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Following on from last week's heart-stopping Diane/Will scene, in which she interrupted a meeting with a PR flack to tell him about Alicia's betrayal, we get some Emmy work from Josh Charles as he slowly comprehends and digests this information, makes his careful way to her office, and then destroys it while screaming some of the nastiest, truest stuff anybody has ever said on the show. All while holding back tears, in a way that makes me think Will Gardner is about to lose his fucking mind in the coming weeks.
What happens is an orgy of firing -- David Lee's evilness boner, as you can imagine, knocking all manner of paperweights and tea mugs around as he sweeps from room to room, finally fulfilling his life's ultimate purpose -- as one by one the exiting lawyers are escorted from the building to regroup in a coffeeshop downstairs. As more and more people are called to the carpet and dismissed -- including a horrific confrontation between Diane and Cary that seems irrevocable -- both sides start gearing up to protect their own interests.
Through the episode's second half -- yeah, all of that stuff above takes a half-hour so I hope you can hold your breath for a half-hour because you are going to need that ability -- every move by the partners at one firm is countered by their opposite number at the other. David Lee sabotages the new offices and implies financial shenanigans on Alicia's part, (after a disastrous mention by Cary himself) F/A is served with a restraining order keeping them from talking to ChumHum, and so on.
From our end, Alicia uses one of the Basketball Judges that hates Will to sign a restraining order going the other way; always intuiting who is pulling which strings and knowing what they'll do , because that's how she's been forced to survive since the show started. It is beautiful. And so sad! Like when Will deploys Kalinda to get secret information, and after she has burned the shit out of Cary and Alicia for leaving, he also gets her total loyalty: Alicia's two exes -- and the ones hurt most by her betrayal -- on a mission of vengeance.
But F/A demonstrates tons of the youthful flexibility that is their brand, moving temporarily into Alicia's living room and stuff, and eventually -- with Peter's help, after a midday sex romp a few rooms away from the hubbub -- get ChumHum on their side, meaning the new firm is totally a go. That part was pretty creepy, considering it was a coded offhand remark during a presser that scares Neil into coming along with the firm, but in another way it is the most natural step: Life has been challenging Alicia to swim with the sharks for five seasons now, it's about time she cashed in some of those chips.
Little does she know that Peter's also not above strong-arming Will Gardner (much to Eli's dismay) into treating Alicia with the kid gloves he left at home today... Which is really the most telling part, because we see time and time again the way Peter got into his pre-series mess in the first place was demonstrating exactly this kind of arrogance and ease with power... And exactly how Alicia got in over her head in the first place too, thinking it wouldn't bite her in the ass. It's also why it's not surprising that the last moment of the episode involves Peter taking Diane's name off the shortlist for the Supreme Court, either. Insane when you think about how powerful this means Marilyn Garbanza's gams really are, right?
Anyway, OMG. It finally happened, and it did not disappoint. While we have yet to see what ultimately will happen with newlywed Diane, I think it's safe to assume that she'll be back at L/G for too long, and then they can start the assault on F/A with everything they've got. What a wonderful television show to be watching, man. I don't know if it'll last past the end of this season, but either way a fire has been lit under the show's ass that is just inspiring. I don't think I've ever loved it this much, which is saying a lot.
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Ooh, girl.
NOW:
When Diane comes across the miles of carpet to Will's office, he's talking to a PR agent named Joely about the general vibe of L/G, and this is the already ironic but now phenomenally ironic read she has on the firm:
"You're stable. That's what I'll sell as your publicist. Stability. You don't know how many firms I work with where it's just constant screaming and backbiting. I mean, here, you're all just one big happy family!"
Will barely registers Diane's presence, with a nasty little "What." But of course it only takes a second of Diane's no-nonsense, this-is-real tone before Joely's out the door. But what happens , he can't seem to hear; like a nightmare of running, like a busted bicycle chain, his brain keeps glitching. It won't catch:
Diane: "Alicia's leaving the firm with Cary, and she's taking our top clients."
Will: "...Nope, try again."
Diane: "Sonya Rucker's leaving the firm. With Cary and Alicia, to their new firm.
Will: "Cary is leaving for a new firm."
Diane: "Yes and also Alicia."
Will: "What?"
Diane: "Ben is Glory, bro. She stopped decorating her office three weeks ago."
He frowns, and threatens tears. When she -- another enemy -- starts in on the "I know it's hard" speech, he stands up: We are certainly not doing that. He heads out, stormclouds knitting on the brow, and she knows where he is going and what he is doing, of course. "Document everything," she yells, and he doesn't even look back to nod. Every step down the hallway is another memory: Smiling secretively in meetings, even when they had nothing going on. Smiling under the sheets, for that blink of an eye:
Will: "You're leaving?"
Alicia: "No honey, it's morning. I just got here."
Then she sees his face; her brain glitches, the gear won't catch. She can't say anything but "What?" He unbuttons his jacket; he is breathing too hard. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Will doesn't turn it off to be a good litigator, he's a good litigator because he can turn it off:
Will: "You are Cary are leaving. It's a yes or no. You're taking clients with you. You decided this three weeks ago."
Alicia: "Yes to all. I'm sorry."
Will: "That helps."
Alicia: "It's time I try something... New."
What she means is that he was always standing silently in the corner of her life, her marriage; she needs a life that doesn't smell like him. But what he hears is that he was never really there at all. He'll never know how close he came, or how dangerous he was. How dangerous he is:
It takes him two tries to clear her desk. It is louder than anything.
"I took you in. No one wanted you, I hired you. I pushed for you. This is a business decision? You were poison! This firm got you back on your feet. And this is your gratitude? Stealing our clients? You have a fiduciary responsibility to this firm, and you were going behind our backs."
Alicia: "Hold it. I didn't go behind any backs."
Will: "You what? You negotiated Diane's exit package, the whole time, you knew you were leaving."
Alicia: "Nothing I was doing impacted that negotiation."
Your existence impacted that negotiation. Your existence is what kept me from falling apart:
"God, you're awful, and you don't even know how awful you are."
