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Old Colin Sweeney's up to his old tricks: This time, he fired a gun during an orgy -- a misdemeanor that could spiral into life-imprisonment if the SA's office is able to extend the trial past a conservative IL Supreme Court decision that Cary figures out is about to come out. Basically, it's a three-strikes situation, so Will and Alicia have to rush through the entire trial in like 48 hours.
Mostly the charm here relates to Colin Sweeney being a pervert, Morena Baccarin's return as his archly gross fiancée, and a lot of very spicy language. If you love Colin Sweeney, and I loooove Colin Sweeney, this was a fun little grody outing. If you are too skeeved out by Colin Sweeney to enjoy Colin Sweeney, I do not blame you at all. In fact, this episode is the closest he's ever come to losing me, and that's really just because I don't like Laura Hellinger getting objectified.
Cary and Robyn Burdine are kind of the Kalinda this week, in a neat twist: As recompense for seeing Alicia move into her monumental new office, Diane asks him to interview new associates. One of them, a sexy/smarmy law clerk, ends up being the twist who tells them about the Supreme Court secrets -- first by way of interview braggadocio and then when Robyn Burdine, who by the way is a crazy person, flirts the rest out of him.
The guy's incredible, for being such a small part, and the whole story gives Robyn Burdine and Cary a lot of room to play. I think probably that was the best part of the episode, just watching Cary deal with Robyn and Robyn deal with the guy. Very funny, almost broad comedy, but with a wit and a sweetness to it that the show's really bringing back lately.
Also pretty great -- and a rare treat -- was the emphasis on Diane's personal storyline. She hires Kalinda to vet her for this judgeship, resulting in three revelations: Thanks to her housekeeper's sad extracurricular activities, Diane could be exposed as a fan-fiction writer of The Vampire Diaries Delena porn. Kalinda actually reads some of the housekeeper's steamy fictions, and it's amazing.
The second thing is really sad: Turns out Diane's dad turned in a buddy to HUAC and the guy eventually killed himself -- which rocks Diane, who thought her dad was a perfect liberal, harder than anything I can remember on this show. It's awful, but still not as embarrassing as the first thing.
The third revelation -- that Kurt McVeigh got a little too rowdy on-camera at a gun rally -- comes down only after Diane has accidentally proposed marriage, and he's taken it seriously, and now suddenly they're talking about getting married, and of course he's going to get in the way of her career path or whatever... Except that's not the show you're watching, and that's not a choice it would ever force on its women, so instead she says fuck all of that, and reiterates that she would like to marry Kurt as soon as possible. So hot!
After last week's Alicia-centric outing, it was a little funny to see her in the back of the company for most of this episode, but her few scenes -- mostly dealing with having dumped Will slash formally handed him over to Laura Hellinger -- pack a bit of a punch. It's so weird to care about this again after so long, but then: Same could be said of the show.
In Two Weeks, because why not schedule an episode for Easter and then take a break: The lead-up to the finale begins, Peter and Will discuss their feelings for and about Alicia and each other, Anonymous brings a rape trial into the public eye -- which I cannot effing wait to see and talk about -- and "Kalinda becomes suspicious of Robyn," whatever that means. Oh, and the Jason Biggs tech guy that I can't even remember what his deal was because I don't care about tech guys who are not ChumHum because I hate tech guys who are not ChumHum.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Alicia made partner while her husband became the Dem Gube, Diane Lockhart may become a State Supreme Court Justice, Cary and Kalinda possibly slept together, and Will is finally hooking up with Laura Hellinger. From the past we have unrepentant murderer Colin Sweeney, the creepiest creeper to ever crap crepes -- plus his even creepier semen-smuggling girlfriend Isobel -- and Kurt McVeigh, Diane's loveable Teabagger boyfriend.
FLORRICK
Alicia: "Wait, this is my office? I thought it was like Biosphere III, or possibly a museum."
Diane: "Keep talking so I can find you in this giant office."
Alicia: "How will I fill up this entire huge space with crap?"
Diane: "Oh, you get ten grand for that and also priceless art whenever you feel like it."
Alicia: "This is all very sudden. Not my uncalled-for promotion, of course, but the infinite coffers you're suddenly dumping at my feet."
Diane: "It has to do with Nathan Lane's austerity measures. Which are now a thing of the past."
Alicia: "Well, okay. As long as everybody gets to benefit."
Diane: "Almost everybody. Except for the ticking timebomb of whiteboy rage we just installed in a spare bathroom haunted by a ghost."
AGOS
Cary: "Wait, this is my office? I thought it was a torture chamber."
Diane: "Don't worry about that ghost, she only moans and weeps every hour on the hour."
Cary: "Do I at least get a lighter or a cell phone in this coffin?"
Diane: "No but you do get to work for HR for free. Here are a hundred résumés for associates that we will probably promote before you unless you engineer my murder. Pick the one with the most stuff going on that makes them better than you."
Cary: "I can't help feeling like you are actually trying to alienate my affection."
Diane: "Before she became a partner, Alicia made herself valuable by interviewing and hiring a new associate. Also by fucking the governor of Illinois, but a little bit the first thing. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go become rich and famous and amazing."
