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Coroner King Triton forces Alicia and Will to learn the rules for yet one more weird kind of trial, in this case an inquest for cause of death, after one of Will's corrupt judges gets run off the road. (The best rule, coming as it does out of the Hogwarts Rules of Order, has to do with only being able to ask any witness three questions.) The details accrete, as they tend to do -- he was in financial ruins, he was cheating with his bestie's wife, he was of course being investigated for playing basketball -- but eventually Kalinda (and Robyn Burdine, of course) gets us the info: It was neither suicide nor homicide, but a hit and run. Pretty fun, twisty but unimportant, the best kind of case on this show.
The meat of it is, of course, Alicia and Will working together for the first time since the kiss, and really for one of the first times since she dumped him. They agree to stop being weird with each other like last week and just go be friends like Season 1, but end up in a soupy mess that is neither and both, but allows them better teamwork than they've had in ages. It's starting to wear on her, I think. Never shoulda given him the go-ahead with that "I'm the injured party" stuff, girl. That's gonna getcha.
The story begins and ends with two radically different takes on the Zach/Nisa relationship, punctuated by some campaign discoveries about her family (Hamas-supporting Muslims, turns out) that may be disastrous. Once Peter's won his nomination, Eli cleverly sends Jordan to Zach to solve both problems at once: Alicia gets pissed enough that Jordan gets fired, putting Eli back in control, and as it turns out, Zach was going to dump her anyway, and just needed some motivation.
It's not as cold as it sounds, now that I'm looking at it -- Nisa takes the whole thing pretty well -- but either way it's nice to see Alicia in Mama Bear mode once in a while. I'm just gonna miss Jordan, especially after his parting Captain American truth-and-justice speech, which made Eli want to barf, but of course gave me chills. The only real sad part, in the end, is that Eli's back to manipulating and lying to Alicia, which hasn't felt true for a long, happy time. And it couldn't be at a less convenient moment, now that the race has begun and will be steadily pressing in on all of them for the rest of the season.
Speaking of people showing their moral seams a little too well, Diane half-asses her way through letting Cary's dad walk all over him before finally seeing the light. Jeffrey's back in Chicago and lobbying for a pharmaceutical company who wants to draw up some bullshit legislation so their competition can't flood the medical-marijuana dispensary market. Cary keeps pointing out how graceless his dad's methods are, but of course Agos thinks he's just being resentful, so he manages to leverage a walkout so Diane will put a partner on it. (This, of course, he justifies to himself as a necessary incentive for his son's career rather than what it is, which is gross old-man/young-buck resentment at its finest.)
In the end, Cary does a loop around the whole thing, charming the pants off the company's CEO and bringing them to firm without Jeffrey Agos even involved. It's fairly beautiful -- and more importantly, gets him back some currency in the firm and his tattered relationship with Diane.
Oh, and Robyn Burdine's wide-eyed journey of discovery into the awesomeness of Kalinda continues to do more -- for both the character and, frankly, the show -- than you might have dreamed possible. I really hope it's not a feint, or a dropped thread, or a recurring thing: Rediscovering Kalinda through the eyes of someone likeable and interesting is the best apology we could ever expect for Nick. Who I frankly didn't even mind as much as most. I'm just happy to have more Kalinda.
Week: We're firmly established in the season's Act III, now that Peter is the Democratic Gubernatorial candidate and we can start fighting with Mike Kresteva again. Jordan's gone, Alicia's waking up to the possibilities of Will, the firm is in the black and the Cary/Kalinda bloc is still finding its footing. All in all, an exciting time for the show, especially now that we're past awards season and might actually get a few in a row.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Cary's estranged father came begging, and even after he tried his hardest to help the old fucker still acted positively horribly. Will and Alicia kissed, which is complicated since she's now bootycalling her husband all the time. Cary is thinking of starting a revolution, now that Alicia's finally won the four-year-old bakeoff, and the partners don't really seem to understand how screwed he feels. Will claims not to have been the Grand Vizier of some kind of Elks Lodge of basketball-playing, corrupt judges, and Kalinda has an odds-defyingly fantastic sidekick.
NOW
Smash! Crash! A car accident, documented beautifully to the tune of Andrew Bird's freaky/lovely "Fake Palindromes," carrying over past the morgue placement of the casualty, a Roger Ludwig, and the current primary numbers -- Florrick 51 percent, Hayward 46 -- to Zach Florrick, doing his best to get to third with Nisa.
Nisa: "First base is fine for now, but thanks. Let's talk about how I'm off to college soon."
Zach: "Have you met me? College is a sure thing."
Nisa: "Yeah, but not for another year."
Zach: "So we roll with the changes. Either way we're still the same people."
Tonight, his father finds out if he's going to be the Democratic guber and his mother just made (deliriously compromised) partner at a job she seems to love more and more the less and less she takes it personally. It's a fake palindrome, as we'll see, but for now the lay of the land is this: Nisa wants to talk about the future, about what Zach's going to do without her. And Zach doesn't want to talk about that.
Grace: "Mom's home!"
Alicia: "Yep. Put your clothes on, everybody!"
Zach: "You think that is funny but in fact, hang on for a sec."
Nisa: "In better news, your husband's doing well and Kresteva already won the Republican position, so the race is basically settled. Can Zach come for dinner?"
Alicia: "Have your parents call me. Grace, time do your homework in the same room as your brother. Perhaps holding hands, or sitting between them. If I can't count on you to fuck everything up for everybody, I don't see the point of you."
MORGUE
Roger's wife Janie (Jessalyn Gilsig!) calls Alicia down to his inquest: Why's she in the morgue when she should be freaking out? Because he always loved her "toughness," and somehow standing around in the horrible morgue is a way of showing it. Admittedly, even Janie knows that she is acting crazy, which is all the confirmation Alicia needs. Seems right now is the appropriate time for the life insurance company to start pushing Justice Ludwig's "negligence" in his accident: He was talking on his cell phone, which while not banned yet in Illinois is still something worth fighting about. Their lawyer is, of course, a smarmy dick named Hobson.
Hobson: "How about 200 grand?"
Alicia: "On a two-million dollar policy? Give me a break."
