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Previously on The Good Wife: Everything that has ever happened on The Good Wife. For a show that usually gets away with having no Previouslies at all, this episode contained references to pretty much everybody and everything that could possibly impact a story about Lockhart/Gardner's tech clients, as well as every girl Zach as ever dated, plus Alicia's entire childhood... It was a lot. All good, but a change of pace.
ChumHum's stock starts dipping after a gag order keeping them from revealing the degree to which they've resisted NSA requests for personal information, so they look like quislings. Carey (with an E) and Alicia decide they should sue the NSA for prior restraint, creating a PR hubbub about the issue that never has to actually talk about the issue. Returning to Judge Jeffrey Tambor's 2nd-circuit court from last week, there is a lot of talk of security clearance and national security -- not to mention shameless pimping of a Holocaust survivor by the brilliantly scummy AUSA -- that L/G eventually turns to their advantage, leading Neil Gross (the always perfect Jon Benjamin Hickey) to a TED talk of unparalleled exuberance, and a technical win all around.
Of course, what nobody at L/G knows is that ChumHum's one of the clients Florrick Agos is taking with them -- in fact, the keystone client in their fledgling firm, without which etc. -- so everything takes twice as long as Alicia and Cary (and Carey) have to keep doing end-runs around everybody... Including the NSA itself, who monitor the episode (in the form of two dreamy analyst dorks) and draw limitless (and completely wrong) conclusions and narratives out of the last two years of L/G communications. Everything from that one Gitmo client to Nisa's Somali father get put into the hopper as the story goes on, meaning that by the end the NSA flunkies have managed to earn themselves access to the Governor's office itself. I could see this one going all season, and I hope it does.
Over at Peter's new digs, the hot news is a gavel gifted him by the head of the Illinois Supreme Court, which has been stolen and thus cannot be displayed with gratitude. Tracking it down leads Eli across the path of none other than Zach's vicious and insane ex-girlfriend Becca (Dreama Walker), whom we haven't seen in like a hundred years, who has returned from Hell to ensnare the newly hot Grace Florrick in her evil web of evilness. (Reminiscent, this, of the time Damien Dalgaard made Jenny Humphrey his sex-slave drug mule and then returned a season or two later to do the same thing to her stepbrother, poor Eric van der Woodsen. Or at least, if you're me that is what you would obviously jump to.)
Helping Grace with her new mission to make boys like her without pissing Jesus off is Jesus's #1 heckler, Grandma Veronica, who sweeps into town chasing a widower (who turns out to be just plain married) and ends up breezily writing a check to cover the down payment on Florrick Agos's new office space. Will she tell her favorite flirtation partner David Lee the details of this random expenditure? No, but a yes is as good as a no, I think: Simply by dropping checks on Chicago real estate she's given him one more bullet for the eventual destruction of the fourth-year traitors. However, a touchingly mundane (and tequila-fueled) discussion of family dynamics between Alicia and her mother also made this Veronica's most palatable appearance yet.
Out of all these big moments and challenging legal leaps of logic, however, the biggest gasp-getter has to be the ongoing Diane story: Since the Chief Justice won't drop the whole thing about Will Gardner's supposed corruption, Eli gets Diane an interview with Mandy Post (Miriam Shor) in which she's supposed to smoothly disavow her partner. After failing once, he puts the smack down on her pretty viciously, but what Diane doesn't know -- and we hope, and then learn -- is that he's doing it purely for show. Eventually he arranges a stern talking-to from Peter to the Chief Justice that absolves her of any need to turn on Will... Just as she, guiltily, has finished doing exactly that. We end the episode on Diane, self-loathing and wearing bigger chains than ever, barely visible behind her desk as the gross realities of her ambition sinks in.
Week: David Lee uses Will's betrayal (and violently broken heart) to his advantage, going after Diane directly, leading the partners in a vote that seems like it's gonna get pretty ugly. On the other side of the multiple wars about to erupt in the halls of L/G, Will makes Alicia an offer that might have her questioning Florrick Agos altogether.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Diane is moving forward with her unofficial invitation to the Illinois Supreme Court, now that Peter is the Governor Elect. Meanwhile, Alicia is still all-in with Cary Agos and the fourth-years, despite low-level disagreements about relatively small, but still plan-wrecking, details. One of the companies they want to bring with them is Neil Gross's ChumHum, which should be easy since Neil's only known preference is for Will Gardner to go eat a dick.
Also, way back in Season Two, L/G spent an entire episode trying to get around homeland security measures in order to save a dude from Gitmo. (It was the "look at all this paper!" episode, which I can't believe was that long ago considering how much it still pops into my head). This put L/G (and Alicia) on the NSA's radar -- along with the DOD, DOJ and Treasury -- which is why it matters now.
NSA
We fade in a variety of shifting calls, various communication methods, moving from data point to data point in some visual representation of what it's like to work at the NSA and have the sum total of all information at your fingertips, constantly scanning for words like America and Middle East and Jihad and Taliban and weapons. Basically any words that could get you to terrorism, or the hop toward terrorism, which includes discussion of the NSA itself, how just searching for "Al-Qaeda" means you are on a list somewhere, and talk about that list means you're on some other list somewhere.