Not untrue. But not entirely true, not anymore. Not since the night Matthew Ashbaugh died.
Kalinda had the best of intentions. You can trace the story she told herself, about Peter, that it was before she loved you, before she even knew you. You could listen to that painful story and all the ethics and silence that went into it, all the way down the line, and it wouldn't mean a thing, because it's a story you weren't there for: You're here now, in the result, and intentions don't mean shit. Doesn't mean she won't try.
It's practiced, rehearsed. You can always tell you're on the wrong side when you already have your justifications locked and loaded:
"This is how you and Diane started this firm..."
He swallows vomit, and reaches for her phone, on the floor, in the wreckage:
Will: "Okay. First of all, you're fired. Second, I'm taking this phone until such time as..."
Alicia: "Excuse me? That's my personal..."
Will: "Fine, but I'm taking it into possession until I can determine which clients you've attempted to steal."
Alicia: "You can't do that."
Will: "Let's talk about what we can and can't do, good idea. What you can do is get the fuck out of here."
What she can do is keep telling the story she's been telling herself for months. He clenches his fists around her phone.
Will: "You're fired."
Alicia: "No."
Will: "That St. Alicia trick won't work. Don't push this one."
Alicia: "I'm a partner. You need a majority vote of the Executive Board, and then a vote of the full board..."
Everywhere, they're staring. Robyn Burdine can't move. He tells her stand right there, document everything, and he leaves, to call security. The second he's gone, she grabs her landline and then demands Robyn's phone.
Robyn: "Do we tell Cary? Or somebody?"
Alicia: "This is part of it. I can't tell you want to do. At some point, you and I are going to be deposed about everything we are about to do right now. You're on your own."
Robyn: "So... I'll tell Cary."
Alicia: "Point of interest, Will's gathering the Executive Committee and the full board, which will take about an hour."
Then she calls the realtors, to ask to move in a week early. It's smooth, and it's beautiful, and she knows exactly how awful she is.
Robyn whispers her way down the hallway, to Carey Zepps and Beth the Redhead: "We have a half-hour," she tells them, to keep them moving, and they run to get their files and contacts, just as Will's collecting Lyman for a Quorum, and telling the IT guy to lock down every computer. "Oh, and one of the partners."
David Lee comes alive, of course, with hands outstretched; a mad scientist cackling behind the Jacob's Ladder and Tesla coils. "IT'S ALIVE! IT WANTS TO EAT FACES!"
David Lee: "I told you they were up to something, I told you they were screwing us..."
Will: "We've got almost a Quorum. We need one more."
David Lee: "It would be pleasing, aesthetically, if Alicia were here for it. She just has to be in the meeting, not the..."
Will: "Okay, that's gross. But what about Diane? Same basic idea."
David Lee: "No, fuck her too. Fuck everybody!"
Will: "We haven't signed off on the exit package, that's how we found out because I gave her Sonya Rucker. Diane, get in here."
Lyman: "What's going on? We're firing Alicia all of a sudden?"
Will: "All those in favor?"
Their hands go up, except for Diane's.
David Lee: "FFS."
Diane: "I know. Just give me a second."
The IT guy directs Will to Carey, the third conspirator, and soon enough he's on his way downstairs too. "If you need your car keys, you can wait in the lobby." He gives Beth the big eye, as he's going, and then he's gone.
Back in her destroyed office, Alicia hurriedly calls home, where Zach is running late because he can't find his Lincoln essay. She spits out a garbled mess of jargon, "clouds" and computer words, knowing he'll understand her gibberish. He grins, not really twigging to the urgency, because it's such a bizarre occurrence to be happening, at any time. You could look a person in the eye and say, "Alicia Florrick is being detained and forcibly ejected from the law firm where she's a partner, and they took away her phone, and she's being watched," and their brain would glitch. They would say, "...What?"
Cary's on his way in when Carey and his escorts hit the lobby. Cary keeps moving, smoothly, as Carey raises his voice -- "I know you started firing people before I could download all the files, but I'm staying here!" and Cary taps the elevator buttons, again and again, those haunted L/G elevators doing what they do best. He could punch a hole in the wall, by the time they finally close.
"They don't know I'm with you," Beth whispers from his desk, as David Lee rampages, screaming, and Alicia sits unmoving in the center of a disaster with Robyn, but by the time Cary gets to his desk his laptop is gone. Diane's standing in the corner like a ghost, not immediately apparent, holding it tightly to her chest, in the shadows.
"You know what offends me most?"
He squares his shoulders, shoves his hands in his pockets and waits for it. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.
Diane: "The fact that I stood up for you. I got you hired."
Cary: "That offends you most? Not the fact that you screwed us on partnerships, first by giving them to all of us and then only to your little scapegoat? Not the fact that you alienated all the fourth-years by playing us off your own financial mismanagement?"
Diane: "So it is with the fourth-years. Specifically."
Cary: "Oops. No, I'm just saying it's a thing that is offensive."
Diane: "I was your mentor, you could have come to me. I have always been here for..."
Cary: "Well, that is straight bullshit. A mentor teaches, you never wanted to teach. You sent me away, and you brought me back, because it was expedient. You played us off each other in that horrific bake-off, you dumped us all. This isn't fucking summer camp. Don't disrespect it by dismissing it like that."
Diane: "It's amazing, how you've misinterpreted every single thing..."
You're awful, and you don't even know how awful you are.
Cary: "The SA was hell. I put more hours into this place than any of us, I did my best work for you..."
Diane: "And we fired you for Alicia. Which you seem to have forgiven."
Cary: "I need to start something on my own. Same way you and Will needed to..."
Diane: "Gross. And even if, do it without our clients!"
Cary: "They are not your clients. You are name partners, you get everything and we do the work. When was the last time you opened a file? When was the last time you could cough up numbers or case details on ChumHum, when it's..."
Diane: "So ChumHum specifically?"
Cary: "How do you keep doing that?"
Diane: "I have to go take down Alicia real quick. Make a list of every associate leaving with you, or I will fire every single fourth-year."
