Archive

“The Good Wife” recap (5.13): Parallel Construction, Bitches

After a hiatus of approximately 325 years, The Good Wife is back on our screens on Sunday nights. Hallelujah! For those of you who are just here for the naughty Kalinda bits, I will warn you off the bat that while we do get to see her in bed this episode, a fact I always celebrate, her partner in said bed is not a lady. Which for Kalinda is fine, but for a lot of us is a little sad.

The main courtroom drama is a twisty turny one that mainly centers around government spying, a plot that might not have been my favorite on any other day. But it’s been so long since the last new episode that just seeing these strong female characters again, and witnessing such sharp and fast writing again, felt almost like a revelation.

I also didn’t even have to come up with a witty title for this recap, because “Parallel Construction, Bitches” is the actual, official CBS title of the episode, which is sort of amazing. Keep that parallel construction phrase in mind, though, because it ends up being the most interesting legal part of the whole story.

We begin in Alicia’s apartment, viewing something we don’t see that often: her hanging out with her kids and watching TV. You know, like a regular mom! Except that she still looks classy as fuck and is sipping a red wine that probably costs more than what I make in a month, so, not exactly creeping into Roseanne territory. The show they’re watching is some type of gag on a stereotypical crime drama, and Grace’s deadpan descriptions of what’s happening, provided for Alicia’s clearly mystified face, are surprisingly amusing.

A knock on the door interrupts; Alicia sends Zach to greet who she assumes to be the dry cleaner. Because Alicia is the type of person who has pick up dry cleaning service. The guy who is actually behind the door goes along with the dry cleaning bit for a while, until he casually informs Zach that his name is Charles Lester, personal attorney of one Lemond Bishop. Alicia quickly scurries to the door and urges her children to get themselves to their rooms immediately. Because that’s not suspicious sounding at all, Mom.

It appears Mr. Bishop is being held on another drug charge, and the next day, there’s one big, happy, dysfunctional family around the defense table in the courtroom: Lester, Alicia, Cary, Bishop, Will, and Diane, since they are all still somehow sharing Bishop as a client. Thankfully, though, FA v. LG courtroom bickering seems to have settled down to a low simmer. These brief courtroom scenes are some of the only times we really get to see Diane in this whole episode, though, which is a damn shame. But at least we still get to witness her flawless fashion sense. That jacket!

Jeffrey Tambor is also back as Judge Kluger, which is great for us because he is hilarious, but slightly weird for Alicia because she has a lunch date with him in the near future, which could present a conflict of interest. We still don’t know exactly what this lunch date is about, though. It’s supposedly to talk about a book he’s writing, but why single out Alicia to discuss it with? Does the Kluge have a crush? Does he want a connection to the governor? Alicia considers canceling, but Cary advises her to keep it so as not to piss off the judge of the trial they’re working on. But then she ends up getting distracted and accidentally shows up way late to the weird lunch date. As she gushes her apologies, he’s like, it’s fine, it’s fine, but oh, I just got this important call, and now I’m going to leave YOU sitting here by yourself. So did she piss him off? Or is he still his seemingly amiable self, and he actually did just get a call that forced him to leave? Later in the episode, they share a confusing phone call, where he says he’s no longer writing his book. And then he says goodbye in Mandarin. Because he’s learning Mandarin. I literally have no idea what is happening in this storyline.

Anyhoo, with some shrewd maneuvering by Will and hilarious testimony by good ol’ Howard Lyman, the Florrick-Agos-LG team proves that Bishop actually wasn’t moving product on the day that the Department of Justice says that he was – or at least, that there’s no way their witness could have seen him doing so. To which the DEA rushes in and is all, “Oh, haha, funny thing! We actually meant to say the day BEFORE that day. Ha ha. Whoopsies!” At which the DOJ/DEA get a stern warning from Kluger, and Bishop and Lester figure something out. They confront Alicia about it in the creepy yet awesome Florrick-Agos freight elevator, which, might I just add, is the perfect environment for a good sex scene. Just something to keep in mind, Kings. See, Bishop actually HAD been moving goods on the original day in question. The witness couldn’t have seen him do it, as LG had shown, but he had indeed done it. Which the DOJ knows, which is why this case is happening in the first place. But the fact that the DEA/DOJ are now scrambling to switch around their stories is because they can’t bring in their REAL witness, which means their real witness must be a confidential informant. And as Lester informs Alicia in the elevator, the only people Bishop had informed of his whereabouts on that day were the employees of Florrick-Agos. The leak, therefore, must be one of them. And if it is, Lemond Bishop is going to kill you, y’all.

Meanwhile, Marilyn Garbanza is walking down the street, looking beautiful, defying Eli Gold, just having a normal Marilyn Garbanza day, when a posse of black vans pull up next to her and a bunch of guys instruct her to get in. They’re from the “Office of Public Integrity,” which is apparently a thing, and whether they’re part of the DOJ or not, they are 100% creepy.

And for some crazy reason, Marilyn actually follows their orders instead of running the hell away. Inside the imposing black van, the Chief Creep threatens her with jail time if she doesn’t give up what she knows about Peter Florrick’s election fraud. And either the jail threat works, or Marilyn is just fed up with the political games of Eli and Peter, because she soon returns to the black van-seriously, these guys must have real offices somewhere, right? – and turns over the damning stuffed ballot box video.

