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“The Good Wife” recap (5.20): The Deep Web

Another Good Wife, another law mystery o’ the week that Diane Lockhart will whip out her black framed glasses to solve. And this week’s episode involves that most mysterious beast, the one you hear stories about but yet still have a hard time believing actually exists: jury duty. Oh, and there’s a bunch of stuff about the deep web, too.

The deep web stuff is being prosecuted by Finn Polmar, and the supposed criminal is the grandson of one of Lockhart Gardner’s richest clients, Lyle Pollard. This is a story about white dudes whose last names start with P. The grandson, Robbie, is interviewed by Polmar at the LG offices about some supposed pot dealings on the deepest of the webs, which Robbie vehemently denies, with his I’m Just a Sweet Nerdy Boy innocent eyes. Robbie also has cerebral palsy, and Diane attempts to use this, along with Louis Canning’s disability card, to sway Finn against pursuing the case. Especially now that he’s running for state attorney, he wouldn’t want to look like he’s targeting the disabled. But Finn has a witness, and hence will not be scared off by blackmailing. Fine, Finn, fine, keep being upstanding and whatever.

As for the jury duty, it’s Alicia who’s waiting to complete her civic responsibility. Not surprisingly, though, when she says her name is Alicia Florrick, she’s called off the line. She does, however, meet a handsome stranger there, played by Nestor Carbonell, who played Richard Alpert in Lost, among many, many other roles. They strike up friendly banter; Alicia smiles and laughs more than she typically has recently. When she’s free to go and he’s stuck on the jury, she wishes him a fond farewell.

Back in deep web world, Kalinda’s called in to help investigate, obvs, because she’s always called in to investigate, but also because she probably understands the deep web better than anyone else in Chicago. On a side note, the amount of dresses with gorgeous asymmetrical necklines that Kalinda owns, it’s almost criminal, yes?

She listens to Robbie’s story, and then tracks down the woman who talked to the police and gave Robbie’s name in the first place, Finn’s witness. And as Kalinda is standing in her drug-filled apartment in her foxy purple jacket, said woman shares a perfect reveal: Robbie didn’t just work for the deep web website. He CREATED it. Oh, sweet little Robbie.

After Alicia’s released from jury duty, she’s about to head back to the office when Cary, looking very important and signing lots of papers from a million assistants–important people on TV sure do sign a lot of papers–tells her over the phone to just go home, that she deserves a day off. After some obligatory resistance, she acquiesces, and goes home. And attempts to relax, in the most hilarious of Alicia Florrick ways. She tries to turn on the TV. The TV doesn’t work. She calls Zac. She doesn’t know which remote to use. She finally gets a movie ready–and it freezes. Buffers. Continues to buffer. She rolls her eyes at the complete incompetence of the rest of the world and goes to the office.

“Buffering? I don’t have time for this shit.”

Unsurprisingly, Cary rebuffs her at the elevator, and sends her away. She then accepts a lunch invitation from her mother, commenting out loud to herself afterwards that she must REALLY be bored. And as she meets with Mama Channing for lunch, it seems like they’re actually going to have a really nice mother-daughter moment. Alicia doesn’t guard her emotions or roll her eyes once. Mama Channing talks about the experience of losing Alicia’s father; Alicia talks about how weird Will’s death still is–that it’s either like he’s still there, or like he was never there at all, a very accurate description of what mourning someone feels like. And then some dude that Veronica’s also invited to lunch shows up early and it ruins everything, the moment immediately gone. Alicia quickly excuses herself from the table.

And then she returns to the courthouse, for reasons not completely clear other than perhaps she just doesn’t know where else to go, and runs into Handsome Lost Jury Guy. He also invites her to lunch–she’s a popular lady!–and once again, she accepts. And it seems like she has a good time at lunch. There’s the smiling and laughing stuff again. Handsome Lost Jury Guy seems nice. And then she glances down at his hand on the table, and maybe it suddenly looks like Will’s hand, or maybe she imagines he was reaching out towards her and it freaks her out, and her face falters, and she runs to the bathroom, where she berates herself in the mirror for having no idea what she’s doing. It’s okay, Alicia! It’s okay. You’re okay.

