the process."
Elsbeth: "In trade for a discount?"
Eli: "Correlation doesn't imply causality. We coincidentally discussed two topics. Who can say they were linked? Not me."
Alicia: "Ugh, you're not even trying to act classy right now. Florrick out."
PARTNER
Diane: "So somehow when I told you to cut the Bishop hours, you ended up torqueing Cary into adding even more associates to the team. Nice work."
Alicia: "Part of asserting my authority is telling you that I went over it and you're wrong, there's no more slack to take out."
Diane: "That is not what this task was designed to fuck you up on. So I will be more direct and say, you need to cut ten percent of their billable hours. The end."
ELEVATOR
Alicia: "Oh, hey Will. I'll just take the one."
Will: "It's fine, we can be on the same elevator. Precedent and history aside, there's nothing saying we're going to make out right now."
Alicia: "Cool. Well, I'm just gonna stand here not looking at you or talking to you. Not only does Diane have me freaked out about our equality with her finger-trap mindgames, but also I'm sleeping with my actual husband, which means kissing you was cheating in a way it wasn't before, when I was married but sleeping with you. Sorry I can't explain any of this, but the thing is that I don't want you knowing that I'm sleeping with my husband."
Will: "Because it would be weird?"
Alicia: "Because I want to sleep with you, in addition to my husband. Which, yes, is weird -- too weird, in fact, to even think about -- but at least this way I have plausible deniability."
Will: "Oh, this is why you never say anything out loud, ever! I finally get it."
GREENGATE
Kalinda: "So like, did you trade old people for a discount? Like as in voter fraud?"
Saxon: "I can't talk to you about that. DOJ is up my rump in a big way."
Kalinda: "About bussing your old people to and fro?"
Saxon: "I can't comment."
Kalinda: "Well, they're dicks. You should know that. And also... Hey, my robot Kalinda eyeballs just noticed a picture on the other side of this room with an almost imperceptible clue on it. Can you show me a bunch of other pictures from that particular day, to confirm what is almost certainly the case-winning detail I have just Kalindered?"
Saxon: "As long as we don't talk about it out loud, I guess?"
CAMPAIGN BUS
Peter: "That was some hurried lovemaking, I enjoyed that very much. Do you wanna have dinner tonight?"
Alicia: "With whom? To what political end?"
Peter: "With me. To no particular end except we are married."
Alicia: "Are you asking me on a date? Gay."
Peter: "Yep."
Alicia: "I guess so. Any campaign questions for me? I know you rely on my insight."
Peter: "That delightful Jordan says I can't even look like I'm gonna beat up Maddie Hayward."
Alicia: "I would like nothing better than to personally beat the shit out of Maddie Hayward, but I see your concern. I would suggest you call Eli on this one. He knows about presentation and how to look like you're doing something on camera even if you are doing the opposite thing in your heart."
Peter: "Eli and I broke up. I don't want it to be weird."
Alicia: "I know, honey. But I also know you miss him and he misses you, and he would love to give you secret advice. It would really boost his spirits. Call him."
L/G
Will: "[Gives the SA committee some priceless Will Gardner Gift of Gab about how great the firm is suddenly doing.]"
Geneva Pine: "Now I roast your nuts."
Hellinger: "I have a question, actually. What's the deal with Lemond Bishop? One imagines that we'll be prosecuting him for being a huge drug dealer at some point, since we always are."
Geneva Pine: "I was totally going to ask that!"
Will: "Chinese Wall. Man, we haven't said that word a hundred billion times in so long! And when was the last time somebody 'phoned' anybody on this show?"
Hellinger: "Chinese Wall? That's the best you got?"
Will: "I don't think you realize how far I'm willing to go for your business. Bringing you in-house makes the bizarreness surrounding Alicia's marriage all the more bizarre, which in turn gets us closer to my main thing in life, which is squeezing blisters until they pop."
Hellinger: "Well, I'm not impressed."
Geneva Pine: "Actually, Laura, you're being kind of insane. Making me look and feel positively open to discussion about L/G."
Hellinger: "Mission accomplished, then. Based on like every interaction I, or anybody, has ever had with you, I figured openly bringing your oppositional, confrontational approach into this meeting would force you to take the other side."
