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“The Good Wife” recap (4.22): Up All Night

It’s time for the Season 4 finale of The Good Wife, which means it’s time for a heck of a lot of boring Peter Florrick election drama! It begins right off the bat, as the first thing we see is Zach in his prep boy gear, primed and ready for his first ever election, and one where he can vote for his daddy, oh my! He takes a picture of the ballot to capture the moment! Which is illegal, I’m pretty sure! And then he says, wait a minute, why are those guys trucking in that other box o’ ballots from out of nowhere, with a broken seal, because that definitely seems illegal. So then he goes to take a picture of THAT, and some uptight voting guy stands in his way and says, that’s illegal! Yeesh. Voting is HARD. It’s a good thing your mom’s a damn good lawyer with a vested interest, so we can haul this box o’ ballots to court!

Is this the way to Hogwarts?

Smartphones, such a nuisance in the face of corruption!

The best part of this whole storyline is that the volunteer poll worker who first greets Zach and is then brought in testify is played by Estelle Parsons, otherwise known as Roseanne’s mom. She goes by Nana Joe here and rocks a black beret, and even though it’s been over a decade since she played Bev, she still looks and sounds exactly. the. same. and I love her.

Martha Plimpton also returns for this overnight trial – which makes me think of, and miss, Night Court – with babies and sass in tow. She questions Nana Joe’s eyesight and tries to paint Zach as a rabble rouser, asking if he likes to question authority a lot. He responds, “No. Only when it’s wrong.” Zing!

Two fingers, bitch.

Things are going pretty swell until they bring in the contested voting box, which has been counted and ends up being overwhelmingly in Florrick’s favor, not Kresteva’s. Hahaha, awkward! At which point both sides immediately switch positions. The night trial drags on and they eventually make Nana Joe/Bev cry. Bad, Lockhart Gardner, bad! And then the third party candidate throws in a ballot complaint, too. Geesh, politicians are whiners. The best part of THIS ballyhoo, however, is that the judge in this complaint is played by the amazing Ana Gasteyer.

This third party complaint, which is brought by a scorned T.R. Knight, is silly and thrown out soon, which makes me sad because I want to see more of Ms. Gasteyer, but alas. And anyway this ballot thing is getting tiring so let’s move on to the juicier bits.

Over at Florrick headquarters, there’s a bit of Jackie drama, and man, is Jackie drama enjoyable. My favorite line of the night comes when Peter asks Eli if Jackie knows their campaign might be losing. Eli quickly replies, “I have dedicated my life to not predicting what Jackie knows.”

Snort.

Peter is apparently also thoroughly creeped out by Jackie’s Don Juan caretaker, who he himself hired but who seems to be just slightly too close to Jackie. He has his men look into Don Juan’s background, which is apparently a little sketchy, and has Eli give him a $25,000 check to get the hell out of there. Near the end of the episode, Don Juan tells Peter, thanks for the check! Oh, but by the way, I’m not going. Jackie also whispers sternly in his ear to never mess with her life, ever. So what’s going on there, huh?

BRIBE FAIL.

Alicia and Will also share a kiss in a car, wherein Alicia is exhausted from this ballot trial business and so a little more truthful and vulnerable than normal and says stuff about how she’s opened up something between them that she doesn’t know how to close but she’s with Peter and yadda yadda and then Diane gives a “wrap it up, kids” bang on the hood.

I don’t know what to doooooo so let’s make out.

Seriously, kids.

Will says, after this night is over, we’re gonna have a TALK, and Alicia says, eh. I think we won’t and I’ll just continue being emotionally tortured for the rest of my life because that’s my thang. And I know this is supposed to be the emotional high point of the episode but to be honest I can’t concentrate on it that much because some super lesbianic song is playing in the background that sounds just like a jam I probably weeped to in my bedroom in high school but I just canNOT place it and it’s driving me crazy. Any help here?

The most interesting developments of the episode are, not surprisingly, with Cary Agos and his revolucion. Good ol’ Colin Sweeney seeks out Cary at one point while he’s having a meeting with the rest of the dissenting fourth years. Sweeney just happens to own the building Cary’s looking into renting for his new, expensive offices, and Sweeney wants in. He’ll cut a deal on the rent if Cary will cut a deal on his legal services. Except for one thing: Colin Sweeney, unsurprisingly, wants Alicia.

There’s also continued wrangling over Kalinda. The other fourth years believe they can’t afford what Kalinda’s demanding, because I guess the other fourth years are all a bunch of idiots who don’t want to win cases. Sure, some dude points out that promising more than they could afford is exactly where Lockhart Gardner has gone wrong a hundred times, but guys, it’s KALINDA.

