6.06 - "Old Spice"
Last week, we saw Elsbeth vs. Alicia in court, an affair fraught with all sorts of insights into Elsbeth's quirky antics, what makes her "tick" as a person, and as a lawyer. We also saw Alicia shamelessly exploit that to her benefit. In the end, it turned out that Josh Perotti would step in and throw a curve ball into the mix that put Alicia and Elsbeth back on the same side of a much larger case. Meanwhile, Alicia furthered her efforts in beginning her campaign, and after some hostile talk with her husband, she announced on the same stage where she stood 6 years ago in disgrace her candidacy for State's Attorney.
"They deserve to know who we want them to think you are..."
Cut to Alicia fending off Johnny Elfman's demands of her to publicly denounce her atheist views. It was really funny to have Johnny so pious-sounding about how these people are going to vote for Alicia, and they deserve to know who they are voting for, and yet the moment she suggests honest
answers, however, he veers into another direction of blatant lying and/or manipulation of facts. This is the underlying theme of the entire show to some extent: the importance of how things look versus how they are, where the 'importance' of appearances originates, and how it permeates every situation and imposes itself on each character caught in its snare.
Marissa Gold is another fantastic minor character that I'm quite happy to see back on the show after her time in Israel. Acting as Alicia's appointed 'bodywoman,' she provides a third opinion in the banter between Alicia and Johnny, and she really does act as an insightful, helpful person in her limited appearance. If we can't have Eli on Alicia's campaign, it's nice to have the 2nd best Gold!
"I don't like that tie."
Back in court, Josh Perotti and Elsbeth started to have some...uncomfortably close calls that led to awkward and sometimes galling lapses in logic while attempting to proceed in addressing the criminal charges that Josh had brought before the Judge (which he escalated to charges of economic espionage...to add to the stakes, I suppose?). Of course, having Josh, Alicia, and Elsbeth wasn't enough, we were also treated to Hon. Lessner and her incessant need to differentiate opinions from facts. It was a crammed courtroom this episode, and given that I have a fairly strong distaste for Josh Perotti and how he acts (he's so slimy in a show of slimeballs, but there's something just unnecessarily creepy about him that makes me want him off my television set-- so good job with that, TGW writers!) having him and Elsbeth continue on their little lust-fueled awkward plot grated on me quite a bit. But it was still funny, and even when she's at her most absent-minded, I always appreciate a healthy dose of Elsbeth Tascioni.
This was actually kind of hot while still being really odd, somehow.
In the end, with help from Kalinda, they got their hands on evidence that proved Josh's charges were fairly arbitrary after finding out that a CIA shill company also likely sold similar software to the Chinese, just like their company did inadvertently. After catching Josh on video/audio admitting to destroying the evidence that she brought to him, (and schooling him in Illinois law) Elsbeth got Josh to drop all charges, which put her back against Alicia in their civil suit. (I wonder if we will see Elsbeth again next week, or if we'll hear about the outcome of this case after the fact? It's taken up 2 episodes of airtime by now...)
"This is stupid."
By this point, knowing Alicia and Diane are trying to attain the offices that used to house Lockhart, Gardner, & Canning, and seeing Kalinda with Lana, knowing what that entails, Cary found himself at a Harvard party, looking for a good time. After striking out with a cute blonde girl for announcing that he was the partner at his firm who was arrested, another girl seemed to have her interest piqued by his "bad boy" status...And then said something about how it was a shame that he wasn't raped in lockup because that would be a "turn-on."
What the hell, Cary... This girl is not someone you should be hanging out with at all. Of course, after an evening of debauchery, Cary and his girl return to his apartment, where Pretrial Service Officer Joy Grubick (Ahh! So nice to see Linda Lavin again! She's great) was at his door for a "spot check." The long and short of it: he was arrested again, for leaving a quarter mile outside of Illinois. Ouch.
