'The Good Wife' Recap: Lockhart/Gardner Is Put Under Surveillance By NSA; Diane Betrays Will

by UInterviewOctober 7, 2013, 12:00 amNews >

The Good Wife‘s Alicia and Cary prepare to leave Lockhart/Gardner, the firm becomes under attack in “The Bit Bucket” when the NSA tasked two employees to monitor all communications after they represented an alleged Taliban collaborator.

Tyler (Tobias Segal) and Jeff (Zach Woods) arrived at Lockhart/Gardner while Alicia (Julianna Margulies) is working for Neil Gross (John Benjamin Hickey), who is fighting the NSA after being repeatedly asked to turn over private user information of the participants of his social media site, Chumhum. Lockhart/Gardner decides to sue the NSA for prior restraint, completely oblivious to the fact that the NSA (Tyler and Jeff) is listening.

In court, Lockhart/Gardner decided to go after the NSA for selectively enforcing gag orders, but they failed after the NSA called a private meeting with the judge to disclose classified information and the judge ruled in their favor. As a last effort, Lockhart/Gardner decided to sue for $3 billion in damages.

The NSA contends that it was not the Edward Snowden leak that cost Chumhum a large portion of users, but a boycott organized the same day. Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) works her magic and finds that Ghumhum was involved with North Korean Freedom Fighters, who, afraid of the NSA, backed out of their deal with Chumhum, costing the site $14,000. In a sealed ruling, the NSA was ordered to pay Chumhum $14,000 in damages and the gag orders were to remain in place. This way, Chumhum could pass it off as a court victory – they didn’t give in to the man – and the NSA didn’t have to lose billions.

Peter (Chris Noth) and Eli (Alan Cumming), meanwhile, find themselves in a bit of trouble when they meet with Justice Ryvlan (Jeffrey Demunn) to try to get him to support Diane’s (Christine Baranski) nomination for Illinois Supreme Court. Ryvlan doesn’t like Diane’s connections to Will Gardner (Josh Charles), who he still believes is corrupt. The meeting sends Eli on a wild goose chase after he is unable to find the engraved gavel given to Peter by Justice Ryvlan. Turns out, the gavel is being sold on the internet. Eli arranges a meet with the seller, who is revealed as Zach’s manipulative ex, Becca (Dreama Walker). Eli and Alicia think that Zach (Graham Phillips) may have been involved somehow, but he insists he’s moved on from Becca. It’s Grace (Makenzie Vega), who has been getting friendly with Becca.

In an attempt to get Justice Ryvlan on Diane’s side, Eli arranges an interview for Diane with Mandy Post (Miriam Shor). Eli instructs her to admonish Will Gardner’s past actions, but Diane refuses, leaving Peter with no choice but to talk to Justice Ryvlan himself. Peter told Ryvlan that he had to let go of his reservations about Diane, and keep them to himself. Peter was going to do what he wanted, and that was that. Eli tried to contact Diane to tell her that more interviews would be unnecessary, but she’s already in a meeting with Mandy Post.

Alicia’s mother, Veronica (Stockard Channing) returned, bonding with Grace by buying her clothes Alicia (nor Zach) approve of. Veronica also came baring gifts for Alicia: she paid the $140,000 Alicia and Cary (Matt Czuchry) needed to secure their office space after they were unable to get a bank loan. Veronica was also in town meeting with David Lee (Zach Grenier), who is in charge of her accounts. When he notices Veronica’s extravagant new purchase of office space, he becomes suspicious, but Veronica manages to control the damage before he can figure out that the office space is for Alicia and Cary.

Hard at work, the NSA found ‘evidence’ of a recent connection between Lockhart/Gardner and a Hamas sympathizer, giving them cause to widen the scope of their warrant. The ‘evidence’ is composed of 12 calls from Nisa (Rachel Hilson) to Alicia’s home – heartbroken after Zach broke up with her. Now the NSA can listen to whatever they please.

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

– Olivia Truffaut-Wong

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