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“The Good Wife” recap (6.15): Open Source

Tonight’s episode opens with what seems to be the latest Apple ad. Sorry guys, no matter what soundtrack you choose, CAD is never going to seem exciting. It turns out the 3-D printer design deserves a song with a “having closet sex on Grey’s Anatomy” beat, because it’s the template for a gun, which a bearded dude prints out, totes to a shooting range, and fires, the bullet unfortunately missing its target and hitting someone behind him. Cut to Alicia’s video interview with the newspaper board, where she explains the fact that she’s suing the designer of the gun proves she’s all about gun control.

Prady and his campaign manager are watching the video jealously, as Alicia, with her not-technically-a lie-about Bishop’s involvement with her PAC, has won the paper’s endorsement. His campaign manager rightly assumes Alicia’s pants are ‘a blazing, but when Prady insists he will not smear her (with every scene I’m less and less upset that for the show to continue they pretty much have to give the win to him), his manager suggests he smear Peter instead. Considering there are about four people in the world who don’t want to badmouth Peter in a public forum (Mama Florrick, the Florrick kids and, on some days, Eli), Prady’s on board.

Over at campaign headquarters, Johnny and Josh show Alicia Prady in full anti-Peter mode and, honestly, it’s pretty obvious the guy hasn’t had much experience with trash talk. (I do like the use of croynism though. It sounds like an SAT word and the title of the next Dreamworks animated movie.) Johnny tells her the best form of damage control is for her to jump on the anti-Peter bandwagon, but before they can even talk strategy (I would go with showing a slide show of him looking guilty with a soundtrack featuring the Carrie Underwood classic “Before He Cheats”), Johnny drops a bomb: He’s been asked to run a west coast campaign, which means he’ll be leaving the day of the election. Honestly I don’t see this as an issue politically at all (what will he be missing except celebratory win drinking or depressed loss drinking?) but obviously he can’t leave yet because he and Alicia haven’t even started their sordid affair.

Cary, who we saw more of when he was in jail, calls Alicia to tell her Mr. Canning has been calling, and he wants to see her in the hospital. Cary points out it would be an excellent time to get him to sign a settlement regarding their lawsuit, while Alicia seems pretty grossed out by the idea, since even jerks don’t deserve to deal with paperwork on their deathbed.

In court, Mr. Diane’s husband is on the stand as the expert witness, explaining exactly why the designer of the 3-D gun, Mr. Fife, is responsible for the gun misfiring and paralyzing the Florrick-Agos-Lockhart client (he was the gun expert, not the man who printed and firing the gun). Finn handles the questioning, while Diane just looks on proudly. Next up is opposing counsel Ms Crozier, who attempts to poke holes in their argument of culpability, in part, by reminding the judge the witness is Diane’s husband (perfect cut to Diane’s face which clearly says, “Damn right he is, and I love everything about him from his mustache to his troubling right-wing politics”). And then, of course, it’s off to a parking garage for Diane and her man to have some classic car sex.

At Canning’s bedside, which seems as if it may be downgraded from a death bed to a sick bed as he’s the proud owner of a new kidney, Alicia is ready to go for the paperwork when Canning puts in a special request. He wants to give a whole ton of money to the family of his kidney donor (a 17-year-old girl who died in a soccer accident). It turns out his estate lawyer is dragging his heels about transferring the funds, and the estate lawyer is everyone’s fav, David Lee.

Back in court, Mr. Fife explains that by putting out 3-D printable gun designs, he’s using his first amendment rights to protect his second, giving the masses (the masses with an extra $2,000 to buy a 3-D printer) the means to fight dictators and anyone else who might try to seize their guns.

Alicia takes a field trip to David Lee’s office to ask him why he’s avoiding Canning and his request to give the money to the family. Turns out the family wants all the money to go to a pro-Palestine charity that may or may not have ties to Hamas. Lee is just waiting for the sign off from the US.. government.

Finn has Fife on the stand again, hell bent on making him seem, as put so well by Community, “crazy-town banana pants.” This proves to be super easy, as Fife was quoted as saying “I can’t wait for the first school shooting with a 3-D printed gun.” Fife tries to wiggle his way out of that one, but there’s really no way to express anything but horror and sadness at the idea of a future school shooting without sounding like the absolute worst.

Ms Crozier offers Diane and Finn (with Alicia and Carey there for company?) a $200,000 settlement. They agree to consider it, but bickering between them gets heated when we’re all reminded Finn was the lawyer in charge of putting Carey behind bars. Luckily, Alicia calls for peace.

Marissa is having some quality father-daughter time with Eli when he realizes a last-minute itinerary change means Alicia’s about to bad-mouth Peter (and not even the threat of a freshly-tattooed kid can distract him. I feel like Marissa never had to deal with parental controls on her TV as a kid).