LOCKHART
Diane: "Kalinda, pass Cary's résumé checks off on Robyn so they can be the best part of the episode. I need you for the other best part of the episode, my slow spiritual dismantling."
Kalinda: "Does this have to do with Peter Florrick?"
Diane: "Everything always has to do with Peter Florrick. Now, I want you to vet me and tell me anything that an Eli Gold kind of person would consider smearing me on."
Kalinda: "This is going to make our relationship weird, okay?"
Diane: "Don't sleep with my husband I don't have, and we'll be fine."
Kalinda: "Okay. But remember me congratulating you about this, in about five minutes when you're gonna want to punch my pretty face over and over."
Kalinda: "Robyn Burdine, can you be super adorable for the rest of the episode?"
Robyn Burdine: "Robyn Burdine!"
PEOPLE V APENECK
Colin Sweeney: "You know how I'm always innocent of everything? Except for everything?"
Alicia: "I have not missed you. PS, I am scary now."
Colin Sweeney: "I don't believe it! Your niceness turns me on, because I am the worst."
Alicia: "Shut up and exposit with me. You threw a birthday orgy that got out of hand and ended up costing the Hirschorn Club $80,000 in damage."
Colin Sweeney: "I bet you think I'm not innocent! That's so sexy!"
Alicia: "Actually, I think you're innocent and the prosecution is overreacting for some reasons we will find out later."
Colin Sweeney: "Wait... Yep, I still have a boner!"
Alicia: "Barf."
Isobel: "Hello, Alicia. It's me, his totally gross fiancée."
Alicia: "Double barf."
Colin Sweeney: "Funny how last time, you were accusing me of rape or something and maybe squirreling away my semen in your cheeks*, because we are absolutely the most godawful people that have ever existed."
Isobel: "And now we're getting married! Further to your point!"
*(Honestly, I'm too skeeved out to double check, but it was something like that. I just thought, well, what's the worst thing that could have happened? And it sounded right.)
Colin Sweeney: "My, how the wheel turns. Mutability is our tragedy, but it's also our hope."
Isobel: "Bloviation and grandstanding make me so horny!"
Alicia: "You guys are so awful. ASA Laura Hellinger, these are some bastards."
Colin Sweeney: "First-name basis, I love it. Do you guys ever take showers together?"
Alicia: "No, but she is a human being, so that's a point in her favor."
Gross: "We're so sexual about all kinds of things!"
TRIAL PROPER
Six months ago, Sweeney was accused of disorderly conduct, a Class C misdemeanor, but Hellinger wants it proven that since he fired some old gun at the party -- which was at a place serving alcohol -- it's a Class 4 felony. Presiding is Judge Politi, who is simply wonderful, and was so great in "Je Ne Sais What?" back in January: The sassy one that was like, "Then don't get arrested in the suburbs on a Sunday, dumbass."
Politi: "You two can stop yelling any time and just plead this out and get the hell out of my courtroom. Cool?"
Alicia: "That's totally what we want to do, but Laura's bein' real weird about it for some reasons."
Laura: "Your client is a psychopath who's lucky he didn't get convicted for killing his wife."
Alicia: "No question. But that's nunya."
Laura: "I want the maximum -- six years! For maybe firing a gun that hit nobody!"
Alicia: "You're being real weird."
Laura: "I can't tell you why! But I kind of want to!"
L/G
L/G: "After six months they're still not bargaining? This must be about the election. The SA doesn't want to bargain because Mr. Sweeney is so, so awful."
Colin Sweeney: "I'm awful?! j/k."
L/G: "Then we should wait and just see what happens in one month when the gubers have gubered. Cary and Alicia, you guys can leave and go back to your incredibly disparate offices."
FLORRICK
Isobel: "Rah!"
Alicia: "I didn't see you here in my gigantic office that has a wildlife exhibit in it and three different time zones and a basketball court. Did you sit in my chairs? Those chairs are new!"
Isobel: "I didn't sit, I merely hover around on a cloud of nastiness. I just wanted to reiterate how much Colin Sweeney loves you."
Alicia: "Why the fuck does everybody keep telling me that? Like it's a good thing and not the worst possible feeling to have."
Isobel: "I would call it the most successful relationship in his life, to be frank."
Alicia: "I want to take a hot shower on the inside of my body where my soul is."
Isobel: "Do you want to know what he says about you in lurid detail?"
Alicia: "No. Just your creepster face is lurid enough. Stop touching my elbow with spider fingers."
Isobel: "Beyond asking me if I would like to fist you -- which, by the way, we can discuss -- he mostly just says you're great."
Alicia: "Well. Fabulous."
Isobel: "I am not sure about marrying him."
Alicia: "Somebody -- even you -- would marry him? That's romantic, if we were in a hell dimension where everything is the opposite of regular."
Isobel: "Do you think he is probably going to murder me like usual?"
Alicia: "You don't have an independent fortune, correct? So you're fine."
Isobel: "But what if I met him through a Craigslist ad that said I wanted to be tortured to death and have parts of my body fried up and eaten?"
(Okay she did not really say this, but did she have to? Is that not clearly her kind of thing?)
Alicia: "I believe marriage is a sanctified, traditional relationship between a man and a woman. So that means you should go for it."
