The Good Wife Starts Over, Again

Smash Some Plates For This Greek Chorus

After a montage of a bunch of perps getting busted on what seem like low-level offenses, we join...all of them in bond court, where a trio of bar attorneys wait to be called into action. This scene alone already almost redeems all the crappiness of Season 6: they are so over it, and they're giving us a view of the legal process that we rarely get to see on this show when we're focusing on fancy white-shoe law firms. In fact, these bar attorneys -- Don, a youngish guy; Lucca, a youngish woman; and Bernie, a middle-aged guy -- immediately clock someone's fancy white-shoe lawyer coming into the room and casually try to guess which perp he's there to represent. But their attention is soon distracted by another notable entrance: it's Alicia. Bernie mutters, "Hey, is that, um--" "Yeah!" marvels a startled Lucca. "What's she doing here?" wonders Bernie. "She tried to steal an election, where else would she go?" sneers Lucca. Alicia, looking extremely tentative, takes an open seat, upon which Lucca leans forward and tells her that if she's there as a bar attorney, she's in the wrong place and that she should come to their row. Alicia moves and introduces herself. "We know," snits Bernie, not looking up from his phone. "I voted for you," says Lucca. "Sorry about that," says Alicia, because what the hell else can you say? Soon enough, the judge comes in, and things get chaotic: the judge ignores Alicia and divides all the available cases among the three bar attorneys we just met, who go straight up to the Plexiglas enclosure and start getting as much of their clients' stories as they can in about thirty seconds, while Alicia stands there looking useless.

BAR ATTORNEYS FOR CO-PRESIDENT! St. Alicia needs to interact with more people who don't think she's St. Alicia. Oh hey, here comes another one!!!

Judge "Not"

Name:	Don Schakowsky.
Age:	Early 60s.
Occupation:	Bond court judge.
Goal:	To process 350 cases every day so that he doesn't fall behind and get guff about it from the Chief Justice -- which is why he didn't give Alicia any cases earlier: he doesn't have time to dick around with a dilettante.
Sample Dialogue:	"You're play-acting. The other bar attorneys in there? They need the money. They're hungry." Alicia is in the middle of explaining, in response, that she has a kid in college, she doesn't share finances with Peter, she can't get a job since the election. He accuses her of being "a Marie Antoinette," and when she protests that she isn't...a stretch limousine pulls up and the driver gets out to offer her a ride. Schakowsky:

The Devil On Alicia's Shoulder

Louis has picked up Alicia because he wants to talk some more about the question he posed in the last seconds of the S6 finale: whether she wants to partner up with him. Since then, they've apparently talked about it (and disagreed about whether she'd be working "with" or "for" him), and she's told him she's not interested because he's the Devil. "I thought you liked me," cracks Louis. Alicia says she doesn't like the kinds of clients Louis defends, but Louis knows she literally can't afford to be that choosy: he's looked into her finances and knows she made a bad deal in her exit from Lockhart Agos. What he doesn't appreciate, though, is that for the first time in her life, she's not answering to anyone. But he has a response to that too.

Alicia points out that he just let a "work for me" slip, and repeats that she doesn't want to answer to anyone else...and then she has an epiphany and excuses herself to call Eli.

Ruthless Ruth

"Tack-On Notes"!

When it comes to marking which items in your home you'd like to leave to whom, and you're on a budget even though one of your possessions is a signed Chagall worth $8 million, don't throw money away on Post-It Notes! Tack-On Notes are basically the same and won't pinch your pocketbook the way those money-grubbers at 3M are always trying to do!

Tack-On Notes! They're fine. Until they're not.

Eli vs. Peter

Eli could not be more thrilled about the firm "maybe" he's exacted from Ruth, and is about to roll into Peter's office to give him the good news when he sees that...she's already there. In fact, Peter had called her when Eli was standing right next to her, and she came straight over to talk to him about the campaign. Eli is immediately suspicious about Peter and Ruth meeting behind his back -- and rightly so, it turns out, because even as Peter tries to back into the conversation, Eli can tell he's getting ready to fire Eli as campaign manager. Peter tries to explain away this dick move in political terms -- it's a national campaign, and he needs someone to run it who has a national strategy. "What ever happened to loyalty?" Eli sputters. "I got you here. You wouldn't be here without me....When you were polling nothing, when you were banging your Ethics Co-Ordinator -- your friggin' ETHICS CO-ORDINATOR -- I stuck by you! I cleaned up your mess! Prostitutes, groupies, Alicia!...I was the one friggin' set of footprints in the sand!...Are you so narcissistic you can't see you're stabbing me in the back?!" Peter replies that he sees a political operative with an inflated sense of his own worth. Eli's pithy rejoinder? "GO TO HELL, PETER." Peter does not like being talked to this way, and suggests that Eli go home; he adds that he was going to let Eli stay on as Chief of Staff of the Governor's office. But you'll never guess what: Eli's not interested in carrying water for Peter anymore after this bullshit: "But you know what I am gonna do? I'm going to find someone to run against you. You just lost your greatest asset and made your worst enemy."