The boys working the information this particular evening are dreamy, one of them is Zach Woods, and they are intrigued by mention of "one of the Lockhart/Gardner lawyers" on a call not in English, from two years ago. Meanwhile another L/G lawyer is speaking about the subject of telephoning in a parallel but unrelated context.
David Lee: "The fourth-years have stopped. They've stopped texting each other."
Diane: "Great, so the insurrection is gone or never existed."
David Lee: "No, it means they were warned. And that's either Kal..."
Diane: "I don't need to hear your crazy theories. Go nuts or don't go nuts, either way. First they came for the fourth-years and I didn't speak out, because I wasn't a fourth-year."
David Lee: "Why would I ever, for example, lead a mutiny against you, Diane?"
Diane: "No reason. Anyway, I have a secret meeting with the Governor that is no big deal, so I will see you later."
FLORRICK AGOS
Alicia: "I can't even find you in this office space! It's too big!"
Cary: "I know! It's because we're so excited about possibilities, being young and dumb."
Alicia: "It looks like a real law firm! That's where a phone could go. And over here, chairs. We could have a table in here, with chairs all the way around it. Sit in the chairs, and have meetings. Just like real life."
All the other fourth-years come out of their hiding places like it's Munchkin Land, and start wandering off into the infinite recesses of the giant place.
Carey: "Hey, grab a burner phone. And thanks for telling us not to use our phones anymore, Alicia. That was some real traitorous shit you pulled and we are appreciative."
Alicia: "I didn't even see you there, because this place is so big! Oh, hang on. Will is phoning me on my phone."
Alicia: "Will, is that you phoning me?"
Will: "Alicia, where are you? It sounds like commercial real estate."
Alicia: "No, I am just having lunch all alone. Why are you phoning me?"
Will: "Don't tell Cary, but Neil Gross wants a partner in the ChumHum meeting, and he hates me, and Diane is at a meeting about abandoning us when we need her the most, so you have to be at the meeting. It's Cary's meeting, but you have to be there."
Alicia: "This is weird."
Will: "To be honest, Neil's expressed some concern about Cary being up to the job. Not to me, you know, because of him hating me, but I heard it from people."
Alicia: "Yikes. Okay."
Alicia: "Hey Cary? Do you maybe have unrealistic expectations of your relationship with Neil Gross? Because -- and please don't get offended -- I am babysitting you now with him. If ChumHum doesn't come with us, we don't have a firm."
Cary: "Alicia baby, don't worry. I talk to Neil every day. We are 100 percent bros."
GROSS
Neil Gross, I love you. I love you from the hoodie you are too old to wear and yet always wear, to the obnoxious free-runner toe-compartment shoes on your stupid feet. I love every molecule of you, most particularly the arrogant part, which is a lot because you are made mostly of arrogance, the way a regular person is made mostly of water. Never change, be on this show all the time. Allow your bromance with Cary Agos to flourish, come along with, to the new firm. Where there is quarrel, sow understanding. Where there are no hoodies, sow some hoodies. Do you remember that one hoodie that Cary wore that time, that looked like it was woven out of throaty sensual laughter and the dreams of cats? I still think about that yoga outfit, like, fairly often.
Neil: "I am only ever able to think in terms of outsourcing my ego, like, what matters to me is not doing good works but being applauded at a TED Talk for doing good works. And this godforsaken gag order means I can't do it. How will people know we held our ground despite NSA subpoenas and user-info requests, unless I shout it very loudly and obnoxiously at them and then they clap?"
Cary: "Well, I'm glad you came to us with this..."
Neil: "[Bitchy.]"
Cary: "[Stares into space for an oddly long time, processing for the first time in his life what it feels like to be disrespected. Does not care for it one bit.]"
Alicia: "Um, sue the NSA. The National Security Agency. For anything. You can't tell people they're gagging you, so look like they're gagging you."
Neil: "Anything? That's not a lot of creativity, sue them for..."
Carey: "Prior restraint. Banning the expression of an idea prior to its publication."
Cary: "And also we can call all the tech companies. Real ones like Google and Yahoo, and dumb made-up ones like ChumHum and SleuthWay. They happen to be in town for Tech Week, which happens to be this week."
Neil: "I know, that's why I am here to whine at you."
As they're phoning Kalinda about how they're suing the NSA, the NSA hears them talking about suing the NSA. Which is interesting, but not as interesting as a video of a goat that screams like a man.
ESTATE PLANNING
David Lee: "Money money blah blah blah."
Veronica: "Have you ever been married, Mr. Liebenbaum?"
David Lee: "No, because I am absolutely horrible. And pretty gay, even though I don't seem to know it."
Veronica: "You know what you are is a carnivore. A jungle cat!"
David Lee: "Well, it's dangerous here on the savannah..."
Alicia: "-- Whatever is happening in this conference room where everybody can see you, cut it the fuck out. David Lee, go back to your infernal lair. Mom, what the hell do you want."
Veronica: "Just to act weird and make your life hard, like always."