INTERVIEW #1: GREGORY STECK
Is like Cary looking in a mirror, if that mirror was at a funhouse that showed you your American Psycho version. Have I ever told you how much I love douchebags? My biggest crushes of life: Megatron, Eddie Haskell, Reggie Mantle, Mark Cuban, Kenny Powers, Gaius Baltar. The thing about the Smartest Guy In The Room is, he isn't, but if he thinks he is, you can just get on it with it because he's not paying attention anyway, and I love that. "Oh, is it that time of the day where I tell you you're so super great? Done."
Robyn Burdine: "He's here and he's awful."
Cary: "Stay. You're not an assistant, you're... Whatever that awful hairdo you're rocking today says you are. A mean substitute teacher or a..."
Robyn Burdine: "But I'm so goofy!"
Cary: "Be stern and goofy at the same time."
Robyn Burdine: (Somehow does.)
Cary: "Clear those cobwebby chains off that bed of rusty nails I'm calling an ottoman and have a seat, tell us all about your awful self."
Greg: (Does. Forever.)
Out Of The Gate: "I built my own canoe."
Cary: "Is that ... a metaphor?"
Greg: "Even worse, it is not. But it's just a short hop to my humble-brag about how I wrote Justice Wallace's majority opinion on Miles, and how that makes me better than everybody at everything."
Cary: "Like if you clerk for a Supreme Court justice long enough, you want to see the law in action. Would be an acceptable person way to say that."
Greg: "I wrote his last four opinions. I am always writing opinions. I am entitled to run the entire universe. Plus, I have dimples."
Cary: "Not like mine, you don't. Get out of here, you adorable monster."
Cary: "So how can I put this in a way where you don't accidentally insult me instead..."
Robyn Burdine: "He's a braggart. Which is whatever, maybe he can back it up, but most people who do, don't brag."
Cary: "I am going to have to think about that statement. I was raised by a Greg Steck."
L/G AFTER HRS
Cary and Robyn have stayed up late in different places in the firm because two people can't fit comfortably in his office, looking at résumés. He gets a memory of before and runs to Robyn, who apparently has mind powers.
Cary: "What did he say about Miles?"
Robyn Burdine: "[Verbatim what he said.]"
Cary: "Oh, because I just Kalindered why they won't plea bargain on Sweeney. I have to run over to Alicia's house right now instead of 'phoning' her."
HOME
Grace: "Mother dear, are you in the shower? An angel in the form of the most beautiful man who has ever lived is at the door, and I'm sore afraid it is the Rapture come upon us. You'll be fine, but I might need to leave. For Heaven."
Alicia: "It's just Cary, he just looks like that. Don't be fooled. Also, you should recognize him from like three episodes ago when we were planning a bloody coup in the living room and you totally spied on us. God, you're useless."
Grace: "Even still, I'm going to take off all my clothes and go wait on the roof. Nice knowin' ya, sinner."
Cary: "Two things. First of all, make that little girl stop staring at me, it's creepy. And speaking of creepy, the People v. Miles decision is coming down and this tool who writes a conservative Justice's opinions called it the majority."
Alicia: "So it's a three-strikes thing, and this would be Colin's third felony. Life imprisonment. Just like this, from a misdemeanor to life in prison. Mutability is indeed our tragedy, Cary."
Cary: "But also our hope, Mrs. Florrick. For you automatically asked for a speedy trial at the arraignment I'm sure..."
Alicia: "By rote. Has it been 160 days? [Rapid math.] It has been 159 days."
Cary: "So I guess we're going to trial absolutely unprepared."
Alicia: "On the one week Kalinda's not around to fix everything, even. This is a thrill."
Cary: "So thrilling I forgot to be butthurt for a second."
POLITI
Laura: "Oh now you want a speedy trial?"
Alicia: "No, always. We're just forcing it now. Because of some reasons."
Laura: "Well, I'm not prepared either."
Politi: "Well, I'm already sick of both your gorgeous faces, so too bad. Let's have a speedy, shoddy trial and get this shit over with."
L/G
Will: "We were working toward going to court in four months, not two and a half hours, so I need all of the lawyers to do more law. Diane, can you get Kurt McVeigh on this?"
Diane: "Last time I saw him he was diddling his protégée and I said Never again but I knew I was fooling myself because we have a love destiny."
Will: "Cary and Robyn, can you pump Greg Steck for more infos?"
Colin Sweeney: "...!"
Cary: "-- Don't say it. And yes."
Colin Sweeney: "But also I want a real partner on this, not Alicia."
Alicia: "I would say that hurts my feelings, except that would be going two steps over the line, so fine."
SIDEBAR #1
Will: "Except I am making out with Laura Hellinger."
Diane: "Hot. That girl is red hot. Good on you."
Will: "But won't that make it weird? Because of Laura, I mean. Not anybody else on this team like the second chair I am totally in love with."
Diane: "No, just get the Demon Barber to sign off. I don't care about feelings. Only money. And power. And acres of offices filled with gold furniture and a serf underclass that lives there."
SIDEBAR #2
Colin Sweeney: "What have you to confess, my son?"
Will: "Ugh. I just wanted you to know I'm dating Laura Hellinger."
Colin Sweeney: "Is this a... ssssssexual relationship?"
Will: "Yeah? No? Yes? Not yet? Gross. You're so gross."
