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“The Good Wife” (5.5) recap: Hitting the fan-and smashing it to bits

CBS titled this week’s episode of The Good Wife “Hitting the Fan,” because unfortunately as of yet, no network has been able to simply use a flailing GIF in lieu of a title. But if I was in charge, I would’ve made this happen for this one. Or more accurately, I would have found a GIF of someone sitting on their chair and hardly blinking or breathing for an hour, because that was me from the first second on.

The first second starts right where we left off last week, with Diane walking into Will’s office bearing the Lockhart Gardner news of the century. Turns out the woman Will has been talking to is interviewing to be the firm’s new publicist, and is at the very moment trying to sell herself on her love for the firm’s “stability.” Hardy har har, lady! Once this pleasant but delusional woman is sent out of the office and Diane tells Will of Alicia’s departure, he blanches and sputters and attempts to cobble together a coherent sentence. But it is all done slowly, as if his shocked mind is working in slow motion. There is no background music. We just have to sit with the pregnant pauses, his uncomprehending face, holding our breath. It’s the beginning of the episode’s brilliance. As he finally rises from his chair, Diane advises him as he walks out the door: “Document everything.”

As he walks down the hall, the slowest of strings now building in his wake, we see brief flashbacks to an Alicia with bangs burst inside his head-Alicia under his covers; smiling at him from the conference room. Ouch, son.

When he makes it to Alicia’s office, things proceed at a scary muted tone for a while. He asks, “You’re leaving?” Alicia, confused for the splittest of seconds, says, “I just got here,” and then understanding clearly, knowing there’s no point to lying, answers his questions in her soft, husky Alicia voice. When she says that she’s sorry, he responds casually, bitingly, “Of course. That helps.” And then the tension that has built up so tightly in this rubberband of an office snaps suddenly, quickly, as he knocks everything off her desk, every last bit, which always seems like such a satisfying thing to do in TV and movies yet I don’t think Will is enjoying it that much. And then the rubberband stretches again, and he tells Alicia quietly, but urgently, that she was poison. Which may be one of the cruelest things you can say to a person. I’d watched Will deliver this line at least ten times in previews for this episode, yet when it actually happens, it still slays me. She says he can’t fire her without a vote of the board. He takes her phone, has Robyn watch over her, along with four security guards, and huffs away.

Robyn, I should mention, is predictably adorable, frantic yet kind, throughout this whole thing.

The hammer falls in quick succession from here on out: other fourth years are caught like mice in traps and marched to the lobby. Will is on the war path and doesn’t even let one of them retrieve his car keys. Harsh, bro. Although why are you driving in Chicago? I never understand rich people’s aversion to trains. Anyway, Cary walks quietly into the eye of the hurricane at this moment, perhaps somehow thinking he can grab his shit and run, until he realizes that standing in the center of the hurricane is Diane, holding his laptop in his office. Diane mad is a thousand times scarier (and enjoyably less testosterone-filled) than Will mad. Cary is somewhat stupid in the way he talks back to her, both making her angrier and revealing important information in the process, like the fact that Chumhum is on Cary’s side, which causes Diane’s eyes to bug out of her head.

Will calls the partners and then the whole board together; they vote; Alicia is out. At the initial meeting of the partners, it is important to note that Diane takes a second before raising her hand in agreement. David Lee, in his David Lee-ish way, gives her a hard time about it. She says calmly, “Give me a moment,” before silently raising her palm, because she has the grace and the class that no one else in this building has to actually feel conflicted about all of this. She is a goddamn queen.

Will accompanies Alicia and the security guards to the elevator. Alicia says she never meant this personally. As the doors close over his face, Will responds, “I don’t give a damn.” Alone in the elevator, she crumples.

Will snags Kalinda, who has just arrived and has made a quick assessment of the situation. He tells her to get all the dirt she can. He also seems surprised that Alicia hadn’t filled Kalinda in on any of this herself, since they’re “friends.” Kalinda responds: “Apparently not friends enough.” And the ouches just never stop in this episode. Will asks Kalinda if he can trust her. She says he can. Also important if perhaps not as relevant to the matter at hand, Kalinda’s lipgloss is looking particularly devastatingly hot today.

Kalinda then makes her way down to the lobby, where all the fired fourth years have convened in a coffeeshop, where most of them are acting like doofuses, per usual-one of them complains about bonuses, still-while Alicia is doing her best to make sure they actually still have jobs. Both Lockhart Gardner and the Coffeeshop Team make frantic calls to clients to score them to their respective sides. Cary steps out to talk to Kalinda who, surprisingly, tells him that she’s now ready to sign up for Florrick, Agos, and Associates. Huh?

Cary is dubious, obviously, and Kalinda says something about Will going crazy, and how the firm might be able to survive without Cary and Alicia, but not without Diane. She can see the writing on the wall, she says. Cary brings up the issue that blocked her from moving with them in the first place: money. Kalinda says she’ll take the pay rate that he had offered. Cary finally acquiesces, says, if you want to help us, bring us the Chumhum files to our new office space.

Kalinda then returns upstairs. Tells Will that she’s learned the fourth years don’t have the Chumhum files, and that she now knows exactly where their new office will be. She also rats out Robyn, who so far has been left unscathed. Ohhh snap.

My feelings changed in rapid succession about this turn of events: first I was confused about Kalinda’s change of heart as she talked to Cary, but I have to admit that a flicker of hope bloomed in my chest about Kalinda and Alicia still possibly working together. But something about Kalinda accepting less money seemed off. And Diane’s departure had been known for a while; that explanation didn’t really hold.

