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“The Good Wife” recap (5.22): A Weird Year

We’ve reached the finale of Season 5 of The Good Wife, and what a tumultuous season it’s been. It’s been the first full season of Florrick Agos, and the season when LG lost their G, and gained a whole bunch of bullshit in his place. It’s been the season of Cary and Kalinda carrying on some type of dysfunctional relationship, and the season when Alicia and Big finally established official distance in theirs. It’s been the season where Robyn mysteriously all but disappeared, but where Nathan Lane continued to lawyer on and Michael J. Fox took on an extended role. It’s the season when Diane Lockhart has been screwed at every turn, by everyone except for Kalinda, who has dutifully stayed by her side like a loyal labrador retriever. A really sexy one.

It’s also been the season when Zac Florrick has quietly completed his senior year of high school. This finale episode takes place on the day of his graduation, and Alicia is trying to arrange a dinner party at her house. A dinner party that involves both Jackie and Veronica. A dinner party that will eventually involve both Jackie and Veronica, cooking and baking, together. What a dream!

Alicia’s a little too busy to fully concentrate on party plans, however, because she’s also being sued for $6.6 million. In fact, they all are-Florrick Agos, AND Lockhart Gardner, by the scorned mother who lost her child in the painful Native American custody case that occurred way back when, when David Lee effed it all up by bribing someone. But the mother dealt primarily with Alicia during the case, so that’s why she’s suing everyone. A lot of finger pointing and blaming about it all occurs in the first few minutes of the episode, in an entertainingly unproductive video conference call.

But the details of this case and this lawsuit end up not being the real point of this episode at all. It merely serves as a gateway for what happens next, when Lockhart Gardner accidentally leaves their video on. They have no idea-but Florrick Agos certainly does. The fact that their video and audio is still running-while their link to Florrick Agos is apparently muted-is discovered by The Other Cary, of course, who’s popping down bagels and San Pellegrino while watching in on David Lee and Louis Canning strategize about pushing out Diane Lockhart like it’s a morning talk show. When Clarke Hayden discovers this, his crystal pure sense of ethics leads to an amazing tug of war over the video conference remote. Once Alicia and Cary Agos come in to break it up, they have an argument over the legal rules regarding this “inadvertent disclosure.”

Since all they’re really hearing right now is LG gossip anyway, Alicia’s on Hayden’s side, and goes to call Diane to let her know about the conference call still being open-until she hears David Lee mention her name. Something about pinning it all on her, something about Florrick Agos being over and done in 48 hours. Suddenly, they’re all sitting down and watching. They call a chaotic meeting with all their employees to figure out what to do, and those employees include-glory hallelujah!-Robyn. She’s only really present for a few hot minutes to help direct everybody and join in on the general “WTF?” sentiments , but still, is it good to see her face!

The LG gossip, by the way, is about an upcoming vote about who will be managing partner, Diane or Canning. Kalinda informs Diane that the alliances in the office are close, and that there’s only one undecided vote-Howard Lyman. At this, Diane can’t help but burst out laughing, and Kalinda gives a genuine Kalinda smile, too. With the way Diane’s universe has been tilting lately, of COURSE it’s Howard Lyman. Canning has already offered Lyman a new office, so when Diane sits him down, she asks what else he wants. He says that he wants to cross-examine someone, something that they clearly don’t ever allow him to do. So when Alicia comes in for a personal meeting at LG about the custody case, with the rest of the folks at Florrick Agos watching from their spy cam and hoping they can glean some new information, it’s Lyman that crosses Alicia about the “Indian” stuff, and it is amazing. Lyman is happy, and officially on Diane’s side.

After the meeting is over, it appears that the spying Florrick Agos haven’t learned anything new about the case. But then they observe another woman walking into the conference room to meet with Lee and Canning. And this woman doesn’t have anything to do with the custody case. She’s Chumhum dude’s wife. And if Chumhum dude has a problem with Florrick Agos? Well, then, Florrick Agos really is in trouble. They descend into panic mode.

There’s also trouble brewing with Finn Polmar’s state’s attorney race. Apparently, Castro is bringing out the fact that Polmar bribed someone on his sister’s behalf during her drug trials. Polmar disputes whether this is true or not, but in any case, Peter and Eli drop him like a hot potato. He later drops out of the race, to Alicia’s disappointment. So was this whole Polmar storyline just for naught? Will he be around next season, or is he just out of the picture now? Weird.

Peter and Eli have to strategize about who they’ll endorse now, because obvs they still aren’t endorsing Castro. So they land on their favorite second choice-Diane Lockhart. When they bring her in to ask if she’ll run, she’s surprised, but not exactly pleased. She wears that “Don’t Give Me No Bullshit, Florrick” look that says, “oh, you’re coming back to me after shoving me under the bus with the Supreme Court? And only asking after your first pick dropped out? Cool, cool. Thanks for the props, y’all.” The spying game at Florrick Agos, meanwhile, soon becomes real not-so-fun real fast. As they continue to spy about the possibility of Chumhum falling away from Florrick Agos, Diane asks Kalinda to get more details about Florrick Agos’s arrangement with Chumhum. As she explains to another employee in the room: “Kalinda has a way with Cary…we’ve exploited this before.” Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch.