Colin Sweeney: "You can be my lawyer on this case but only if you tell me gross fantasies about your dates with Miss Hellinger while a six-foot prostitute steps on my nuts."
Will: "Mr. Sweeney, it is your prerogative to insist on another lawyer..."
Colin Sweeney: "My nuts, I said."
SIDEBAR #3
Cary: "Let's call Greg Steck back. Maybe even for a real job."
Robyn Burdine: "Maybe he will brag more about things."
Cary: "...Yeah, that's the idea all right."
LOCKHART
Diane: "You found something?"
Kalinda: "Tell me when to stop."
"Elena knew it was wrong to want Damon. She was about to marry Stefan, after all. Yet when Damon drew her close, Elena found herself unable to resist his vampire charms. When Damon's fangs dug into her neck, her whole body pulsed with desire. She needed him. She needed him bad."
Diane: "What the fuck is this now?"
Kalinda: "Your Vampire Diaries Delena fan fiction, obviously."
Diane: "I don't know what any of those words mean."
Kalinda: "And yet, you are a writer of this."
Diane: "First of all, if I had any taste I would be watching that show. But I don't, and if I did, I wouldn't feel compelled to write something like... Does it go on like that?"
Kalinda: "They fuck in a pickup truck."
Diane: "Bully for them, but no."
The acting here is so delicious, like, you spend part of the time thinking that we are learning something amazing about Diane, and the other half it's obvious Kalinda is having the best day of her entire life torturing Diane about this, but eventually she calms down.
Kalinda: "Well, it's your email address and your home IP address, so either you are one of those Ambien people that writes porn in their sleep, or..."
Diane: "My housekeeper. Sometimes she gets a British accent and talks about wanting to go to Prom for hours on end, but I just thought she was, you know. One of those."
Kalinda: "Well, turns out she is. And you need to fire her."
Diane: "Just for a harmless writing hobby?"
Kalinda: "First of all, fan-fic isn't writing, it's typing. And second of all, think about how ridiculous Eli Gold would make a person look with this to play with. And you're a woman? Hoo boy, this alone would hurt you more than the Santa Claus blowjob thing."
Diane: "In this day and age, a lonely woman can't just write copycat stories and masturbate over imaginary television characters without everybody thinking that's a super sad waste of time. Ah, feminism. Susan B. Anthony died for your sins!"
Kalinda: "It's true. You should see the shit fit the straight girls pulled after Julianna Margulies pointed out the obvious fact that we couldn't be friends for a while because I fucked her husband."
Diane: "The show has suffered immensely from that, even if it makes organic sense..."
Kalinda: "Sure, but that's not really what they were bitching about."
Diane: "I guess I will fire her, then. I sure hope this isn't the most trivial and least terrible thing you find out about me!"
THAT WAS HARSH
You're right, I'm sorry. Look, maybe my thoughts on this are not your thoughts on this. But I would think by now you'd know how little patience I have for shipping and fan-fiction and that side of the fandom. You know how we talk about Nice Guys and the Friendzone and that the Nice Guy is a piece of crap for putting all his stuff on you, the Dream Girl, and not really caring who you are, or where he stops and you start? That bothers me not solely because of feminism -- well, insofar as it's a product of male privilege to treat women as objects -- but because I think that's a gross way to do anything.
Shipping and fan fiction generally -- not always, not you, although the handful of readers I lose at this point in the conversation were probably on their way out the door anyway -- tend to spring from the same place: You're licking the icing off the cupcake and throwing the rest in the dirt. You're being a Nice Guy when you do things like fast-forward past the "boring" parts of a show that don't feed your ship, or when you conflate the quality of the writing, the show, the acting or the story with whether or not it feeds your ship.
Q: "I'm allowed to enjoy my entertainment any way I see fit!"
A: "Absolutely. And I'm allowed to think it's gross and dumb. That's how that works."
Q: "Do writers hate shippers for doing that?"
A: "It takes an ass to fill every seat, and you've all got the same color of money. But rabid shippers have a thing where they issue death threats and hack perfectly nice, innocent people's Twitter and Facebook accounts and wish AIDS on writers, and I don't think they enjoy that part of it very much."
Crazy people do crazy things, and certainly the overinvested are not all the same kind of crazy. But they are all the same kind of overinvested, and they all lick the icing off. And then over here you've got fan fic, which is a whole other ball of wax. Now, you can't confuse the medium with the message, and plenty of fan fiction is great writing -- I have a weakness for those music videos where you guys montage people together in whatever way, those can be really beautiful -- but at the end of the day, I don't get why you want to play with somebody else's toys. And a lot of it is just rote turning-out-product, like Nanowrimo without the sense of accomplishment. Which is fine. We're not all trying to be Hemingway like certain pretentious recappers we could mention.
But with shipping and fan-fic comes a third thing that really does bother me personally, which is the gay stuff. The stickiest kind of privilege -- and I have stepped into this hornet's nest a million times, always with the same amount of blowback of the prissiest most entitled Cary Agos rage you can imagine -- is when your status as an ally starts fading into honorary, because then it's just a short hop to doing real damage: Because everything is up for grabs, suddenly the Winchester Brothers are fucking each other or some Doctor Who character is taking it up the ass from a dog-shaped alien, and it's all very tittering and giggly, but the end result is that you've appropriated my life, my sexuality, in order to impress each other.
