BWW Recap: Crossed Lines on THE GOOD WIFE's 'The One Percent'

Don't ever cross this line again. This line. Got it? Good!

The penultimate episode of Season Five begins and ends with a protest at the status quo. We start with a grand gesture - a pie smashed into the face of a mercenary Executive. And end with something much more personal, as an estranged husband answers the late-night knock of a pretty, attentive girl.

Two challenges against how things are.

And one destined to leave much more mess than the other.

Didn't I tell you this was going to be fun?

Tom Skerritt is the Executive who takes the pie in the face. His character, James Paisley, is based on a real guy. A guy who made ridiculous comparisons between America's rich, and the persecuted Jews of Nazi Germany. On tonight's episode, Alicia is representing this real-not-real guy in a wrongful termination suit, and she has her hands full when Paisley keeps cheerfully putting his (gold-plated) foot in his mouth any time he's in front of the media.

Florrick/Agos are up against Louis Canning, and with no Will around to cause Alicia to memory-pop all over the place, the case of the week is about the quirks of jury selection. Each time the real-not-real guy appears on TV and offends a particular group, he potentially loses another member of the jury, until there aren't many left to disparage.

In the end it takes a classic Canning calculation, a cool million, and a decision to pre-record any statements made by Paisley, to make this case of the week go away.

You need more walls

Kalinda has no boundaries. The way she is everywhere unnerves Canning, making for some of the funnier moments of the episode ("Boo!"). There's nothing better than seeing Kalinda make deadpan mischief.

But she can't be everywhere, not really. Even if she's working for Diane from on top of Cary, there are still things she misses. Like Canning undermining Diane by selling her out to Rayna, the much-coveted rainmaker we met in The Good Wife Goes To New York.

It is only when Diane goes to Florrick/Agos to confront Alicia and Cary that she discovers it is Canning who poisoned Rayna against her. And once this truth is revealed, that spectacular Diane Lockhart back goes up. She is ready for a fight to take out season five.

And from the looks of sympathetic Alicia, she may have another woman in her corner, now.

There is nothing on me

So says Finn, who has a new haircut, and no wife (two really important developments for season six, in my opinion). Turns out Finn has nothing to hide, and after being cleared of any wrongdoing in the Jeffrey Grant case, he's fast becoming Eli's new favourite.

Until a burnt Castro delivers a photo to Governor Florrick. An innocuous image - Finn leaving Alicia's apartment - easily suggests an affair to a vulnerable Peter. He's buying it, despite the glasses of water (vodka?) he throws in Castro's face. The so-called revelation sends Peter spiralling toward the red-lipsticked attention of a bold intern, and when he also considers withdrawing his official endorsement of Finn for State's Attorney, Eli uncovers the truth about the Governor's marriage.

This is Eli's life - the life he has built, and the life that he wants to keep building, so he goes to Alicia to fight for it.

Is she sleeping with Finn?

Alicia says no. But there's something inscrutable in her stare. Something changed. There's more going on under the surface than ever before, and Finn's there, simmering away. Who knows what's coming next.

It will come out

You get what is coming to you. This is the musical refrain that bookends the episode. But as season five comes to a close, just who is getting what they deserve now? Is it Diane, who sold out Alicia and Cary, before she tried to bring them back into the fold? Is it Peter, the liar and cheat, who has spent the better part of the last five years trying to be a better man? Or Eli - who sold his soul to that man to get him elected Governor, and has grown to care more about the Governor's wife?

Or is it Alicia who is finally getting what is coming to her? Is Alicia Florrick finally getting her dues, after five seasons, and a lifetime of playing The Good Wife?

One more to go. We'll see. It's been A Weird Year, after all. Lines have been drawn, crossed and blurred across these 21 episodes of season five. Who knows what's coming next, indeed.

Photo: JoJo Whilden/CBS

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