It is as awkward as awkward could be, the sympathy painfully displayed on everyone’s faces at Florrick Agos, except for Cary’s, whose face is set in a grim line. This is obviously a harsh thing to hear, especially publicly in front of your friends, but I’m also a little confused at why he is necessarily so shocked and upset. Didn’t he say “we can’t do this anymore” last week? Which insinuated that he already had an idea that Kalinda was using him? Hasn’t he always suspected it, a little? But maybe there’s just something hard about hearing the truth out loud.

This revelation leads to some tough moments, though, of Cary Agos Not Acting His Best. In fact, maybe Cary Agos Being An Asshole would be more appropriate. First he has a shouting match with Alicia over the direction of their still-so-young law firm. Alicia’s tired of always struggling, and wants a merger with LG. Cary views that as a betrayal of everything they stand for, going back on the very reason they made their own law firm in the first place. He’s also more than aware that Alicia’s name has more clout than his, and that he’d be the one losing power in the deal. I have to say that I’m on Cary’s side for this one. Of course running Florrick Agos is hard, but they knew it would be. What was even the point of breaking away from LG if they’re just going to run back to them?

Still, though, the bitterness with which Cary expresses all of this is unnecessary, and doesn’t bode well for their relationship as co-managing partners.

This mean Cary continues, highly unfortunately, into an area that we have seen male anger used far too often on TV screens recently: the bedroom, with Kalinda, under the sheets. When Kalinda looks at his angry face with confusion, and when he forcefully flips her onto her back, and she asks him to stop-everything in my body tenses, as in, no. No. This can’t be happening, right? On The Good Wife? With Cary? And Kalinda? She tells him to get off of her, or she swears, she’ll hurt him. And the one reassuring thing about this scene is that we know she would. But he gets off himself, and the scene is thankfully short. He puts on his shirt, takes a phone call from Other Cary who says the scales at Florrick Agos are currently tipping towards Alicia, and he then moodily departs, leaving Kalinda in silence.

I also don’t completely understand why Cary got into bed with Kalinda in the first place, knowing what he knew. Why not call off the date completely?

As if that scene wasn’t awful enough, Cary then goes totally batshit and meets on a pier with Louis Canning. He tells him that Diane wants to merge with Florrick Agos. He knows that neither of them wants a merger, so he encourages Canning to make whatever moves he can now, and then walks dramatically and swiftly away. This new Cary is stupid. On the upside, though, when Alicia and everyone else hears about this betrayal, they get into another shouting match, and this time Alicia tells him to go to hell.

Canning, for his part though, takes Cary’s advice and pulls out all the stops. He presents Diane with a dissolution agreement, which as a partner, he has unilateral power to do. This seems crazy, but is apparently legit. If Canning doesn’t get managing partner, he will dissolve Diane’s firm.

Domestic Bliss with Veronica and Jackie is progressing back at Alicia’s apartment pretty much as expected: Jackie is condescending, Veronica bites back, and sooner or later, Veronica reveals Jackie’s greatest nightmare, Peter and Alicia’s married-only-for-our-professional-lives agreement. Lots of wine drinking commences. Drunk Jackie, mean Veronica, and lasagna! I want to be at this dinner.

Kalinda catches Diane on the street and asks what she’s going to do. Allow Canning to become managing partner to save her firm? Accept Peter’s proposal and runs for state’s attorney?

But what Diane decides to do is a surprise to everyone. She asks for a late meeting at Florrick Agos. Cary is still bristling at the idea of a merger, but a merger isn’t what Diane has in mind at all. She asks, instead, if Florrick Agos would take her. Just her. And her $38 billion in annual billing. Robyn voices all of our thoughts: “Holy crap.”

The possibilities that could come with this becoming a reality are endless: if Diane comes to Florrick Agos, Kalinda would naturally follow. Kalinda and Robyn could investigate together again! Maybe Kalinda and Alicia could get some after-work drinks again? The only conflict would be Kalinda and Cary, but maybe they’ll actually go back to a regular friendship when they don’t have to be spying on each other. But we’ll have to just wait and see what happens next year.

After such a long and kooky day, Alicia is finally able to return to family business, entering the auditorium just in time to see her son walk across the stage. And after everyone teasing her about her “empty nest” feelings all episode, suddenly, naturally, she’s actually experiencing them. She claps, her eyes get damp, and then at home, when Zac informs her that he’s not in fact leaving tomorrow, but tonight-he has a summer internship at Georgetown, of course-she smiles and says it’s fine, but it’s a hard fine, a fine that’s hard to accept. She says she loves him, and waves goodbye.

Our very last shot of Season 5 is Eli and Alicia sitting at the dining room table, surrounded by plates of cold, abandoned lasagna, quietly sipping glasses of red wine. Alicia affirms that it’s been a weird day. Indeed, a weird year. And then Eli gets this strange, dreamy look in his eyes, like a light bulb has just gone off and blinded him. He turns to Alicia and ask: “Would you want to run for state’s attorney?”

El fin! What were your thoughts on the finale? What are your hopes for Season 6?

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