Q: "But I'm bisexual! In my imagination, I mean."
A: "That's a really cool thing to say to impress boys, but it doesn't actually change the amount of privilege going into it, or give your opinion any more weight."
Q: "So I can't write about gay characters? Or straight characters having gay sex with each other?"
A: "You can do whatever the fuck you want. Just don't confuse it with being a good liberal, because you're still pointing and giggling and using my sexuality because you can't express your own, or to impress each other about how naughty you are."
Q: "But what about an amazing gay fan fiction that is truly wonderful?"
A: "Have at it. I'm not going to read it or find it interesting either way, because it's a cave painting to begin with that has nothing to do with the actual thing."
Q: "So women who appropriate gay sexuality are all assholes?"
A: "On the contrary. Most of them are wonderful women that I love in real life, or would if I met them, who are doing one single thing that is tacky."
Q: "But what about the gay fan fic writers?"
A: "Are you one? Can you produce one for me?"
Q: "No, but I'm very offended!"
A: "Fine. That makes about as much sense as one would assume."
Rule #1 For a Happy Life: Never explain privilege to a person while they're actively demonstrating it. Anybody hears that word, they're going to get their back up and think you're accusing them of being evil. But it's not about that, so trade out any other minority in this equation: "You're not allowed into this conversation about you!"
Which by the way is why the "male feminist" is an offshoot of the Nice Guy and should be avoided. Anybody who wants the label is trying to sell you something. No cookies for acting like a human being -- especially when that cookie comes with the right to tell women what is and is not good feminism, or a gay person what is and is not straight privilege. That canoe don't float no matter how loud you yell.
POLITI
They watch a video of the orgy right when the gun goes off, and guess what? It's super gross and sad and trashy. Laura can't think of anything to ask the guy that taped it, so they just chat about how he's wearing his gym clothes for a while until the judge yells at them to do law things.
Mr. Catalini, Orgy-Goer & -Documentarian: "It's supposed to be Capone's gun, and Sweeney wanted to play William Tell..."
Colin Sweeney: "That's right! William Burroughs, shot an apple off his wife's head!"
Alicia: "Shut up, Colin Sweeney. Now, Mr. Catalani, haven't you since been downsized?"
Mr. Catalini: "I would hold a grudge if he didn't keep inviting me to his awful sex parties, maybe, but that hasn't happened, so..."
MCVEIGH
Kurt's testifying in another case, and when Diane slips in and sits at the back of the room, he loses his composure so completely and so adorably that you can see more clearly than ever how she's able to overlook basically everything else about him. There is something about this character that really captures Gary Cole's cuteness, which is a thing I didn't know about before.
Diane: "That was awesome!"
Kurt: "No, I was distracted and dumb-sounding."
Diane: "You were wonderfully distracted."
(Kind of painfully awkward conversation about Mitt Romney and John Kerry and ugh.)
Diane: "I need your help. With a case. Of an innocent man. Don't ask who."
Kurt: "Lol, like what is it, Lemond Bishop? The actual Devil? Oooh, Colin Sweeney?"
Diane: "...Got it in three."
RECESS
Laura: "Alicia, you really crawled up my ass in there."
Alicia: "Yeah, it's because of reasons..."
Laura: "Whatever, we're buds. Listen, are you having an extramarital affair with Will Gardner? Because I totally respect that. Sistas Before Mistas."
Alicia: "Ffffffffffuuuuuu... No. We did, but now we don't. You should. I think it's great. I can't stop thinking about it and having horrible creepy sex dreams where I'm fucking him and then I turn into you. I mean, I'm great with this."
Laura: "Way to say just enough that we don't have to talk about it anymore."
Alicia: "It's like my main thing of life, ASA Hellinger."
ISOBEL SWIFT TESTIMONY
Isobel: "He was with me at the time the gun fired, in the Rose Salon."
Laura: "Right here on this map? And what were you doing there?"
Isobel: "Anal."
Laura: "Great."
Laura: "So you're the live-in girlfriend, right, so why shouldn't this court dismiss your testimony as biased?"
Isobel: "Because I'm not biased."
Laura: "Are you not affianced?"
Isobel: "Not sure. I was thinking he might murder me, so I'm still considering it."
Laura: "No, um. No further questions."
Colin Sweeney: "Your girlfriend is going to need some comfort, I think. Of a sssssexual nature."
Will: "God, I hate you."
STECK, TAKE 2
Greg: "I'm not at all surprised you called me back, for I am magnificent."
Cary: "We just felt we'd only scratched the surface of Greg Steck. After you left we just lay here in a heap, trying to get the stardust out of our eyes, and then once our biorhythms returned to normal we realized we wanted to hear about your current job duties."
Greg: "At the Supreme Court? Do you have like all day?"
Cary: "Baby, we got all night."
Greg: "Well, let me just launch into a whole explanation of the Miles opinion I wrote all by myself and... Hold up. Bro, I just got a job! Later."
Cary: "But we might give you a job."
Greg: "Nah, they got a juice bar. I'm Audi 5000!"
Cary: "I guess that's that, then. I will start calling other loose-lipped douches of my acquaintance..."