But when he turns his back on Peter, Eli loses a lot of his bravado.

Winner: Peter, for now. But I wouldn't bet against Eli, ever.

Hope Cary Dies Before He Gets Old

Alert Type: Generation Gap Alert.

Issue: Cary still doesn't know where Kalinda went or why she left, and since they were both good friends and fuckin', he's still upset about it. Just kidding! She never comes up. Cary's actual issue is that he's bored with all the geriatric partners at the firm, and jealous of the supple young associates who get to do things like take selfies and enjoy life. He thinks he's making a connection when he leaves his meeting and wanders over to where the associates are working, ask how they're doing, and urge them not to call him "Mr. Agos"...but then Howard comes in and does exactly the same stuff and Cary realizes how he sounds (like their grandpa).

Complicating Factors: After apparently crashing the associates' after-work drinks, Cary tries to weasel his way into the cool-kids' clique by telling one guy, Dirk, that he'll help champion Dirk's efforts to get the firm to adopt a new billing system called Octagon -- something a lot of the newer firms are doing.

Good luck, Cary and Dirk!

Resolution: The partners can't with Octagon.

Spoiler: When Cary has to break the news to Dirk, the latter may have a method in mind of easing his disappointment.

Let's All Just Get Through This For The Sake Of The Probably Mostly Guilty Arrestees

Alicia's tried to prove herself to Judge Schakowsky by ignoring his strong discouragement the day before and returning to bond court. "You were wrong," says Don to Bernie, noting Alicia's entrance. "Schakowsky freezes her out one more time, she'll run off crying," mutters Bernie. But Lucca's pretty sure she won't quit, and when the judge enters and once again assigns Alicia no cases, Lucca -- apparently against her initial instinct -- tells the judge she's going to give some of her cases to Alicia. "She slows me down, it's your problem," says the judge. And even after that, it seems Lucca's still pretty determined not to get any of Alicia's stink on her: when Alicia tries to thank her, Lucca looks at her blankly: "I didn't do anything."

...but she does do something, maybe only out of self-interest since Judge Schakowsky had ordered her to make sure Alicia keeps up. Lucca overhears Alicia asking broad questions of her first client, Mr. Banner, and intervenes: "You don't ask open-ended questions. You ask 'yes' or 'no' questions, and only about bail." When Alicia and Mr. Banner get called in front of Judge Schakowsky, Alicia's totally unprepared, and the judge is so disgusted that he sets Mr. Banner's bail at $500,000 -- obviously way more than (a) this casually employed mechanic can afford and (b) rather excessive given that the charge is punching a bus driver.

Afterward, Alicia is wrecked, as well as beating herself up since four of her six clients didn't get out. "We're not in the miracle-working business," says Lucca philosophically, likening bond court to something more like an assembly line. She also has to inform Alicia that she didn't make any money today: she should have been telling her clients to check a particular box on an intake form so that the county sends the refund of bail straight to Alicia, which I'm going to guess Alicia will do from now on since she needs that $135 x 6 every day to keep her in ugly blazers. It's a nice moment where Lucca gets to share her institutional knowledge with someone who, six months ago, wouldn't have been her peer, never mind her mentee. I wouldn't call them friends yet, but at least they end on friendlier terms than they started.

Where There's No Will, There's...A Lot Of Experts

Alert Type: Dying Intestate Alert.

Issue: Alicia's client, Madeline Smulders, has just lost her mother, who left no will, and whose plan to mark items individually to leave either to Madeline or to Madeline's brother Clyde wasn't not so foolproof after all. THANKS A LOT, TACK-ON NOTES.