Cary: "This is so stupid. You're off to the State Supreme Court, Madam Justice. Why do you even care?"
Diane: "I don't like betrayal, and I like the house I built. Write down those names and get the fuck out. Because you are fired, sir."
Cary: "Again."
Diane: "Here's hoping this one sticks, you little shit."
He tents himself over the desk for a moment, looking through the walls at Alicia with hooded eyes. They practiced for this, they knew it would be bad, they have their arguments locked and loaded. A thousand pre-rehearsed conversations, sober and over wine, every time they felt guilty they would look each other in the eyes -- just like they're doing now -- and tell each other the story of their intentions: We're the new Will and Diane, we're just doing what they taught us to do, we dotted every I and crossed every T, because one day we're going to be deposed. And on that day, we can't hate ourselves.
That was the intention. But intentions are bullshit, and the proof is this: If those conversations, the ones they're finally having now in real life, were all the burden they had to carry, they wouldn't feel so sick now.
He understands why she is still. It's not because she's cold and it's not because she has nothing to say; it's because she has a million things to say, and none of them will help.
Will: "The Executive Committee called this emergency -- shut the fuck up -- emergency meeting of the full partnership with one cause of action. A partner's actively trying to steal our top clients..."
Diane, at his elbow: "ChumHum. Cary told me. Agos Cary."
Will: "So, ChumHum. For example. For fucking example, ChumHum. Motion to remove Alicia Florrick of her duties as..."
Robyn: "They don't know that I'm with you. Should I stay here, after you go?"
Alicia: "I can't say anything about that."
Robyn: "I think I can feed you stuff from the inside..."
Alicia: "I can't even hear you say that. Stop talking."
A client, Candace, drops by just then for a deposition, which Alicia has forgotten entirely about in the last hour. She parts the guards with a glance and welcomes her in, embarrassed.
Candace: "What the heck is this? Are you under arrest, or...?"
Alicia: "I am ... in the process of forming my own firm, and I think I'm being pushed out today."
Candace: "But you're my lawyer!"
Alicia: "Will's your lawyer, too."
Candace: "Sure, but... Can I come with you? How does that work?"
Alicia: "I cannot speak to that at this time. Oh, and here comes Will."
With security standing by, he formally explains that after a vote by the full partnership, she's been officially removed from her position, and then asks them to escort her out. It's a long walk. Everybody looks shell-shocked. Some of the women in the hallway are crying. Everybody looks disgusted, maybe, or that's just how she feels. The walls are all made of glass: Layer on layer of the men and women she told herself she wasn't really betraying.
He presses the elevator button for her, and stands waiting for the door to close.
Will: "After we ascertain whether there are Lockhart/Gardner materials on it, we will messenger your phone to you."
Alicia, choking: "This was never meant personally."
Will: "I don't give a damn."
What she means is that she help him apart, in another room of her head, all this time. "I'm gonna be thinking about that for the rest of the day," he said a few hours ago, and she smiled, almost winking. "Just the rest of the day?"
What he means is, intentions are bullshit. What he means is, we're in the result What he means is, it doesn't matter how many years it took you to hear the song, Matthew Ashbaugh never stopped singing it.
The doors closed on Kalinda, eventually, and the elevator hummed, and she collapsed against the wall: Ideas about justifications aren't justifications, and justifications don't make it go away.
Every word shored up against these ruins, every wishful-thinking agreement and conspiracy, every reassurance of their ethical rectitude, was about this ugly afternoon. About how nice it would be, if things went smoothly. They wanted the Rapture, they wanted the partners to show up week and see only clean desks, missing files, transparency across the board. Lipstick kisses on glass walls, XOXO scrawled lovingly across computer screens:
Thanks for everything, we're taking flight.
Alicia breaks. She is in the result.
LOCKHART/GARDNER
By the time Kalinda comes to work today, the lobby is a superfund site of decimated survivors and jack-booted security guards. A well-meaning, blue-collar explosion twenty floors up has left scattered Armani bodies everywhere, waiting for their phones and car keys. Staring into a future that is so bright they can't make out shapes; shadows burnt into glass walls.
Upstairs it's worse, as David Lee takes the burliest and most intimidating guards on a tour of every office, kicking over desks to reveal huddled fourth-years crammed in, two and three to a bolthole, clutching burner phones and granola bars to their chests. She steers herself between disasters, seeking Will.
Will: "So she didn't do anything?"
Robyn: "Sat quietly, waiting for you."
Will: "She didn't call any associates?"
Robyn: "No, she did not do that."
Will: "Don't go anywhere today, okay?"
Will: "Kalinda, where have you been?"
Kalinda: "At home, thinking about what my life would be like if I had furniture."
Will: "So we fired Cary and Alicia. And Carey. They were planning to steal top clients."
Kalinda: "Crazy."
Will: "Sharma, level. Are you going with her?"
Kalinda: "Whom?"
Will: "If you are, you need to leave right now. Not because I will sic David Lee on you, but because you could stay clean. I know who you are. You're the one person who couldn't be blamed. You tried to tell me about this months ago before it even started happening and I fought you on it and called you a bitch about it..."
Kalinda: "Never a real possibility."
Will: "David Lee named you first, weeks ago, when we didn't believe him."
Kalinda: "David Lee talks a neverending deluge of bullshit."
Will: "Valid."
Will: "You're friends with Alicia, and she didn't tell you about leaving?"
Kalinda: "Nope. So was I, really?"
Will: "I need to know who else is going. Associates and clients."
Kalinda, standing: "Gotcha."
Will: "You can't just tell me?"
Kalinda: "Seriously no, I don't know. I have stayed out of this."
Will: "I thought I had you. Okay, can I trust you?"
Kalinda: "You ... can, actually."
Will: "David Lee, what have you done here?"
David Lee: "I'm lining up everybody Cary listed, we're going to have them shot. It's like the Fourth of July!"
Will: "No, buddy. Look hard at this group. Tell me what you see."