A few other interesting developments happen in the middle of this episode: Eli coaches Finn Polmar on running a political campaign, and the contrast between cynical and cunning Eli and seemingly innocuous and genuine Finn is quite entertaining. When he does his first official interview on TV, though, he’s thrown off by a question Eli hadn’t prepared him for, one about his sister committing suicide three years prior. He’s pissed but still keeps his composure. It’s clear, though, that they–meaning the media, and anyone Castro can talk to–are going to be after Finn’s blood.

The new dynamic duo of Diane and Kalinda also continues, thank heavens, as it is currently my favorite thing about the show. Diane gets wind of what appears to be actual conspiracy against her by David Lee and Louis Canning. They’ve been asking her secretary to forward her calls to them when she’s out of the office, and they’ve been honing in on her caseload. She immediately fires her secretary–way harsh, Tai–and doesn’t take any of David Lee’s guilt tripping about how she’s been failing on the job since Will’s death. That tune’s getting old, David Lee.

When Kalinda and Diane officially confront David and Louis about all the outside-the-office meetings they’ve been having, Canning asks dramatically if it’s okay with David if he shares the news. Then he lays it on them: he’s dying. Less than 12 months to live. He and David Lee have been doing estate planning, to get his future in order. This obviously quiets Diane up pretty quickly.

Once the men leave, Kalinda approaches Diane’s desk and asks, “Do you believe him?” Diane replies, “I did–until he said that he didn’t want anyone’s pity.” Ha! Dying or not, Louis Canning is still Louis Canning. Kalinda says she’ll look into it.

In terms of other things Kalinda’s been looking into, the deep web situation has turned out to be not that great for Mr. Robbie and Grandpop at all. Pressured to give up what information he has, Robbie mentions another dude who works for the website. But when Finn and the police show up at his apartment, he’s dead. And when signs point to the woman who Kalinda had previously interviewed as the murderer, she swears that Robbie’s just setting her up, that it was Robbie who ordered the dude’s murder.

Aaaand after some Internet sleuthing, guess what? Kalinda determines that that is, indeed, what most likely happened. But Robbie’s sticking to his story. In other words, he’s going to commit perjury. Knowing this, Diane withdraws herself from the case.

After Diane lets Grandpa Pollard know–it doesn’t go well–Kalinda enters her office with some new information for her re: Canning’s fatal illness. Diane asks, “Is he dying? Or is he trying to screw me?” Kalinda says, yes: he is dying. And he’s trying to screw you. Ohhhh, snap.

Meanwhile, in Alicia Florrick Is Bad At Taking a Day Off world, Veronica has come to her apartment to apologize for their lunch interruption. But Alicia ain’t mad. They share wine and memories on the couch, and Alicia becomes teary and contemplative. She says that she’s spinning, that nothing’s the same anymore. She says she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Veronica hugs her in a hard, arm-clenching, fully-encompassing mother and daughter hug. She says, “Oh, baby. Nobody does.”

Alicia also keeps obsessively checking her watch, anxiously counting the minutes that tick by until 7:00. 7:00, you see, is when Handsome Lost Jury Guy has invited her out to a casual, non-committal drink. Whether she decides to come or not, he had said, he’d be waiting with some quality wine, and Alicia does love her quality wine. And she does in fact show up. At least, to the outside of the restaurant. She looks at him through the window, and then starts talking out loud to herself again, an apparent new habit of hers. It’s just one drink, she says. It’s not a big deal. Then she asks this question of herself: “Who am I being faithful to?”

It’s the eternal Good Wife question, really. And one that will maybe always remain unanswered. And then she continues walking into the night.

Aw, Alicia, baby. I think it’s too soon after Will’s death, too. But you can be nice to yourself. You could have had one drink.

There are only two episodes left, and I feel like I can’t think of anything crazy being revealed for the end of this season, especially after the relatively quiet last few episodes. Canning and Lee will continue to pursue Diane. Alicia will continue to feel out her new self, her new life. And it appears that there will be some political drama involving rumors about Finn and Alicia, which isn’t surprising with how chummy they’ve become. But I can’t imagine any big cliffhangers they’ll leave us with this go ’round. But I could be wrong! What are your thoughts on the end of the season? On this week’s episode?

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