Complicating Factors: Clyde is being represented by David and Diane, and they are not fucking around: they start by calling a witness who's an adhesive expert (delighting Judge Farley -- Jane Curtin! -- who thinks that has to be a made-up job). This guy says one of the notes shows evidence of having been stuck to the frame of the Chagall. Then Alicia calls an aerodynamics expert who testifies as to the flutter cone that would constrain the number of notes that could have been stuck to the Chagall. THEN David and Diane call a suction expert who asserts that the cone was compromised by a Roomba. And THEN, when Dr. Buggy inspects the Roomba more closely to see if its regular cleaning path might have been disrupted due to a low battery, he finds another Note in its guts: for Selena! The late Mrs. Smulders's housekeeper!

Resolution: Alicia gets held up covering for Lucca in bond court when she's supposed to be in probate court, so Lucca, who can get to probate court sooner, agrees to sit in for Alicia. She fails to convince Judge Farley to give her/Alicia a continuance, but it's just as well, because she's sitting there without any background knowledge of what the hell is going on when Dr. Caine, the adhesive expert, testifies that the Selena note fell from the Chagall. Lucca asks Judge Farley whether Mrs. Smulders was an invalid; she was. She asks whether the painting was worth more than $20,000; it is. And thus, Lucca ends all this expert testimony with some of her own: "The housekeeper can't inherit it....According to Illinois law, a caretaker to an invalid cannot inherit more than $20,000." I find it hard to believe David Lee didn't know this already, but sure.

Alicia walks in just in time to see Madeline giving Lucca a big thank-you hug and to hear Diane irritatedly agree to settle the estate 50/50 between the Smulders kids.

Spoiler: It's weirdly lucky that this big case just landed in Alicia's lap by chance, right?

Meet-Not-Cute

Who called the meeting? Peter.

What's it about? He and Alicia are doing a softball interview with that idiot Ted in advance of Peter's announcement that he's fake-running for President.

How'd it go? Bad, at first. Alicia apparently knew about Ruth, but no one bothered to tell her that Ruth was replacing Eli. Ruth and Alicia immediately take the opposite of a shine to each other (a dull?) when Alicia asks why it's better to delay Peter's announcement -- Eli had told her they'd be announcing today -- and Ruth is super-condescending informing Alicia that they can raise more money in advance of his officially entering the race. Also, Peter's a coward, so he lets Ruth tell Alicia that Alicia will have to get her own Chief of Staff during the campaign, and, oh yeah, Eli totally got fired.

Alicia takes Peter aside and yells at him about having betrayed Eli before getting on camera and continuing to do it passive-aggressively: asked by Ted why people should vote for Peter, Alicia smoothly replies, "Loyalty. He's loyal to his family, his friends. He sticks with people." Peter squeezes Alicia's hand warningly as he adds that in addition to being loyal, a candidate has to be smart. Then idiot Ted says something idiotic about which candidate he'd want to have a beer with. So it ends well enough, with Alicia playing her appointed role, but it's clear to Peter and Ruth that she's possibly going to make more trouble over Eli.

Eli Doesn't Believe In Anything Anymore!!!

Proving she actually does care more about Eli than Peter does, Alicia goes straight from the interview to his apartment to let him know how sorry she is. "I'm fine," he tells her curtly. "But thanks." He tries to close the door on her, but when she tries to stop him, he stops her back: "I just need to be done with it, Alicia. I was never your friend. I was a political operative. I was the help. And I need to be done. That's it." I can only assume all these jerks failing to treat Eli with the exaltation he deserves didn't see Alan Cumming in Cabaret. But that's a reason, not an excuse.

Get The Look: Campaign Vengeance Artist

Though his meeting with Alicia didn't seem to end too well, we soon see that it's actually galvanized him. He really is going to pervert the campaign process for his own petty reasons, but first: makeoverrrrrrrr!

Contemporary Haircut: Farewell, slicked-back pelt! Hello, '10s!

Sharp-Ass Suit: The dark grey or the dark grey?

Shit-Eating Grin: Eli finds Alicia at court to apologize -- she never treated him like the help, he says -- and to present his idea: he should be her Chief of Staff on the campaign! "I can make this work for you. Whoever Ruth hires will make your life harder. And it's not an easy job: they're going to want to rehabilitate you....They need to make you a wife again." If you had come up with that genius scheme to get back at Peter, wouldn't YOU wear a smile like that?