INQUEST
Coroner Claypool/Professional Weirdo René Auberjonois welcomes everybody, including a panel of six jurors, and explains how this differs from a trial: It's a hearing to determine "the cause and the manner" of the man's death.
EMT: "The immediate cause was bleeding and trauma from massive internal injury."
Claypool: "Of all the drugs in the world, how many was Justice Ludwig on at the time?"
EMT: "He had a BAC of .06 and some other drug with a crazy name."
Janie: "Lie!"
Alicia: "It's cool, that's the fun part. EMT Lady, can I ask..."
Claypool: "-- By way of exposition, I'd just like to mention that your husband is the SA in the one county that's gotten rid of the office of the Coroner altogether. So I hate you, okay? I just want everybody to know that my weirdness is enhanced by a shittiness."
Alicia sets up her case the normal way, by taking down everything they've said before -- a blood level of .06 means like, two glasses of wine on a full tummy an hour before, and the other drug is an insomnia treatment that could easily just be left over from the night before -- and suddenly her cross is over with.
Claypool: "At an inquest you're only allowed to ask three questions. Did nobody tell you that?"
Alicia: "No, because you're just Ariel's mermaid father, not the Sphinx of legend or a troll that lives under a bridge. What the hell are you talking about?"
Hobson: (One thousand grotesque smirks.)
Claypool: "Short answer is, because inquests are stupid and we're doing everything we can to help the insurance lobby fuck this dead man's wife over."
Alicia: "What if I ask my questions like super fast?"
Hobson: "Listen, I know how this goes. EMT Lady, is it possible that he could have been drunk anyway?"
Alicia: "Objection!"
Claypool: "Mrs. Florrick! This isn't a regular trial! It's like one of those JAG episodes with Kuhn, or that time with the awful Europeans."
Alicia: "Really? Because it seems more like fuckin' True American."
Janie: "I'll be right back, I have to just go call every other lawyer in Chicago and hope that their three questions are better. Just keep throwing lawyers at him until this works out."
L/G
Will: "...Okay, Janie. I'll admit I would have biffed the inquest just as bad, although since I'm not married to the SA he probably wouldn't have been such a dick about it. I'll read up."
Diane: "This about that car crash? Horrible! Is there any reason you'd feel weird about helping her out with that?"
Will: "None at all. You look, by the way, fucking fantastic."
Diane: "Wanna go to the Chicago Shamrock Dinner? This would be the first time we've been asked to attend, so, if you wanna rub elbows with leprechauns I say we go for it. We both know leprechauns run this town."
Will: "You know what would be really awful is if we wait to see how Peter does in the election before committing to a table. Just blatantly putting that out there, out loud."
Diane: "I love it!"
Cary: "You called me in for some reason?"
L/G: "Unbeknownst to yourself, a mystery party just got us Emmonds Pharmaceuticals away from Canning, in your name! Congratulations on finally using your sneaky networking skills for us, rather than as a childish tantrum!"
Cary: "Unbeknownst to you all, I already presume this is my estranged father's doing, and therefore will probably find a way to turn this into the dumbest tantrum of all. But for the record, thanks for your praise. Part of me -- the majority of me, frankly -- needs that like oxygen, regardless of where it's coming from."
Diane: "If you keep this up, you might just deserve it one day. Five million a year, and the trust of their chief counsel! Why, you're almost as much of a human being as Alicia, today. If only you'd married better, it could be a dead heat."
(FLORRICK &) AGOS
Cary: "Couldn't come at a worse time. I've already got a mom and dad right here in this office that I hate."
Dad: "But you get an office right on the same floor as the partners!"
Cary: "Um, yeah. Because that's the only floor we have. Thanks for doubling down."
Dad: "Anyway, last time we spoke you wouldn't endorse me for a press secretary job? Well, speaking of doubling down, I've taken the only job that is for a worse person. I'm a lobbyist for a pharmaceutical company!"
Cary: "I figured. What's the scam?"
Dad: "No scam, we're just drafting a medical marijuana statute to destroy another pharmaceutical company before they can pass theirs. With competing pot initiatives on the ballet, the voters won't know what's up -- especially the ones that could actually pass it!"
Cary: "You're evil, but that makes sense, I guess. Hey, why are you talking to me again after last time?"
Dad: "Because I love you, Charlie Brown! Hey, you know what would be fun? Why don't you just place-kick this football real quick."
PETER WINS!
Eli: "Congratulations! Oh, you can't hear me because it's erupted into a blowout at campaign headquarters? Then let me just take this very appropriate moment to once again argue for the immediate firing of Jordan Karahalios. What's that? No, just barely not a dick move since we're moving past the primary now and it would make sense... Oh, okay. No, it's okay. No, I should go. You too."
Jordan: "Yay! Let's hug, Eli! It's going to be so fun!"
Eli: "I guess so. I guess so, you little shit."
Jordan: "But hey, can we talk about Nisa Dalmar real quick?"
Eli, verbatim: "I know, she's black! It's all fine..."
Jordan: "The fuck? No. God... No, Eli. Look at this Instagram she tweeted today, of Zach with her family. Who are sartorially Islammed all to hell."
Eli: "So she's a two-fer, great. Maddie Hayward can suck right on that, in self-righteous millionaire loser misery..."
Jordan: "No, still not it. Since he was at this family dinner to celebrate Milad-un-Nabi, the Prophet's birthday, you're right. I got a little weirded out. Not proud of it, but I did. Her dad totally donated to a Hamas charity organization called Mouharib Mousalim..."
Eli: "When? Please tell me this shit went down since Peter hired you."
Jordan: "No such. His last donation was in 2008. In October 2012, however, the Treasury put Mouharib Mousalim on their watchlist for terror affiliations*. So..."
*(Robyn Burdine!)
I've never been so proud, it's like this whole time Nisa's been out of the picture she's been storing up as many storylines as possible: Boom! Your girlfriend's also Muslim! Pow! She tweets pictures of you with her in hijab! Crack! Her dad donated to the wrong Hamas charity! Yow! Congrats to your dad for winning the primary! Shazam! Here comes a clusterfuck! Lisa Bonet ate no basil!
Eli: "So I guess you're a valuable member of this team, for today. Since I don't want to deal with this, I definitely want to set you up for failure, my name can't be on anything having to do with Hamas, and my literal only other weaknesses are race relations, religious stuff and kids."
