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“The Good Wife” recap (5.4): A Wedding Before the War

This week’s episode of The Good Wife was really a prelude to “The Episode That Changes Everything!!!” that is coming up next week. But don’t bypass this episode yet, because there’s a lot of good stuff in it, making it my favorite episode of the season thus far. It’s still not as perfect as it could be, of course, but it’s like eating an ice cream that overall isn’t your favorite, yet every now and then you hit a really good chunk of brownie or ripple of caramel that makes you realize you’re still happy you’re stuffing it in your mouth.

The biggest ice cream delight of them all–like, a whole Oreo, or a peanut butter cup–is, of course, the return of Elsbeth Tascioni, played so brilliantly by Carrie Preston. She’s been hired by Lockhart Gardner because one of their paralegals is suing them for being a hostile workplace, including a number of sexual harassment charges against pretty much everyone-including Diane and Alicia. This paralegal is played by Tracee Chimo, and if she looks vaguely familiar to you, it’s because she also recently played Neri, the fiancee of Cal, Piper’s brother in Orange is the New Black.

Carrie and Tracee are only the first of some other amazing guest appearances in this episode, including Rita Wilson being back as Snarky Lawyer Supreme, Viola Walsh, who is representing the disgruntled paralegal. In her lifelong competition with Diane, Ms. Walsh is also hoping some of the paralegal’s more incriminating accusations will look bad for Diane’s upcoming judgeship nomination.

But back to Elsbeth. We first see her walking on a treadmill as she confers with Lockhart Gardner, because she has to walk 10,000 paces a day or the bangle attached to her wrist gets mad at her, and this is completely ridiculous and hilarious and very much perfectly Elsbeth. She asks questions about the case as she walks, and when Alicia asks why one of them matters, she responds, “I don’t know! I just ask questions until they make sense.” Best lawyer! Best human!

We also get a brief but beautiful scene with Elsbeth and Kalinda together, who are, in fact, the best pair in the history of man. Elsbeth notes that the paralegal accused everyone in the office of something bad except for Kalinda. She then interrupts herself to ask where Kalinda gets her hair done, which is a question only Elsbeth can ask Kalinda, and which prompts one of Kalinda’s “what planet are you from” glances that tickle my funny bone so. Strangely, Kalinda doesn’t answer “the lairs of sexy angels in sexy heaven,” but just here and there, different places. Elsbeth bemoans the floppiness of her own hair-it just flops this way, flops that way. Kalinda blinks. Elsbeth’s wrist beeps at her, and she’s off running again. I have missed you, Tascioni.

The real heartbeat of this episode, though, is Diane. It’s quite clear at this point that this is Diane’s season, and I’m not complaining one bit. Yes, Alicia and Cary and the plans to jump ship are all very intriguing, but it’s Diane’s turmoil that I’m left still thinking about after the show ends each week; it’s her presence that commands every scene she’s in. And if we so far have a season with a whole lot less Kalinda, a whole lot more Diane is the only acceptable substitute in my book. I know she’s about to marry a dude and everything, but let’s be honest, Diane is pretty much ours.

And in this episode, we get to see Happy Diane! Diane realizing that the shackles of Lockhart Garden being forcibly removed from her hands might actually be freeing. Happy Diane is somehow just as sexy as Serious Diane, which is a rare and special quality in a woman. We see her shooting guns with Kurt, kissing him, smiling, ignoring calls from work. Kurt calls it all a turn on. Well duh, Kurt.

We continue to get more glimpses of Diane as a real person outside of work as, after their shooting session, she and Kurt run into her oldest friends from law school, who proceed to get into an argument with Kurt over gun control, ie., the Second Amendment v. Sandy Hook, which is the argument of my worst nightmares, because I am squarely on the side of Diane’s friends, except whenever I try to talk to a Second Amendment person I end up shaking and crying a lot more than Diane’s friends did. Basically, it is a bad scene and I’ve learned to avoid it at all costs.

You were shooting what?

Yet, I somehow still like Kurt. I like Kurt a lot, and Diane does, too, even though a firm but lovingly concerned talk from her friends later-they find a Sarah Palin book Kurt has given her in her apartment; their concern is understandable–makes her second-guess their upcoming marriage a little. This second-guessing continues when she pushes Kurt about finally meeting some of his friends, who turn out to be a bunch of strapping young ladies in a bar, all of whom probably think Ted Cruz is a dreamboat. Or maybe not. Even they don’t look THAT evil.

But, amazingly, Diane doesn’t care. Okay, she cares, but she still loves Kurt, anyway. And there is something about this relationship that is deeply romantic and deeply wonderful, and while Kurt waits anxiously in the courthouse in front of the Marriages & Civil Unions department later in the episode to see if she’ll show, with a look on his face that says he wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if she didn’t, none of us are surprised when she does. And while part of me is slightly sad this is over and done with so fast, with so little fanfare in the courthouse, I also can’t see either Diane or Kurt doing it any other way. Diane Lockhart in a frilly white dress? Please.

However, before she can revel in marital bliss-or even tell anyone about it-concerns about Lockhart Gardner’s future have been creeping back into her free-of-Lockhart-Gardner happiness, a happiness we always knew would be temporarily. Because it’s still her name on the office walls, goddammit, and she still cares, particularly when those fourth years continue to just be so freaking sloppy with their biznass.

