BWW Recap: Spy in the House of Love on THE GOOD WIFE

We're basically the NSA cubicle guys here, right? Admit it (well I am!) - we were right there on the couch when Jason told Alicia to not-meditate her way into his arms. We were right there when the lights went off, when the skirt went up and the zipper went down. We were right there - all the way - until the camera panned out and effectively told us to mind our own business while Alicia got down to hers.

The NSA cubicle guys and their interest in Alicia's love life - when there are so many other important things going on - that's representative of us as viewers, yeah? We should be thinking about the clever cases. We should be talking about an as yet mysterious FBI case in particular. I should be writing about those cases here.

Too bad! THE GOOD WIFE got it on tonight, and all that other important stuff will just have to wait.

Alicia has sex in her office

I'm making that a heading. Because it isn't guilt sex, or proxy sex, or dream sex (so, so much dream sex over the years on this show). It is Alicia Florrick taking a lover with no regrets, and then asking him the next day for more. How good is that! (And no, that's not a question. I'm not in the camp that worries for Alicia's soul, or thinks that this character should be beholden to her title).

I'll always wish it were Will. Always. But you know that stat around how most relationships that start out as affairs don't work? Because you never really escape the complications your relationship grew up out of? Tonight, watching Alicia finally push for something she wants, I can see how in real life (that life I bang on about a fair bit here) Alicia and Will might not have made it. They would have had so much history to overcome - before they really got started.

I'm not saying Alicia and Jason will make it. I don't even care if they do. It's just so startlingly, obviously different for THE GOOD WIFE this time around. She's free of her moniker in a way she never was before. It's taken seven years - a life cycle, some would say. But now our good wife is finally getting some!

And like our NSA cubicle guys, I'm interested in that.

Elsbeth has all the moves

In the non-heavy breathing part of the hour, Elsbeth is back and mostly the same (there's yoga this time around). Eli brings in everybody's favorite get-me-out-of-trouble lawyer to help Peter determine just what it is that the FBI wants with him and Alicia ... and Marissa ... and Nora. Eli thinks it's about the vote rigging that took down Alicia's bid for Governor (incidentally, can I bottle Alan Cumming's stern face when he confronts Peter about this?). Elsbeth wants to help, but when her post-it notes lead her to Marissa, she discovers a major conflict of interest. One of her clients is involved in this - whatever this is shaping up to be.

Enter stage left, Mr. Elsbeth. That would be Mike Tascioni, Elsbeth's equally quirky ex-husband. And equally quirky when it comes to Elsbeth Tascioni makes someone really, really quirky.

Mike knows (some of) his ex-wife's tricks and he soon helps Eli uncover the compromising client in question. It's one of Peter's major donors. So it's not about voter fraud after-all. For it to be bigger than rigging an election, it's gonna have to be big, big, right?

What did you do, Peter Florrick? Well at least we know the answer is coming ...

Diane is a woman

Diane is indeed a woman. And when a photographer wants to focus on a series of all-women photos (all women in this instance being approximately five partners in one of the largest law firms in Chicago), David Lee gets angsty. What about all men? Does this calling attention to the female partners mean Diane's true agenda is to get rid of the men? She is a - gasp - feminist, after-all.

Cary gets in on the paranoia, going as far as to quiz an unimpressed Lucca over lunch. David takes it up a notch, hiring Jason to investigate his fears. The answer, as provided by Alicia to Jason, is not likely. Which is the kind of info really good bedside manner will get you, by the way. But watching Cary and David take issue with anything focused solely on the women in their firm does call to mind a particular quote from Justice Ginsberg about how many women would be "enough" on The Supreme Court, out of the nine bench seats available.

"When there are nine. For most of the country's history, there were nine and they were all men. Nobody thought that was strange."

(I love you Notorious RBG).

Step back, David Lee. You too, Cary (you've already got privilege problems). A focus on something that excludes you doesn't have to mean your house is being taken over. Actually, it's THE GOOD WIFE where takeovers are an inter-season event, so maybe don't relax too much. But no points for being annoyed that the world isn't always your mirror.

Some Americans are terrorists

Sure, it is a handy way to bring back the NSA (so they could represent us during Alicia Time. See lead paragraph). But I also really like this case of the week, or rather the question that it asks.

When is a terrorist not a terrorist? When he's American-born? Alicia is called in to a secret meeting of minds to give a civil perspective on the legalities of putting a particular man on the American kill list. The man in question has been successfully recruiting terrorists for ISIS, inciting all kinds of violence via his particular brand of caliphate-related propaganda. With a foreign sounding name and look, it's easy enough for the team of lawyers to determine inciting violence is akin to committing that violence. And it's Alicia who comes up with the best way to defend this view: the bodies this man recruits for suicide bombing missions are in effect serving as his weapons.

But what happens when you peel a few years off, and reveal that man to be a young American male who had a different name and face before he took his comparative religions class to the next level?

Can you kill an American for inciting violence? Who decides what that even means?

They say all is fair in love and war, but that statement has never been true, not on either count. The man is killed before the end of the hour, but some answers are only ever about the question ...

Sidebar: A table of men deciding someone's fate. The leader of the group talking on behalf of Alicia, the only woman, when everyone else gets to introduce themselves. Yep, there's gender commentary going on in this part, too. Oh, THE GOOD WIFE, how am I supposed to live without you?

How was your hour? Were you happy to almost-see Alicia getting her groove on? Like the NSA guys, do you want to know what Jason wants, too? Seven episodes to go ...

Image Credit: CBS

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