Geneva Pine: "Which would be a really sick thing for this show to do to its remaining black woman character, if I weren't also consistently right about everything all the time."
FEDERAL CASE
Elsbeth: "So these are pictures of your old people, at the straw poll? You bussed them out?"
Saxon: "It was a great day. Memorable even, for some of us."
Elsbeth: "And that dashing bastard over there, Josh Perrotti, he says this was about stacking the deck?"
Saxon: "Yeah, but check out how everybody got a t-shirt for which way they voted. It's a cute way to demonstrate how straw polls work. And in this case, only a third of the old people voted for Florrick. The rest are pretty intense racists."
Elsbeth: "Old people are definitely the worst. But they look so cute in this rainbow of t-shirts!"
Elsbeth: "So you see, to prove Landau is right about this supposed meeting, and without Saxon's testimony, Josh still needs a corroborating witness..."
Perrotti: "I have one! I have one and I won't tell you who it is! And you totally called me Josh! We are in love!"
Eli: "This is so stupid."
Judge S. Epatha Merkerson: "Even though you're now both openly demonstrating what a joke this whole sham is, we're still prone to dismiss this suit. Again."
Perrotti: "Trust me, this is going to be insane."
Elsbeth: "Based on the fact that I saw her name in the opening credits and Landau already mentioned her by name..."
JACKIE
Same Bike Courier: "Jackie Florrick? You look like my grandma. So sorry, but you've been served."
Jackie: "Well, I never! A civil case and a federal case on the same day? All I need is a hair-pulling bitch fight with my daughter-in-law and it would truly be the best day ever."
DEBATE PREP
Jordan: "Peter, you've got that misty leprechaun love look in your eyes. Give me your literal phone."
Peter: "What? That's preposterous."
Jordan: "Think of me as a beautiful, furry-voiced little Dr. Phil, and give me your goddamn phone. I know you're gonna call the elf the second I turn my back."
Peter: "But Jordan, I love him. It's okay if I miss him a little bit!"
Jordan: "I know, I know you do. But I also know that I'm in charge now, and you can't steer with two captains. This is how campaigns die."
Peter: "I trust you. I promise. Please don't take my phone."
Jordan: "You can keep your phone, as long as you don't call Eli. If you call Eli, you are going to see a side of me. I look like a tiny little kitten and you want to snuggle me, yes. That is my strategy for life. But you know the first rule of this show is that the kittens are the ones that go the craziest on you. Think about it."
SA
Hellinger: "Will, how nice to see you! And you look pissed."
Will: "I am pissed, Laura. What the hell was that earlier?"
Hellinger: "The pitch? Oh, are you feeling hurt because I was so aggressive at the pitch?"
Will: "Yeah, what the hell was that? And in front of Geneva Pine? What, are you trying to impress her? That woman is permanently unimpressed."
Hellinger: "Don't be a dork. I was playing her, for your benefit."
Will: "By acting like a bitch?"
Hellinger: "Wow. No, because she was going to attack, obviously. She's been obsessed with Lemond Bishop since day one, for about a million valid reasons."
Will: "I was doing a great sales job! She was buying in!"
Hellinger: "She was being polite because that is how she gets you. Your ego is just about unbelievable. Sorry I hurt your wittle feelings by saving your ass."
Will: "I have not stomped around nearly enough. I have to stomp around now. Good day, madam."
Hellinger: "Will, you can rescue this interaction right now if you just cool it and..."
Will: "I SAID GOOD DAY."
COURTHOUSE
Eli: "Hey, Jackie. Nice to see you."
Jackie: "I can't talk to you right now. I am about to testify against you."
Eli: "I just wanna know what you're going to say in the..."
Jackie: "As my son memorably has said more than once, I'm just gonna tell the truth."
Eli: "Well fuck."
L/G
Alicia: "Shit, they got Jackie? I'm on my way, Eli."
Cary: "You cut my hours on this Lemond Bishop case, even though we talked about it?"
Alicia: "I can't do this right now, I have to go save everybody. Yes, I cut the hours, yes, we can talk about it later, yes, I realize you're pissed, yes, I am actively forcing myself not to apologize."
Cary: "I need billable hours for my review. I can't have you jerking my promotion out from under me twice..."