Robyn Burdine: "No, I have a better and much stranger idea."
Cary: "Is it being weird and like the Care Bear version of Kalinda all over him?"
Robyn Burdine: "Robyn Burdine!"
HIRSCHORN CLUB
Kurt is very focused and grim while he does his whole ballistics thing at the club, to the point where Diane can't get a read on him at all and frankly he seems pissed off, but maybe he's just being weird, so finally she asks if he's still with the Fox News chick from last time -- nope, off to sunny California -- and then asks him out on a date finally. And he's like, "Duh, of course." The only kind of hard-to-get that actually works is the kind that doesn't know it's doing it.
Back in the courtroom, Kurt gives his testimony which is pretty interesting to watch but not really to talk about, but basically it is a very old gun so it would work a different way than Laura's research said it would, and thus the gun was fired not from the Anal Sex Parlor but instead from the Butt-Chugging Lyceum.
LOCKHART VET #2
Diane: "Nothin's gonna get me down, no sir! Hit me, Kalinda!"
Kalinda: "Take it down a hundred notches. This is gonna suck. Do you know the name Jacob Greenberg?"
Diane: "Not if my country club can hear you! I mean, no."
Kalinda: "Worked with your dad..."
Diane: "Oh right, yeah. Nice guy. They taught together at law school until..."
Kalinda: "Until HUAC came for him. And he lost his job. And he killed himself."
Diane: "Oh, I just stopped wanting to hear this. My father was Jake's best friend, he stood by him, he was one of the only people who stood by him. At great personal expense."
Kalinda: "I know."
Diane: "So then what is this."
Kalinda: "You don't have to hear this. But it could be a thing. Private meetings the Committee had with several influential professors. Including Dr. Lockhart..."
Diane: "Where he, um. That's a rumor, right? Nobody kills that carelessly."
Kalinda produces the meeting minutes and Diane falls in on herself like a tomb. It's the worst. It's worse than the Lifeguard thing I always said was the worst -- or Nobel Prize-winning feminist/activist/rapist Joe Kent, which was the actual worst but I never mention it because I can't even think about it without crying -- because you don't need a degree in rocket science to know how she felt about her dad. This is a liberal feminist who carries a gun, who went into law just like her daddy. Who grew up training to beat the men at their own game, who passed fifty before marriage and a family even occurred to her. Not to play tropes, but... You don't really have to think too hard to see what she's made of. Or how it falls apart.
Alicia doesn't have heroes, so her heart doesn't break like this. But Diane, all she has is heroes. It's what makes her so strong, and her belief so infrangible and righteous. And they just keep taking them away.
SWIFT TESTIMONY #2
Alicia: "So you were having anal sex when the gun was fired. Was it raucous?"
Isobel: "My ass has seen some things."
Alicia: "And this was taking place in the Irrumatio Refectory?"
Isobel: "Actually, I changed my mind again. It was in the Wittol Lounge, as first mentioned."
(Objections overruled, because apparently Isobel Swift can take it up the rear all over the place if she feels like it. Til she's blue in the face.)
Alicia: "So now your creepy self is saying he fired a gun at your head while simul..."
Isobel: "-- I am a limber sort. Plus my neck is like a foot long, so."
FERN BAR
Robyn Burdine: "Listen, I spent six months in juvie for involuntary manslaughter. I shot my own brother with my dad's huntin' rifle."
Greg: "I have the weirdest boner. Is this is a scary weird lie, or is Robyn Burdine interesting in all kinds of ways?"
Robyn Burdine: "Look it up in the Ohio Department of Corrections. I'm prisoner J."
Greg: "Oh, I get it, so you're a felon. That's so funny because I am so interesting due to writing opinions like Miles and things of that nature. It is intoxicating to be so powerful and also so virile and also up my own ass so intoxicatingly."
Robyn Burdine: "It's so weird but somehow you are being adorable right now."
Greg: "Well, that's probably the actor making that work. But yeah, I just got some like minor revisions on it..."
Robyn Burdine: "Can I read it? I just love a good opinion."
Greg: "No way! But in forty hours everybody will know. That I am the winner!"
L/G
Cary: "Shit, forty hours?"
Robyn Burdine: "PIZZA! GIVE ME PIZZA! NOM NOM NOM. I am DRUNK as HELL."
Cary: "Fine, have some pizza. You are really something else, Robyn Burdine."
Robyn Burdine: "You know what's weird is, that guy is actually pretty cool..."
Cary: "-- Tell me you didn't drive here."
Robyn Burdine: "No, I jogged. But I'm not saying that in a drunk way. Underneath his intense insecurity he's actually cool. Like sensitive, not just in a canoe-building bullshit way, but thoughtful. He told me all about Jackson Pollack, who was in a car accident..."
Cary: "I know. It did not improve his art."
Robyn Burdine: "Dang, you're smart too."
Cary: "Girl, you are falling over. I'm gonna drive you home."
Robyn Burdine: "No! GIMME PIZZA! We want more, we want more! Like, you really like it, you want more!"
Cary: "Okay! Damn."
MCVEIGH/LOCKHART SMOOCHES
Kurt: "People are always more than one thing, Diane. You patterned your life after the things that you admired about your father, you don't need to answer for sins you didn't even know about."
