The Good Wife - Message Discipline - Review - "Cary, They Are Crucifying You"

6.07 - "Message Discipline"

Last week, we witnessed F/A/L move back into their old offices, and a little too much awkward flirting between Elsbeth Tascioni and Josh Perotti. This week, we got back into things nicely with another great outing, and provided probably the strongest episode Kalinda's had in a while. We also get to see Alicia botch her first tv interview, while Cary's case seems to spiral out of control...

"It's like learning a new language."

Alicia and Finn meet up at a bar for a little light banter and some wine. He is in a good mood, but he suddenly has a moment where he feels he should warn Alicia about something that could hurt her chances in the S.A.'s race. He won't share what it is with her, but he states things will get worse for Cary.

It turns out, there was a bag of cocaine that went missing 3 years ago at Cook County S.A.'s office, and it went missing after Deputy A.S.A. Cary Agos checked it out of custody for "expediting the case." After a few interviews it seemed that Cary may have been working for Lemond Bishop all the way back then.

The cruel irony of the situation as a viewer is just knowing how far out of character it would be for Cary to do something like that. At this point the whole case against Cary is 80% fueled by Castro's misconduct in forcing a witch hunt and 20% of dealing with Cary's awkward past in the S.A.'s office before his return to L/G. It isn't looking good for Cary.

"I believe it...the elderly crime thing..."

Alicia's first meeting with Frank Prady set the tone for the following scenes where they'd meet again: He was expecting her to inquire about an interview, and she blatantly asked him for his endorsement, which was followed by incredibly awkward conversation that was haphazardly constructed by Eli (who seemed to have quite a bit wrong in figuring Prady out, as his prompts only made things worse for Alicia)...She left with cookies and an interview on his show, still hopeful for an endorsement.

"This type of horse shit is why people don't run for office."

Following their initial meeting, Johnny helped coach Alicia through some more tough discussion topics that might come up on Frank Prady's television interview. After a few rough cuts, (and Johnny

verbally stating "I don't know about the friggin'" -- THANK YOU she says that too much!) she had quite a great session on keeping to the message, and dealing with any difficult questions.

The only problem was that Frank Prady had no intention of putting her on the spot on his show, so she just came off as an aggressive ill-tempered person who rambled awkwardly, and missed all her cues. It was terrible, and to make things worse, Eli and Johnny mentioned that it was confirmed that Prady was joining the race...

"Then I will."

Kalinda really went to bat for Cary again this week. After looking into Cary's reasons for not defending himself from The S.A.'s probative questions, she realized that Cary's actions were on
behalf of Peter Florrick, when he was S.A. and wanted Cary to rush the results of the cocaine test to catch Lemond Bishop on some charges before his governor's campaign took off.

Cary said his hands were tied and if he went after Peter, nothing would come of it, which was true, as Ramona, Peter's new legal counsel was very much a force in court for keeping the governor out of Cary's case.

Kalinda dug into the evidence's trail herself and found that the person who was actually responsible for the cocaine's disappearance was none other than Trey Wagner's cousin. Kalinda quietly picked her way into the woman's car and downloaded her GPS data. Then found her way to Trey Wagner's hideaway, and was able to butter him up and offer his testimony to Finn Polmar to finally get Cary off the hook with the S.A.

"Cary Agos is innocent."

Finn immediately approached James Castro with Kalinda's offer. Castro refused to change strategy, and it dawned on Finn that he was outwardly trying to get Cary Agos in jail to hurt Alicia's chances in her campaign. Castro reprimanded Finn for stating such a thing, and Finn responded by promptly
resigning from his position at the S.A. office.

I was happy to see that when things became apparent that getting Cary was not due to whether or not he was innocent but because of political ambitions, Finn stepped aside. I worried about his own intentions in this case, but he was, in the end, doing his job. That is until his job became blatantly about his position being used by Castro to ruin an innocent man's life and hurt Alicia's campaign.

"You're such a hypocrite."

