Categories: News

'The Good Wife' Recap: Alicia And Will Battle In Court And Jackie Manipulates Eli

Alicia and Will went head to head in court over an internet privacy case and Jackie showed Eli who's boss in “Whack-A-Mole” on The Good Wife.

The Good Wife Recap

Alicia (Julianna Margulies), Cary (Matt Czuchry) and the other members of Florrick/Agos are fighting over what direction to take their new firm. Due to their slow roll out, the new firm momentum they were counting on didn’t come to fruition, and they need to find a way to get new revenue fast. They agree to begin looking outside Lockhart/Gardner for clients. On cue, an old client of Alicia’s calls with an emergency: Federal Agents are currently questioning Zayeed (Haaz Zleiman) on his whereabouts and the whereabouts of his coworker. Zayeed first thinks that the feds are after his co-worker, but, once Alicia and Robyn (Jess Weixler) show up, the questioning quickly turns much more accusatory. The FBI are looking into Zayeed as a suspect who perpetrated the Milwaukee bombings. Zayeed, who was attending a conference in Milwaukee at the time of the attack, maintains his innocence, but his alibi is unconfirmed.

When the FBI shows up with what appears to be photographic evidence placing Zayeed at the scene of the crime (though he insists he was napping in his hotel room at the time), Florrick/Agos goes into crisis mode and Robyn goes into full investigative mode. She stumbles upon a website, Scabbit, where the FBI photo was originally posted. Once Florrick/Agos realize that the FBI has been using Scabbit as a means to investigate the Milwaukee bombings, they shift tactics from accusing the FBI of racial profiling to getting Scabbit to take down their Internet threads they believe are unfairly labeling Zayeed a suspect based on a few grainy photographs. In the threads, Scabbit users began spouting ridiculous “facts” about Zayeed, despite the fact that they were obviously lies – such as accusing Zayeed of having trained in a terrorist camp.

Alicia Goes Up Against Will In Court

While Florrick/Agos is busy dealing with Scabbit, Will (Josh Charles) is getting desperate in his fight to take down Alicia and dismisses the other partners by hiring Damian Boyle (Jason O’Mara) as a partner without a vote. Boyle, an attorney who works representing mobsters, is a loose cannon, something Diane (Christine Baranski) and David Lee (Zach Grenier) see right away. Lee is easily swayed towards camp Boyle once Boyle goes to Florrick/Agos, sneaking in as a mover and steals all their furniture, including Alicia’s ‘#1 Mom’ pin, and sneaks a peak at one of her case files. Boyle brings Lockhart/Gardner Scabbit, giving Will a chance to face off against Alicia in court. It also gives Boyle a chance to intimidate Alicia, when he shows up to court wearing her ‘#1 Mom’ pin.

After a few back and forth’s, Alicia finally comes up with her smoking gun: an Internet ‘socialbot’ created by Scabitt that uses an algorithm to translate other users’ comments and reword them, linking to all different social media sites to bring traffic back to Scabitt. Of course, ChumHum was named several times throughout the episode, and this win for Florrick/Agos could potentially result in a huge loss once the ChumHum CEO finds out they were able to legally obtain the identities of anonymous users from Scabitt.

Back at Lockhart/Gardner, Diane is still unsettled by their new hire, Boyle, and gets Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) to investigate him. Kalinda returns to Diane after her interview with Boyle and says she doesn’t believe he is dangerous, but there is something not quite right about the mob lawyer, and she’s going to keep digging until she finds out what it is.

Jackie Returns

As for the other Florrick, Peter (Chris Noth) has chosen someone to replace Diane as a Illinois Supreme Court nominee: Rachel (Mary Stuart Masterson), a lawyer who used to clerk for Peter’s dead father, or, as Jackie refers to him ‘the Judge.’ By coincidence, Jackie (Mary Beth Peil) sees Eli (Alan Cumming) and Rachel having lunch and, unnerved, takes Eli aside and tells him not to offer Rachel the judgeship. Eli discounts Jackie’s protests and offers it to her anyways. Later, in his office, Jackie confronts Eli and tells him exactly why she does not want Rachel to be her son’s supreme court nominee: Rachel used to sleep with her husband when she worked for him. Peter doesn’t know, and Jackie will not have her husband’s mistress rewarded for her previous transgressions. Eli is not entirely insensitive to her plight, but he insists there is nothing he can do. Peter cannot backtrack on another female nominee without any political reasons to do so.

With Eli out, Jackie decides to try blackmailing Rachel herself by threatening to expose her affair to her husband, to whom she was already married to at the time, and who is currently in the hospital with cancer. Rachel calls Jackie’s bluff, saying that her husband has known about the affair for years, but, when Jackie unexpectedly pays Rachel’s husband a visit, Rachel backtracks and withdraws her name from candidacy.

Eventually, Lockhart/Gardner ventures into Florrick/Agos territory to negotiate a settlement. Diane is amused by the new firm’s less than desirable offices – it reminds her of their own beginnings at Lockhart/Gardner. Alicia and Cary refused to be played by Will and Diane – they know how LG operates and figure they must be able to go as high as $1.5 million in their settlement. They will take no less.

Judge Kluger Asks Alicia Out

Finally, in a strange and unpredictable twist, Alicia is taken away from her negotiations with Will and Diane by a phone call from Judge Kluger (Jeffrey Tambor), who presided over the Scabbit case this week. “Please, don’t take this the wrong way, but I was wondering if you would like to get some coffee,” Kluger says.

The Good Wife airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on CBS.

– Olivia Truffaut-Wong

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