ALICIA'S OFC
Alicia: "Veronica, go wait outside like a common cur while I talk to my secret best friend about our secret plan to secretly fuck all these people in this office."
Veronica: "I would much prefer to move your furniture around and eavesdrop on your conversation."
Alicia: "That works too, apparently. Cary, why are you phoning."
Cary: "We don't have the office space."
Alicia: "Uh, actually we do. I put down a sixth of the earnest money myself."
Cary: "Well, apparently they want a reference from our current employers, which is a black fly in the chardonnay for sure, and I guess we need the full amount now..."
Alicia: "Mom, seriously get out of here."
Veronica: "Alicia, seriously, no."
Alicia: "Fine. Cary, I don't have 140 grand."
Cary: "Nobody does! If only we knew a crazy old bat with a hundred dead rich husbands and an intermittent case of motherly guilt."
NSA
So the NSA has a warrant for Danny Marwat, which gets us to Alicia and Diane, within the two-year window (the "bit bucket" of data they can access) since they started helping him. The interesting part -- and this keeps happening throughout the episode -- is the way they connect these random data points in such compelling ways, these narratives that make sense, but we were there so we know what happened, we know the roads they're traveling actually don't go anywhere. Neat way to illustrate it.
NSA Guy: "So we're listening to two years of calls with this person of interest's lawyers. Got it."
Boys: "Well, they also represent ChumHum."
NSA: "Sounds like a large firm."
Boys: "For now. Anyway, the question is whether the Marwat warrant is restricted by the fact that we're in active litigation with them for non-terrorist stuff. Or vice versa."
NSA: "Got it. Okay, for now, just mark all the ChumHum mentions for possible omission later."
Boys: "We love and respect you! Just kidding, you are a douche."
NSA: "Oh, boys? Have any of these lawyers done anything illegal?"
Boys: "Not yet. Although one of them is now FLOIL Elect. So there's that."
NSA: "I mean it's not like there's anything inherently corrupt about the Illinois Governor, is there? Listen, if this gets weird just remember that we can direct the DOJ to any illegalities we happen across now, because we live in a dystopian police state."
Boys: "Meaning...?"
NSA: "If you try hard enough, you can keep your left hand from ever even noticing the existence of your right."
SUPREME
Chief Justice: "I have two problems today. Number one is, Diane is still a woman and some kind of Democrat. Number two is, I gave you an engraved gavel and you don't have it prominently displayed."
Eli: "Yes, those are both very important. You're very important."
Chief Justice: "The gavel said Fiat Justitia Ruat Caelum. Let justice be done, though the heavens fall."
Eli: "That's beautiful. Or super weird and scary. Or both? I don't know. You're the worst."
Chief Justice: "Like my gavel says, I resent the fact that Diane didn't hop to it when we met in the Supreme Party Room and I told her to shit-talk Will Gardner."
Eli: "You mean she remained poised in the face of your vulgar attempts to rattle and offend her?"
Chief Justice: "Exactly. Who the fuck does she think she is?"
Eli: "You're a sexist old fool."
Chief Justice: "And you are a rude backroom huckster."
Peter: "You're both acting like assholes. You, get back to your office. And you, Chief Justice. Diane Lockhart is my choice for the vacated seat. Get right with it."
Peter: "Whatever he wants, just give it to him."
Eli: "Okay, that was the wrong thing to say but I will. It involves brainwashing Diane. Oh, and this thing with the gavel, that's obnoxious as hell, too."
Peter: "Find it and mount it."
Assistant: "I have no idea where that gavel is. We have a whole room just for presents. It's called the Gift Room. Do you know how many gifts you have to have before that presents itself as the sanest alternative? A room amount."
Eli: "Shut up and find it."
Assistant: "Actually, I think Damian the Intern may have stolen it. He was the one in the Hawaiian shirt that you made sure to fire yourself."
Eli: "I am awful and petty a lot of the time. Okay, what makes you think that?"
Assistant: "Somebody's selling it on Clarkswap, which is our dumb name for Craigslist."
Nothing will ever beat the time the Pretty Little Liars decided to start calling your Facebook your "Website Page." That was the best thing that ever happened in life. "What's his deal, is he a murderer? Did he murder our friend?" "I don't know, let's look at his Website Page."
KALINDA ON ETHICS
Cary: "Have any tech companies, real or imaginary, signed onto our brief?"
Kalinda: "No, because the NSA is fucking scary. You look loco right now."
Cary: "Why are you stressing? Why are you fronting on me like I'm a criminal?"
Kalinda: "You're taking ChumHum when you go. Right now, you're improving your position, at the expense of L/G."
Cary: "Uh, no. I'm doing my job as a lawyer for L/G."
Kalinda: "Because I won't give you my information if I think you're being gross. And trust me, it's Kalinda-type information. You want this information. You want to be informed by it."
Cary: "Any money we make on this case stays at L/G, so anything you've got helps L/G. Which by the way helps you, since she never dropped the hanky so you're not going anywhere."