Cary relays this to Kalinda, as if Kalinda’s going to be cool with it, and she continues to make financial demands. And it’s only now, when he’s so close to actually achieving his dream, that Cary starts to stray from his Kalinda alliance, and ask Robyn if she’d be up for it. While I’d be interested in Robyn too if I was in his shoes, because I do think she is one smart cookie, he is also clearly too dumb to foresee that Robyn will ask Kalinda for advice, which she does, and that Kalinda will be super pissed about it, which she is.

Telling you something I shouldn’t because I am a sweet and innocent flower.

You can say goodbye to me AND my gorgeous jackets.

Man, I am dumb.

Speaking of Kalinda, she also finds out that Peter Florrick’s campaign was, in fact, 100% responsible for the fraudulent voting box that Peter Florrick’s own son witnessed. Oh, Peter. Peter, Peter, Peter. He and Will have a weird power play conversation where Will’s like, I could screw over your election, but what I really mean is I could also screw your wife, and then he asks Peter to punch him in the face. Men, am I right? Peter doesn’t punch him in the face but just sort of walks away and Will doesn’t even turn him in. Disappointing. The votes are admitted; Peter wins the election.

Alicia waits to congratulate her husband with her beautiful shoulder muscles and her trademarked Alicia Florrick Forced Happiness smile. After a quick hug she then excuses herself and stares into the depths of her soul for a while in the bathroom mirror before making a phone call. You still want to talk?, she says to mysterious person on the other line. Meet me at my apartment. I’ll get away. Now.

At her apartment, she pours herself a glass of wine, turns on music, folds some towels, and does some more mirror soul searching, asking her reflection, “Is this stupid?,” until finally there’s a knock on the door. And we’re all waiting for it to be Will, but we also know that with this drawn out set up, on this season finale, there has to be a trick up the Kings’ sleeves, and indeed, when she opens her door, we see not Will, but instead this charming, questioning face:

Cary asks what she’s thinking. She says:

“I’m in.”

End scene!

Here are my thoughts on where we stand: I think we’ve been leading up to Alicia making this decision over the last few episodes, but it does still seem shocking somehow, just because she has so often NOT gone with her heart on this show. And I am excited for Agos, Florrick, and Associates, big time. But with Peter’s election pretty much sealing the deal on Diane’s ascent to the Supreme Court, will Lockhart Gardner be able to survive at all? We’ve already spent so much time watching them flounder and rebound, that a massive re-floundering with only Will and Kalinda at the helm just seems too pathetic to bear.

As for Kalinda, as much as I wanted it in a way, her going to Cary’s firm never would have worked, so this conclusion for now makes sense to me. Cary may care for Kalinda, but he still doesn’t necessarily understand her. Asking for her exclusivity to him is changing who she is; when Will asks for her exclusivity, at least he understands that she’ll never grant it.

But what really tears me apart is the idea of Kalinda and Alicia no longer being on the same team. (If Kalinda DOES stay with Lockhart Gardner. Kalinda’s future seems the most up in the air of all to me.) Again, we’ve perhaps been led to this point already by the fact that Kalinda and Alicia haven’t even shared a scene together, apart from the briefest office interchanges, in forever. Which to me is perhaps the biggest tragedy of this entire season; it almost frustrates me more than the Nick storyline. At least Nick made us question who Kalinda was, her strengths, her vulnerabilities, her mysterious backgrounds. Even when we felt the whole Nick debacle was going against everything we love about Kalinda, we were upset because we KNEW who Kalinda was, and we felt betrayed. Without her loyalty to Alicia, without both of them being the other’s rock, Kalinda really doesn’t have much purpose on the show other than solving cases for everyone. And sure, it’s fun to watch her be clever and badass and solve mysteries and scribble in her notebooks, but all the other stuff was what made the audience actually care.

I also hate to see Robyn and Kalinda potentially torn apart. Like I said previously, there could be some fun tension if they’re competing against each other on the same cases, but I don’t know how much that would even happen. Their polar opposite chemistry really worked in the very brief time we saw it, so this feels like only getting to taste half a bite of the most delicious cake ever.

In terms of Alicia’s love triangle, who’s to say; maybe it will just drag on forever and ever until one or the other dies or something. I don’t know. The fact that Will didn’t submit the damning evidence against Peter’s campaign feels like him giving up in a way, or it could actually be a testament of his, by doing what would hurt Alicia the least. Alicia leaving the election celebration not to see Will but Cary also seems like even more of a confirmation that she doesn’t love Peter anymore. The good wife would have stayed for the champagne. Leaving a celebration of the highest point in your husband’s career to follow the flame of your romantic desires is one thing, but to leave it to contemplate your own career just really proves you never wanted to be there in the first place.

But enough rambling from me. What did you guys think? What do you think Season 5 will have in store for us?

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