But then when she reported back to Will, it all made sense. I saw some people online interpreting this as Kalinda being shady and selling out Cary and Alicia, but really, I think this is more about Cary being stupid than anything else. If Kalinda had talked to Alicia, Alicia would have known Kalinda better and never revealed any information to her. Which Kalinda knows, which is why she talked to Cary instead. And also Kalinda and Alicia apparently haven’t spoken to each other in months, so that would have just been crazy anyway. Kalinda isn’t shady, just doing her job, just like she always has. In a way, she remains the most stable force throughout all of this.

The most beautiful thing about this episode is that amid all the drama, there are also lovely little moments of humor, and the best one happens when Will picks up Alicia’s cell phone, which he still possesses, and it’s Grace on the other line. For a moment my heart races, thinking that Grace is going to spill the beans about Zach trying to transfer Lockhart Gardner files from the cloud to Alicia’s personal computer, which Alicia had asked him to do earlier in the morning instead of silly things like getting ready for high school. Turns out Grace just wanted to ask her mom about a permission slip to some Jesus thing. Something about talking to Grace seems to crack into Will’s all-consuming anger for a moment, reminds him that Alicia’s a real person, one that he loves. When Grace asks where Alicia is, he stutters, “She’s not-I have her phone,” sounding momentarily puzzled about why he does.

Later, after an angry back and forth over the phone where Will and Alicia both tell the other to go to hell, before Will can angrily slam the phone to the ground he remembers to tell her that Grace called and needs the permission slip for the Jesus thing. Alicia says, “Oh-she did?” And he gives her the deets and she says “Thanks!” and he says “You’re welcome!” and their voices are light and airy and normal and THEN he slams the phone and they both look at their phones like they don’t quite know what just happened and it is hilarious. 100% genius.

The rest of the episode includes a bunch of handwringing over Chumhum and Neill Gross. They’re on Cary and Alicia’s side! Ohhh, now they’re back to Lockhart Gardner! They go to court against each other over restraining orders in regards to Chumhum, in which David Lee is a jackass and Alicia is a badass. Alicia and Cary end up losing, and as they walk away, David Lee calls out to Alicia’s back, “Walk away, Judas.” Awww, man. Blasphemous biblical references means shit just got real. And you have done nothing but fire Alicia up, Lee. She turns around, walks up to their faces, and says:

“We’re coming after you, all your clients, every single one we worked to make happy while you swept in at the last minute to take credit. All of them. And then you know what you’ll have? A very nice suite of offices.”

FLORRICK OUT.

At this restraining order hearing, Diane had also been called to testify against Cary and Alicia, but at the last minute decides not to, to David Lee’s chagrin. Diane also meets with Eli, to double check that all of this stuff with Alicia won’t affect Peter’s decision to name her to the Supreme Court. Eli says that they’re not in the business of letting personal drama interfere with professional decisions, which is probably the most moral thing Eli has ever said, and he even seems to really mean it. But as he walks down the hall away from her, something in Diane’s face isn’t so sure. As always, it is Diane that can actually see how things are written on the wall, and while David Lee and Will are stomping around and smashing things this entire episode, she has been staying back, quiet. Yet her arc is really the most interesting of all. She cares about her future, she wants her future, but she also cares about the firm, and always will. She feels deeply betrayed by Alicia, but in a more hurt, less defensive way about it, and you can tell that in the way Alicia is stepping up and taking charge, Diane can’t help but see something of herself. In short, I love Diane Lockhart so goddamn much.

As the episode nears an end, Will and Kalinda share some fancy alcohol in those fancy glasses that people in fancy offices always seem to have, and commiserate in their shared remorse over Alicia, her departure from Lockhart Gardner and the way she’s haunted both of their lives. Although this shared yet separate experience isn’t necessarily spoken out loud or even hinted at, we can feel it; we know that it’s there. Will is still bruised and smarting from it all; Kalinda has accepted it. Will plots out his path of revenge: making his law firm the biggest and baddest in the world; smashing his competition to bits. He asks Kalinda, again, if he can trust her, if she is up to this. But this time the meaning behind the word “competition” is clear: Is Kalinda ready to crush Alicia? A moment passes, but not too long of a moment, and we know what Kalinda is going to say. Yes.

Peter also begins to come back into play more prominently in this episode, turned on by Alicia’s youthful revolutionary spirit-they share a quick bit of sex in her bedroom as the fourth years strategize in her living room, ugh-and also revved up by what he views as Lockhart Gardner disrespecting his wife, specifically Will. He and Will share some unladylike words at one point, and unprompted, he not-so-subtly threatens Chumhum about taxes at a press conference. Chumhum, unsurprisingly, ends up on the side of Florrick & Agos. Back at Alicia’s apartment, the champagne is popped.

So Alicia and Cary’s dream is realized, finally, dramatically. We get an updated fifth season preview at the end of this episode showing the battles that are about to come between the two camps. It all seems rather exciting and triumphant.

But.

The very last scene shows Peter staring thoughtfully out his fancy window, calling Eli into his office. He calmly asks Eli to create a list of other candidates for the Supreme Court justice seat. Eli appears taken aback, asks Peter if he’s sure. You know that when Eli thinks something smells unethical, it really has to be unethical. Peter says he’s sure. Eli says okay.

Hello. Peter Florrick. My name is Inigo Montoya. You have hurt Diane Lockhart.

Prepare to die.

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