David Lee: "I see a guy in a wheelchair, a black lady, the deaf guy, and... Oh. Oh, god damn him."
Will: "Yeah, he listed every fourth-year that's in a protected class. Come on."
David Lee: "He used my evil against me!"
Will: "So about that stability you were talking about..."
Joely: "This is fucking massacre."
Will: "You're hired, you're our new publicist. Hope you like a challenge!"
Joely: "Hit me with the headlines. Why is everybody bleeding on the Berber?"
Will: "We just fired a partner. Who is also the wife of the Governor."
Joely: "We need to talk about my retainer."
David Lee sprays about five more offices with gunfire, barely breaking step on his way to the partner meeting, and they circle the wagons.
Will: "Okay, now we call clients."
Diane: "That lady out there surrounded by charred bodies is a client, speaking of."
Will: "Oh shit, am I her lawyer? Well, clearly we have a lot going on."
Lyman: "What are we telling the clients?"
David Lee: "We make it about Alicia because she's the famous one, first of all. Reasons for firing her. And not the new firm, either. That makes it look like her story hasn't ended. Let's tell them she steals money from clients."
Diane: "We don't talk about that. First because it's not true and deeply shitty, second because I torpedoed this firm once with that already this week and it's out there."
Will: "Yep. This can't be about anger. It has to be cold. We heal this scar so well she never existed. Cary Agos, Cary Zepps, none of them. They're the thirteenth floor now."
Will: "So you guys call everybody, and I'll get a restraining order around them..."
David Lee: "We can't win that."
Will: "It's not about winning, it's about slowing them down. Off-speed pitch. It's how we level the playing field after months of them working against us."
He looks... Not happy. But he has come back to life. He is inching toward happiness -- right now it's electric zaps across his scalp -- but he's slowly turning toward the future, like a submarine, course-correcting. Nobody knows what Will without Alicia even looks like. She was poison, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. It's like something being born.
FLORRICK/AGOS
When they shove the guy out into the lobby he blinks in the sun, for a second; in the first-floor coffeeshop he sees Cary and Alicia, chattering excitedly, surrounded by planetoids, and rushes in.
Carey: Who else did they get? Are you the last one?"
Guy: "Uh, Beth was still there..."
Cary: "So it's Beth and Robyn. They can download..."
Guy: "Nope, the computers are all locked out. Everybody's just standing around looking shellshocked, and the partners are screaming about us. No work is getting done."
So -- with baristas calling out names and orders over all of it -- Florrick/Agos gets to work.
Alicia: "Will's going to be phoning everybody. Split the list up. I called the realtors, we can pick up the keys tomorrow. It was smooth and awful, how fast I found myself thinking."
That Dickhead: "Well, we lost our bonuses... Or should I say, you all lost..."
Everybody: "Shut up, dude. You're only here because you blackmailed us."
Alicia: "Everybody shut up and call your people. Cary, Neil Gross. Now."
Cary: "And you call Vonerich at SVI Holdings."
SVI
Vonerich: "Hello? ...Oh, I didn't know that."
David Lee: "Yeah, she had to go. It's very sad. But the good news is that we did some preliminary damage control on your cases, before the authorities get involved, and there isn't any money missing..."
FLORRICK/AGOS
Vonerich: "Actually, Alicia, I'm not sure it's the best time for me to..."
Alicia: "They got him, boys."
Vonerich: "Is it true your accounts had financial irregularities?"
Alicia: "Do I look like Will Gardner?"
Kalinda: "Cary, c'mere a minute. Do you still need an investigator?"
Cary: "What is this?"
Kalinda: "L/G's going down the tubes, Will may have actually lost his mind."
Cary: "Actually we have an investigator. Robyn Burdine."
Kalinda: "Yeah but is she magic?"
Cary: "Kind of? And she's within our budget."
Kalinda: "Nobody is magic like I'm magic. And I'll take the last deal you offered me."
Cary: "This is shady. Kalinda, what are you really doing right now?"
"Lockhart/Gardner can survive without you. Alicia, half a dozen others, but... It can't survive without Diane. I can read the writing on the wall." She sets her dazzling eyes to stun; he's looking everywhere while they're talking, or else he might notice how hard she's working him. Or maybe not; he certainly gave Diane everything she wanted him to spill.
Cary: "Fine, get us the ChumHum files."
Kalinda: "And bring them to a coffee shop?"
Cary: "155 Emerson."
Such is the way of Kalinda that even now it's not entirely clear. I mean, you know how it should go, if you know Kalinda at all -- betrayed by Alicia, and having sworn fealty to Will, are two big things -- but nobody knows Kalinda, at all, and she's never looked Cary in the eye and lied to him about anything this important or heartbreaking. Two other big things.
Alicia: "We lost Vonerich's hedge fund."
Carey: "And the Paisley Group. They have been saying some seriously awful things."
Cary: "Will's lost his mind, from what I hear."
Alicia: "Fine, I'll take him out."
Alicia calls Candace to ostensibly check on her deposition, asking if Will really has deserted her, which she knows he must have. "The concern here, Candace, is that it took us six months to set this deposition up." The boys cheer silently. "...And if it doesn't happen now, they could delay another six months..."
LOCKHART/GARDNER
Candace puts her foot down, brooking no protest from Will, who is in the rat king upstairs of partners talking shit about the Governor's wife. He doesn't immediately get that this is a feint -- even though he has Alicia's phone, so obviously she had to be the one to call Candace and advise her on the deposition -- and heads to get Candace's files. Grace's ringtone voice echoes out of his pocket: "Hey Mom, pick up the phone..."
Grace: "Who is this? Where is my Mom?"
Will: "She's, um. I have her phone."
Grace: "Can you give her a message at least?"
Will: "Uh..."
Grace: "I can't find my permission slip for my Campus Faith field trip..."
Candace: "Seriously? What is even going on with my life today?"
Will: "I don't know when I will see her. Maybe call home?"
Grace: "I am home. Just tell her if you see her?"