Diane: "Why do we keep running away from each other?"
Kurt: "We're both kind of nuts about this kind of thing, for starters..."
Diane: "We should get married."
Kurt: "..."
Diane: "Whoa, what?"
Kurt: "I don't know!"
Diane: "You realize I'm going crazy, right? I hired Kalinda to make me crazy and she did and now I'm crazy?"
Kurt: "I did not say no."
Diane: "I feel dumb and embarrassed."
Kurt: "Meh."
She does this amazing move where she starts kissing him again, transferring the wine glass behind his head to her other hand so she can put it on the banquet. I've never seen how that looks to a third party. It looks awesome.
L/G
Colin Sweeney: "Seriously? Tomorrow?"
Alicia: "Yeah, that's what our insane new investigator says."
Colin Sweeney: "So I'm fucked? Or..."
Alicia: "Isobel really took us to the Buttplug Gallery yesterday. But if I knew why she's being so cagey..."
Colin Sweeney: "You think I'm like you and I know and understand the person I'm romantically involved with, but... Unfortunately, I'm not you."
Alicia: "You don't even know this bitch, and you can still marry her any day of the week. What a sacred union between one man pervert and one woman pervert a marriage can be."
LOCKHART
Diane: "You'd think a video of an orgy would be more interesting..."
Kurt: "I am about to Kalinder the shit out of this case, don't you worry."
Kalinda: "Speak of the devil..."
Diane: "So here's how it could go. You're gonna walk into my office and say, Oh, I was wrong, I have a computer file that says so."
Kalinda: "Actually, I have a third awful thing instead. Your dad still killed a guy."
Diane: "Yeah, I was just trying to be groovy. Cue it up."
Kalinda: "This one might suck the worst. Or at least, behind your dad and Joe Kent and the Lifeguards. It's a gun rally, so there's half the story right there..."
"There's a reason those first ten Amendments were passed, the founding fathers had firsthand experience with tyranny. And I find it curious that Mr. Obama thinks himself wiser than Thomas Jefferson, or James Madison, when it comes to my right to bear arms. Now, is it enough for me to want to secede from the Union? I don't know. And I hope I never have to find out! But I would not stand in the way of others who wanted to do so, that much I do know..."
Kalinda: "So that would be your insane boyfriend you just proposed to..."
Diane: "Would it be too ironic to ask you to shoot me?"
Kalinda: "It's not the Justice thing, even. It's the campaign. Secession, really?"
Diane: "I can't help it! I just adore the loonybird old lug."
Kalinda: "Put it on hold. At least until you're appointed."
Diane: "Six months."
Well, and what's six months after all this time? The last time she saw Kurt was a little over a year ago -- in our time, I have no idea how long that is for them but a shitload has happened -- because she didn't know he'd broken up with that Fox News chick. Right around the time you saw his crazed face just now you would start thinking the worst, you know, "at long last and now I tragically must choose," but six months is just long enough that it's an actual question. He probably wouldn't ask, and if he did he'd already know the answer, so what's even the question? You want a canoe, you build one.
FLORRICK
Alicia: "Ms. Swift?"
Isobel: "Up here, in this tree where all the leaves are made of silver. Past the one where all the leaves are made of brass. If you hit one where they're all gold, you've gone too far... There you go."
Alicia: "You okay up there in that tree in my office?"
Isobel: "Guess who's not wearing any panties!"
Alicia: "I have an eyeline view of your situation, Ms. Swift. Listen, can we talk about your weirdness regarding your hellish union?"
Isobel: "Oh, I'm not worried about it! I just don't want a prenup."
Alicia: "So you're gonna screw him out of his money? Rather than getting killed for yours, since you don't have any? That's kind of gross..."
Isobel: "You're talking to the woman who impregnated herself with his semen after blowing the guy in a TGI Friday's bathroom. Let's talk about economies of scale."
Alicia: "So if I tell him to drop the prenup, you'll fix this?"
Isobel: "Yeah. Have you given any thought to that whole fisting thing?"
L/G LOBBY
Robyn Burdine: "Whoa, Greg Steck? That's crazy, what are you doing here? At my job where I am a real lawyer and not just some sloe-eyed moppet they gave Kalinda as a pet?"
Greg: "I've been texting you. Um, but I figured you were as hung over as I am, so I just... Listen, I know what you were after last night."
Robyn Burdine: "Why whatever do you mean? Are you referring to what we lady lawyers call a 'good time'?"
Greg: "Women don't like me due to my excruciating personality. Let's be real here. Also, I know you never took the bar. I just wanted you to know that the Miles opinion is coming out today at five, because the Chief Justice is taking an extra day for a destination wedding."
Robyn Burdine: "You just came here to say that? Like, to be sweet and helpful?"
Greg: "And then to ask you out again. I'm working on being a person. To build myself, like a canoe, into a person..."
Robyn Burdine: "-- Oh! No way, Greg. Huh-uh. But thank you sooo much for this information. Bye, okay?"
Aww, Greg. I mean, not that he deserves makeouts or anything just for being so cool, but I really kind of took to him from the start, and he just kept getting better and better and cuter and cuter. Probably it's just the Jordan Karahalios-sized hole in my heart. You would think being so diminutive he would leave a smaller hole than he did, when he went. But he did not. A cold sad wind whistles through it still. And now we've lost ol' Greg... Ol' Greg Whats-his-name. I cannot bear it. Goodbye, Mr. Whatever. Wherever you are.