JUDGE TAMBOR PRESIDING
He's back, he's the District Judge from last week, and he does not think that prior restraint works in this case for what seems like the obvious reason: NSA subpoenas are legal, and gag orders are required for national security.
Alicia: "Your Honor, we're changing our whole strategy because of Kalinda information."
Judge: "I know you. You were darling. Do they not have other lawyers in Chicago?"
Alicia: "We just had so much fun last time, we thought we'd do it again!"
Judge: "Women aren't funny."
Alicia: "Duly noted. Anyway, we're changing to selective enforcement."
NSA: "Are you calling us tacky?"
Alicia: "We are calling you tacky bitches. Plaintiffs call Patric Edelstein."
SIR EDELSTEIN OF SLEUTHWAY
Is the one that's not Neil "Future Husband" Gross, and is not Dylan "Bitcoinz" Stack. He's the Zuckerberg one where they were making the movie and it was too real, but also not real enough. That was a fun one, I loved that one. Anyway, he is in no mood.
Edelstein: "It's like you subpoenaed me during Tech Week just to be a dick."
Gross: "That's like a bonus. It's not mutually exclusive; I had multiple reasons."
L/G: "Anyway, tell me about these FISA warrants to get at your users' Facemails and Sleuthfaces and Chat-Ups."
NSA: "Actually that's classified."
Judge: "Gross, but sustained."
L/G: "Fine, that was just for texture. Patric, when was the last time you were gag-ordered about this shit?"
Edelstein: "Never."
Cary cues up a TED Talk Edelstein gave, wherein he goes, "I immediately caved to the NSA when they came knocking. Emails, data, phone calls -- less than a hundred, but still. I am not the man I thought I was."
Gross: "Cary, please eat him for lunch and make him hate himself."
Cary: "Done. Edelstein, are you kidding me? Can you even really call yourself a man?"
Edelstein: "I know. You look at the monster and you fight the monster and then you are the monster and then they make a movie about it."
Cary: "And you're up there just blithely talking about this shit, right? Do you estimate there were NSA people actually in the room at that moment? And you never heard a word about it, right? While you were mea culpa-ing your way to gray-hat status, you..."
Edelstein: "Do you think maybe it's because I caved?"
Cary: "No further questions."
Judge: "None needed. That shit was effective. NSA, do you have a magic potion or something that will reverse this course?"
NSA: "Actually we do, it's super creepy, but for now let's have a recess."
DELI
Assistant: "Mr. Gold, how Eli is this scene going to get with the intern? On a scale of like, slight leprechaun gamboling/capering vs. straight-up hobgoblin ululations. Where we at, what are we thinking?"
Eli Gold: "Motherfucker. It wasn't Margaritaville at all, it was Becca. I still wake up sweating sometimes thinking about this bitch."
Assistant: "That cute little girl? Come on."
Eli Gold: "She is seriously the scariest thing in the universe. You think I'm being dramatic, I'm not being dramatic. She's by far the worst person I could ever go to war with. Last time I saw her I blackmailed her about getting a teen abortion, Assistant."
Assistant: "That's fairly hardcore."
Eli Gold: "It wasn't enough! I just barely won that one! She laughed in my FACE!"
Eli and Becca step up 2 the streets at each other for a while, and she's got the gavel, and where did she get it -- can she walk through walls now? -- and she won't tell him why this is happening or what her endgame is or why she's suddenly here without James van der Beek in tow, and all of this, all of it, is so shadowy and scary and it pushes all of his Eli buttons and eventually he just snatches it out of her hands and tries to run, so she puts on a pout and gets the security guard to yell at Eli about it. All of the things Eli hates because kids can do them and grown men can't, and all he wants to do is kick her into space.
Eli, verbatim: "Peter and I have a problem, Alicia."
Alicia: "I stay out of your romance, you stay out of mine. Them's the rules when you're sharin' a fella."
Eli: "No, this time it's both of ours. Remember Becca?"
Alicia: "That bitch?"
NSA
Boss: "These dreamy boys have a question about this lawsuit."
Lawman: "So you're saying they haven't talked to a person of interest since that case in season three?"
Boss: "Look at all this paper!"
Lawman: "You're still just a two-hop warrant, okay. But that got you to the Governor, which would be fun. Find a more recent terrorist connection and we can take it to FISA court."
Boys: "We will never be Edward Snowden if you keep acting all ethical and shit."
Lawman: "I know, that's why. Catch me six months ago though, man..."
TAMBOR
NSA: "We request a SCIF, a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, for the communication of classified information."
Alicia: "This is stupid, and you are stupid, but whatever."
NSA: "Well see, the thing is that she can't be in the meeting."
Judge: "Alicia, I already see you getting pissed and I get it, but technically this is what's happening. You don't have the clearance to be in the SCIF. Just trust me to be the judge, okay?"
DIANE
Eli: "Hey Diane, no big deal but can I schedule you a Chicago Law interview with muckraking ex-magazine journalist Mandy Post?"
Diane: "Hey Eli, no big deal but won't that chick sabotage me and make me seem awful?"
Eli: "No, she's very respectable."
Diane: "Okay, come on. Fess up, we're taking somebody down. Who is it versus."