Like with Kalinda before, you're on pins and needles on top of a layer of pins and needles, waiting for Grace to spill the beans about Zach and the "cloud," but she's being too annoyed to pull a Grace-type plot twist today.
FLORRICK/AGOS
Cary: "Mr. Gross! Welcome back to Chicago."
Neil: "I'm on my way to your office now..."
Cary: "Actually, can we meet you there? We're up in the air at the moment. Today's the day."
Neil: "You're... Starting a new firm? Today? Instead of meeting with me."
Cary: "No time like the present?"
Neil: "Uh, about that. My 'peeps' on the West Coast aren't loving the idea of me leaving L/G for essentially a startup."
Cary: "I would take umbrage at that characterization if it weren't your whole deal. But hey, what about the Governor's wife?"
Neil: "That doesn't sell me. The political rules for the Governor are a tangle..."
Alicia: "Tell him about our five-year plan! They love that crap."
Neil: "It's true. Fine, come to the office and explain my five years."
LOCKHART/GARDNER
Candace: "Alicia? Is this your right number? I thought we were looking at wrongful termination, not sexual harassment? All of Mr. Gardner's questions are geared toward..."
David Lee grasps the entirety of this gambit, waving through the walls at Will to stop whatever he's doing -- "Didn't you fire our client because she was too pretty?" -- and get the hell out into the hallway.
Will: "Is that Alicia on the phone?"
Candace: "She says we should be going after wrongf..."
Will: "Give me that fucking phone. Florrick, you're not a lawyer with this firm..."
Alicia: "Yeah, and this conversation was initiated from Candace's phone."
Will: "Engage with any of our clients again, and we'll take you to court for tortious interference."
Alicia: "Says the guy who just snatched a phone out of your client's hands. And who has been telling clients I stole money, which is so fucking ironic it's..."
Will: "All I have been telling them is, you were fired. And if you keep calling them, I will take you and Cary for every penny you've got."
Alicia: "Go to hell, Will. Jesus."
Will: "No, you go to hell. Oh, and also, Grace needs you to call her school to go on a field trip."
Alicia: "Okay. When was that?"
Will: "About forty minutes ago?"
Alicia: "Okay, thanks."
Will: "You're welcome. Bye."
Alicia: "Bye!"
They hang up, replay the last five seconds in their heads, and then feel every emotion that a person can feel, in tandem. It's vertiginous and sickening; it's a moment's respite. Just to hear the voice for a moment. Just to feel for a second like everything's not on fire. Good timing at a bad time.
Kalinda: "Okay, they don't have the ChumHum files."
Lyman: "What is ChumHum?"
Kalinda: "Ugh. Anyway, they're trying to meet with Neil Gross."
Will: "What else?"
Kalinda: "They have offices. 155 Emerson."
David Lee: "I knew it! I mean, I didn't know it know it, but I knew it. I gotta call the Department of Health."
Will: "Anybody else with them?"
Kalinda: "...Yeah."
Robyn's running past, with a laptop, when he says her name -- not unkindly -- and she stops cold, clutching it to her chest. A whispered "Robyn Burdine" dying in her throat as her eyes go wide.
CHUMHUM
Cary: "Everybody clear on what we're here for? Alicia, after the actual lawsuit conversation you'll talk about the ethics thing..."
Neil: "Cary and Alicia! And Carey, which is annoying. Change your name, son."
Server: "Alicia Florrick and Cary Agos? This is a restraining order preventing you from meeting any representative of ChumHum. I read it, it charges tortious..."
Alicia: "Tortious interference with trade."
Server: "Wow, are you a wizard?"
Neil: "This is a shitshow. Call me when any of you get your act together."
GUB OFC
Tribune: "Come on, give me a soundbite!"
Peter: "Oh, Doug. I can't tell you something I don't know yet. The pension issue is still..."
Tribune: "Okay, can we talk about your wife getting fired?"
His eyes go a little bit scared for her, and he rings off, shouting for Eli.
Eli: "What is it? You sound freaked!"
Peter: "Alicia got fired, apparently?"
Eli, wide-eyed: "What?"
Peter: "Ben is Glory, Eli. Catch up."
Eli: "Fired from her job?"
Will: "So we set a meeting for Neil... Oh, look who's calling! This is going to be so rad."
Peter: "WILL."
Will: "Hey buddy, how's it going?"
Peter: "Where is my wife?"
Will: "Not here, I know that much! Stealing somebody else's clients, maybe."
Peter: "You can't steal something from a man who never had it in the first place."
Will: "Fucking go to hell, bro."
Eli's eyes go wider and wider throughout, past anime and into just 100 percent eyeballs, into a Picasso painting of Eli's face:
Will: "Speaking of things that don't require your involvement, Governor-Elect..."
Peter: "Right now I'm not a Governor, I'm a husband. A husband with the chance to take you out of the running for good. Do you understand how many points I will win for coming the fuck after you today? We'll be in Hawaii before the fucking sun goes down."
Will: "Ooh, are you threatening me? Am I gonna get audited? Should I be recording this?"
Peter: "Yeah, I'm the asshole here. You sleep with my wife, then fire her..."
Will: "I don't remember any sleeping..."
Peter: "What's awful is that you know exactly how awful you are."
Will: "I'm just trying to figure out what I should feel bad about, buddy. Because this is the best I have felt in weeks."
Peter: "Feel bad that I am coming the fuck after you. And feel bad that you have just cemented my marriage for the rest of time. Life without Will is just Team Florrick, all the time. Whatever you all turned her into, she's my weapon now. And I am hers."
Will: "I have to go. Fuck you, okay?"
Peter: "Enjoy being destroyed utterly in the near future."
Eli: "I think I am having an actual heart attack. How do you know if it's a heart attack or a panic attack? What if it's both? I think it might be both."
FLORRICK/AGOS
Alicia: "We need it looking sharp as hell. For the client optics, but also so we don't feel like we're playing dress-up. We have to be always thinking we are real."
Cary: "We can paint the offices one at a time, so there's always room for the rest of us..."
Alicia: "I'll figure out furniture..."