Alicia: "Thanks for providing me with the perfect St. Alicia platform to not feel guilty at all, by way of reminding you that this is about our client, not your promotion. If you were trying to convince me those hours weren't padded, you're doing a shit job. PS I love you and I'm sorry this all happened but we both know we can't go backwards now so please just trust me that I have not turned into a creature of evil."
Cary: "If I weren't so jealous and butthurt, I would probably already have figured out this is the name partners' way of breaking up our secret cabal and/or forcing you to the Dark Side. But since I am those things, I am unable to see your side of this situation."
Alicia: "Sweetie honestly all I'm hearing is a bunch of nothing about collective ownership of the means of producing billable hours. You sound crazy. Have a drink or something."
FEDERAL CASE
Jackie: "Jacqueline Florrick, mother and favorite person of current Cook County State's Attorney and future Illinois Governor, Peter Florrick. I'm having cards printed."
Perrotti: "Did you give a speech on 18 October of last year?"
Jackie: "Sure!"
Perrotti: "And Eli Gold was there, watching you like a hawk?"
Jackie: "Due to my tendency to say racist shit and go off-message within seconds, yes."
Perrotti: "And there was a reception afterwards, where you stood around bugging Mr. Gold and Mr. Saxon with your nonstop meddling?"
Jackie: "We talked about arthritis, and anything else I brought up when it was my turn to be in control of shit. When I wasn't, we talked about Jewish stuff."
Um: "What?"
Jackie: "You know, Jew stuff. Money, Fridays. Seder. Unmitigated gall. The usual..."
Eli: "This is the best day of that old bitch's entire life."
Elsbeth: "Seriously, what the fuck is this?"
Eli: "You have no idea how much she hates me. I could start listing reasons today, and it would be summertime before you even began to glimpse the whole of it."
Perrotti: "Okay, but aside from your intense old-people racist bullshit, was there politics?"
Jackie: "Oh, much of a political nature was discussed. But Mr. Gold doesn't like it when I discuss politics, so often I just listen. Often on my red and scabbing knees, as I wash the floors on hand and foot. Sometimes I listen from inside the fireplace, where I sit among the ashes. Occasionally I listen from the garbage, where he keeps me when he doesn't need me, and where I wait in vain for a moment with my son."
Perrotti: "Were there deals made?"
Jackie: "Yeah, you mean like discounts on his crisis-management fees in return for Mr. Saxon transporting Greengate residents to the Cook County straw poll to vote for my son? Does that count?"
L/G
Elsbeth: "Well, that was a bloodbath. How do we impeach her as a witness?"
Alicia, without a second thought: "She had a stroke last year and now she hallucinates all the time. Memory problems, orientation..."
Eli: "Wow, you really had that one locked and loaded."
Elsbeth: "I don't mind using it, she's pretty horrible."
Alicia: "Just don't push her too far. She's very sensitive about it."
Eli: "Trust me, I know all about tiptoeing around her ass."
Elsbeth: "Can I just reiterate that the whole 'Jewish stuff' breakdown was like the most fucked-up thing I've heard all week?"
Eli: "That was her being circumspect."
GARDNER
Will: "I brought you this wine."
Hellinger: "Is it expensive? Or did you just like the picture on the label?"
Will: "Both. Mostly the latter, but I did drop a pretty penny on it."
Hellinger: "I forgive you."
Will: "I wasn't apologizing!"
Hellinger: "Unless you're moonlighting as a wine-deliverer, yes you were. And I accept. Oh, but you were cut after the first round. I guess attacking you full-frontal didn't quite fix the situation."
Will: "Ah, well. Keep the wine. And this smoldering look."
Hellinger: "Both, I will accept. And thanks."
CROSS
Elsbeth: "Mrs. Florrick, hello! Remember that speech you gave 18 October of last year? Can you tell me more about the speech you gave?"
(Objection: Relevance. Also worthy of note: The extreme stinkeye Eli can't help but give Jackie, in a sustained way throughout this scene and much of his life.)
Elsbeth: "They're saying a deal was made in connection with this speech, I'm just trying to get a picture of what went down..."
Perrotti: "[Objecting to whatever he can.]"
Elsbeth: "If the counselor wants to get on the stand, that would work out just fuckin' fine for me, Your Honor..."
