The Good Wife - Innocents - Review: "You're Being Used"

7.02 - "Innocents"

Previously, on The Good Wife...

Last week's premiere started the show fresh with new dynamics across the board for Alicia and all the other characters. Alicia...uhm... bonded with newcomer Lucca Quinn (get it? I'm so funny), while Peter made an enemy out of Eli, which can't possibly cause any tensions or issues there! Cary blatantly hated his life being out of touch with younger associates and being stuck in useless meetings all the time. Diane provided context in 1-2 lines, and literally nothing else. (Unfortunate!)

This week saw these threads continue, as Alicia looked for a new investigator, Eli worked some manipulative magic, and Cary dealt with more of Howard Lyman's old-timer nonsense. 

"I did it. And I'd do it again."

This week's case was overall, a strong one, in my opinion. Alicia once again takes one of Lucca's excess bond cases, for a young man who had destroyed a painting in a Chicago museum. Of course, there's more to it than that. The artwork in question is a photograph of the client, Erik Barsetto, in the nude at 8 years old. His mother filmed Erik and his sister on a lake in Maine as a part of one of her many artistic projects. Years later, she's an esteemed artist, and he has to live with pictures of his childhood nude body coming up in very uncomfortable ways throughout his adolescence. Erik is played well by Johnny Simmons, whose aggravation and deep resentment for his mother is always close to bubbling over as he's reached his limit of humiliation.

His mother, Phyllis seems only confused by his animosity towards her work. She seems completely detached from his emotional well-being, while also being enamored with his beauty, (as well as her daughter's who doesn't have as much of an issue with the nude photos according to her lawyers). 

In the courtroom, it's good ol' Nancy Crozier vs. Alicia. On the bench, Judge Dunaway, who is well-known for his abject hatred of the Florricks (or was it just Alicia in particular?) seemed to be in quite an odd mood. He was more whimsical, and less steely in his judgments, which was confusing, but led to some interesting moments. 

Alicia needed an investigator very quickly, so she asked first Lucca Quinn, then Cary if they knew any decent investigators to call for help in handling Erik Barsetto's case, and had 3 possible contenders: a weird, talkative ex-cop, a young woman, and a smoldering, whip-smart wisecracker named Jason Crouse. Immediately, Alicia had to cut Jason Crouse from the line-up as she was positively attracted to him and his flirtatious ways, perhaps in an attempt to not relive any past mistakes (you know, the fact that she's had sex with 2 of the men she's worked with in the last 6 years?) and focused on the young, intimidating, and well-dressed Amanda Marcassin. Amanda was obviously supposed to be familiar to Kalinda, as she looked the part, and seemed similar. But, as the case went on, it turned out that Amanda was not competent enough to even do basic internet scrubbing, and ended up leaving things in Nancy Crozier's favor after leaving Alicia blindsided by her incompetence. She was not anything like Kalinda at all. Alicia pretty brazenly fired her and told her to get out. Of course, while Amanda was making excuses for her poor initial performance. She was more preoccupied with how many hours Alicia was going to pay her for than actually doing any investigation.

This led Alicia back to Jason Crouse, who of course already had both Diane Lockhart looking to hire him, as well as a few tricks for Alicia to use in her case. As the case went on, the antics were turned way up, as Nancy Crozier had to awkwardly speak over Judge Dunaway's irritable (or empty?) stomach growling that was echoing through the courtroom. Alicia's case bobbed and weaved and fell on its face, until she brought up child pornography, and then brought an "expert" on to the stand for testimony. It was both seemingly an attempt at humor, as well as a way to show how deeply those photos were affecting Erik's emotional state.

In the end, it was a weird mixed bag (as these cases often are). Alicia could only end up getting Erik a ton of money out of his mother, she couldn't get her to take down or censor the art. Alicia had to tell him that in the age of the internet, it didn't matter if they removed it anyway, because it was out there... For anyone else to see. So he should take the money he can get, and craft a new chapter for his life.

Meanwhile, Grace continued to shine, and even became bold enough to ask for a small salary! I'd say she's earned it! She's been searching for things Alicia can use on her cases, as well as fluffing people who show up for Alicia, and running around behind the scenes doing what she can when she's able to help.

"Because your wife forgave you."

Eli very quickly appears to get over his issues with Peter, as early in the episode, he makes a point to apologize in person to Peter, in his office. Of course, it's a ruse to catch Peter off-guard, and to put Ruth on edge, while Eli works out his plans to ruin her career. This subplot has a lot of potential to it, but still feels a bit put-on. Either way, I can't wait to see how Eli vs Ruth ends. Eli's always been on the defensive in political matters, but now as he's intentionally trying to sabotage Peter's campaign, we're going to have a chance to see the other side of his cunning.

Immediately, he calls Alicia, who sees through the political nonsense, but still plays along, not knowing his exact intentions and goes to see Peter to strong arm him into allowing Eli to be her manager for the campaign, which Peter strongly disagrees with, but is powerless as Alicia once again throws his infidelities in his face. I don't know if it's just me, but I expect Peter thinks he's past that phase in their relationship, and seeing his face as she knowingly follows whatever it is Eli's cooking up and tells him how things will be with her chief of staff, he looked a little disheartened. It is still difficult to feel sorry for him, but now we know that Alicia's always gonna throw that one out there if he once again decides that in some form he's feeling as if he deserves more from her when it involves his life or campaign.

