Throughout its six seasons, The Good Wife has never shied away from tackling topics that are ripped right from the headlines. In this week’s episode, they address Ferguson not only by name, but with another police shooting of an unarmed African American man. They announce at the beginning of the episode that it was filmed before the verdicts came back in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, but they certainly attempt to capture some of the outrage, and injustice that has been felt across the country in recent months.
On The Good Wife, the man who was shot by Chicago police is Cole Willis, and Officers Michael and Trenton are awaiting a decision in their involuntary manslaughter trial. This all comes to light as Alicia and her team prep for her big debate with Frank Prady. In mere minutes she will have to take the stage, and they begin to prep her for possible questions concerning the case. As Eli tries to coach Alicia on her measured response, Alicia is distracted by the absence of Johnny Elfman. Eli is unconcerned, and lets us know that Alicia is now down six points and not just two like last week. This debate truly will be the defining factor in the race.
During all of this, Neil Gross from Chumhum calls and Alicia takes it, much to Eli’s frustration. Neil is getting a divorce and for some reason, Evan, one of the lawyers at Florrick Agos Lockhart is offering twice as much to his soon to be ex, Deena, than Neil agreed to. He threatens to leave and Alicia promises to look into it. When she gets back, her handlers are all over her, tossing new info in her direction, as she tries to call FAL. The office is busy giving Cary a hearty welcome back, so Diane picks up the call. The larger settlement is news to her too, and they suspect that Evan might be freelancing. When Diane, Cary and Kalinda step inside the conference room, we find David Lee representing the future Ex-Mrs. Gross. David Lee has incriminating pictures of Neil that he subtly threatens to send to TMZ, so Evan upped the settlement offer without consulting Diane or Cary. They send Kalinda to do some investigating.
Just as Eli is about to give Alicia his parting piece of advice, Johnny arrives and gives them whopper of shit storm to deal with. Reporter Patrick Mancini has photos of Peter leaving Ramona’s place, two nights before, and plans to ask her about Peter’s new infidelity. It seems that no matter what, Alicia can never escape the shadow of Peter’s poor decisions. Speak of the devil, Peter calls Alicia but everyone advises her not to answer.
Peter is at a meeting of interfaith leaders who are trying to come together before the jury decision comes back about the two officers. Eli tears out of the debate to meet up with Peter and warn him about the Ramona pics. Eli also manages to insult and alienate his assistant Nora by, well frankly, being racist. Thankfully, she points out how ridiculous he sounds and calls him out on his shit.
As the jury comes in and the new accusations about Peter’s infidelity come in, Alicia basically tunes everyone out so she can concentrate on her own thoughts and feelings. She then turns to her handlers and tells them to zip it. Get it, girl. She takes the stage to face off with Prady. When she meets him face to face, we can see a glimmer of badassness in her eyes.
While he’s supposed to be in the faith meeting, Peter is busy on the phone with Eli, and the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, Franny. The Mayor has conveniently left the state so he wouldn’t have to deal with the outcome of the trial and Peter is furious. The mayor is prepping for a riot, but Peter and the faith council believe that’s a terrible idea and that Chicagoans should be left to protest peacefully. Franny brings along Pastor Isiah, Pastor Jeremiah’s son, who sides with the major. Nothing like family drama, amiright?
Back at the debate, there are a ridiculous amount of rules and Alicia is initially not unlike a deer in headlights. Moderator Chris Matthews keeps cutting Alicia off, but that’s kind of his job. He asks them both about Ferguson and race relations in Chicago. We don’t really get to hear though because it all cuts back to FAL and Kalinda’s intel about Evan. Turns out his little boy had major surgery and survived, so Evan may just be feeling overly generous, or as Cary says, “nice”. Kalinda also has some photos to use against Deena as well.
Back at the debate, Patrick Mancini goes ahead with the infidelity question, and Alicia goes full on Candidate Hulk. She eviscerates him for using the debate for airing her marriage’s dirty laundry and points out that her daughter is in the audience.
“How dare you, sir. Do you have a personal life? Do you have a spouse? Do you know what it would be like to have your personal life spilled across the stage like this? Broadcasted into the home of your friends, your workmates, your daughter’s friends at school. Do you know what that would be like?”
