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“The Good Wife” recap: “Naan and wine.” (4.15)

The Good Wife schedule has been rather sporadic over the last month, but this week’s episode starts the final all-new five episode homestretch. And while things were Eli and Peter heavy this week, there were still many lady highlights, including Elsbeth AND the return of Amanda Peet – with bangs! In fact, almost every recent female favorite makes an appearance, from Maddie Hayward to even good ol’ Jackie! All the single ladies, all the single ladies! Which brings us to the important question: WHEN are they going to get Beyonce up in here?

Anyway, we begin with Diane telling Alicia that in her role as equity partner, one of her newest responsibilities is to bring down the budget on the Bishop case. (Yeah, remember him?) Alicia’s like, “Oh, right, well that’s actually Cary’s thang,” and Diane replies, “Yes, and Cary’s thang is now your thang because you’re paying us thousands of dollars so you can be a semi-boss,” and Alicia’s like, “Right. Achoo!” Because she and Will are also getting over horrible colds which they both have because they made out. Alicia obviously feels awkward about approaching Cary about Bishop and money and being his semi-boss now, but she tries, feebly, and it is just so sad and uncomfortable all over the place. We knew this was coming after last episode, when Alicia shook hands with the other rich fancy pant partners and Cary and Kalinda stood in outsider solidarity from behind the glass walls – nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy – but still, I hate it. Cary and Alicia’s friendship makes both of them more likeable, and throwing down the curtain between them just yanks even more warmth out of this Lockhart Gardner joint. Sigh.

But luckily, we have Elsbeth and Kyle MacLachlan to bring some comedic relief to Chicago, and man, do they bring it. The best scene of the whole episode is when MacLachlan, here playing DOJ Douche Josh Perotti, meets Elsbeth for lunch at what appears to be an upscale Indian restaurant, smoothies already on the table when she arrives. He ushers her to sit alongside him on the same side of the table. She complies with her now-beloved cautious or confused or skeptical or excited or nervous or genius look. Who knows what’s actually going on inside her head, behind those looks? That’s what makes them so beautiful! She asks for a cease and desist on Eli Gold. Without batting an eyelash on his pretty head, Josh responds that he’s ordered food for them already; hope that’s OK. As more and more dishes pile up on the table in an increasingly lavish and hilarious display, Elsbeth whips out a newspaper and reads from the editorial Josh contributed to, which says he knows that Eli is guilty of shady campaign business; he just knows it! He laments, yeah, they spelled my name wrong. Want some naan? Since that whole wiretap thing didn’t work out; he says he’s discovered a new way to bring Eli down: conspiracy charges. He says he has the stuff to back it up; Elsbeth remains skeptical and bewildered and gorgeous. But at the same time, she may be strangely interested in Josh because he seems almost – almost – as bizarre as her. She says, “Do you WANT me to bring you to court?” He pauses, turns his full body towards her, and says with perfect dramatic delivery, “I can’t WAIT for you to take me to court.” Then he calls her lips pillowy. She backs away and awkwardly scrapes the table across the floor so she can make her escape. He smiles calmly and takes another sip of his smoothie.

After the Indian food, Elsbeth and Eli shoot back at Josh and the DOJ by bringing a defamation lawsuit, even though they don’t plan on winning it. But they can find out in this civil court what they’re going to bring against him in federal court, or something awfully confusing like that. Or not necessarily confusing, just ziggy zaggy ridiculousness, which I guess is how the law works. And Elsbeth somehow always does makes it work. Oh, but the really important part of all this is that Kalinda helps Elsbeth figure out who Josh has been meeting with, which they need to know. They find this out by snooping at a restaurant, and when Kalinda and Elsbeth are on screen together, their kooky pairing is so perfect and wonderful that all is absolutely well in my world. When Elsbeth asks Kalinda what her plan is, she responds, “I don’t have a plan.” Elsbeth says, “You’re a crazy woman!,” with a tone of utmost respect and awe. And when Kalinda actually starts to work her easy magic to get the information they need, Elsbeth is so impressed that she can’t help but break into hysterical giggles. Just saying, if there was an Elsbeth and Kalinda spin-off show, I would watch it in a second.