Jordan: "I don't know any of that, so I'm going to sit here in my adorable roll-neck varsity jacket in a heather grey that perfectly complements my eyes, and come up with a brainy solution you never would have thought of."
But it's worth noting that TR Knight's go-to soundbite for this character has been that karahalios is etymologically related to a bird of prey.
INQUEST
Cop: "Skid marks on the road reveal a course correction, which we've determined was made at 55 mph, or 10 miles over the limit..."
Hobson: (Smarms.)
Will: "Hey, Alicia. I'm here to help, not to piss you off."
Alicia: "It's fine. I don't guess there's anything I should say to warn you..."
Claypool: "Oh, we have a whole legal team now? Aren't we grand! Go ahead."
Will: "Thank you, Coroner Claypool. Now..."
Alicia: "-- Oh wait, you can only ask three questions! Three questions and you're out. Sorry. Duh, that's like the first thing I should have said."
Will: "There was no bluetooth in Justice Ludwig's car, but his phone had speaker like everybody else, so couldn't he have been talking on speaker?"
Cop: "True. We have no way of knowing whether he was holding his phone, dangling it from ear like giant fun jewelry, making a martini..."
Will, tiptoeing: "Okay, but rather than the use of a phone .., or the speed he was traveling ... couldn't the presence of black ice on the road have ... forced Justice Ludwig to make this course correction ... sending him into the guardrail ... which by its mere presence implies this is a ... very sharp curve in the road?"
Alicia: "Aw, see? That's totally how I would have done it."
Hobson: "Objection! That was like ten questions!"
Claypool: "No. Speaking of course corrections, I'm going to be cool now that we're actually doing this right."
Cop: "The DOT does place guardrails for various reasons, sir, and yes, I observed black ice on the road that night, but with those road conditions, the victim should have been driving under the speed limit."
Alicia: "This sounds like we it's in desperate need of Kalindering, and I blew my wad in five seconds, so I'm just gonna ditch you here."
Janie: "That's fine, really."
Will: "I want to hold onto my third question, since I've stirred up a bunch of stuff."
Hobson: "No!"
Claypool: "Yes. The point of this whole setup is to generate talking points. It's not a trial, and I wanna hear more about the black ice."
DEAD MAN'S CURVE
Kalinda's phone rings at the scene, so of course Robyn Burdine picks it up, because she's too Robyn Burdine to be afraid of Kalinda slapping her and/or she already understands Kalinda well enough to know it wouldn't actually bother Kalinda to do that.
Robyn Burdine: "It's Robyn Burdine! Your other investigator!"
Alicia: "Cool, listen..."
Robyn Burdine: "I picked up Kalinda's phone! Because it was ringing! Not to be naughty!"
Alicia: "Can you ask her to find stuff that proves it was an accident? Like presumably was the point of you going there in the first place? So it's unclear why I'm making this call?"
Robyn Burdine: "That is so many words! Here is Kalinda!"
Kalinda: "Actually, I can't talk. I might have just Kalindered this shit."
They stare up into the trees like the owls are not what they seem, and have another mind-meld about... Oh, I get it: The streetlight is on, even though it's daytime and not all that overcast? Or it's the kind of lamp it is, maybe? If this show weren't awesome, that's what it would be about: Now the DOJ has to prove or not prove they fucked up their streetlight, so then we go backwards to prove or not prove Ludwig wasn't negligent, and it's four-way lawyer bullshit between all the interests, like how it sometimes happens when Canning -- for example -- comes around. But the twists here are way better than that, so I got all nervous and unnecessarily pre-annoyed. Which is redundant, in life but especially with this particular show.
INQUEST
Cop: "...But we didn't really think it was the black ice."
Alicia: "Can I have Will's last question?"
Hobson: "No!"
Claypool: "Go for it!"
Alicia: "Officer Rivera ... has the county been replacing the dimmer, orange incandescent streetlights on that road with the brighter LED lights ... which would mean that the night of the accident, in the ... hundred yards preceding the bend in the road ... the judge entered a darker stretch that ... doesn't show the black ice as well ... resulting in ... the judge having to make a last-second course correction?"
(Actual lapsed-time edit while everybody stares at her.)
Cop: "...Yes."
Hobson: "Question one, who was the judge calling when he died?"
Cop: "Voicemail."
Hobson: "Question two, that voicemail was from?"
Cop: "Illinois Attorney General's anti-corruption unit."
Hobson: "Question three, what do they do?"
Cop: "What it sounds like."
Hobson: "Mr. Coroner, me and my egregious face would like to just say in the form of a declarative shitty declaration that probably he killed himself."
Will: "The fuck?"
Claypool: "I know, right? But I mean, let's hear him out. In front of this jury here."
Hobson: "In the judge's last weeks, he learned he was being investigated for bribery."
Will: "Well, I should probably get the fuck out of this room, then."
HQ
Zach: "OMG what now?"
Jordan: "I just thought it was time for us to be adorable in the same location."
Eli: "And your unpaid child labor really does continue to field massive benefits for everybody."
Zach: "Okay, Eli. Then what."
Eli: "You really are your mother's son, aren't you."
Jordan: "You and Nisa pretty serious? I remember my first girlfriend..."
Jacob: "I hate her."
Zach: "Nisa is not my first girlfriend."
Eli: "Thank God. The one before her was like Maddie Hayward raised by fucking wolves."
Eli gets (fake) called out of the room, making for a fabulous little scene with quickly rising superstar Assistant Nora, who -- like the West Wing assistants of yore -- could signal a shift in the amount of humor this show is capable of. I don't understand why every show didn't follow that lead. Alicia's assistant started strong, but isn't really needed... I guess putting it that way, the only person who needs a Nora actually is Eli. Never mind.
Nora: "You are going to effing break them up? You... I don't even know what the word for that is."
Eli: "Whaaaaat? Don't be silly!"
Jordan: "There's a spotlight on your dad. And one on your mom. And that means you have to consider the dimension of your relationships that connects to things larger than yourself. Not just Nisa, but like... Remember when Alicia was so lonely, and she started dating Maddie Hayward? It broke her heart and she got shithammered in public because of it. Or like, remember how every time Kalinda has sex with somebody, ten people end up getting murdered? Or even worse, Cary's little face gets bruised?"