LOCKHART
Kurt: "First of all, something about a Tiffany lamp that the club thought was destroyed in the orgy/riot, but I have conclusively proven was actually party to a ricochet, and therefore the bullet really was coming from the Zentai Solarium and not the..."
Diane: "Okay, great, cool, see you later."
Kurt: "I'm not... Don't be embarrassed. I'm not rejecting it."
Diane: "Uh, rejecting what, strange man I barely know?"
Kurt: "Rejecting marriage. I want to think about it. About us."
Diane: "Yes yes that's fine, now what about this ricochet?"
SWEENEY
Kurt: "[So I guess the videotaping guy was actually the guy.]"
Laura: "Excuse me, Your Honor. Objection. To... something two questions ago? Like um, speculation."
Politi, Wonderfully: "Oh, okay. Overruled."
(I can't get across how amazing it was, but I watched him say this line no less than six times before continuing with the episode. He is absolutely my favorite judge ever.)
Alicia: "It's almost five! Can I give my summation?"
Politi: "Hit me, girlfriend."
Alicia: "The evidence proves that Mr. Colin Sweeney did not shoot the gun, Your Honor. He's innocent."
Politi: "This is so much better than how we usually do things!"
LOCKHART
Kurt: "Hey, Diane."
Diane: "Dropping off your invoice?"
Kurt: "Uh, the hell? Should I leave and come back in?"
Diane: "You know that I am still crazy, sorry."
Kurt: "Well, good luck with your murderer and everything. I think we should wait and think about marriage."
Diane: "I don't know about that, sir. I worry we'll always be waiting."
Kurt: "Maybe that's fine. I'll talk to you like this time season..."
Diane: "Wait. I don't want to wait. Please. I don't want to wait. I don't."
Kurt: "Hmm."
Will it be "Yes"? Or will it be: "Sorry!"
DAWSON LEERY, NOW THERE'S A DOUCHEBAG I STILL HAVE EPIC DREAMS ABOUT
I'd build that canoe any day of the week.
Politi: "Laura, not that you didn't do a bang-up job fucking this one in the keester from go, but I'm afraid you didn't make your case. But Mr. Sweeney, can we talk about how you are a piece of shit and I hope you die choking on Mike Kresteva's alcohol-free blood?"
Propriety: Aghast.
Politi: "Yeah, I'll probably get censured. I don't care. You are the worst, and just having you in my courtroom has made me want to take a flamethrower to the whole place. Throw down some salt so no jurisprudence can ever grow here again. You are filthy, sir, on the inside. And your fiancée has something dreadful rotting inside of her that was once a healthy young spirit with a mother and a father and dreams of making a positive change in the world. But since I am not a rogue demon hunter, the worst I can do to you is say $1500 fine for disorderly and 30 days inside."
Isobel: "Whatever. Here are my panties to chomp on while you're in there."
Politi: "Ugh, you fucking people."
Alicia: "So I guess no prenup?"
Colin Sweeney: "I love her too much! Or whatever concept people like us think is that word."
Alicia: "You know she's planning on stealing all your money?"
The Irrepressible Colin Sweeney: "Yep, it's fine. I'll just kill her."
Alicia & Will: "I should not be loving that. And yet."
LATER
Alicia: "Will, are you busy? I'm not, I just miss you and I'm drinking wine like I do."
Will: "No, I'm not busy! I mean I'm totally busy, actually. Do you actually need something?"
Laura: "Let's get a move on! Second base, mister!"
Alicia: "Oh shit, later dude. I didn't realize you had company."
Will: "That was my intention. Bye."
Laura: "Was that Alicia?"
Will: "Yeah. You can tell by this song that's playing where the person says my love is unrequited like a million billion times."
Laura: "Cool, let's keep making out. Just kidding, I have a boyfriend."
Will: "Wait, what?"
Laura: "Yeah, I guess I suddenly have a boyfriend. A soldier from when I was in the military."
Will: "Wait so then what are we even doing?"
Laura: "I don't know. Bye."
...She leaves, and he drinks alone, and Alicia drinks alone, and the song just keeps going on and on and on like the "It's A Small World" ride, only instead of it being a particularly small world, it is a world where the person's love is majorly unrequited.
IN 2 WKS
I am really looking forward to "Sex Dolls & Videotape," in which Anonymous puts a rape trial on blast. Just the thought of the privacy and technology and legality and outrage and public/private and everything about that has got me all a-twitter (and a-facebooker, all kinds of a-social networker really). And, of course, this show usually earns its sexual assault stories pretty flawlessly, and watching them thread that needle is, while harrowing, usually also pretty inspiring. Plus Kalinda finally notices that something -- or maybe like everything, basically -- about Robyn is kind of weird. Will she get out her bat? I doubt it, but even if she did probably Robyn would blast out some jujitsu or witchcraft or turn back time or something, so I think it'll turn out okay. See you then, when the final three begins.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Bates Motel, and Zero Hour for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook, as well as Geek Love, a biweekly column for Tor.com that begins week.