Perrotti: "Shutting up now."
Elsbeth: "Okay so after your speech, you met with Eli and Saxon?"
Jackie: "If you say so, honey."
Elsbeth: "I mean, you already testified to this, dude."
Jackie: "Do you know how many times I've given a stump speech for my kid? Because I don't. Not to mention how blurry it gets since I'm constantly going off-message and talking about whatever awful crap pops into my head. Or hallucinating bugs everywhere. I mean, it's a real mess up here."
Elsbeth: "So you don't really remember this particular meeting?"
Jackie: "I have some cognitive issues. After my stroke a few months ago. I don't like talking about it, but I am a forthright individual with my own ethical compass."
Elsbeth: "So like right this second, do you remember this meeting with Eli and Saxon?"
Jackie: "...Nope."
Elsbeth: "Can you tell me that Eli Gold was even at your speech that day?"
Jackie: "You know what, no. Frankly, some days I can't even remember my name."
COURTHOUSE
Eli: "And so, um, why'd you do that? I was pretty embarrassed for you, and I hate your ass. I can't imagine how you're feeling right now."
Jackie: "I told the truth, Eli. Nobody's ever a villain in their own movie. I have never done anything I didn't think was right, no matter what it cost me, and this is one of those things. Flip a coin, maybe I would have remembered it differently. The important thing is that I was clear about why."
Eli watches her walk off, noticing for the first time the elegance in her movement. He misses Peter; his eyes well. He could never respect this woman, this obstructive, self-important, vindictive old bat. But whatever it is, whatever the word for the alternative is, that's what he does for a second. It cost her a great deal.
FEDERAL CASE
Judge: "So the issue is whether there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate Mr. Gold arranged and agreed to a vote-bribery deal. Which was obvious, right up until Jackie's courageous admission about her cognitive challenges. Meaning all you have is Frank Landau, which isn't enough for a jury. So we have no choice but to..."
Perrotti: "We wish to amend our complaint (Objection!) and add yet another co-conspirator to the charge."
Elsbeth: "Look, we all know Josh is dashing and incorrigible, nobody's saying otherwise, but..."
Perrotti: "Your Honor, you, um, already approved our extension to produce discovery. Let us keep that 24 hours, please?"
Judge: "Ugh, fine."
PARTNERS
Diane: "Listen, lady. You are screwing around on this Bishop stuff."
Alicia: "What, me? Nooooo. We'll have it ready..."
Diane: "I have the bill."
Alicia: "Yeah, so you know I cut the hours."
Diane: "You cut your hours. I set you up with the impossible task of cutting associate hours."
Alicia: "You said the what, not the how. I did the what. I pulled a total Alicia on it. That always works. If need be, I can just start dealing the drugs myself. That would be preferable to another uncomfortable moment with Cary..."
Diane: "Exactly. This is the thing you need to see and climb over today. Not later on, not when you have seniority, not when you've pulled your Colin Sweeney out of the fire. Today, by close of business, you need a solution that doesn't involve your own blood."
Alicia: "That's the only kind of compromise I'm comfortable making. It's why I'm the most powerful and least powerful person on my own show."
Diane: "Clients want to see partner hours, it makes them feel important. You've done the opposite and made it look like we don't care about him. His people won't see how many associates or how hard they're working, just numbers in black and white."
Alicia: "But they are the ones doing the work. They are earning those hours, at Nathan Lane-level efficiency..."
Diane: "Look, you silly girl. What looks like a sensible and compassionate compromise to you looks a lot like condescension to the rest of us. It's your main issue of life."
Alicia: "That is true. But..."
"They'll find other opportunities to make up the hours. You're management now, Alicia. You're not an associate. Stop pretending that you are. Will the other associates grumble about you? Yes. But if you pretend you're still their peer, they will grumble all the more, and they will come to hate you. This is not the Queen's Hamlet. You cannot dress up as a peasant here. So stop it. It is galling to them, and it is galling to me."
Gorgeous. And not only fair in that Diane Lockhart way that brooks no nonsense, but also a perfect description of where Alicia's at: Dividing the pie into so many pieces that everybody goes hungry, Alicia most of all. To be middle-management is to be caught in the middle, and it involves a learning curve full of overcorrection one way or the other, and it involves invisible walls and windows above and below you, that you must acknowledge but never admit aloud. It is galling to do otherwise.