Carey: "Actually I just ran five blocks to tell you that the Department of Health shut down our building for fumigation. Anonymous tip."
F/A: "How long?"
Carey: "Two months."
F/A: "Darn that Will Gardner!"
Alicia: "No way. This is the most David Lee move of all time. He's calling us vermin. He can't just be evil, he has to be bitchy evil."
Cary: "I'm gonna feel entirely awful when I figure out how he knew our address."
Alicia: "Two months will kill us, we can't wait. But where?"
They turn to her as one, like the Village of the Damned, eyes shining, and she just rolls hers, because of course. Mommy forever. The problem with them being the "new Will and Diane" is that they never talked about which one was which. Obviously Carey is the new David Lee, that's why they both came on as regulars, but is Alicia really the Diane? Was she ever? Wouldn't Diane have liked her more, if she were? Wouldn't she have indulged Cary more than she did, if he were the Will?
"What offends me most," she might have been saying, "Is that you really were my favorite. You just thought that would make a difference."
FLORRICK RESIDENCE
There are baby lawyers everywhere, like a safari habitat of lion cubs, rolling on their backs and scrabbling over bones, when Grace leads her Bible Study group through the living room. Pretty maids all in a row, with their school uniforms and dazed virgin smiles.
Alicia: "The heck is this?"
Grace: "Bible Study. The heck is this?"
Alicia: "A law firm."
Grace: "Because it looks like a frat party."
Alicia: "That too, my dear. Go cover up your entire body please."
GUB OFC
In the rush and nonstop of this episode, you might be forgiven for forgetting this scene, but for my money it's one of the most intensely sad of all of them. Diane doesn't want to be there, sitting in a literal lobby of a government office, begging not to be held accountable, punished, for things she only barely did.
"All I did was tell them where to find her, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I didn't point the gun, I didn't pull the trigger. I don't even work there."
The gross irony of getting pushed out for this thing she wanted so much it nearly broke her when she lost it the first time, only to recapitulate that same evolution on the one person whose fate might determine it. We know that -- despite David Lee's venom, guaranteed tantrums -- Lockhart/Gardner would have to take her back, because it falls apart without her. We can read the writing on the wall. But for Diane, she's got to take her pride and emotions and put them in her handbag and sit here waiting on an audience with the king so she can beg.
Generally when a person on this show vacillates, they let themselves be corrupted by the choice -- things get messy while they're waiting; things flip over -- and that's why their indecision leads to their destruction: Sit too long on the fence and you'll fall apart. And I was going to say Diane's better than that, but actually it's the perfect description for the Mandy Post bullshit.
Coincidences aplenty led her here, complicating and corrupting: Eli trying to get around her having to sell Will out, but getting it done seconds too late. Will letting his Diane disappointment harden his image of Alicia into the perfect partner, into everything but the sex. An office-decorating stipend she couldn't stop thinking about, as patterns bubbled to the surface; as she obsessed on the idea of leaving the house she built with their love and her pride intact, hands clean. Peter's attraction to Marilyn -- and his intuition of Alicia's ongoing ambivalence -- getting weaponized by today's events into a scorched-earth strategy to prove his love, to both of them.
Some of those she knows about, some of them she could figure out. But none of those stories, those lead-up narratives, those intentions, mean anything in the result: An old woman with her hat in hand, sitting in the lobby of the king, waiting to beg.
Eli: "Hi! We don't have a meeting?"
Diane: "I have some sticky news."
Eli: "Alicia getting fired? Girl, it is all we been talking about!"
Diane: "Not fired. Asked to leave early, as they told me at my own ouster."
Eli: "That sounds pretty chill, considering you slapped her fledgling business with a barely legal restraining order."
Diane: "I didn't do that! I didn't do any of it! I don't even work there! I mean, I am no longer involved with strategy at Lockhart/Gardner."
Eli: "So when you go into court this afternoon to defend the restraining order..."
Diane: "It's a formality, it's a partner thing. Look. I am ashamed to be here. I'm ashamed to want anything this bad. I am ashamed to... Is this going to impact my shit or not, Eli?"
Eli: "Diane, we are not in the business of letting personal concerns affect our professional decisions. We're fine. Don't worry."
He pats her on the shoulder as he goes, and somewhere inside herself she knows: She knows better than he does, what will happen .
JUDGE JAMES CHASE PRESIDING
Alicia: "Sup, fuckers?"
David Lee: "I could just kill them, right now. Just eat their literal flesh."
Judge: "So there's a restraining order..."
F/A starts talking all at once, all three of them against all three of us, and David Lee laughs at them, throwing them off even more.
Alicia: "Motion to suppress. There's been no tortious interference of trade here, the court can't take sides in a legally proper split of firm assets..."
Will: "Don't let her spin this like that. It would be if they'd done this right, but they didn't. We're talking about improper avowals to the..."
Cary: "Fuck off and sit down."
Everybody: Screaming.
Judge: "Shut up. Plaintiffs, you got a witness or anything?"
Will: "We do, Your Honor."
Diane: "We don't, actually."
She acts like it's about being classy; like she changed her mind because it's too much to stifle these baby birds. Like she's only there as a formality, only there because it's the house she built, and this isn't being done correctly. But she knows -- I don't even think Alicia gets it, she's so used to seeing Diane as the face of God -- why she's really there. And it is not about being classy. When Eli talks, behind those crinkly elf eyes, he's always saying sixteen things at once. And one of those things was to sit this one out.
Luckily, L/G has a surprise witness. Ginger Beth, formerly of Florrick/Agos.
Will: "So you were going to jump, right?"
Beth: "Yeah, but their avowals to prospective clients were..."
Alicia: "Come the fuck on, Beth, you can't even freestyle here? You're gonna use the exact language they told you to..."
Will: "They lied? Like how?"
Beth: "They said that the partners didn't have their best interests at heart. They pursued the clients for months before they left, saying that only they could offer continuity of service on their cases. Which I know because I was also doing that."
Alicia: "So Beth, what did L/G offer you today?"