Well, That Escalated Quickly

Everyone's finding Alicia at court to tell her shit! Now it's Ruth, offering to drive Alicia to bond court so they can have a pleasant chat in the back seat. Ruth tries (not that hard) to be conciliatory by saying she thinks she and Alicia got off on the wrong foot. Without denying that they did, Alicia replies that Peter seems to be happy to have Ruth on his team, which is what counts. Ruth then launches straight into business, saying they need to get Alicia in front of a few key people. "To rehabilitate me?" says Alicia ingenuously. "Yes," says Ruth, not bothering to be cute about it. "We need the voters to see the real you." "I'm not sure they'll like the real me," says Alicia, lowering her voice and "joking" with a grave tone. "That's why we need to mold a real you that they'll like," says Ruth sensibly. "I'll be hiring you a Chief of Staff. Someone discreet." At this, Alicia serenely says she hired a Chief of Staff herself, and that it's Eli. Ruth:

"No, unfortunately, that won't work," says Ruth after a short beat. "Why not?" asks Alicia innocently. Ruth says that it's too soon for Alicia to make this decision, and that there are people Ruth wants her to meet. "No, I'm good with Eli," says Alicia. Ruth decides to play hardball, reminding Alicia that she's not the one who'll be paying her Chief of Staff: the campaign will be. Alicia knows that, but says the campaign's not paying her: "I'm volunteering." Ruth did not see that coming, but replies, without clutching her pearls TOO tightly, "Are you suggesting you wouldn't be involved in your husband's campaign?" "Yes, actually I am," says Alicia." Ruth:

So now Ruth knows how it's going to be. And also that Alicia hates her. And also that she hates Alicia! So this will be fun.

From Geometry To Biology

Situation: The partners having passed on Octagon, Cary has to go tell Dirk his brainchild is...brain-dead.

What makes it awkward? When Cary tells Dirk not to be discouraged by this setback, and to bring any other innovations he may have to improve the firm straight to Cary to help present them (because that worked so well this time, right, Cary?), Dirk's like, totally, and then...

How is order restored? Cary backs away in muted horror, and Dirk immediately says he thinks they must have gotten their signals crossed, and that he's sorry. But given that Cary's reaction is so outsized for someone of his age, and who is so cute he has surely been hit on by a man before, dare I hope this is the first step on a path that ends with Cary figuring out that maybe he's bi??? (Okay, yes, Cary's reaction is probably also laced with worry that, due to the discrepancy between their positions in the firm, he might get sued for sexual harassment. But let me have this.)

Ruth vs. Eli

Eli's packing his own shit in his office in the governor's office, as if, when Ruth marches in demanding to know what he's doing with Alicia. "I'm pretty irresistible," smirks Eli, and what do you know, he's right! Ruth says she'll make it a prerequisite of her taking the job that Eli not be employed by the campaign.

Eli says that neither of them has time to fuck around, so he'll just be honest: "I plan to use Alicia's rehabilitation campaign to undercut you and eventually destroy you. I may even destroy Peter in the process. Not quite sure about that yet." Ruth seems to stipulate that Eli could definitely do that, but asks what Eli would do if Ruth went to Peter to tattle on him (I'm paraphrasing). "I will, of course, deny it," says Eli. "You will again tell him I'm out to hurt you. He will think you're being paranoid and distracted by something that has nothing to do with the campaign." Ruth shakes her head in grudging admiration: "You played it all out." "Not quite all, but: enough," he chirps. "Talk to you soon." "Sooner than you think, Eli," purrs Ruth.

Winner: Eli -- who, as predicted, was never going to stay down for long. But also me! THESE TWO AT EACH OTHER'S THROATS IS EVERYTHING I NEVER KNEW I WANTED.

Alicia has a thank-you drink with Lucca, who shrugs off her contribution to the Smulders case as vamping! Alicia calls it good vamping, and then tries to segue into career talk, but Lucca wants to dance, and does!

Alicia's admiring Lucca's carefree youth when someone bumps into her. "Excuse me," says Alicia. "Watch it," says Louis, for it is he. Alicia asks him to note that she didn't say "I'm sorry," but he tells her "excuse me" is nearly as bad. Louis is "somehow" all up to speed on the Smulders case, and also full of compliments for Lucca, still on the dance floor. "So why'd you give me the case?" asks Alicia. "What makes you think I gave it to you?" Louis shoots back. Alicia thinks he was using her as a pawn against Lockhart Agos, because he's the devil! Louis counters that maybe he was just trying to keep Alicia from starving until she agrees to join his firm -- and points out that she's still her own woman! He says he could stop sending her cases, so, like, should he? Alicia must have dreams of hiring an assistant who isn't Grace, so she tells him no!

Louis will drink to that! And if he's actually drinking Lucca's drink, well, that's just Louis being Louis, a.k.a. The Devil, or is he???