Eli, whispering: "Nora, go see if they're done."
Nora, whispering: "Eli, go fuck yourself."
Eli, hissing: "Nora, I am the boss and you are the assistant!"
Nora, hissing: "Eli, you are a capering dwarf and I am six feet tall. Does my wonderful giant afro not signal anything to you about my skills in the martial arts?"
Zach comes busting out and of course gives him the Alicia treatment -- "Nothing, I'm fine, don't worry about it" -- and Nora silently judges Eli as he gives himself a good old-fashioned fist-pump, complete with faux-innocent "Look at all this paper" eyes of concern. I can certainly see why he would want to leave this one for my Jordy, because you and I both know whoever hurts Zach is getting a fistful of Alicia Justice, but it's also funny because like, at this point if Eli tried to talk Zach into drinking milk with dinner he'd probably start chugging vodka, like any other Florrick, while looking him in the eye.
But also, that's gotta be what's gonna happen, right? Zach's going to pull some kind of "The Florrick Kids Love Palestine" shit on them either way, so you might as well clear the blast radius. And since Eli seems to think it's only going to take him a day to get rid of Jordan, it's smart on all the levels Eli seems to think... Except for how Zach is the only person on earth more Over It than Alicia when it comes to this crap, and smarter than everyone else put together -- except Kalinda, obvs. -- on this show that is already about geniuses.
AGOS BS
Alicia: "Mr. Agos, for whom I do not have time, and actually kind of hate because of your parenting and, separately, your treatment of my friend. What do you want?"
Agos: "To get on your jock about making partner, of course."
Alicia: "Right, right. Anything to undercut Cary under the pretense of support. How about this narrative, which actually works really well. We're both fourth-years, but he spent a season basically as my husband's intern, so that's why he's under us now."
Agos: "So he's not on the partner track?"
Alicia: "Bitch, that's not what I said. I'm sure his yacht's in the mail."
Cary: "Stop bothering the nice lady, dickhole."
Agos: "I was just saying, it certainly is funny that she made partner ahead of you, huh? You must feel really emasculated by that. This is your father saying this."
INQUEST
Kelly Coffield-Park from In Living Color has not aged from what I can tell, which is nice. I think she's dear. She is Christie Yeargin, an investigator at the Illinois Attorney General who was on the Justice Ludwig bribery thing.
Hobson: "Question one, obviously, is whether this has to do with those ubiquitous Wednesday Night Basketball Games about which this show actually stopped talking for a minute?"
Yeargin: "Kind of. It started there, but we found out that he was in way over his head, financially..."
Janie: "It's true. We were living so above our means it was amazing."
Hobson: "Question two, between the investigation and the finances, didn't he probably just go ahead and commit suicide?"
Yeargin: "I mean, he wasn't thrilled about it? But come on."
Will: "Tasteless, right? Mrs. Yeargin, it's been way too long since we last discussed my baroque secret society of corrupt basketball-playing judges. Question one, how many judges does the AG investigate every year?"
Yeargin: "Depends on how corrupt everybody's feeling."
Will: "Question two, how many of these... You know what, sorry. Question two, how many times does your investigation actually ... lead to charges being filed ... against the judge?"
Yeargin: "Thankfully, not very often. Being a judge makes you more susceptible to corruption in some ways, but there are enough true believers that on average it makes them less so."
Will: "And in this case you didn't have any solid evidence that Justice Ludwig had actually accepted a bribe?"
Yeargin: "We were working on it."
Will: "Question four... Oh, wait. Dang it."
L/G
Robyn Burdine: "We can wait for Kalinda if you want! I don't mind! No? Okay, here goes! The Ludwigs were in terrible financial trouble, that is true. But I don't think Mrs. Ludwig knew that. And then this bribery stuff, apparently there was this lawyer..."
Alicia: "WE KNOW."
Robyn Burdine: "See, there were these basketball games..."
Alicia: "MOVING ON."
Robyn Burdine: "Oh, okay! Get this, though. He had dinner with a lobbyist that night, a Jared Bigelow, at eight. And then we got his tollway pass... You know what that is?"
Will: "Yeah, because we're ... people."
Robyn Burdine: "I just got my permit! Cross those fingers you guys!"
Robyn Burdine: "Anyway, he left the tollway at 10.
L/G: "So what's between the..."
Robyn Burdine: "There's a gas station, but he wasn't on enough drugs to make that an hour's worth of interesting. And then there's this motel..."
Will: "Oh, Jesus. Both? We got the bribery stuff and an affair?"
Alicia: "It's like we're on a TV show about us, where everything is always about us somehow."
Will: "Do not tell Janie Ludwig about this until we nail it. Other than that, I mean, you are doing really great."
Robyn Burdine: "Make sure you tell Kalinda that! Robyn Burdine! Is doing GREAT!"
EMMONDS
The Agoi and Emmonds' legal team review the language: It increases the application fee to open a dispensary from two to five thousand, but says nothing about the license fee, which Dad explains is about beefing up the state budget and will make it look better; it raises the no-sell zone from 300 to 500 yards, which -- in the third-largest school district in the country -- drastically reduces the places you can make one, which Agos doesn't have a great answer for.
Cary: "All of this just makes it more and more obvious what you're doing."
Agos: "All of this is obvious because that's what we're doing. Stop calling me a dick to my face. Maybe we should have a partner sit in, if all you're gonna do is advise me in good faith."
Cary: "Okay, buddy. Let's just go ahead and do that."
Agos: "I mean, just to supervise..."
Cary: "I GET IT, MAN. TEN-FOUR."
MOTEL
Receptionist: "Would you two hot ladies like a room? Is today the day my life begins?"
Kalinda: "Heh."
Robyn Burdine: "Ha! But let me clear up your work area by organizing your brochures."
Kalinda: "Did you ever see this guy? Here's an incredibly official-looking portrait of him so you know he's a judge, just in case you were thinking this was no big deal."
Reception: "Uh, I can't talk about that."
Kalinda: "Can't you, though? Look into my eyes."
Robyn Burdine: "She is magic! Look at that. I wish I could do that. I will learn to do that!"
