Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 73 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT One Hand Clapping
By Jacob Clifton | Season 5 | Episode 13 | Aired on 03.09.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Lemond Bishop's creepy goblin lawyer Wallace Shawn shows up in the middle of Grace introducing Alicia to her favorite show -- a hilarious AMC cop show that takes itself unbelievably seriously -- to drag her into a big messy drug case that is everything she's (always) been pretending to avoid her most notorious client's unsavory activities. Soon enough, Florrick Agos and Lockhart/Gardner find themselves on the same side of the case, as the US Attorney and DEA come after Bishop for trafficking.
Team Bishop becomes convinced there's a mole at Florrick Agos once the DEA starts coming up with facts about the case they couldn't possibly know, and set a lovely trap that involves putting several F/A employees on call at different times throughout the day to see which person is telling secrets... And nobody's more surprised than Alicia to find out she, herself, is the mole: And this after spending half the episode trying valiantly to shield her people, while trying to comprehend Grace's TV show and still keep up with her hobby of drinking wine as often as possible.
But no! She is not the mole, it's actually the NSA (a different pair of boys, no less charming) who've joined forces with the DEA on this particular case, which resolves in the resignation of the AUSA in charge and a lot of intra-agency bitchery, plus one more thing: A connection linking Peter's voter-fraud investigation to Will, who ends the episode served with a subpoena and bearing the burden of most of our dangling plot threads in a decidedly suspenseful way: Does he stick to his ethical and romantic guns (and the Fifth) here, or will he somehow parlay this into nuke attacks on both Florricks individually?
Great moments here include: That moment you realize Robyn meeting Wallace Shawn's demonic goblin lawyer is about as exciting as the moment you realized Eli and Kalinda were going to meet for the first time; Alicia and Robyn both playing different versions of the "kitty's got claws" routine with the DEA and Feds, Alicia most chillingly indeed; and the weirdness of Cary and Kalinda finally hooking up, pretending to enjoy their "mutually assured destruction" and less able to read each other than ever before (unless her mistaking his earnest warning for internecine trickery was meant to fool the wiretappers? Is there any way that could still be true?).
Biggest surprise of the night, though, would still go to Marilyn Garbanza's turn as the St. Alicia, convinced by Eli's bullshit and Peter's stonewalling to throw in with the Feds. I would not have believed I'd remain so firmly and sympathetically on her side, but she turns in a great and well-acted day here, forced and led once again into standing up for what's right. Of course, we know from previous episodes that the radio silence from Eli and Peter is a protective measure for everybody, but that doesn't stop her from being just as integral to, or embroiled in, the story as any of the others. She feels like a member of the ensemble, finally. (She's also learned to do things like sit on furniture and put her clothes on correctly, which probably helps.)
The joys of the episode had to do with the eponymous way the two plot threads of the episode -- voter fraud and the F/A "leak" -- kept informing and twisting each other, which us as the sole witnesses to what was happening. When they finally came together, it was less of a shock and more of a relief, knowing that we'd finally reached that long-promised moment where the NSA wiretaps would bring everything to a head. And just like with the parallel construction formula intends, it got us there without revealing the trick before it needed to. Neat stuff.
All in all, a highly enjoyable but not that consequential welcome back, as pieces get moved around in preparation for the March 23 barnburner we're told will be the most shocking episode ever. But given how great this season's been, especially those "divisible by fives" episodes we keep counting up to, I'm fairly certain they're underselling it. Will's kind of a wildcard and we love that, but he has just been handed the keys to the kingdom in a lot of ways and there's really no way to predict which way he'll jump. Except straight into crazytown, of course, because that's always his first move.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
New firm, old business, NSA overreach and a three-steps-out wiretapping scheme, voter fraud.
(...ON DARKNESS AT NOON)
The show starts with a "Previously" tag for a fictional show, AMC's Darkness At Noon, which seems to be a late-bloomer rag on Sunday night shows that trump ours in prestige even though few-to-none of them are as good as this one. Low Winter Sun being a sad-sack cancelee would make the joke fall a little flat, a little mean, but "nobody" could have predicted the hollow bombast of True Detective -- and if "anybody" did, they would have gotten a world of shit for it -- so it works out anyway.
Marty: "You crossed the line."
Cohle: "I'm not going back."
Marty: "There are lines, and then there are lines."
Cohle: "Do you know what needs doing? I'll tell you what needs doing. You make your own lines."
Grace loves it, because fake-gritty prestige dramas are mostly for the morbid teenage mind anyway, but Alicia's in a cute sweater downing wine and trying desperately to understand what is happening. In her world, you don't have to constantly move the goalposts -- or have endless fucking discussions about the placement of the goalposts -- because there are no goalposts. The music of the show's credits is like The Sopranos, as long as we're talking overhyped sacred cows, but anyway a real-life prestige drama is about to unfold in the Florrick apartment, as the Devil Himself -- just as the theme song is singing about the Devil Himself -- has come to call. Charles Lester, Wallace Shawn, as Lemond Bishop's other lawyer.
Zach: "Mom? A goblin."
Mom: "Drycleaning guy. Tell him the piping on the jacket is leather."
Lester: "And when do you want it back?"
Mom: "Thursday's fine!"
Lester: "Cool. Could you tell your mom Charles Lester is here, by the way?"
When Zach says his name, like a crack of lightning, a gunshot rings across the show, and Alicia nearly snaps the stem of her wineglass.
Alicia: "Fuck. Grace, go hide in your room. Zach, same."