How do you solve a problem like Alicia? Take the thing she's doing -- a kind, a compassionate, an equitable thing that solves nothing -- and put it in the context of her greatest fear: Causing offense, being the bad guy. Confusing nice with kind, and soft with weak. The powerlessness of power, when you confuse authority with stewardship and vice versa. She has a tremendous capacity for learning this one, because she's hyperaware, always, of other people's internal states, but she has to stop reacting to that instinctively, like she usually does, and start acting on it intellectually, like Will usually does.
Even her big scary guys -- Bishop, Sweeney -- she deals with completely by trusting her inner voice, and the thing about her inner voice is, it doesn't use words. Just actions. So she's got to set up a dual-processor in her head now, to use the information instead of just acting on it. This is the secret of the puzzle Diane gave her this week, because Diane knows exactly what the difference is: It's the trick we play on women, by telling them how good it feels to give, and how scary it is when men are disappointed. It starts in the cradle, and the smarter you are the more power it can have over you. Especially when you keep using it to win.
The sheer percentage of management issues that fall into this category, Being The Bad Guy By Not Being The Bad Guy, is legendary and it's something Diane would know to watch out for with anybody. Even Cary would fall in this pothole a few times. But with Alicia, it's her whole deal. And whenever we question Diane's behavior it's because she's done this with less than total finesse: To be management is to shed your fear of being the bad guy, and trusting that you're doing the best possible job with what you have, regardless of what people might say or think.
It's what got us here -- but it's also what got us to those five fourth-year promotions that are strangling the firm the now. It's what got us here, but it's also what keeps Alicia suspended in this married/unmarried Schrödinger's Box with Peter: If you are a good guy and are called upon to be the bad guy in order to be the good guy, you have to rise to the challenge or everybody loses. It's the management angle on the Will stuff last week: Just because I broke my own heart to get rid of you doesn't mean I was uninjured, I just have less ego on the table than everybody else. I was just willing to let you hate me for a minute, in order to save us both.
BISHOP TEAM
Lady: "So did St. Alicia sign off on the brief?"
Cary: "She's with Diane. Probably talking about other ways to burn us."
Team: "That's why we like you, you're still one of us."
Cary: "I'll work with whatever I have."
Will: "Hey guys, everything going okay?"
Cary: "We're not planning any sedition or anything."
Will: "Sure. Listen, you know she cut her own hours rather than cross you guys, right?"
Cary: "No, I did not know that. And hilariously enough, neither of us know she's right at this very moment getting barred from doing that anyway."
Will: "Well, keep up the good work. Assholes."
DEBATE
Maddie Hayward: "Alicia! You're on the wrong side of the studio."
Alicia: "Trust me, I wouldn't be standing here."
Maddie Hayward: "You and I both know fuckin' Jordan made you come stand over here to rattle me."
Alicia: "Oh my God, your paranoia is gross. Calm the hell down. As much as I'm loathe to say or think it, this is exactly what they're talking about when they say women can't be friends."
Maddie Hayward: "As much as I hate to agree, I sure did go down the checklist of lady-alienation with you, didn't I? Confirming any weird stereotypes you may have had previously, of women in power."
(WAIT HOW IS THE MODERATOR FOR THIS ALSO PETRA?)
Peter: "...I mean, there's no question that immigration is a complex issue, but we also live in Illinois, so."
Petra: "Thank you, Mr. States Attorney. Or I mean, according to the rules, I call Mr. Florrick..."
Peter: "That's all right, Petra..."
Petra: "Yeah, and you can go ahead and call me Petra. Sure."
Peter: "Yowch."
Maddie: "In response, I'll just bring up that Peter's got the Latino vote. Even though he puts them all in jail..."
Alicia: "I hate that woman. Whatever nastiness is actually in her voice and body language, I perceive twice that."
Jordan: "Don't worry about it. She always does this, so we know not to care."
Maddie: "Or what about black people? Just to riff on a theme. How many lawyers in the SA are black right now, Peter?"
Peter: "Yeah, less than five percent, but if you knew how hardcore I've been working on that..."