Reception: "I guess so, since you are magic. He checked in alone, and then left sometime later during an argument with a blonde lady who was driving a dark four-door SUV with a specialty license plate."
Kalinda: "Not around my eyes, look straight into my eyes. What kind of plate?"
Reception: "With a bird on it!"
Kalinda: "We were never here. Dream of me."
L/G
Diane: "Cary, it's gotta be hard working with your dad. Since he's such a shitslice and all. Not to mention your dad."
Cary: "You said it, lady. Am I doing something wrong? Did he tattle?"
Diane: "You know he did. Listen, I need you to defer to them -- and by them of course, I mean your worst nightmare is coming to pass. Okay?"
Cary: "Jesus H, what did he say? You're not even trying lately. "
Diane: "Nothing I didn't take with a grain of salt, just... Don't get butthurt when I sit in on your meeting, okay? I'm actually trying to buffer this for you, although you'll never understand that. Partners give face time, it's what we do."
Cary: "I wouldn't fuckin' know."
SISTAS
Trucker Guy: "So yeah, I maybe saw something. Listen, are you two like, the Cagney and Lacey of blowjobs?"
Robyn Burdine: "I... What? Gross. That makes me sad."
Kalinda: "Can you come over here to a private place for a second?"
It is not a blowjob. We don't know what it is, that she whispers in his ear, but blowjobs are not a part of it. It may well involve his genitals, but not in a good way. All we know for sure is that the trucker's face goes white and he immediately pulls it together for them. The joy that breaks out on Robyn Burdine's face as he does this -- metaphorical hat in hand -- is one of the lovelier moments of the episode, the show, and possibly life.
Trucker Guy: "I didn't see the crash, but I saw the cars involved and one of them was a sedan and the other one was a black SUV that came up fast, honking the horn, lights flashing, totally out of control."
Kalinda: "And?"
Trucker Guy: "...And I'm sorry for the way I talked to you before."
Robyn Burdine: "You know what? It's okay! Kalinda Sharma!"
Alicia: "So who's the lady?"
Kalinda: "Blonde in her 40's who fought with Ludwig and seems to have driven him off the road."
Will: "So, pissed off mistress? Drives him off the road?"
Robyn Burdine: "Maybe, but not definitively."
Will: "Well, the coroner is very into spectacle. He loves this suicide theory and I'm thinking he'll be as intrigued if not more by a murder. You guys get the motel clerk as a witness and we'll figure out a way to admit him into the inquest."
Robyn Burdine leans sweetly against her headrest, gazing on the singularity of Kalinda Sharma, and begs begs begs for her to say what she did to make that trucker behave, and the only person loving it more than Robyn Burdine -- or you, or me -- is of course Kalinda Sharma.
Of all the story needs we foresaw Robyn Burdine fulfilling, I didn't even realize how powerful it would be, to have somebody amazed by Kalinda again. This "training day" vibe is bringing in all sorts of wonderful colors, isn't it? We never get to see her doing her job from this direction, just making wonders and moving on to the thing. But to have somebody there giving her the same googly-eyes that made Hayden Clarke fall for Cary, that's an angle I never would have thought of. I love it.
If you think, too, about how efficient a way this is to remind us how we used to feel about Kalinda, it gets a little iffy, but from a storytelling standpoint it's exceedingly clever. The only thing better than everybody applauding you -- which isn't that great, check out how it's working for Alicia -- is one person doing it. And if that person is as simultaneously opaque and open as a Robyn Burdine, you wouldn't even notice how the story is rebooting you. I like it. I like the care and thought it shows.
It wouldn't be enough to have a cheerleader, it wouldn't work at all to have some kind of horrible teen hacker-girl like usual in these situations, but a person who is also formidable and interesting and can at the same time be new to this world... They've really put a lot of touches and trapdoors on this character, already, just in a few scenes, that make it totally believable. Yes, being a woman can mean lots of different things, and yes, they do balance each other out like Will was saying. Yes, the best way to show how we're recovering from Nick Savarese is to make constant G-rated sex jokes about them as two women. But they're also both incredibly observant and intuitive, which means every instance of the mind-meld (for example) does the double-duty of reminding us about Kalinda while also selling us on this softer, brighter twin they've given her.
How do you tame a wild tiger? Give her a daughter. How do you heal someone from believing that she's meant to be alone forever? Show her that she's not, and never was.
L/G AFTER HRS
Another little music-video moment: Alicia and Will studying precedent in their offices, looking for a way to get this mistress/murder thing into the discussion, under the soothing tones of Andreya Triana's "Draw The Stars," which is about what we get up to while everybody else is asleep -- and sometimes, how much easier that makes it to give in to forces you ignore by day.
But the reason for that is something that doesn't make sense to Alicia: Even at night, you're still you. The reason people can do the shitty things they do is because they can justify it to themselves. Nobody's the villain of their movie. Which means it becomes about whether or not you can get away with it: If nobody sees you find the wallet, you get to keep the wallet.
Alicia: "Oh, you're still here too? I guess we can chat about this. I found this one case..."
Will: "I found that exact same one!"
Alicia: "Really? That's crazy! But too bad we lost time to parallel work..."
Will: "No, actually I'm just being adorable."
Alicia: "I'll say. Listen, so this was a lawsuit over a biased inquest. Insufficient evidence."
Will: "Scare the coroner out of passing on evidence of a possible murder. Gross, I love it."
But Alicia wouldn't keep the wallet, because her choices come from an altogether different place, even now. What she learned, in the silence every day at three PM, was that even when nobody's watching you, you're still there. You're still there with yourself. And everybody else can go fuck off, that's fine: You're left with you.
If you start telling yourself stories to justify your actions, those just-in-case conversations about how if somebody else were to question you, you could say this or that, this rationale, this "he hit me first" kindergarten narrative, you can get away with anything. But that's giving yourself and your actions a moral symmetry that doesn't exist. A fake palindrome that comes out of your mouth in almost exactly the same form as it went in, if anybody were there to listen. But they're not.