Eli: "...Will Gardner."
Diane: "Again with this shit? Eli. I am not going to turn on my brother and work wife just because some old dude can't get it up. The whole thing is so gross and sad."
Eli: "He honestly thinks he's being ethically sound by hating Will."
Diane: "He wasn't even disbarred! Nothing ever even happened! That we know of."
Eli: "I'm not saying trash him, I'm saying, step from the shadows of yesterday into the bright new jurisprudent light of the sun."
Diane: "Has anybody in history ever been asked to do this shit?"
Eli: "No, this is purely a thing we are doing to specifically you."
Diane: "What if I don't do it?"
Eli: "Hope we don't find out, huh?"
NSA CASE
Alicia: "This is ridiculous. I've got a million things I could be doing besides waiting outside the He-Man Woman Haters Clubhouse for them to finish whispering dumb stupid secrets in each other's earholes..."
Judge: "Okay I'm back and I find for the government."
Alicia: "But our rebuttal!"
Judge: "What's to rebut? You don't know what they said. Look, I know this is stupid. I hate these pale withered jerk-offs as much as you do. But this is about the law, and I am the judge, so it is my actual job to do that. I do."
Alicia: "Fuck everything."
Gross: "The rage is strong in this one."
Alicia: "I mean for fuck's sake."
Gross: "Yes, Grasshopper. Anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, and then it's just a quick metro ride to the Dark Side."
Alicia: "And God is empty. Just like meeeeee."
BACK HOME
Nisa: "Wait, why are you dating Becca? You said you didn't want to date anybody!"
Zach: "I'm not dating anybody. Why are you being insane?"
Veronica: "Who's the thirsty chick on the phone?"
Grace: "Nisa."
Veronica: "Oh, the little black girl! I liked her."
Grace: "I don't think you say it like that. You could call her Somali-American I guess?"
Veronica: "Only a very focused viewer that remembers the whole deal with her dad and everything would see how this conversation is rigged to make sense in the narrative the NSA is trying to construct. Otherwise it just seems really odd and awkward."
Zach: "Do you really think my mom's going to appreciate these immodest clothes you've bought for Grace?"
Veronica: "Your mother dressed like this in high school, except it had rips in it. Her father said it looked like a young man's rape fantasy..."
Everybody: "WHOA. WHOA, GRANDMA. WHOA."
Veronica: "...Wouldn't let her wear it. But she found a way. Put 'em in my car, changed on the way to school. Now, let's talk about exactly how much makeup you can wear before you look gross..."
Zach: "To say nothing of the Jesus."
Veronica: "Jesus wants Grace to look hot! Have you even read whatever it's called that they read all the time? And is anybody going to pick up the phone?"
Zach: "It's just Nisa phoning again and again. I'm letting it ring."
Alicia: "Hey, everybody. What is the deal with the phone?"
Veronica: "We're letting it ring, it's poor black Nisa. Poor Somali-American black Nisa."
Alicia: "So you went shopping, that's fun. You realize that they go to a school with uniforms, so...?"
Veronica: "She needs dresses for dancing. For when she goes to dances."
Alicia: "That sounds hella unlikely. Am I going to approve of them?"
Zach, silently: "No, girl. You are going to hate them."
Alicia: "Cool, I'm going to start drinking right now, okay everybody?"
Cary phones on her phone.
Alicia: "Any thoughts on ChumHum, chum?"
Cary: "No but I wanted to tell you that you are amazing."
Alicia: "...What's happening?"
Cary: "This check you sent? We just bought out the entire office suite and you're getting first-out, with interest from the other partners..."
Alicia: "Uh, what? I didn't send you a check. Momma don't got a 140k to throw around, you know that. Calm down and tell me what's the name on the check."
Cary: "Ivy Road Trust."
Alicia: "Okay, well, thanks for calling. I might need you to get me out of jail in a sec, assuming I can catch my mother long enough to throw her out a window. I'll let you know."
Alicia: "Mom, I can't even tell you why it's bad that you did this."
Veronica: "Call it a loan if you want, whatever."
Alicia: "What is this about?"
Veronica: "Like I ever have an agenda. Like I could possibly ever get my shit together long enough to have an agenda. (By the way, how is Will Gardner.) To pay me back, you have to come to dinner with my new boyfriend, a retired widower named Michael Barnwright."
Alicia: "Whatever. I wish everybody would just either slow down or leave me out of it."
Zach: "I'm not seeing Becca. Why does everybody think I'm seeing Becca? That girl's saliva burns through metal, did you know that? Think about that for a sec and you tell me if I would..."
Alicia: "People are going to want things from you. Not even like huge things, often just small dumb things, like an engraved gavel she can use to drive Eli Gold insane for fun."
Zach: "This is not me. I don't know how it got from our house to her, but no. I mean, who is that stupid in this entire world."
Grace: "So anyway Becca thanks for being my best friend Becca and I love you so much Becca and let me know if you need me to steal anything else for you Becca. I always wanted a big sister."
Becca: "I prefer to think of myself as a child predator."
Grace: "Skype you in five minutes Becca."