Maddie: "Since when, since Geneva Pine's original memo about it two years ago? Or since I made it my mission to freak you out about race?"
Peter: "That memo was created at a time when I didn't even know what white privilege was, so it wasn't like a real person wrote it. But things are very different now!"
Alicia: "Well, that is straight up something I told Maddie Hayward myself."
Jordan: "I love these little time bombs you gave her during your five-minute friendship. They keep shit lively."
Peter: "And anyway, what does my employee diversity initiative have to do with immigration? She's all over the map."
Maddie: "We agreed to riff. Free range of topics, you said."
Petra: "Okay, she's right. You want to add to the convo about your preferential hiring practices?"
Peter: "Oh. Uh, no."
Alicia: "Good Lord, man. Get in the game."
CIVIL CASE
Elsbeth: "I'd like to invite the rakish Josh Perrotti to the stand?"
Nexus-6: "I object. Strongly. Strenuously."
Elsbeth: "He was the guy Landau was saying this shit to, and probably the guy who told him to say it in the first place. Not sure how that lies outside the scope of this defamation trial."
Perrotti: "The gorgeous Ms. Tascioni is clearly just trying to sink my federal case..."
Marx: "DUDE. Stop acting like you are better than me. Get up here, as a private citizen, and do the law."
Elsbeth: "And try to enunciate, sweetheart."
DEBATE - HALFTIME
Maddie: "I will fight for you. You want somebody polite and calm, almost reptilian, you go ahead and vote for that big old white guy right there. But if you want a fighter, you come to Big M. Momma will fight."
Jordan: "See? Just like I said. She wants you to prove you're a fighter. You are the bear, she is the baiter."
Peter: "She's a master at it. I could actually feel myself making a fist. Alicia, you're a lady who resents me at least as much as an undecided voter might. How'm I doing?"
Alicia: "What you need is a little Eli Gold. You know it, I know it."
Peter: "Can you distract Jordan while I sneak away? He will throw a goddamn fit if I..."
Alicia: "Just go."
FLORRICK/GOLD
Alicia, practically verbatim: "Jordan, can I distract you for a minute?"
Eli, dropping about six octaves as he gets ahold of himself: "Oh my God! Peter! I have to go, it's Peter. Peter Florrick! Calling me! I mean, ahem, Peter, I can give you three minutes."
Perrotti: "Please, call me Josh."
Elsbeth: "Mr. Perrotti, wouldn't you say this is defamatory? Considering you're losing the federal case that would prove this quote is true?"
Eli: "Okay but like, how bad?"
Peter: "[Silent mindmeld.]"
Eli: "Okay, here's what you do. When you're getting rope-a-doped and hold back, you always end up looking bland and weird. So don't let her get physically near you. Look and locate all three cameras, okay? Now, just skirt the arena so you're close to the bleachers, where the cameras can't cross the angles. That way you're never towering over her -- I'm sure Jordan's explained to you that she's been advised to get close to you when you raise your voice -- and she's just shouting into another camera like a crazy fishwife, while you're engaging the audience in an intimate way that she's interrupting. Got it?"
Peter: "I really miss, um... Having you... Run the show, Eli."
Eli, distracted: "I miss you too. Oh, I mean..."
Peter: "No, I know. Please, please come home. I think Jordan gave me a cold."
CIVIL CASE
Elsbeth: "Okay, so you keep saying you can prove this conspiracy..."
Perrotti: "Just because Judge Merkerson isn't buying it doesn't mean it's untrue."
Elsbeth, laughing: "Kind of it does, though."
Perrotti: "We've still got our extension."
Elsbeth: "So you're going to bring in a, what, a third co-conspirator? Just keep throwing people against the wall until something sticks? There's a real lack of grace to all this."
Judge: "And before you even start acting coy, dude, just cough it up. Who's the one?"
Perrotti: "Diane Lockhart."
Whhhhaaaaat? It starts to look nauseating for a second, as you remember she's courting Peter's business so hardcore she took out time for a pretend debate with him, but it'll be okay. In an episode where even Jackie Florrick played the Javert card, I'm pretty sure her ethics will be unassailable.
DEBATE
Maddie: "Think about it this way, you idiot Teabaggers and Ryan Budget autistics. Peter's a politician, while I've spent the last dozen years building a company..."