In a very quick but telling exchange, Alicia incorrectly assumes Diane is referring to something from Alicia's campaign, when it turns out that after all of the work to get Cary out of the S.A.'s crosshairs Trey Wagner has died in a "car accident" and so has Cary's best chance of having the charges dropped. 

In a rushed moment, Alicia halfheartedly wishes Cary good luck (through a glass pane!?) as he leaves with Diane to meet the new prosecutor on the case. She's obviously completely consumed by her campaign and is cut off emotionally from his distress.

As a viewer who was so enamored with the original idea of "Florrick/Agos" this scene upset me. Alicia is completely removed from Cary in such little time. I personally hope she fails in the campaign, as she keeps pointing out reasons herself that are contrary to what she should be doing as a politician and go back to her firm as name partner and start working things from there. There's so much upheaval that everything feels vital and uncomfortable at this point.

In the final scene, we have Frank Prady visiting Alicia with little notice ahead of time. Anxious, and hoping for his endorsement, she awkwardly attempts to follow his rantings about losing friends and hating politics, only to hear that he has decided to run for office himself. She immediately shuts down, calls him a hypocrite, and wishes him away from her office.

I think it's the most ironic thing that this situation seems to have played out exactly the same way as when Alicia wasn't running and then decided she was after it seemed that Castro was attempting to frighten or intimidate her from running earlier this season. It seems that in listening to Johnny and Eli's mumblings of his running throughout the episode she was led astray and had not 1, not 2, but 3 misunderstandings or awkward situations unfold. Finally, it didn't even matter that she could have explained away the document Eli leaked because she practically demanded that he kept that out of the press, but she was done dealing with the jittery mind-games she at least perceived Frank was playing with her.

And so, a third person enters the race. 

Sidenotes: (and thee are plenty of them this time!)

- James Castro, as played by Michael Cerveris looked so much like his old role as the Observer from Fringe in an early scene in court where he stands quietly watching Cary's trial.

- I didn't get to mention her too much in the review as the Peter/Ramona scenes were few in the middle of the big picture, but that character is already bringing a Robin Wright-esque vibe to the table, and I think that she might make things interesting on that side. Peter continues to dig himself down in that hole of disgust I (and likely so many others) have for him, especially since it is highly implied that he has a history with Ramona that hasn't been expanded upon yet.

- Do the people that write this show realize that the main storyline in S6 for Alicia right now is no where near as worrying or as important as Cary's life-or-death situation? I don't know how I am supposed to feel about this continuing campaign storyline as Alicia's smaller issues are dwarfed by Cary's legal meltdown...

- Another great bleeped out use of a 4-letter word. They didn't even hide it, "horse shit" was just muted by CBS. I hope when this comes out on DVD we get to hear it, because I get all excited when Alicia gets fired up.

- Not only was there another moment where Alicia yelled out "friggin" (cringe)  but Johnny called her out on it and said no "friggin's" (yay!) -- perhaps that's indicative of fewer "friggin's" in the show? They sound so out of place...

- Judge Glatt needs to take a chill pill. I half expect the next time we see him in court, he'll have a vein literally burst out of his forehead if someone stops paying attention to him for more than 5 seconds...

- I am so worried about what will happen to Cary. I don't think it will end well, even in spite of everyone's efforts. When someone like Castro is in the place of power, and someone like Cary is put in a survival situation, the good guy will not win out. His biggest weakness is his apathetic inaction.

- Kalinda is setting herself up to be a target. She finds Trey Wagner only to have him die the next day? Bishop is having her followed for sure.

- Maybe Prady will just demolish her chances to run, she'll realize she shouldn't be a politician and we'll go back to law stuff that's more interesting!? (only one can hope!)

What did you think of this week's episode? Start a discussion below in the comments!

About the Author - Wilson Crawford

Wilson is an avid fan of television, music, and the occasional video game. He enjoys well-written, thought-provoking characters and series that get better with age. Current favorites include The Good Wife and Mad Men. Past favorites include Damages, Fringe, Breaking Bad, 30 Rock, and Veronica Mars.

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