In court, Ballistics Barbie takes the stand as opposing counsel’s expert witness, a completely gorgeous former student of Mr. McVeigh who accuses him, ever so sweetly, of not really being an expert on 3-D printed guns. She points out that the open source design could be altered, and was, by the shooter, meaning his tweek could be responsible for the malfunction (to me, this seems like the case is open and shut in favor of the designer, but obviously years of Law and Order haven’t prepared me for a legal career as much as I had hoped). Diane finds her hubby chatting about 3-D guns with his former student, and reminds him he can’t be seen outside the courthouse having a change of heart about his testimony.

On the campaign side, Eli pays a visit to Johnny to pull out some of his intimidation whispering, telling him if he doesn’t advise Alicia to support Peter he’ll call the California campaign and take back his recommendation. Eli is the worst.

In McVeigh’s gun cellar, Diane gets to pull the trigger on a replica of the gun that injured her client, which explodes in a flurry of plastic. McVeigh explains he now thinks the fault is not the design, but a faulty 3-D printer (picture all the times you’ve printed out a word doc with white out stripes, and then imagine your brand new gun has crucial details missing).

At home Alicia is practicing dissing Peter in the mirror (you can’t tell me this is the first time she’s done this) when Johnny comes to call, not to make out (we know it’s coming Good Wife writers, we all saw the preview) but to convince Alicia to stand by her man. She agrees, asking if he’s west coast bound because of their incredible sexual tension, which he assures her it’s not about (it totally is).

Diane has added the printer’s manufacturer to the suit, but left the designer on, even though it looks like his gun design isn’t actually faulty. Her husband accuses her of continuing to go after the designer because she doesn’t believe you should be able to 3-D print a gun, and refuses to get back up on the stand for them.

At the hospital Canning is unconscious again, and the nurse encourages Alicia to have a little chat one-sided chat with him. Keeping with the trope of people on TV talking with the comatose, Alicia’s speech gets revealing. She admits she wants him to pull through even though they’re not exactly besties, explaining she has “bad boy issues.”

Tonight as proof Marissa should get her own spin-off show, she confronts Johnny with the knowledge he only told Alicia to back off Peter because Eli threatened him, delivering the best line of the night, “Handsome men are so weak.” Someone get that photoshopped over a Don Draper GIF.

And because Diane is gunning for some couple’s counseling, she serves her husband with a subpoena. Once she has him back on the stand, (questioning him herself for maximum awkwardness) he’s as evasive as possible, but still testifies that the printer is to blame for the faulty gun. But Diane is able to connect the printer to Fife since he linked back to their company. Outside the court room McVeigh is all about giving Diane the silent treatment, but after another gun test held with Finn, he figures out that the printer actually wasn’t faulty.

Backstage before their next speeches, Prady and Alicia get to have one of their little bonding sessions (I hope they meet up for coffee even after the election is over, Alicia has so few people who get her). Alicia says if she was to do the whole thing over again she’d be more honest, while Prady admits he would have addressed the accusation that he’s stuck in the closet. After Alicia assures him, “No one thinks it’s wrong to be gay,” (Alicia obviously lives in a magical world I’d like to visit), Prady admits he’s not actually gay, just super Christian, and he never remarried because he believes you only should get married once. He admits he kept the super-Christian thing quiet because he “didn’t want to seem weird.” Dude, our politicians try to out Christian themselves in every election, you could mount and star in Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell and it would be OK.

While Prady goes off to give his speech, Alicia calls Eli back, who asks if she’s funding Hamas. She explains the deal with Canning, and Eli points out Canning is probably trying to set her up, making it look like she supports terrorists days before the election. Johnny finds Alicia backstage and tells her she should go after Peter, because he was obviously swayed by the wisdom and charisma of Marissa.

And in this evening’s blink and you miss it Kalinda moment, Kalinda is watching some kind of YouTube video created by Fife in his latest 3-D printing studio, in which he complains about previously working in an “ice box” of a garage. Because Kalinda is a genius, she realizes extreme temperature must mess with the printing process. She calls McVeigh with her discovery (without introduction, because she rightly assumes everyone should just know her), who instantly sees she’s right.

Eli’s calmly watching Alicia’s speech until the anti-Peter rhetoric begins, at which point he calls Johnny to let him know California is definitely off the table, but Johnny’s to busy proudly beaming at Alicia to care.

In court again Diane questions Fife about cold temperature’s effect on the plastic, getting him to admit he knew it had an effect, making it look like he’s definitely at fault for not including a warming. Ms Crozier offers their client a five million dollar settlement, funded by an “interested party,” so it’s a win for the home team.

In the hospital Alicia accuses Canning of setting her up, and while he denies it he also definitely doesn’t want to give away his money to any cause, explaining any charitable inclinations on the after-effects of anesthesia. Good to know some things don’t change.

In her office Diane apologizes to her husband for the subpoena, who is very forgiving, and offers to take her away for a long weekend to enjoy “deer hunting in Wyoming with the richest men in the country.” This is her punishment, right?

Post-speech Johnny comes by Alicia’s apartment, supposedly to congratulate her on a job well done, but actually just to make-out, and make-out they do.

Next week: It’s election time! Is Peter being a creep? Yes. The answer is always yes.

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