Peter: "You know what? Fuck you. Here we go, Lil' Miss Job Creator. Your ass outsourced 1200 jobs to Mexico and closed an entire semiconductor plant recently."
Maddie: "We opened a new distribution center in Aurora, creating a thousand new jobs..."
Peter: "60 percent of which are part-time and don't have benefits..."
Maddie: "Um, that seems unlikely..."
Peter: "Trust me, bitch. It's actually 62.5 percent. And then you furloughed another 30% of your employees overall..."
Jordan: "What's he doing? What the hell?"
Alicia: "Beating her ass, Baby Genius."
Maddie: "Yeah, furloughed because the economy! But now..."
Peter: "Now, you're gonna union-bust 'em..."
Maddie: "Hey whoa hey. That is not something you say to a corporate sleazebag. Those are fightin' words! It implies that corporations and lobbyists have twisted the system from the inside! It's completely at odds with my disingenuous pretense at a fair market!"
Peter: "And yet, last month you told a conference call full of Wall Street analysts that you'd have the unions completely out of your plants within five years."
Maddie: "Blah bloo blee blah blah!"
Peter: "So union demands limit competition, but... Meanwhile you're renovating your summer home on Lake Geneva?"
Maddie: "We're not talking about ME, we're talking about overregulation! There is no connection between those things, except for by definition how they are utterly connected! Why does everybody disbelieve in the free market economy of my greedy fantasies, right up until it's about my own hypocrisy and the gross inequality I use that market to maintain? Right when I don't wanna talk about it anymore?"
Petra: "Free range of topics, you asshole."
Maddie: "I changed my mind! I don't want to talk about a free range of topics!"
FEDERAL CASE
Perrotti: "Ms. Lockhart, this is a L/G invoice to Greengate Retirement Centers which includes a 25% discount for Eli Gold's crisis management services. And you initialed at the bottom, yes?"
Diane: "Either Will or I sign off on every bill before it goes out."
Perrotti: "Therefore, Your Honor, she's a co-conspirator..."
Everybody: "Okay, that's a stretch."
Perrotti: "No it isn't! Conspiracy is provable by showing an agreement to either services received, or services offered. I don't have to prove that he made the deal, just that they followed through on it."
Judge: "I agree. So Ms. Lockhart, did you approve Eli Gold's 25% discount to Greengate?"
Diane: "Nope."
Perrotti: "But you just said..."
Diane: "I signed off under orders from my supervisor. This was when we were bankrupt, and all of this stuff was at the pleasure of our Trustee. He was eager to boost cash flow and had us offer clients discounts for quicker payment."
Perrotti: "Then I want Clarke Hayden! I want to just keep calling people up and saying they are co-conspirators!"
Diane: "Wouldn't help. He was working, in turn, at the behest of our creditors."
Perrotti: "Then I'll call Michael J. Fox to the..."
Judge: "Baby, no. We're done here."
And actually, that makes total sense. It might not even be a Eli Gold thing, this like one time. Although it does call into question the equity partnership thing, right? Because if they can just redline the whole invoice like that just to get quicker turnaround, why not line out 10% of the total on Lemond Bishop's invoice for being such a good dude, or for sticking with them even though he went to jail for gym memberships or whatever it was? Well, obviously because Diane wanted to squeeze Alicia until blood came out, but you'd think Alicia could have made a case for that, given that Diane was very clear it wasn't about reality but just Lemond knowing they love him even though he's not around right now.
Perrotti: "Well done."
Elsbeth: "Thank you!"
Perrotti: "Do you like the ballet? Me neither, want to not go together? Have dinner instead?"
Elsbeth: "Yeah, but no."
Perrotti: "Can I ask why?"
Elsbeth: "Yeah, but no."
And with a whoosh and a sparkly pink cloud, she is gone, leaving Muad'Dib with his blue eyes gone crossed with desire. When weirdo calls to weirdo, as holy palmers kiss, it can be a mess trying to get yourself back together again.
L/G
Cary: "Hey Alicia, thanks for knuckling under to the proletariat."
Alicia: "I bet you guys were real nasty about me, huh?"
Cary: "Yeah, right up until we heard you sacrificed your own self to our petty egos."