Becca: "Not if I Skype you first!"
Grace: "Secret society! Secret society!"
I like the idea of Grace being a different person every season, because that's what being a teenager is about. And I like the idea of Grace's boobs outshining Zach's adorableness and how that would throw it all off in the household. But on the other hand, I like that some things will always be the same. Zach will always make the right call, Alicia scares the shit out of everyone she comes into contact with but nobody ever tells her that, and Grace could fuck up everybody's life even if she were asleep, just by the awesome gravity power of her sucky-ness.
MANDY POST
Mandy: "So I heard that you might be a State Supreme."
Diane: "I am so used to hearing rumors about myself! I am into my law practice right now, mostly."
Mandy: "Coming out of bankruptcy, and all."
Diane: "Uh yeah, Mandy. That does help. Because of how money works."
Mandy: "Well, plus the suspension of a name partner..."
Diane: "Last season was a real shitshow for us, in certain ways."
Mandy: "You never took his name off the letterhead. Never even thought about it?"
Diane: "Bitch, if you sprained a finger in a pickup game would you cut off your hand?"
Mandy: "I mean, disbarment, which essentially it was except for how it wasn't..."
Diane: "I don't know that I could speak to the specifics."
Mandy: "Come on, just between us girls. You hate Will Gardner, right? Like you just wish he would get run over by a trolley car, or a herd of buffalo. I mean..."
Diane: "I most certainly do not wish he would get run over by buffalo."
Mandy: "So the trolley car, then? Look, he came back from almost single-handedly destroying your firm by bending the law in his usual way, to get you going again."
Diane: "Uh, no. He's just a fantastic lawyer? That's why we are bros?"
Mandy: "Oh I forgot to turn on my micro-recorder! Silly me. Let's try that again, only this time I want you like, completely at wit's end with how gross I am being. Can we do that?"
Diane: "We can motherfucking try."
CHUMHUM
Carey: "I am actually kind of tired of Neil Gross."
Neil: "I like that about you. So what's the game plan?"
L/G: "Well, it's all about what circuit you're in. On the west coast another approach might be better. Maybe we shouldn't have done the constitutional stuff after all."
Neil: "So then what?"
Alicia: "When you lose with the Constitution, try money."
Neil: "Unless you're the Koch brothers and then they're just the same fucking thing."
COURT
Cary: "The government is interfering with prospective economic gain. His brand is about not being evil, to coin a phrase, and this gag order means he looks evil even though he isn't evil."
NSA: "[Various problems with this, all of which he defeats as easily as if he were wearing Wonder Woman's ting-ting bracelets.]"
Judge: "I see you wanting me in a SCIF and you will not have me in the SCIF. You maybe never get to have me in the SCIF again. This isn't about national security, it's about money. How much money?"
L/G: "Three BILLION dollars."
Everybody: "...Wait. For real?"
DINNER W/ MICHAEL BARNWRIGHT
Will never come. Alicia finds Veronica at the restaurant alone, drinking a pitcher of margarita and kind of winking sideways a little bit.
Veronica: "You had fun in court today, I can tell. You get drunk with me right now so I can have some of your good cheer."
Alicia: "I am so sorry that your widower boyfriend turned out to be neither."
Veronica: "I can't stand to be pitied."
Veronica punches her daughter, underscoring the point she's making.
Alicia: "The fuck?"
Veronica: "Remember when you were a kid and I would just fucking punch you whenever I felt like it?"
Alicia: "Yeah, I thought it was creepy and confusing back then, too."
Veronica: "Are we really going to talk about your childhood?"
Alicia: "No. Actually, yes. You liked Owen, and you like my kids, but you never liked me."
Veronica: "I liked you. I didn't dislike you."
Alicia: "Yeah but you didn't enjoy me. We didn't associate, do things together."
Veronica: "Is that why you're so satisfied having this ambivalent relationship with Diane Lockhart?"
Alicia: "Maybe. Hell, maybe part of me relishes the idea of abandoning her before she gets to abandon me. Who the hell knows what goes on up here."
Veronica: "You know, I did like Owen."
Alicia: "I always had that impression. Did you know that other people liked me? I was a charming kid, I think. Certainly likeable."
Veronica: "Sometimes I wish we could just start over. I think we'd be better at this."
Alicia: "I think it would be better, now."
Veronica: "You're not allowed to cry! I'm the one that got stood up tonight. I'm the one that's alone."
Alicia: "You're fishing for a you have a family that I will never, ever give you -- because see above re: you are a shitty mother -- but I will cry, and give you a little WASPy hug."
Veronica: "And I will allow that for as long as I can bear it."
NSA CASE
The AUSA calls up this intensely Old Jewish Guy guy, Simon Fishbein, to talk about how many grandkids he has, and then talk about this problem he had where ChumHum allowed Holocaust deniers to organize on their site. (ChumHum, like all the other made-up sites on this show, makes no sense at all, but I guess the analogy is to Google Groups or something like that.) Simon clearly did not care for this, so then just to underline it in the most grotesque, cynical way possible, the AUSA asks him to please roll up his shirtsleeves, etc.