What's odd about this to me is that she was adamant last episode about him making his own decisions, but is now faltering and making him bend to her will on her chief of staff. However, I'd expect Ruth Eastman's appointed chief of staff would be no fun for her, so that could be a big deal to Alicia.

As this plot continued, Ruth attempted to recruit Nora to "work" for Eli and report to her whatever it was he was doing. Obviously, that backfired for her when she led Ruth astray from Eli's intentions of getting Alicia in Frank Landau's good graces.

In a meeting for Alicia to have the democratic party sort of re-accept her (you know, after destroying her credibility on a whim for the 2/3s majority vote, in probably the best twist in season 6) Frank was quick to not only "forgive" Alicia, but then offer her a place on the very board that found her guilty of stealing an election. That doesn't sound corrupt in the least! Oh, but wait, there's more: She can only get on the board if she blindly accepts to vote "no" on the first item they have on the ballot. Perfectly not-corrupt! Of course, in a mirroring of Eli's own plan against Peter and Ruth, he's convinced Alicia to accept Frank Landau's invitation only so that she can later out him and ruin his career. Personally, Frank Landau has been a staple of government corruption the entire series, and I'd love to see him get his after the mess he caused last season. But this is Chicago, and slimy politicians are easily replaced with others. Who is to say his replacement wouldn't be worse?

"You don't want to fight me... "

In the ever-diminishing world of Lockhart, Agos, & Lee, Cary had about 5 minutes to work with in this episode. As it turns out, Howard Lyman continues to be a very obstinate, useless waste of space for the new associates, and they scurry to Cary for help in getting him either more involved in their cases, or at least not allow him to just sleep through meetings and then denigrate their clients. Cary attempts to corral Howard in with a lunch, but ends up having that backfire when Howard outwardly threatens Cary with violence. They seem like empty threats from the grumpy old guy, but given his clout with others his age, Howard is able to screw over Cary by having a judge push a deadline up to that week. (Cary!?... in court? I wish!)

Cary brings it to Diane, who dismisses it as another "it is what it is" problem, and states he needs to put whatever it is between them to the side and get over it. Cary then tricks Howard into showing up at one of Diane's meetings, in order to muck things up with a client, inadvertently. "I love abortion!" he states to a group of women assembled at Diane's table.

It culminates with a meeting of the partners, where Howard immediately decrees "It's either Cary or me! Decide!" David Lee practically laughs out loud at the hilarity of the ultimatum, as Howard storms out of the office. Obviously they would choose the name partner over the old sack that sleeps 5 hours a day. But, as seen earlier in this very episode, Howard has clout, it's what's made him semi-useful in this show since he was originally introduced... He's always been a pawn in power plays, and he is likely more aware of that than he'd let on. Even if not, I expect that in the event they get rid of him, he'll come back with a ridiculous lawsuit that could force the firm to abandon Cary, or something like that. (I mean, they're leaning towards getting Cary away from the firm, as it's everything that he literally doesn't want out of the company that he started himself) But who knows? And do we really care at this point? Hopefully this story expands into something more accommodating for the talent involved. We need some decent content for Diane and Cary to work with.

Sidenotes:

- Frank Landau didn't even take Alicia's cell phone! They're total besties, I guess? Can't wait for Alicia to tear him a new one.

- I almost used Howard Lyman's "I'll cut your balls off!" as the subtitle to this episode review, but it didn't quite fit with the rest of the episode. And it's so uncomfortable!

- Where the HELL is Robyn Burdine? Alicia and Cary both say they know no investigators to call on, but Robyn was ready to put her own financial savings on the line to help him get out on bail just months before. According to what I remember, she was still working for F.A.L. last season, she just wasn't present for the drama... what happened!? Where is she? Please tell me she didn't have to go back to babysitting!

- Cush Jumbo continues to charm me as Lucca. #NoGreenScreenPls

- I have always enjoyed Grace, even when she's been in slightly dumb or uninteresting plots, I am glad she's finally playing a more active role in the goings-on in the show.

- What was that 3-second scene with Cary and Dirk, the new associate? "BTW I'm not gay" *exit stage right*

- They really played with expectations on Jason Crouse's character. It feels like they're defining him differently than Kalinda within the same criteria (recall the back-and-forth Kalinda went through with Will over salary and exclusivity in earlier seasons)

- Diane-Lockhart-WHO? Can we please give this woman more than exposition to work with here? She's had less screentime this season than fucking Howard Lyman. Seriously?

- Alicia made $16,000 off that case (when halved because Lucca took the other half) and I suddenly want to become a lawyer....Until I remember how expensive it is to live in Chicago.

- We're getting more Nora this season than ever before, it seems. Let's keep that up.

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

About the Author - Wilson Crawford

I watch way too much television. But nevermind that, something's on. Currently obsessed with The Good Wife, The 100, and Hannibal (RIP). Other favorites include Damages, Breaking Bad, 30 Rock, Mad Men, and Veronica Mars.

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