The Good Wife recap: 'Dear God'

Well, Cary’s out of jail, but he’s certainly not out of hot water. Unfortunately, his future is in the hands of his pretrial service officer, Joy Grubick (played by guest star Linda Lavin), and she doesn’t inspire much confidence. It’s her job to make sure Cary follows all the conditions of his bond release. Joy conducts interviews with Cary, Alicia, and Diane to gather information for her report. And all three stick to the same strategy. They each stretch the truth to make Cary’s return to the free world look more seamless than it actually was. We see this through a series of flashbacks—all things that happened between the end of last week’s episode and this one. And we gleaned one piece of pretty important information from each interview. For example: Cary’s revelation was that he slept with Kalinda again. After he was released, Cary said he had a celebration at his apartment with a few people. In reality, there was just one person. So in this situation, “celebration” is a synonym for “having sex.”

More good news for Cary: The state’s attorney’s office loses Trey, their confidential informant. And since Trey’s testimony is the cornerstone of their case, it looks like Cary will get the break he needed. But you should know by now that nothing is ever that simple in The Good Wife universe. In their postcoital glow, Kalinda tells Cary she thinks the CI situation will take care of itself. So when Cary learns Trey is missing, he begins to wonder whether Lemond Bishop had anything to do with it.

Diane is fully prepared to shut the case down. And then Finn Polmar drops the next bomb: They’re asking for a revocation of Cary’s bail. Cary was released the same day that Trey went missing. Polmar claims he has evidence that Cary intimidated the witness. Uh oh. Kalinda was photographed with Trey, and after that photo was taken, he disappeared. Polmar argues that Kalinda passed a message along to Trey meant to intimidate him. And it’s a condition of Cary’s bail that he not contact any witnesses. We know Cary didn’t try to intimidate Trey, but the optics certainly don’t look good.

Back in court, Trey’s wife, Stacie (Saycon Sengbloh), testifies that Trey said an Indian woman told him someone was going to kill him. Diane doesn’t want to know what Kalinda actually did or said to Trey that day so she doesn’t have to perjure herself. Kalinda agrees that Diane remaining in the dark is smart. But Cary isn’t worried about suborning perjury. He point-blank asks her if she threatened Trey Wagner, and she won’t confirm what did happen. So Cary’s probably right to assume that Kalinda told Bishop who the CI was, and then warned Trey that Bishop would come after him.

They discredit Stacie’s testimony by showing video of her kissing another man. Judge Petrov says it’s a tie and decides to rely on Joy Grubick to make the final decision. She concludes that Cary hasn’t broken any conditions of his bond, and thankfully, the bail will not be revoked. Grubick was so nervous delivering her report. And I’m not sure I have a solid theory as to why. But at least she weighed in in favor of Cary. Then again, we have another week and still no real progress on Cary’s case.

Now for that important info divulged in those Joy Grubick meetings: In her meeting, Alicia tells the pretrial officer about James Castro’s threats against Cary. In another flashback we see Castro telling Alicia that if Cary would agree to testify against Bishop, his case would go away. But because Castro is a total douchelord, he makes sure he attacks Alicia, too. He tells her how bad Cary’s arrest and prosecution will look for her state’s attorney campaign. But for now, Alicia is still emphatic that she’s not running. (ASIDE: The Good Wife is known for its great guest casting, but they also deserve props for casting really likable actors to play truly despicable characters. Michael J. Fox as Louis Canning. Matthew Perry as Mike Kresteva. And now James Castro (played by Michael Cerveris) wins the award for the character I hate most this season. I want to take a page from Peter’s season 5 playbook and throw a glass of water in his face pretty much every time he’s on the screen. END OF ASIDE) But ultimately, Joy decided Alicia’s Castro information wasn’t relevant to her report. Ugh.

At Diane’s meeting with Joy, we got some insight into the firm’s expansion problems. Florrick/Agos doesn’t have enough space to accommodate the new Lockhart/Gardner lawyers. So Diane and Dean offer to personally finance the first year’s rent via a loan to the firm so they can expand to a second floor. In exchange, they asked for an executive committee consisting of three partners from Florrick/Agos and three from Lockhart/Gardner. There’s so much change. How do the writers even keep up any more?

NEXT: The case of the week takes Florrick/Agos into unfamiliar territory

As as result of Cary’s arrest, Florrick/Agos lost a few clients. But one who stayed became the focus in the case of the week. Ed Pratt (Richard Thomas) was quick to forgive Cary because of his own youthful transgressions. Anyway, Alicia and Dean would argue Pratt’s case in court under Cary’s supervision. Mr. Pratt is suing his neighbor Wendell Keller for patent infringement. Keller was accused of saving Pratt’s seeds and replanting them for his harvest. Pratt had created the special seed with a genetic protective shell, so it could withstand whatever nature threw at it. The case is pretty business as usual—lots of in-court arguing between Alicia, Dean, and Keller’s lawyer Carter Schmidt (Christian Borle). But Ed Pratt is not a fan of the fighting. So much so that he walks out of court with Keller and they decide the legal process isn’t working for them. Their solution? Binding Christian arbitration. Let the Alicia eye-rolling begin! (The Emmys would be justified in awarding Julianna Marguilies and Christine Baranski solely for their brilliant eye-rolling skills.)

