Paranoia Runs Wild on The Good Wife

The big Good Wife Super Bowl announcement has put a countdown clock on this season and with each passing week it becomes clear that Alicia Florrick’s journey is going to come full circle; with Peter accused of a crime he may or may not have committed, resignation and the question of whether his wife will stand by him. The Education of Alicia Florrick is not going to see her making the same mistake twice and I have a strong feeling that Peter might be standing alone the next time this kind of press conference takes place; especially if she take Ruth’s advice to put herself first and get out while she can. The question is what charges are they going to bring against Peter and Eli is scrambling to get ahead of the FBI. Now there happens to be a big Elsbeth Tascioni shaped obstacle in his way.

Ah yes! It is always a pleasure to see Carrie Preston as Elsbeth and while there is a danger that things could tip into overly kooky territory; Preston manages to walk this very narrow line stopping her from appearing too cartoony. Plus it is always fun to see characters interact with Elsbeth for the first time and now we get to meet her equally disarming ex-husband. Plus it helps that she isn’t always sickly sweet and is very protective of her clients and her duties as a lawyer.The question of who the redacted name is and how Elsbeth connected the dots has apparently been answered in the episode and yet I have a feeling it is someone else entirely who Elsbeth is keeping attorney/client privilege with and I’m pretty sure that person is dead. Yep I think Will Gardner is the one and it goes back to the stuffed ballot box from Peter’s election at the end of season 4. Will showed Peter a video of said ballot box and was being pursued by the Office of Public Integrity just prior to his death.

In “A Few Words” Will approaches Elsbeth at a conference in New York and asks her to represent him in this case as he is being pressured to break attorney/client privilege and threatened with jail time if he doesn’t. It meets all the criteria as to why Elsbeth has to excuse herself from working for Peter; a grand jury case (tick), against Peter Florrick (tick) and Will was a client of Elsbeth’s (tick). At the time it looked like this was going to be a huge story arc and that it might spell the end for Peter, but then the courtroom shooting happened effectively killing two birds with one stone for Peter and his Will problem. Not that I think Peter welcomed this solution, but you can’t say he hasn’t benefited from it.

This isn’t the conclusion Eli comes to as after following Elsbeth (oh hi Jason!) they see her meeting with one of Peter’s top donors (and dairy owner) Lloyd Garber and assume he is also being investigated. But Garber is also very close to Gardner and maybe I’m being David Lee/Cary Agos levels of paranoid, but I think Garber is a big red herring here. Now Will is dead (*sob*) so where this leaves Elsbeth in terms of lawyer duties is something I am not clear on. Regardless I kinda like the idea of Will bringing Peter down from beyond the grave. There are some things like the Russian in The Sopranos or the outrigger in Lost that never come back regardless of these shows ending, but I have a feeling we have not seen the last of the stuffed ballot box.

Over at Lockhart, Agos and Lee all the years of takeovers, schemes and power plays – Derrick Bond, anyone? – have taken their toll and David Lee takes the interest in the female lawyers for a profile piece to mean that Diane is intending to turn this into a female run firm. Because of course he does. And because Cary has been involved in several of these plots he is easily influenced in believing this is a thing. There is a lack of trust at this firm from all angles and it is hard to imagine a time when it will settle down and the major players won’t suspect that there is someone working against them. As outsiders both Lucca and Jason thinks this is kinda insane and Lucca questions Alicia about why they came here in the first place. Money. The answer is always money.With Jason, Alicia has a whole different kind of interaction going from elevator smooches to late night office hookups and finally Alicia has thrown caution to the wind in what looks like the same office where she had a very chaste moment with Finn Polmar. I know there was some John shenanigans as well last season, but eh there was nowhere near the heat as with either of these other potential suitors. Jason has concerns about where this might be headed and those concerns begin with Peter; Alicia explains the situation and that Peter is fine with it. Jason intuitively knows this is far from the case so Alicia tries another tactic first by playfully and emotionally manipulating him about her drinking followed by being direct; she wants him.

We don’t get to see where this leads as we cut to the NSA dudes who are not only listening into Alicia’s calls but also any conversation that happens to take place near her phone, which is pretty much all of her conversations. The episode ends abruptly and with a sense of uncertainty about what the NSA’s role is other than being an audience stand-in and how their investigation will impact the FBI’s investigation and Alicia’s work seeing as they did influence Alicia’s top secret case. I loved the look of pride/happiness that came across Alicia’s face when she was told that Judge Leora Kuhn was the one who recommended her and if Linda Emond isn’t coming back before the end then I’m glad they gave a nod to one of my all time favorite Good Wife judges in this manner.

I was hoping that with Alicia’s return to the firm there would be more for Christine Baranski to do; alas this week she was just dealing with paranoid dudes. Looking fabulous in the process (standard).In a similar vein Lucca also got dealt the short straw this week as Cary tried to get info from her about this possible all lady takeover and getting booted from Alicia’s office when she wanted a word with Jason. There is also the small matter of a Top 5 Lucca Quinn outfit with this colorful dress.And for a random Lockhart, Agos and Lee observation – I wonder why they have to spell out what is in this jar. Is it so people don’t think it is decorative?I think it would be in Cary’s best interest if he did not align himself with David Lee even if he has cockroach levels of survival skills at the firm. The pieces are falling into place and it will be interesting to see where loyalties lie and who is willing to stand by who when it comes down to it.

Tags: "Targets", 7.15, Carrie Preston, Christine Baranski, Cush Jumbo, Josh Charles, Julianna Margulies, Matt Czuchry, The Good Wife