Will, hissing: "Objection, vague."
Alicia: "Not a prob. Beth, have you been offered a change in position in the last twelve hours?"
Will, barking: "Relevance!"
Judge: "Uh, do you really not get where she's going with this?"
Will: "No, I do. It just makes me mad."
Beth: "I mean, here's the thing..."
Will: "God damn everything."
Beth: "I was offered a partnership. But it was eight months ago! So this is just... A partner is leaving, so."
Alicia: "Uh huh, and who told you about this wonderful change in things? Mr. Gardner?"
Beth: "Yeah."
Alicia: "Because he's pretty gross, right?"
David Lee objects, and she gives him the quacking-duck hand without even looking up from her notes. And here we thought nothing could ever be more gif-able than "look at all this paper." It's gorgeous and mesmerizing and I watched it all week.
Judgment is, the status quo holds until there's time for a fuller hearing, but that means that they can still go after ChumHum (and only ChumHum, because that's who was in play at the time of the restraining order). F/A whines about how all their clients want to leave with them -- you can't steal something from a man who never had it -- but the Judge points out that, if that's true, then it won't matter.
David Lee: "We're going to murder you. Starve you. Carve names in your flesh."
Carey: "You don't see how this makes you look pathetic? Beating up on little kids because you're scared we really are better?"
Will: "Beating up on traitors because that's how you stay the best. Glad you're gone."
David Lee: "And what about you, Florrick? Walking away because you can't take the heat? Fucking Judas..."
She stops at the doors, and the face she turns back to them all is one they've never seen.
"We're coming after you. All your clients. Every single one we worked to make happy, while you swept in at the last minute to take credit. We're taking them. And then you know what you'll have? A very nice suite of offices."
Nobody moves. Nobody breathes.
COURTHOUSE
Carey: "That was incredible. You are the scariest. That was like Galadriel again."
Alicia: "Fuck it. Buckle up. Cary, name all the judges that got burned in Will's bribery scandal."
Cary: "Parks, Dunaway, Winter..."
Carey: "How come?"
Alicia: "Because the dockets are right over there and now we know who's in court today."
CHUMHUM
The L/Gs talk out their strategy in Neil's lobby in exactly the same way the F/As did earlier -- "You talk about this, I'll go into that, etc." -- and it's adorable. As is the same process server showing up when they're standing on the exact same steps the kids were.
Lyman: "I'll talk about the philosophy of the law..."
Will: "You absolutely will not, Howard. You will nod your dumb old head and stay awake if possible..."
Neil: "Hey guys! I love how much you're fucking up my day!"
Server: "Will Gardner and David Lee?"
Neil: "You have got to be fucking kidding me."
David Lee: "This must be Alicia! She is calling us tortious interferers because we are killing her fledgling business!"
Will: "Oh, it gets better. She went to Judge Winter, just so I'd know she was calling me a piece of shit."
And that's the first time Will smiles: As they head back out into the fray, course corrected.
FLORRICK/AGOS (TEMP.)
Cary: "Update, they can't talk to ChumHum now..."
Anthony (?): "Of our twelve clients, we're down to four."
John (?): "Three, remember we lost Paisley."
Alicia: "I think we should talk to Bishop."
Cary: "No. first of all, no..."
Alicia: "He's fair game. He loves me."
Cary: "So does fucking Colin Sweeney. What are you saying? Where's the line?"
Robyn: "What's the deal with Bishop?"
Cary: "Only the top drug dealer and second biggest woman-murderer in all of Chicago."
Robyn: "Sounds like a whale. I still don't get the prob."
Alicia: "Grace, why are you talking to Carey Zepps in our kitchen?"
Grace: "Because he's beautiful and friendly and pretending to be into Jesus."
Alicia: "Zepps, get back in the living room."
Grace: "And enjoy that Bible verse app I told you about!"
Alicia: "You are so Grace Florrick all the time, it's just... It's unbelievable how consistent you are. People always act like the St. Alicia thing is dependable, but I mean you literally just told the scariest person in our house to download a Bible app, and you thought you were flirting. It just blows my mind."
Ding-dong.
Alicia: "Ah, jeez. Now what?"
Peter: "It's me, the Governor-Elect."
Alicia: "Are you here to put more on my plate? Because I am losing it."
Peter: "No, I came to see if you are okay because I'm your loving husband."
Alicia: "That's wildly comforting, thank you."
He can't believe how frisky and excited she is; she looks like a new person, a new woman. He finds himself playing with the ever-present zipper she prefers on her suits, and before she knows it she's dragging him off to the bedroom. It is great. They laugh the whole time, and making dirty Lean In jokes, and the whole thing takes ten minutes. ("Otherwise, they're gonna start making some bad decisions out there," she says, which is the funniest thing in the whole episode besides the duck-hand.)
After, she runs back in to grab her panties, and remind him that Hawaii needs to wait. But he's okay, because he's very close -- he thinks -- to sealing the deal. Points for caring, points manifested in a quickie with more people there than have ever been in the apartment (including two entirely separate groups of horny tweens), and the hammer still to drop on any number of Lockhart- or Gardner- or Lockhart/Gardner-related bloodbaths.
Diane: "Speaking of, I am here standing in your living room."
Alicia: "Weird. Is it okay that it's nice to see you?"
Diane: "I know, right? Anyway, here's the plan. We all drop our restraining orders and both get an hour alone with Neil Gross."
Alicia: "But what does that solve? It's just one client."
Diane: "The one client that makes or breaks either firm. See you there at ten."
Carey: "But we get to go second! ADHD! Neil Gross has it."
Diane: "Fine. Anything is possible with compromise!"
There are intense three-way vibes between Diane and Alicia, Diane and Cary, and Alicia and Cary. All of them are sad, but also electric. Nobody knows what the new world will look like, which is exciting if you can keep yourself from borrowing trouble: It's still too bright out there, after the blast. You can't even see shapes. When he looks at her he can just barely make out the shape of a teacher, and then he's blinded again.