In other hot lady news, Amanda Peet comes into the picture because Lockhart Gardner are trying to get in on a deal with the state attorney’s office, where she now works. She gives Will a hard time during his interview for the deal, during which we’re also introduced to her new bangs, which I am really not a fan of at first. But then when Will confronts her to be a jerk about what he perceived as her being a jerk to him, she’s in a new outfit with her hair down and the bangs seem more windswept or something and all of a sudden she is just exuding natural, glorious, flawless sexiness all over my screen? Will then wraps up this semi-angry, semi-flirty back and forth between them by bringing her a bottle of wine, and yep, yep, it’s conclusive. Amanda Peet is as hot as ever. Lockhart Gardner didn’t get the deal, though. But thanks for the vino, brother! In things that really aren’t hot news, Alicia and Peter are still apparently having lunchtime trysts in his tour bus. Seriously, what is the appeal of this? Why do you keep having sex in uncomfortable places? But I’m not super mad about it this time because it allows us to see this. When not having tour bus sex, Alicia has decided to resolve the Bishop budget issue by simply cutting her own hours on the case, instead of Cary’s or anyone else’s. Everyone wins; no one’s mad! That is, until Diane comes in to rain on her parade once again and say, nope, not good enough. You have to pull in the reins on everyone else, while maintaining your own overworked pace. Welcome to the sisterhood! In truth, though, I sort of hate everything about the speech Diane gives here. She essentially says, if you don’t act like their boss, they’ll never consider you one, and you’ll never ever be successful. I know that this is of course simply the dog eat dog reality of high stakes businesses, as The Good Wife exposes so acutely every single episode, but it really seems like Diane is just trying to coach Alicia into how to be mean. And I can’t help but feel that it’s all just stupid. And maybe that just means that how business works is stupid, but, stupid philosophy is stupid. You don’t have to be mean and cold to get people to respect you. Alicia sets off from this weird conversation to go witness the weirdest of all conversations: a televised political debate. It’s time for the gubernatorial debates between Maddie and Peter, and as Alicia and Maddie briefly run into each other beforehand, Maddie can’t get out of hyper political mode and believes Alicia’s been thrown in her path simply to knock her off her game. Alicia rolls her eyes and says this gem:

“You know, they’re always wondering if men and women can really be friends. But the real question is – can women?”

Jordan is Peter’s main campaign dude now in the midst of all of Eli’s legal troubles, and he has been instructing Peter to lay low during the debates, but they’re not going well. At the break, Alicia helps distract Jordan so Peter can dart away for three minutes and call his true long lost lover, Eli. And in a season where it appears we’ll never see Lana again and Kalinda has apparently taken an oath of abstinence since she maybe killed her husband, the bromance between Eli and Peter is the gayest thing we’ve got. Which might be OK, because it is real gay. Earlier in the episode, after Alicia and Peter’s tour bus tryst, Peter admitted, in his most Eeyore of voices, that he hadn’t really been talking to Eli much lately, looking down and sadly adjusting his tie. Here, after getting quick but solid advice over the phone about the debate, Peter says that he misses Eli being in charge of all this. Eli says, “I miss you too,” taking a verklempt moment for himself before returning back to the hell of the courtroom he’s standing outside of, a courtroom where everyone seems to be out to get him, basking in the brief moment of believing that somebody, somewhere, loves him. Things actually aren’t going too badly for him in the courtroom, though, largely and surprisingly thanks to this lady: And in the end, he’s OK for now, and Peter did decently in the debate, and yay they can be in political paradise land together again, except that Eli starts packing up his stuff from Florrick headquarters anyway. He says: “I’m still damaged goods.” Poor, poor little puppy. Peter begs him to stay, even bringing him in for a full bromance hug. And finally, with a smile, Eli is convinced, and starts unpacking his staff back onto his desk, back in the saddle again. Eli + Peter 4EVA. While I actually really enjoyed this episode, the greatest intrigue of all ended up coming in the previews for the next few episodes. (Spoiler alert!) In the span of a few brief “coming soon!” seconds, we see Kalinda demanding of Diane, “Are you getting rid of me?” and then a scene where Cary goes in for a Kalinda kiss before she turns away. He says, “Why?” and we don’t get to hear her answer. To all of which I say: 1) Pleeeease, Lockhart Gardner, you would never get rid of Kalinda unless you were absolute idiots!, and 2) Please say you reject Cary because you tell him you’re real gay. Please please please!

For now, we’ll have to wait, but I’m excited. What are your thoughts?

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