Alicia: "Not so fast, little guy. I did another pass and you're gonna want to call me some names."
Cary: "Hold on, what? I thought this was done with."
Alicia: "It was. Now it is again. Revised brief by ten tomorrow, okay?"
She hates it when Diane does this: Asks for the result without walking you there. But I wonder how long she'll go on hating it. It's not about finding the third way, anymore; it's not about reinventing the wheel, or bringing her personal experiences as a civilian wife and mother to the table. Those things are important, they make her a good attorney and they'll make her a great partner. But right now, it's all irresistible forces and immovable objects, and that's something she's always had trouble with.
She's so smart she can do anything, which is why the promotion had to be about the stuff she's not great with: Disappointing people, enforcing things, being the authority when she'd rather nurture. Justice vs. Mercy. She can run numbers all day, sacrifice herself without ever feeling it, but it takes a special kind of person to be this allergic to this particular thing, which less great people are often perfect at from day one. We use the Peter Principle to talk shit about our bosses because that's the LCD, the Dilbert of it all, but it can also be a great motivator, a great check on ego: Any time you're forced to ask, "Have I been promoted to the level of my own incompetence," the statement out of your face has got to be, "No. Fuck that. I'm still growing." And the Peter Principle, applied correctly, does nothing more than to show you the what, the why and the how. If you can be honest about what you see in the mirror, it can give you all the hope you need, to assume the shape. To step through the door.
Which in this case means untangling the utter selfishness of Nice from the scary tiltawhirl of Kind -- the one thing that she actually has been promoted past her ability to deal with, as yet. It would have been nice for her to take Cary by the hand and explain how this all happened, how it was that she kept giving and taking away again, all week. It would have been nice for her to ask for his support with the underlings while they deal with her transition. It would have been nice for her to take Kalinda out for a drink and discuss the kiss with Will. But none of those things would have been kind. It would be galling to them, and it would be galling to Diane, and it would have been galling to me. She did okay, by the end of the day: Curt but not brutal, swift but not hard, quiet but not silent. These are the things you will give me, and letting you decide how is the extent of my management today. Either way it was going to be bumpy as hell, but this way maximizes dignity for us both.
GOLD
From the people who brought you "Jackie Florrick Just Made Me Cry," I bring you "Why Am I Having Kalinda-And-Alicia Feelings About Two Corrupt Douchebags Who Are As Far From Being Kalinda Or Alicia As You Can Get?"
Peter: "Polls say I won, by 56 percent."
Eli: "Better than that, they always under-sample younger voters because nobody has landlines anymore."
Peter: "But you're still packing up your shit?"
Eli: "I'm still damaged goods, whatever went down with the DOJ. Mike Kresteva is guesting week and you know his ass was probably behind this whole thing somehow."
Peter: "I will punch him in the motherfucking neck, I don't care. Eli, I want you back."
Eli: "Don't be sentimental, Peter. What we had was once in a lifetime, true. But we..."
Peter: "You want sentimental? How about this fake-out handshake that turns into a bearhug?"
Eli: "I feel so safe in your arms, Peter. But we can't."
Peter: "You're going to see yourself as tainted until such time as somebody rolls over for you and trusts you to the edge of disaster. And that's unacceptable that you would have to wait that long, or that I would, so I will be the one to do that. Come back to me. If I say I am willing to risk my career on you, you will turn inside-out and become clean again, and come back to me, so that's what I am saying."
Eli: "Annnnd just like that, I'm back."
Peter: "Unpack your crap and wipe your eyes, ya little shit."
Eli: "Me wipe my eyes? What about you, Crying McPusserstein?"
Peter: "Shut up. Just a cold."
Yeah. What he said. Shut up. Just a cold, nothing to see here.
WEEK
At Lemond Bishop's jailbird request, Alicia must work with his latest "other counsel," Wallace Shawn's Charles Lester. Kalinda trains the firm's new investigator, adding insult to injury, and Cary acts out. Broadway favorite Audra McDonald joins Bebe Neuwirth in making sure we all understand the caliber of show we're dealing with, and hopefully Jordan isn't gone forever, but who knows.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Deception, Zero Hour, and Pretty Little Liars for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook, as well as an upcoming regular column for Tor.com.