Grubick had 24 hours to write her final report on whether he should have bail revoked. She approached Kalinda, and had an abrupt (and fairly uncomfortable) conversation. At the end, Kalinda
had some very strong words for Cary's situation, and how the fault wasn't his. It was interesting then to see Grubick uphold Cary's bond, but then have stringent restrictions put in place, including a curfew and an ankle tracker. But the worst was her stating that he was to have absolutely no contact with Kalinda, since she was by definition a dangerous person, given her history (great way to reflect back on Kalinda's story...things from season 2 still sting to this day) and her connection to "Lemon-D Bishop" (that was so interesting/adorable of her to say that so incorrectly).
On some level, I hope this puts these 2 characters on a different path. I wanted Kalinda/Cary to work out, and I think at some point it might have, but at this point...it feels put-on... It feels to me that Kalinda isn't going to be what Cary needs, and Cary isn't the type of person that Kalinda craves (meaning someone who is quite amoral and likes to challenge her in strange gratifying ways...). Having heard her call Cary the most honest person she knows sounded more like faint praise than it should have. As if it was definitely what he was, but it was also definitely something that cost him points with her and any hopes of them remaining a solid couple. -- This could all just be me overthinking things, though. I never know how to appropriately predict what this show will do next.
"And now, turning to God..."
In one of my favorite parts of the episode, Alicia goes on a live stream to talk about her religion. She has a seemingly candid discussion about her beliefs, and then the Pastor starts to harp on how much of a believer her daughter is. This was my favorite part because, we got a glimpse of how mature Grace Florrick has become. In her scenes with her mother speaking about God, and religion, she
makes no case for her mother to convert, she just states how her own faith works, and reassures her mother that there is no judgment for Alicia being an atheist. After seeing the Pastor accost Alicia about Grace's faith, we see her prayer circle bring up what seems to be their primary goal -- "opening up the door to family" which seemed to make Grace squirm a bit in her seat.
This was very interesting to me, because I didn't know if she was taking it as a strange moment of her group feeling cultish (because that prayer circle creeped me out, personally), or if she felt ashamed because she knew her mother was still an atheist, and also lied about it live on a stream. Her mother's campaign and beliefs might have just compromised Grace's personal dogma, which is understandably unsettling for her. I'll be interested in seeing how this develops.
"No. Take mine."
In the fringes of this episode, we saw a sporadic look into the offices of Lockhart, Gardner, & Canning, where Louis Canning and David Lee tried their damnedest to hold off eviction, but ultimately with help from Howard Lyman, the perennial turncoat that he is, Diane pushed out the old and was able to retain the offices for Florrick, Agos, & Lockhart.
The final scene had Alicia and Diane entering the apparently trashed offices, and stake their claim. Alicia ended up in Will's old office, and it was the strangest feeling seeing it unfold. I was originally quite against the idea of returning to the L/G office, but I was never a huge fan of the t-shirt factory either. Perhaps they will renovate and have the offices look different, with less glass or something that signifies how this is a different firm, a different direction, not more of the same in the same place.
The scene itself was powerful. The ghost of Will Gardner is still hanging around, appropriately knicking small wounds or scrapes that these characters have been mending since he was gunned down in the middle of a courtroom. Lots of great nonverbal cues from both Diane and Alicia ended things on a strong note.
Sidenotes:
- "Economic espionage...in my opinion..."
- The old spice/baby lotion smell thing between Josh and Elsbeth at first made me laugh a bit, but ultimately left me feeling really uncomfortable. I am not sure, but that might have been the point.
- Cary, you are in a really precarious situation, and I realize how Alicia and Diane are taking things away and around where you want to be in your firm, but you have to make smarter decisions! It's completely not ok for you to go AWOL at work and ignore things just because you don't want to face the people with whom you're having difficulty.
- Having said that, can we please have Cary not be in a constant state of duress at some point? Alicia and Diane get what they want... Cary is reprimanded for the smallest of mistakes. It's so strange.
-This show is shot with so many dark hues... I am going to need to make sure to take time to adjust the exposure on screencaps for my review from now on. On the bright backgrounds they look even darker.
What did you think of this week's episode? Start a discussion below in the comments!