Nobody is watching you, nobody can hear your narrative about why it's okay. There's just you, and your choices. Your actions, your behavior. Now, maybe St. Alicia worries a bit too much about what other people think. You're probably right about that. But S4 Alicia has seen the other side of that: What happens when you put so much stock into putting no stock in other people's opinions that you end up only telling mirror stories about who you are and why you do the things you do. Either way, you're talking to yourself. Is that somebody you could love for the rest of your life?
Will: "Hey, is Peter going to get weird if I go to the Chicago Shamrock Dinner?"
Alicia: "Why on earth would he?"
Will: "Cut the shit. I don't want to be wary of you. I don't want to avoid..."
Alicia: "-- I know. Remember when we were friends?"
Will: "Let's give that a shot."
Alicia: "At least until I get bored, or Peter pisses me off. Then probably I'm just going to commit adultery. You know that, right?"
Will: "If I could read your mind, I wouldn't have spent six months becoming a cutter."
Alicia: "Great, so we'll just be chill and kick rocks with each other. Neat."
To prove the point -- to herself, who is the only person watching, because herself is only ever the only person watching -- she jumps back behind a file cabinet on her way out, so that Will can take the elevator alone. She's not a liar, we're not wary; we're not avoiding each other. It's just so late, tonight. To say it's a losing battle would be to imply it's a battle that ever, ever stops.
HOME
Alicia: "Hey, Nisa. Headed home? I didn't know you were here..."
Nisa: "Don't worry about it."
Alicia: "Whoa, you look jacked up. What's wrong?"
Nisa: "Nothing, um, that I could possibly verbalize to you. Don't worry about it."
Alicia: "Grace, spill."
Grace: (Does so, in the most maddeningly elliptical, unhelpful possible manner.)
Alicia: "Grace. Talk to me as if I weren't omniscient."
Grace: "[Succinct.]"
Alicia: "Son of a bitch. And this is coming from Eli?"
Grace: "Nope, Jordan. He sat down with Zach, Zach sat down with Nisa."
Alicia: "Why is that everybody thinks they're allowed to parent my children?"
HQ
She stomps the hell on in there in the morning, and it's great: She blows past Nora and into a conference room where Eli is standing alone at the head of the table like freakin' Hudsucker, and he throws his arms wide -- "Alicia!" -- and she just turns around and stomps through the rest of the offices. Neat camera work. You can even almost see him creep around to watch the fireworks.
Alicia: "How dare you counsel my son on his personal life, without..."
Jordan: "Can we not do this out here?"
Alicia: "Hold still, little man. You're not hiding from Alicia Justice because there is no hiding from Alicia Justice and you might as well get used to that."
Jordan: "He asked if the photo was affecting the campaign, I told him the truth. I said that we were taking a hit."
Alicia: "He is a 17-year-old, outrageously cool kid who adores his father, what possible other response would he give?"
Jordan: "I didn't tell him what to do. And with all respect, it was going to sink the campaign..."
Alicia: "-- Not the issue. You crossed it, Jordan. No more talking to Zach. Ever."
This last with a hairless-cat amount of true menace; she towers over him.
Eli, simpering: "Alicia, I'm so sorry. I tried to tell him about how we don't cross it, but I guess he just felt like crossing it, and I..."
Alicia: "I can smell your bullshit from a mile away, Eli. Whatever you're using me to do, whatever the game is here, cut it out."
Eli: (Contrite.)
Alicia: "Okay. See ya."
And then the opposite of contrite, the second her back is turned. I admit, that hurt my heart a little bit. I was like, "Please, please have a human moment for a second," even though I knew he was bullshitting about not bullshitting. But the sheer calories-burned of his acting job -- boyish embarrassment, you-got-me transparency -- just makes it worse. Damn it, Eli. Admittedly, it was glee at having boned Jordan more than anything having to do with Alicia, but there's a certain interpersonal safe word thing that just happened there, with which I personally do even more poorly than Alicia herself.
That moment where she told him to stop using her, and he lied -- not that he wasn't, mind you, but that he would stop; a lie packaged inside a truth, a fake palindrome that looks just symmetrical enough to fool you -- felt like Mike Kresteva that time with the Blue Ribbon Panel: Transforming reality around her. If you don't have the safe word, if you can't say, "I promise I'm not lying" and not be lying... I get that this happens all the time, but it just never stops freaking me out. Like there's no bottom to anything.
Everybody starts out a liar, and they get punished out of it. And then you get old enough to realize you can do pretty much whatever you want, and you probably turn back into a liar for a while. But the chapter is, you fight demons and monsters and acres of selfishness before you can even approach the beginnings of honesty, okay, but everybody who isn't there yet looks at you like you're the moron, the innocent, because they like the powerful feeling they got from becoming the liar that we all become: That seems like growth, and of course it is, but it's still based on other people. It's still based on what you can get away with. It's sophistication, compared to children, but compared to real adults it's worse than the first thing.
Because past becoming a liar is becoming not a liar, again, from the other side. Not because you're an idiot, but because you've earned at least that amount of self-respect. And anybody who stays stuck in the rebellion drama of realizing there's nobody watching, anybody who's troll enough to play these of games, thinks they're at the boss level when really they're just halfway through: Of course it's okay to lie to her face, she's the idiot who believed him. You don't know what you don't know, and those kind of internal fights don't have a lot of external rewards. But at the end of the day, these are the people you are in the mud with. Which I guess is the whole point of the show.
INQUEST
Hobson: "I am not having this! Mistresses! Murders!"
Alicia: "Mr. Coroner, check out this precedent I found to scare you."
Claypool: "Actually yeah, this is totally scary. Bring in the jury..."
Alicia: "Can I have a minute to tell Janie her husband was probably murdered? And PS that he was probably cheating on her too?"
Will: "Only seems fair. Good luck with that."
Alicia: "Janie, sorry everything sucks but do you know this random blonde lady?"
Janie: "No, sorry I can't identify the bitch he was screwing for you. Oh man! I lost my husband, our marriage... It's like, what's left? Not money, that's for shit sure..."
Alicia: "Here's kind of a hug, but not an entire hug, because I just remembered that Jessalyn Gilsig has never played a single person that is not completely awful."
LOCKHART
Cary: "You've once again called me into a scene to beat me bloody?"
Diane: "Your father here was just shitting on the carpet some more and I wanted you to see it."