After investigating all the members of Florrick-Agos that they’ve ever talked to, Bishop and Lester do determine that they haven’t actually ratted them out to the DOJ. Duh. Although during their amusingly giggly interview with Robyn, for a second I have a brief daydream of Robyn’s possible double lives, and it is glorious. Man, I love her.

The trouble, in fact, leads down to Alicia’s phone, where she’s left a few voicemails for herself, and talked to Cary about the case over it, the only times she’s communicated the essential facts about the case that the DEA has picked up. Tapping by the DEA is old hat to Bishop, and he has his people deliver burners to the Florrick-Agos office. Meanwhile, in brightly lit government cubicles, two nerds look at each other and say, “They think we’re the DEA,” and share a good chuckle.

It’s the NSA nerds! Remember the NSA nerds? The NSA nerds sorta become my favorite this episode.

So since it’s in fact the NSA that’s tapping their lines and not technically the DEA, the DEA denies wiretapping in court, which Judge Kluger stands by, and it looks, at least for a second, like things are not going Cary and Alicia’s way. Until, that is, the federal prosecutor suddenly steps down, not because he’s recusing himself from the case, but because he’s, like, resigning from being a federal lawyer. Like, he just found out about some crappy stuff happening in his office and he’s quitting. Presumably. This raises a few more flags.

But at this point you’re probably wondering where the hell Miss Sharma is. We first see her this episode at the bar with Cary, sipping that amber liquid that she sips so well. Although actually she doesn’t really sip it here, she downs it, which is better, and which she does because she’s annoyed. Because Cary is sitting there silent as the eye of a hurricane and not being very good company and Kalinda’s over it. When she presses him, he eventually says that he doesn’t know if he can trust her. And the sky is blue, Cary. What else is new?

When Florrick-Agos decide to do the right thing and let LG know about the wiretaps, because they assume that by association LG is being tapped, too-which they are-Diane enlists Kalinda to find out if Florrick-Agos is telling the truth or not. Which Kalinda decides to do through sex. As that delicate horseshoe necklace dangles deliciously above her clavicle when she hovers over Cary, halfway hidden in the dim lamplight, she asks about the wiretap. He says he’s telling the truth. And the next day, Kalinda goes to Diane and tells her Cary’s lying.

I’m not sure what to make of this-if Kalinda is just honestly misreading Cary, which would seem a little odd, since she’s normally good at reading people, or if she’s protecting him and Florrick-Agos for some reason. It’s been pretty clear in her actions over the last few months, though, that her loyalties with LG stand firm, and I can’t see her lying to Diane over something like this.

And what’s with Kalinda and Cary, anyway? She was the one to call him initially for drinks, before the investigating sex, implying that their interactions this episode haven’t been just all about work. And while I don’t necessarily think Kalinda is swooning over Cary or anything, I find her back and forth with him more genuine than her brief affair with the lady cop earlier this season, and obviously a huge improvement from Horrible Husband. I’m intrigued, basically, to see where Kalinda’s storyline goes from here.

Back in the courtroom, or rather directly outside the courtroom, the next day Cary finally puts down a definition to what has been happening all episode. It’s called “parallel construction,” and it’s when the NSA hands out their surveillance knowledge to other governmental departments. The DEA, for instance, in the first half of this episode, before the NSA realizes that Florrick-Agos are onto them and cut the DEA off. Or the Office of Public Integrity, in the latter part of the episode. These agencies can’t technically build cases on this information, but they still, you know, get the information.

Now, plain old NSA surveillance for terrorism, that’s one thing. But sharing that information with other departments that haven’t made legal warrants for wiretaps, that’s a whole ‘nother shebang.

And with the wiretaps of all of our characters that the NSA are continuing to monitor, Chief Creep with the Office of Public Integrity is eventually led to Will. They’ve also already harassed Alicia at her office since getting the video from Marilyn, not just to ask her about Peter but to not-so-pleasantly remind her that she could do jail time, as well, if this all gets ugly. Because she’s the one who actually represented her husband that election night in court.

Note, once again: work and marriage really should not mix, people.

But Alicia has more experience talking to creeps than Marilyn does, and she doesn’t crack as easily, giving Chief Creep the perfect stare of half disgust, half indifference to his threats. Although as evidenced in the phone call she makes to Eli immediately after Public Integrity Guy leaves, she’s also not taking this lightly.

Interestingly, Will’s reaction to Chief Creep is almost exactly the same – half disgust, half indifference, the only difference being that he indulges in a glass of alcohol while refusing to give in. But for Will, the stakes are even higher, because Chief Creep has a subpoena for him, something he wasn’t able to produce yet for Alicia. Mr. Gardner is not fazed.

In a way, it does seem strange that Will would risk so much in defense of the man he hates most. Except, of course, for the ever-present fact of this love triangle: hurting the man he hates most would also hurt the woman he loves most. Ah, Will. I didn’t hate you as much this episode. Probably because you didn’t talk as much. But still, good job.

Overall, it was interesting and somewhat unique to see how ALL of the different storylines in this episode became connected to each other by the end, if just via a couple of nerds sitting in the offices of the NSA. Peter political drama has never been my favorite, so I don’t know how I feel about this voter fraud thing getting drawn out through the rest of the season. But it is nice to see Florrick-Agos now standing pretty firmly on their own feet. Although simultaneously, I miss spending more time in the halls of Lockhart Gardner. The only thing I really ask for is the same thing I always ask for: more Robyn, more Kalinda. (And more Diane, but I think that’s maybe just a personal obsession.)

What were your thoughts on the first episode after the long hiatus?

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button