First of all, unrelated to Florrick Agos, we learn that one of the fourth years actually DID sexually harass the paralegal by falsely sending an email inviting her to the office of the Old and Crazy Partner during his lunch hour, during which he apparently sleeps totally naked from the waist down. This itself is funny. Ha! Old and crazy! Kalinda and Elsbeth confirm this penis-airing lunch hour by making an unexpected visit, during which Elsbeth is horrified and Kalinda’s like, “Eh, I’ve seen better, old man.”

However, sending unknowing people who work beneath you in to see the penis-airing creepy old man for laughs IS sexual harassment, so, funny joke, bros. We also discover that one of the dissenting fourth years has been supplying Viola Walsh with incriminating information about Lockhart Gardner for the case, because he thinks this is a good idea for Florrick Agos or something, because the fourth years are the worst. They also demand that Alicia start downloading some of the files of clients that have agreed to jump ship with them, in case Lockhart Gardner withholds them out of bitterness after all is said and done. This is, of course, stealing and probably illegal and Alicia really really doesn’t want to do it but she is the only one that has the ability to get past the partners-only firewalls on the computers. And, of course, Diane just happens to try to locate one of her files at the same time Alicia’s downloading it. Whoops. Diane also starts to notice the rugs that are rolled up in Alicia’s office, the artwork that isn’t hanging on the walls. Why are you guys so bad at this?

Oh, and we also have a lot of really non-suspicious meetings together.

But the shit really starts to hit the fan when Diane meets with the client whose file she had been cockblocked from by Alicia, a client played by the always lovely Sonja Sohn from The Wire. Playing off of her suspicions, Diane wheedles away at Sonja about her possible move to a new firm, even going to the point of saying, “Alicia told me, it’s fine,” when Sonja won’t budge. At that, Sonja seems surprised but says that, you know, a law firm with the governor’s name on the letterhead is hard to pass up. Diane’s face blanches. You best watch your back, Alicia Florrick. Diane has fire in her eyes.

But before we get to the final searing scene of the episode, a few other things: we also get to see the return of Jackie Florrick for the first time this season, who has an amusing few spars with Eli about the decoration of Peter’s office, until it turns out that she can actually be useful to Eli and Peter. Some union groups are all mad at them about stuff, including the fact that Peter apparently supported Scott Walker’s election. Peter, you piece of scum. Alas, it turns out that one of the union leaders is sweet on Jackie from way back when, and Jackie is able to sway him back to their side. Jackie, you little minx! The best part about this storyline, though, is that the union guy is played by Dan Lauria, also known as Kevin Arnold’s dad on The Wonder Years. I know he’s been in a million things since then, but he’ll always be Jack Arnold to me.

And while we don’t see much more in the way of Kalinda’s personal life on this episode, she does have a decent amount of screentime compared to previous episodes due to her close involvement with the lawsuit. In fact, she actually is quite closely tied to the lawsuit, and is brought in as a final witness during the deposition. She says that she’s the only one who wasn’t accused of stuff because the paralegal liked her. When Elsbeth asks in what ways she liked her, Kalinda responds, “Uh, in a lot of ways.” Can you hear my eyebrow arching, Kalinda?

Elsbeth continues: “And where did she like you most?” Oh man. Now my lips are smirking, too. Kalinda: “In the coffee room, in the pantry, and sometimes in the bullpen at night.”

Okay, I don’t know exactly what the bullpen is, and I also don’t think the fact that the paralegal having sex with Kalinda somehow erases sexual harassment in the workplace (but apparently in this case, it sort of does), but CAN WE SEE THESE SCENES IN THE BULLPEN, PLEASE.

This much-welcomed recognition of Kalinda’s sexual prowess with the ladies still being alive and well (THANKYOUVERYMUCH) is then immediately followed by a much different type of tension: Diane, walking slowly into the office after her meeting with Sonja, with the knowledge that Alicia has betrayed them etched into her face.

She takes a long, slow look around her office, most of her belongings already packed into boxes, the space where she spent so much of her life, the place she worked so hard to build, the career she believed she was exiting mainly by her own choice, her own decisions, now tinted a different shade of ache as she knows they have been-she has been-undermined by one of her most trusted co-workers, one of her favorite people, a friend. Alicia bursts into the office just at this moment and is startled by Diane standing there, and bumbles out, “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you had left.” Diane doesn’t move; simply looks at her, her mouth set, her eyes huge with an unknowable rage.

Alicia says that they’ve compromised with the paralegal and continues to be met with silence. Flustered, confused, and perhaps scared, she leaves. Slowly, Diane moves towards Will’s office, the frame of the camera even tilting slightly at one point as if in a horror movie, the background music quiet but plodding, ominous. Will can read Diane’s face, and excuses the woman who he’s meeting with. When she’s gone, Diane closes the door and says: “Alicia is leaving the firm with Cary and she’s taking our top clients.” Boom goes the dynamite.

Next week promises lots of papers flying off of desks and a whole lot of feelings being hurt. What do you think will happen from here?

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