So they trade in the judge and a courtroom for an arbitrator and a church sanctuary. Del Paul (Robert Sean Leonard), the acting arbitrator, begins with a prayer. Alicia is so over it, and they haven’t even started. The arbitration plays out almost identical to the courtroom case, albeit with fewer sustained objections, because that’s not how they roll in Christian arbitration. Del Paul just wants all the questions answered honestly, so everyone is instructed to speak freely.

They use this to their advantage, and get Keller to admit that he did replant some of Mr. Pratt’s seeds, even if he didn’t mean to. But intent doesn’t matter in patent law. Unfortunately, it does matter in Christian arbitration. So Alicia goes to Grace—the only religious member of the Florrick family—for some insight. I love this relationship. Grace and Alicia clearly don’t see eye to eye on religious matters, but I love it when they come together and have these awesome mother/daughter moments. (ASIDE: Alicia’s other child, Zach, went away to college at the end of last season. He’s no longer listed as a series regular. So you can expect to see even less of him than we have in previous seasons. END OF ASIDE) Grace helps Alicia find some appropriate verses to use in arbitration, but Carter Schmidt had the same idea and did some Biblical research of his own. Del Paul decides the “scriptures are not as easy to unpack” as he would like, so he asks to reflect on the issue of intent and pray before he makes a decision.

After his reflection, Del Paul agrees to hear arguments about the fact of Pratt’s seeds being planted on Keller’s land, and not just the intent. The Florrick/Agos team brings in a forensic botanist, but before they get too far, Ed Pratt decides he’s had enough. He starts talking to Keller, who then admits that he’s been replanting Ed’s seeds, even though he knows it’s against the law. Alicia & Co. think they’ve won their case, since he admits to the infringement, but Schmidt tries to submit the admission as moot. While the lawyers continue to argue, Pratt and Keller leave the table. The two men settle the whole thing on their own. So yeah, that was a total waste of time for the lawyers. No money! But Christian arbitration certainly had its benefits for Ed Pratt and Wendell Keller.

NEXT: Alicia for State’s Attorney (“I’m not running”){C}Meanwhile, Alicia continues her insistence that she’s not running for state’s attorney. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Anyway, she returns to her office to find Joss Acker (Brandon J. Dirden) and Frank Seddio (himself) wanting to speak with her about her campaign. And she learns that Peter sent them—not Eli. So she’s, unsurprisingly, pretty upset with her husband. She goes to his fundraiser to tell him as much, but is distracted when she runs into Gloria Steinem. Steinem tells Alicia she thinks it’s great Alicia is running for state’s attorney. Alicia is so caught off guard, but Steinem clearly makes an impression.

Later, Eli visits Alicia and tells her that Peter has to endorse a candidate for state’s attorney. And unfortunately, that candidate is going to be James Castro unless Alicia can give him another name. Wink wink. Nudge nudge. Both Eli and Peter know Castro is a bad dude. But they also know Peter has to back a winner, and unfortunately, Castro has the best chances of winning. Alicia is officially between the proverbial rock and hard place.

Alicia sees Castro one more time at court, and he officially upgrades his douche status. He brings up Will and says she’s going after Castro for retribution because Will was gunned down in one of Castro’s courts. Alicia can handle a lot, but she will not stand for him attacking her relationship with Will. Hell hath no fury as Alicia Florrick scorned, and I think he should be worried. Call it the final straw and the Gloria Steinem effect. The episode ends with Alicia going to Eli and saying, “If I ran… what’s the plan?”

The best moments and lines from “Dear God”:

–The Cary/Kalinda sex scene because those two!

–”I do this because I care. I know it doesn’t sound like it, but that’s just the way I talk.” —Joy Grubick (Linda Lavin)

–”Let’s go, Mr. Schmidt… I mean, Mr. You.” —Judge Glatt (John Procaccino) calling Dean Levine-Wilkins (Taye Diggs) by the wrong name

–”They’re gonna get me one way or another.” —Cary

–Alicia’s masterful eye-rolling at Joy Grubick

–”Thank you, Nora. Your precognitive powers amaze me.” —Eli, to Nora after she’s a few seconds behind in announcing Alicia’s arrival to his office

–”Yeah, that book created a lot of lawyers.” —Alicia, talking about To Kill a Mockingbird

–Alicia: “Oh, my God.”

–Gloria Steinem: “Oh, no, but thank you. I’m Gloria Steinem.”

Alicia’s clearly considering a run for state’s attorney. Do you think she’ll go through with it? What would that mean for Florrick/Agos? As much as I want her to take James Castro down, I don’t really want her to leave the firm she just started. How long do you think Cary’s case will go on? And at what point will the current state’s attorney’s office quit coming after Cary?