So the idea is that Simon Fishbein is incapable of understanding this particular case of "free speech," and put together a group of people to complain in writing about it, and they got a form letter back in which Simon's name was spelled wrong. It is pointed out that a breastfeeding group was subject to removal, but not these creeps. Then the Zionist Defense Council, a rum bunch I'm sure, organized a boycott about it... Which happened to start on the very day share prices started dropping and users started leaving because of the gag order. It is some very sexy law-doing, if you'd simply left out the actual Auschwitz tattoo. Yikes, NSA lawyer.
DIANE
Eli: "What happens if you don't do it? What happens if you don't do it? WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON'T DO IT?"
Diane: "Seriously though. It was softball trashiness, I couldn't even spin it. I had no option but to freeze her out. That girl doesn't have a soft touch."
Eli throws down a bunch of M-80s and while they're going off, sets fire to her drapes. He literally goes, "WHAT'S DONE IS DONE."
Eli: "What happens if you don't do it is, we're done here. You married a gun nut and pissed off your firm and tangled with the lifeguards and got your hopes up, all for no reason. Peter makes a short list. You're not on it."
And because it's Eli, you have no idea that this is purely theater designed to manipulate her, so they are actually at cross-purposes, because he's going to fix this on his end, but still leave her -- and her lifetime of ambition, and her dead father's legacy -- hanging. So yeah, I sure hope that works out well. The chains are back around her neck, fatter than ever.
CHUMHUM
So this is why the US is investigating Neil, Kalinda explains: Because he met with some North Korean nationals last year, in Seoul. One of Robyn's billions of contacts at the Treasury, like usual, turned us onto this. And that's why he got the horns, and nobody else, which is why nobody else cared to help him out. Not just because he is a dingus to them, but also because they don't have the stink of scary mean nasty old North Korea on them.
Gross: "Oh come on, they were dissidents! Pro-democracy freedom fighters. They just wanted tech, at cost, cell phones and software and..."
L/G: "Civilians or government officials? Because if they were government officials, they can get you under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act."
Gross: "A little of both, but they were the good guys! Anyway, they backed off because of the stupid overreaching scary NSA, of course..."
L/G: "You were going to sell this shit to them?"
Gross: "At cost, yeah."
L/G: "So those are the damages we sue for. Done."
David Lee: "Alicia, stop what you are doing and come talk to me. I need you wrong-footed and irritated so I can test a theory out on you."
Alicia: "Ugh, you are such a troll."
David Lee: "Perfect. Now, about your mother. Why is she writing random checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars? Do you know anything about this?"
Alicia: "Do what?"
David Lee: "Why would she be buying commercial real estate in Chicago when I told her right now it's bonds?"
Alicia: "I don't know but I hope you will leave her alone about it."
David Lee: "Actually she's on her way here."
Alicia: "Oh yeah?"
David Lee: "Yeah, does that make you feel weird?"
Alicia: "No! Shut up, I don't feel weird."
Alicia: "Pick up pick up pick up Veronica? Mom? Do I need to explain to you why you can't tell anybody why you paid for that building or that it has to do with me? Just say it's an investment..."
Veronica: "That's exactly what it is!"
Alicia: "No, I mean like it has nothing to do with me."
Veronica: "We'll see. Cross your fingers."
Uh, like it matters. David Lee is onto you and once he's onto you, it's over. This is all just arbitrary cloak and dagger for the hell of it, now. You will not escape.
NSA
Gabe: "Somebody keeps calling the Florrick house over and over, from a number on the BOLO list -- Somali national and a known Hamas sympathizer."
Blonde: "And it's not a client?"
Gabe: "See, look -- ignore the pop-up for weird-core Taiwanese porn -- see, here. Teo Dalmar, who gave money to... There. Mouharib Mousalim."
Blonde: "That sounds like the terrorist connection. What's the content of the calls?"
Gabe: "Endless crying. Sounds like a teenage girl."
Blonde: "That is freaky, dude."
THE CASE
Alicia: "Actually, not to blow your minds, but I'm gonna request a SCIF."
Everybody: "We got a badass over here, apparently."
AUSA: "Objection! The SCIF exists to protect the government, not..."
Judge: "-- Not the people, Mr. Hortense?"
AUSA: "No yeah, I hear it. But still."
SCIF
Judge: "For real? North Korean dissidents. What is with this fuckin' guy."
L/G: "I know. But that brings on the NSA, and that scares the freedom fighters out of the deal..."
Judge: "Sure, but why this SCIF?"
L/G: "Dick-slangin' basically. Gross had the temerity to question their gag order, so they'd take anything to get back at him. Even through his attempts to bring democracy and human rights to a benighted republic, Your Honor."
Judge: "Fine, how much for the damages?"
NSA: "Fourteen grand? This is a mockery!"
Alicia: "Bitch it was a mockery when you started this bull and you know it."
Judge: "This isn't about civil liberties, Mrs. Florrick. And it's not about money either. It's about the publicity value of Neil Gross standing up to the NSA. We're all grownups here, right? So call it what it is."