Maybe Alicia and Diane will get what they want, their smooth and painless transitions, after all. Maybe Alicia becomes the new Will (or Diane) and Diane becomes a Supreme Court Judge, and everybody will be happy, and nothing will hurt. Maybe they're still in the air, heading for the ground; maybe all the bridges have burnt and we're all drowning in a minute; but maybe we all fly. For a second it seems like a possibility.
The idea that any of us could have ever been friends, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. That sad shadow burnt on the wall just behind you, of all the ways we could have loved each other, and how we never quite managed to get there.
CHUMHUM
Maybe it's okay that they're all laughing -- Lyman droning, ignored, about how the law is a "bitch of a mistress" -- when they come down the stairs. Maybe David Lee was just trying to rattle them on the way out, when he whispered: "For the future? Don't go second."
Neil Gross leads them literally in a circle, never ascending the stairs, as he waits for them to talk themselves out. It doesn't take long; they are directly in front of the doors, where they started, when he finally speaks.
F/A: "L/G's a firm without its worker bees now. We looked at the way you started Chumhum, you rewarded work over show. That's what we do, reward work. Billable hours, applied as partner hours only when you actually receive partner hours. Alll the stuff we hated, no longer involved..."
Neil: "And we're done. I'm not going anywhere."
Alicia: "Why not?"
Neil: "It's because of you. Peter's promised quote 'the most ethical administration in Illinois history,' and I can't be having my law firm jumping at shadows..."
Alicia: "First of all, you have to know that is bullshit. His Chief of Staff is fucking Eli Gold, for Chrissake. And any time Peter claims he's going to be ethical, that's when it goes nuts. Now, as far as jumping at shadows, I assure you that Florrick/Agos has no ethics to speak of. Why, have you met Carey Zepps? Or the dude that wouldn't stop about the bonuses? They are real pieces of crap, Neil Gross. You can count on us."
Neil: "Nevertheless, it's the way the world works. Politics leads, the law follows. But thanks."
Florrick/Agos: (Flops over dead.)
GARDNER BY NIGHT
Will: "Thanks for sitting there watching me drink, Kalinda. I offered her Diane's job."
Kalinda: "What are we talking about now? Alicia? You started in the middle of that sentence."
Will: "She could have been managing partner at one of the top firms in the city, and she pisses it all away?"
Kalinda: "She wanted to do something on her own."
Will: "With Cary? That's not on her own."
Kalinda: "That's not what that means, when we say it. Look Will, I get that you're hurting. But she's not the enemy here. Consider your imperative."
He does, tapping his fingers, watching her while he thinks.
Will: "When did you really know she was doing this?"
Kalinda: "A week ago. It felt like yours. Like a bomb going off inside my stomach."
Will: "What about Cary?"
Kalinda: "...Okay, three months."
Will: "Ugh. Okay, fine."
Kalinda: "I know, I should have told you..."
Will: "Bah. Yeah, but not because I need to hear it. You wanna be on the groundfloor of what happens ? I am going to be the biggest firm in America, starting today. Do you want in? Can I trust you."
Kalinda: "...You know what? Again, yes."
Will: "It means destroying the competition."
Kalinda: "That's fine."
Will: "I mean specifically that I am going to use you to dest..."
Kalinda: "-- I said I get it."
He drinks the whole drink in one gulp, and that's how history gets made.
GUB PRESS CONF
"Good morning. The pension problem in Illinois is real and increasingly insurmountable, and blah blah blah. [Pause for applause.] No further questions."
Reporter: "Are you going to negotiate the..."
Eli: "Bitch he said no more questions."
Peter: "Oh, you know what? One more thing."
Eli: "I will tackle you myself if this gets weird."
Peter: "I want to talk about taxation of Internet commerce."
Nora: "Eli, say the word and I'll take him out."
"Internet purveyors have, for far too long, in my opinion, enjoyed the benefits of no taxation. I find this to be unfair. I'm not saying that my opinion won't change on this matter, and of course I'm always open to dialogue, but I will have to be convinced that there is a reason for massive social networking companies not to carry their own weight. Thank you."
REACTIONS
Eli: "I should fucking slap you. This is how it starts, do you not get that? You didn't cheat on your wife because you're a sex addict or needed God, you cheated on your wife, using government money, because you are arrogant. Because you get off on using your power, and justify that, which is the granular way corruption happens. How you save your marriage is how you're going to destroy it."
Peter: "I'm simply stating my opinion about the taxation of web commerce!"
Eli: "time I will slap you. I'm not kidding."
Cary: "Hey, everybody! Crowd around the kitchen table! Alicia's husband just saved our bacon!"
Alicia: "Champagne for everybody! I have no problem with this!"
Will: "So we just lost ChumHum."
David Lee: "How do you know?"
Will: "It's kind of my fault. Just trust me, we lost him."
Neil: "Thanks so much for giving me a chance to think it over!"
Cary: "I like how we're all acting like this is above-board."
Neil: "I hope I get to meet Peter Florrick some day! He's awesome."
Alicia: "I'm sure he'd really enjoy that too. He wouldn't be irritated by every single aspect of your personality at all."
F/A: "More Veuve for everybody! We'll sleep when we're dead AND WE ARE NEVER GONNA DIE!"
GOV OFC
Peter: "Eli, come in here a second, okay? I'm standing by the window so I don't have to say this to your face."
Eli: "Fabulous. What, are we going to send assassins after Will Gardner now?"
Peter: "The opposite. Draw up a list of nominees for the new Supreme Court Justice."
Eli: "If you'd asked me a week ago how long it would take until I was afraid of you, I would have said end of the season at the earliest."
Peter: "You're scared of me?"
Eli: "No. Just kind of sad."
He drums his fingers on his tummy, stretching out into his power. Feeling the curves of it; the engine power thrumming under him.
"Yep. That's it starting."
WEEK: THE DAY
Will and Diane dick with more F/A files, Marilyn introduces herself to Alicia which should go great, Will freaks everybody the fuck out, and Nancy Crozier is back!
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.