Agos: "Suddenly we don't like the fact that L/G pursues class-actions against Big Pharma, and have decided to go with another firm."
Cary: "Really? Because there's no conflict here, and also I have debased myself throughout the episode to make you corrupt assholes happy."
Agos: "That's like exactly what I told them! But the optics are just..."
Diane: "Is there anything we can do?"
Agos: "No. Everybody's day totally ruined? Cool, I'll just take my five mil and go."
Cary: "Something is up, which I don't know what it is and won't bother whining to you about, but can I just say that was a very efficient way to torpedo my career and mental state -- again -- for no reason other than that he's a cocksucker?"
Diane: "That's so weird, I was just thinking the same thing. Especially the part about your career."
INQUEST
Hobson brings in Lake County ASA Shirley Mann, smirking all the while.
Claypool: "So we're looking at accidental death, suicide, and murder. Great!"
Mann: "I want to ask Janie Ludwig three questions."
Will: "Oh, for God's sake. What now?"
Alicia: "Short, declarative answers. This is going to get weird, I can feel it."
Mann: "Sorry for your loss or whatever. Question one, you said you stayed home that night?"
Janie: "Yeah, I wasn't well."
Mann: "Question two, under oath by the way, you were there until they called you about him dying, at 12
Janie: "That's what I said, yes."
Mann: "Question three, are you sure?"
Hobson smirks, Janie flips, Alicia's grossed out, the jury and Coroner Claypool are eating it up. One thing I very much like about this episode is that it consistently shows Will being faster -- not smarter, necessarily, just quicker on the uptake -- than everybody else, which is nice to see from the storied King of All Litigation. He adapted to the inquest rules, he adapted to the shifting stories, he was conversationally awesome in the late-night precedent hunt, and here too he's a second faster than everybody else.
It props up his personal narrative of being the smartest guy in the room, it helps sell the fact that his absence helped lead to the firm's bankruptcy, and best of all it walks him back from the last few times (like the Olympics, like JAG) where he wasn't these things. I'd gone to thinking of him -- benignly, not even consciously -- as furniture. I forgot that he had this reputation for a reason. This is turning out to be a very character-underscoring episode, with these broad gestures like this. I like it.
Will: "Fifth!"
Janie: "On counsel's advice, I am invoking my Fifth Amendment right not to answer."
Mann: "...Because I have this affidavit where your neighbor says you were out of the house between ten and almost midnight, so..."
Janie: "On counsel's advice, I am invoking my Fifth Amendment right not to answer."
Alicia: "Well, shit."
OH DAMN
Janie: "Yeah, okay. I suspected the affair."
Will: "And you lied to the cops about that night? The night of your husband's death? Where you stood to get two million bucks?"
Janie: "Yeah, well. He said he was going to dinner with Bigelow, I hate Bigelow and he's covered for him before so I didn't want to double check..."
L/G: "-- Before. Great."
Janie: "I mean, how embarrassing. Yeah. But all I did was go to the restaurant. He wasn't there, so I drove around angry for a while and went home. That's when I got the call, and then I just remembered the good times and felt very much like a widow. Now, about my money."
Alicia: "First of all, I'm already pissed at you, and now Jeffrey Agos is here, so I don't have time to sugarcoat this
AGOS AGONISTES
Agos: "Diane! Listen, I just wanted to go over Cary's head real quick and dangle some money in front of you..."
Diane: "You've got my attention."
Agos: "The thing is, I think it's a soft No, based on the general counsel feeling weird about some snot-nosed fourth-year throwing his weight around like he's some big shot that could take his old man..."
Diane: "We can be blind, when it comes to our children. Or in my case, our employees. But I think I get it now. Keep talkin'."
What's funny about this storyline being in this episode is that it's exactly the same thing, but on the industrial level. When a company does something shitty, you will have people saying, "Well, that was legal. A corporation cannot be moral or immoral. It worked within the lines. Loophole is just another word for retard tax." Which is a story you can tell yourself, fine, as long as you ignore that when the same company has access to the laws themselves, then your system is broken.
It's no longer about "well, it was legal to do that," when it's the corporation itself defining what's legal in the first place. The only person who can chat at Monopoly is the banker, and he's gonna tell you it's okay because he got away with it. That stops being a defense, and starts being disingenuous at best and, at worst, the kind of shit we're talking about: Needing an internal story loud enough to drown out the sound of your internal voice, that nobody else will ever care about because they are people who've transcended that level of selfish childishness and know what it looks like.
Cary: "Hey, Diane! Hey, Dad! Diane, I'd like you to meet Dale Dazzo, the CEO of Emmonds Pharmaceuticals..."
Dazzo: "Uh, this is the most charming human being I have ever met in my life. I don't even remember the lunch where he ambushed me. I looked up into those baby blues, and suddenly I was standing here. Begging you to come back and work with us."
Diane: "I have never been this honestly pleased in my entire life."
Agos: "Well, isn't that nice. Isn't that just super nice for everybody."
Cary: "Dale, Dad. Welcome to Lockhart/Gardner. Again!"
Everybody laughs, but Diane's been walking this one so carefully that her glorious laugh, which would usually top the chorus, stays down near the middle. Well, that and the fact that it's like she can see Cary Agos all over again. Like they just met. And he knows it.
Cary: "Dad, let me walk you right the fuck on out."
Agos: "It's going to be 'great' working together!"
Cary: "Is it? Because my good friend Dale told me he'd prefer to keep it with the general counsel. No middlemen, just me and their lawyers, working together without running gross scams on everybody."
Agos: "You little shit. You sure can hold a grudge."
Cary: "You giant shit, it was never about that. Giving you a chance every time you beg for one, and then falling on my ass, is the opposite of holding a grudge. You confuse persecution with not getting what you want. How's that football taste?"
BIGELOW - INT
Kalinda: "So you guys were pretty good friends, huh?"
Bigelow: "The best! Me and my blonde wife Bethany were heartbroken by this news."
Robyn Burdine: "Did he bring anybody else to dinner? Like a murdering whore, perhaps?"
Bigelow: "No, it was just us. Listen, we had an intervention a year ago and told him to stop having affairs..."
Kalinda: "Tell me more!"
Bigelow: "I don't need to, because my blonde wife that drives a black SUV with birds on the license plate just walked in."