Alicia: "This is the part where you cut the baby in half, right? You've got a face on like you're gonna cut the baby."
VERONICA
David Lee: "A suite of offices."
Veronica: "Just had to have 'em! They are gorgeous!"
David Lee: "It has gotten to the point where I am not even sure what this is about. I want to force you to tell me that your daughter is leaving my firm, but I also really love money and you're the only person on earth that I don't hate, so that's part of it too."
Veronica: "I love that you want to advise me, and I will take your advice as often as I can. But sometimes a girl just wants some commercial real estate. I can be a real girl with money, you know what I mean?"
David Lee: "And yet I cannot stop pushing."
Veronica: "Then allow me to push back, and tell you that you are approaching an actual boundary at this point. You need to stop before we're not friends anymore."
David Lee: "Okay, sorry."
I mean, of course he does not actually say the word "sorry," but they're both playing on a chessboard you don't really see until she's like, "Too far, back off." And suddenly their whole sexy thing means something different: She's a jungle cat, too. Did you forget what show we're watching? Apparently I did.
NSA JUDGEMENT
Gag order stays, because of whatever SCIF reasons turned out to be legit, but the damages are for $14,000, and the AUSA will never know why that number, which is going to drive him crazy like a person in a Poe story. And, also, the third and greatest thing, which is that he's putting a gag order on the damages itself. Not even the AUSA figures that one out for a bit, and we cut to Neil Gross, giving a TED Talk about how he simply cannot discuss the value of the check he's holding, but suffice to say the NSA won't be fucking with Neil Gross again any time soon. It's hot because it's Neil Gross, and because it's douchey in a particular Mark Cuban way I am very susceptible to, but most of all because what a fabulous way to cut the baby. Judge Tambor, please come back soon. That was beautiful.
Most especially because the real real point is that -- like Twitter makes no money but is worth billions of dollars -- sometimes it doesn't matter what actually went down, because it's the narrative that matters: Everybody in that auditorium felt stronger, less up-against-the-Empire, than they did ten minutes ago. I'm not one to rage or rail against the machine, but I think that feeling is important. It's not necessarily important that you blow up the machine, it's that you know you could.
It's like the old thing about sitting at the red light in the middle of the night, you're just being reminded that nobody's watching you. And even if they are, they can suck it.
Where I think it falls apart is that Gen X paranoia is built around a self-absorption that can be hard to understand from the outside: What the hell makes you so special that somebody is going to watch you masturbate through your Kinect or the webcam on your laptop?
I think of it like this: Who are these people, the actual people, that you imagine to be the They that are holding you down, keeping you paralyzed, judging you silently. Where do they go home to? What song is stuck in his or her head, right this second? What kind of underwear do they wear, would they pick Davy Jones or Peter Tork, what's their favorite brand of laundry detergent? What does it smell like?
When you imagine Them into being -- keeping you afraid and small and weak -- what do you imagine Them thinking about you? What if They think you are beautiful, or smart, or so, so funny? What if you're the thing that keeps Them from quitting their job every day? What if you are Their favorite one, of all the ones They have to watch?
NSA
They listen to Alicia saying goodbye to Neil Gross -- still seeming never that impressed with Cary, for all our dependence on ChumHum to get free and then Bossman appears again. Because nobody thought to screen the Florrick apartment for calls from a teenage girl with a broken heart, and nobody is thinking now to figure out the actual story, they've gotten the warrant upgraded to a three-hop. Proximity to the Governor-Elect is like how Homeland shit starts. So it was a good catch, for a dumb reason, and now literally everyone on the show is potentially under surveillance.
SUPREMES
Eli: "I'm here to start in you just one more time about Diane Lockhart. I scared the piss out of her earlier, so now I'm here to work the other side."
Chief: "I literally do have... These are not 'hesitations,' I'm not 'squeamish,' like I literally think she is a creep because she is spiritually wedded to a creep. It's the same lifeguard shit as ever, it's about judges being better than lawyers and lawyers being better than humans. I have entrenched, sir."
Peter: "On behalf of me, Peter Florrick, you are done with this topic. Or else."
Chief: "Whoa, I didn't hear you come in."
Peter: "Remember that."
DIANE
Eli: "Can I talk to the lady of the hour, please?"
Asst: "She is in a little bit of a meeting, Mr. Gold."
Eli: "Tell her not to talk to Mandy again, I fixed it. I am magic and I fixed it."
And the camera pans just past her desk, but not quite into Diane's office. It lingers, framing her and framing her again, caged up with her chains, as Mandy posts pats her hip pocket, full of secrets, and thanks Diane for finally doing it.
And then she's all alone.
WEEK
David Lee takes time off from torturing Alicia and the fourth-years to get a posse together and, from what I can gather, they actually surround Diane Lockhart, march her down into an abandoned mine shaft, and then stab her with steely knives and bludgeon her with thick oak cudgels until she is no longer a candidate for the Illinois Supreme Court. Then Will says some very mean things to what is left of her. Then they all go back to trying to destroy the fourth-years some more.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Homeland, Hostages, Ravenswood, and Masters Of Sex for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love.