She also points out that her husband’s infidelity has nothing to do with her being an effective leader and cutting down crime in Chicago. Mancini gets his ass booed too, when he presses that he’s going to print the story about Ramona and Peter anyway. When it’s Prady’s turn to speak, he suggests that Alicia is owed an apology.
Just as the debate between Prady and Alicia heats up, the verdict on “not guilty” comes in and the debate is postponed for two hours while the station cuts to a live feed. Alicia is starving so she heads to the hotel kitchen to make something to eat. Prady has the same idea, and they agree to a casual debate over cheese sandwiches. Meanwhile, Eli suggests that Peter take this moment to shine as a unifying force…and also so people won’t care about him schtooping Ramona.
As they debate, one of the hotel waiters overhears them talking about Ferguson and systemic racism and very pointedly says:
“You know what’s really stupid? You’re two white people arguing about why black people are rioting, that’s what’s stupid. And you’re saying there needs to be more black in office, and that’s why we need two more white people running.”
His words have a major impact on Alicia and Prady, so Alicia asks the man what he thinks they should do.
As protesters take to the streets, Peter, Eli and the faith council watch it unfold on television. Peter decides he needs to go to where the protests are happening, and asks Pastor Isaiah to join him.
At FAL, Diane and Cary are able to make Deena’s affair with Chumhum’s biggest competitor, into a violation of her non-compete agreement.
Alicia and Prady’s kitchen debate has now attracted more of the staff, who are raising really big questions about drug crimes. Johnny tries to intervene, but Alicia chooses to stay. Prady suggests that Alicia wouldn’t be able to soften the prison terms for non-violent drug crimes, because of her past connection with Lemond Bishop. Oh contraire, Alicia counters. It is exactly because of that connection that she understands the system, and the people it serves (and doesn’t serve) more that Prady ever will. Now it’s Prady’s handler’s turn to intervene. The guys in the kitchen side with Alicia on this one, and Prady actually looks a little worried.
When Peter, Pastor Isaiah and Eli all pull up downtown, Eli sees Ramona in the crowd. Peter had asked her to come down, and invites her into his car alone.
Alicia gets the 10 minute heads up to return to the debate, so she asks to speak with Johnny alone, and tries to explain the kiss. She tells him it didn’t mean anything. But based on his demeanor and reaction, it may have meant something to Johnny, which Alicia wasn’t anticipating.
Chris Matthews interrupts their moment to say that the debate is called off because Prady is trying to delay. Turn out that Prady got the hell out of there, and made a video about attending the protests instead. Johnny actually thinks that Prady made a big mistake and he has Alicia stand at the podium alone, while it looks like Prady ran away from the debate. It’s a turning point for her campaign.
Neil Gross gets a call that Deena is now trying to get the Chumhum board to come down on him for not intervening during the celebrity photo leak scandal. He also fires FAL right then for bungling his divorce settlement. The firm just lost their biggest client, so now what do they do? They approach a very smug David Lee in the parking lot and offer him a place at FAL. Alicia is going to flip.
Peter and Ramona both exit the car, and Ramona is in tears. She tells Eli that Peter broke it off for good, and this is goodbye. I can’t help but feel a little bad for Ramona, who is just another casualty of the politics game. Eli even looks like he feels for her. Peter then meets with Dierdre, the wife of Cole Willis. Alongside Pastor Isaiah, Peter walks her to the city hall steps, and stands by her side as she addresses the crowd gathered. She asks in honor of her husband, that they all come together to fix this broken system.
When Alicia arrives at the office, she finds David Lee sitting in her office, salivating over it like a cartoon wolf. He tells her that he’s joined FAL, and she’s shocked at the news. She marches into Diane’s office where she’s meeting with Cary. They explain that they felt they had no choice but to bring David on after losing Chumhum. Diane points out that if Alicia was running to fight Castro and Cary’s charges, why is she still in the race? Alicia points out their sexism in even asking her that question and for the first time, announces that she really wants to win. She walks out and meets with Johnny to focus on the next part of the game.