Bethany: "Oh gosh, he was murdered? That's so weird!"
BIGELOW - EXT
Robyn Burdine: "So what are we going to do?"
Kalinda: "I'm going to kick the bumper and set off the alarm, and then we're going to wait for her to come out..."
Robyn Burdine: "She's even gonna know why! It's like a surprise party! This is so awesome! I'm gonna cross my arms! Let's just stand here! We're just standing here!"
Bethany: "What do you bitches want?"
Kalinda: "You were having an affair with a man who was killed, yes?"
Bethany: "Yeah, okay. Yeah, I met him at that motel during his fake dinner with my husband. Yeah, we got into a screaming fight. But I was dumping him. And I came straight home."
Kalinda: "Can your husband confirm that?"
Bethany: "Just the last part. Please don't talk to him, it'll eff everything up."
Robyn Burdine: "Black SUV! Are you saying there's another black SUV in this story?"
Bethany: "Yeah, and it was driving crazy."
Robyn Burdine: "Which you, of course, will have reported."
Bethany: "No way. Hey, I was just leaving my affair with my good friend's husband and I saw something so I'm saying something."
INQUEST
Hobson: "Ludicrous!"
L/G: "Not ludicrous. This guy Landon Boyce got pulled over with a .10 BAC..."
Hobson: "Conspiracy! Lunacy!"
Alicia: "Not especially. The cops didn't connect it because he made it into Cook County before getting pulled over."
Will produces for Hobson -- without looking, like a smartass pimp -- information from the DUI guy's EDR, which Alicia helpfully explains is like a blackbox recorder that some cars, apparently, have. At 11:42 -- the exact moment, of course -- that EDR shows him swerving, braking hard, and stopping. Hit and run.
Hobson: "This is some magical fifth-act bullshit..."
Alicia: "On this show we call it Kalinda, and it's marvelous. If you wanted to watch a legal procedural you'd be watching one."
Claypool: "So wait, there's actual evidence of one of you guys's insane theories? Awesome. Let's take it to the jury!"
SETTLED
Janie: "Wait, so they just settled? For the full two million?"
Will: "Their lawyer -- who's such a douche his name is 'Wilk Hobson,' I just realized that's his name, what a couple of balls that asshole's got being called that -- couldn't risk the jury. If they ruled it an accident, it would have been four million."
Alicia: "We're just sorry all your mess got talked about."
Janie: "There's no need to be sorry about the truth."
Alicia: "That's very wise."
Janie: "My cheating husband is dead and I'm a millionaire. Who needs wisdom."
Will: "We are a good team, when we're not acting totally neurotic."
Alicia: "Speaking of wronged wives not giving a fuck about anything."
Will: "See you at the Chicago Shamrock Dinner?"
Alicia: "You know it's white tie, right?"
And after the longest, most hilarious pause: "Mwhat?"
HQ
Eli: "Oh, Jordy. Packin' up? How come?"
Jordan: "Can we not?"
Eli: "No, I need you to tell me how well my awful plan worked out."
Jordan: "Jacob'll probably start crying if we linger on me leaving for too long, so I'll just say this. He was right. Assholes think they've figured it out, but they've only figured out half of it. The easy half, at that. The high school half."
Eli: "Where's your proof? How many people agree with you? How many people would agree with my cynicism about this? You got played, admit it."
Jordan: "A man doesn't need a consensus to do what's right. That's the difference. You think it's about other people, it's not. It's about you. Even when nobody's watching you, there's still you. You don't even own the square foot of land you're standing on."
Eli: "Hold on, let me write this down..."
Jordan: "Have fun with your sarcasm, and your loneliness. Karahalios out."
Plenty of people would disagree, he thinks. Plenty of people know who lost out, tonight. How clever he is. The only thing more righteous than self-righteousness is recognizing that everyone lives in the real world. The only thing better than being above it is being smart enough to realize you're already in it. Everybody knows that, right?
HOME
Alicia looks every bit as amazing as she did in the preview last week. Simple, red, hair up and Grecian. Totally glamorous.
Grace: "You look like a princess."
Alicia: "Don't gawp, dear. Although considering this was 60 percent off, that's awesome of you to say."
Zach: "No lie, you look awesome. Listen, Stockard Channing is coming episode."
Grace: "Let's hide the booze. And say prayers."
Zach: "It's... St. Patrick's Day in Chicago, kid. There is no hiding the booze."
Alicia: "Well, fuck. I don't have time to deal with that this week."
Alicia: "Hey Zach, before I go to this party episode, can I ask you something?"
Zach: "Whatever you're worried about, don't be. I'm totally fine."
Alicia: "Honey, the campaign can warp a lot of our perceptions. You have to know that it doesn't... You date whoever you want. You can do whatever you want. They aren't watching you. I am."
Zach: "I was going to break up with her anyways..."
Alicia: "Honey, you're such a sweet boy, and we love that, but I'm making a point for both our sakes about self-determination and..."
Zach: "-- Literally, this is the truth. I was going to break up with her. College is right around the corner, and she wanted to get more serious."
Alicia: "Then who am I mad at?"
Zach: "Go to your party. I love you."
She turns at the door and the song from the beginning plays -- it's a palindrome -- and doesn't even bother trying to dig any deeper. If he did the right thing, who cares about the reasons? As long as he's not doing it for them. It has to be your choice, to bubble up from the heart of you and present itself and say, "This is the moral thing. This is the good." You can't trust anybody else to make your decisions for you. You can't always lean on the consensus.
Unless that consensus is you're not allowed to sleep with Will Gardner. In which case, lean. It'll hold a little longer.
WEEK
Well, goodbye Jordan Karahalios. I love you very much; never moreso than tonight. But on the horizon: Tuxedoes and astonishingly pretty dresses! Thoughts of adultery! John "Heartbreaker" Noble! Veronica doing her bullshit! First Alicia, then Eli threatens Mike Kresteva with literal death, and then Peter beats him up in a bathroom! Maybe we'll just watch that part on repeat over and over, actually. Or maybe they'll give Kalinda her bat back and she can give 'em one from everybody.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Bates Motel, and Pretty Little Liars for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook, and an upcoming regular column for Tor.com.