The Good Wife - Lies - Review: "Are You Recording Me?"

7.06 - "Lies"

This week, Alicia looks into Jason's background, Diane and Cary find themselves in the middle of an HR nightmare, and Ruth and Eli seem to come to an agreement over Peter's campaign.

"Just the first skirmish."

In another case "gifted" to Alicia by Louis Canning, a young developer named Kristen Balko, who was quite randomly fired from her Silicon Valley job after coming up with a popular application that could predict how a television series would play out from the first episode. She had apparently failed a polygraph test, which was used as the reason for her firing. 

As it turns out, her new app was sold by her company for use to the NSA to track the motives of "terrorists" and predict what they might do in the future. So, somehow that translated to the company needing to get rid of Kristen in order to keep the money and prospects out of her reach? The snivelly Silicon Valley defense attorney spoke down to Alicia's team and client at every turn, and brought the good ol' defense that her position is tied to a secret Federal Homeland-security-bullshit thingy-mabob... So, even after jumping through hoops to find her "Poor man's Snowden" in a humorous way, who was hiding out in Iceland, all he could do was give Alicia more info about what they did with the application, nothing that could get her out of the situation. Furthermore, the firm asked to rehire Kristen in an attempt to have a legitimate firing, so that she couldn't sue them anymore. Gross situation. 

"No, No, No... NoNoNo..."

During the case, Alicia and Lucca both look into Jason Crouse's background after having found out in court about him attacking a judge. Alicia phoned one Judge from New Jersey, while Lucca contacted another. Alicia was told straight out that Jason Crouse was a sociopath... A walking timebomb. He was not to be kept around. It was a very strong and immediate response. Alicia became frightened about what she'd gotten into with Jason, when later she had heard from Lucca what she'd found out: that the whole situation with the judge in New Jersey was overblown, and it was more of a scuffle than an assault. Given how suave he is, and how well he was able to coach the last couple of clients they worked with, Alicia still remained suspicious. Let's not forget about that cut-away scene where he was pretty obviously threatening a man with a crowbar last week. Still, there was no resolution here...Merely the seeds of distrust sown for Alicia to look after Jason while he worked.

"Are you wearing a wire?"

Eli and Ruth met for more repartee over drinks, and Ruth dropped a tidbit of information to Eli: Peter's numbers meant that he could likely run for president and not just for VP, if they made the correct moves to do so. Eli and Ruth made a deal to put their animosity aside for the true presidential campaign, even though Eli was likely just putting on for her benefit.

He confirmed as much when he talked to Nora (who was just as awesome as usual) and said the failure would be even more intensified now that he was actually looking to run for President. Nora makes sure she's hearing right that he intends to hurt Peter to get to Ruth... He said something to the effect that he'd have to injure Peter, but not to destroy him. Like a patient in an operation. However, I think like anyone else in the show, (Marissa, Alicia, Nora) we're all kind of getting fed up with Eli's scheming. He goes to Judge Schakowsky to get dirt on Frank Landau, who would be introducing Peter on the day that he announces, so that Eli could leak something that would tear down the campaign before it started.

Schakowsky and Eli regard each other as threats, both obviously guilty enough of something to suspect each other of wire tapping, both not really giving out their full hand to each other until they know the other is "cool."

Peter and Ruth found obstacle after obstacle in trying to mimic the Obama announcement to gather hype, and Eli took that time to continue his scheming. When Schakowsky came back to Eli, he had dirt on both Landau and Peter as well. It turns out that Peter had indeed tampered with the voting machines to get Alicia to win. This changed everything about the situation. In leaking that information, Eli would devastate/destroy Alicia as well. As Alicia and Peter stood at the podium, Alicia let out a genuine smile. Eli couldn't help but hesitate about whether he would continue his plan of attack or not...

"Or... 'MILD' for short."

After it was determined that Kristen would need to take another polygraph test, Jason tried to prepare Kristen to...uh... manipulate the person administering the test. Alicia studied Jason while he showed Kristen how to cheat the test as best as she could. However, it was a useless exercise when it was revealed that the test would be administered through an automated interface. Alicia got in touch again with her ex-NSA friend, who said there wasn't much to do about the polygraph test at that point. But he did say they relied too heavily on technology like that, and that it was overrated.

The NSA, of course, is listening to Jeff's conversations even if he thinks he's being careful, and so he leads them back to Alicia, their old source of entertainment via phone calls... And once she uses the word "Snowden" on the call, they're granted a 3-hop call bug on her phone again. Back to the case, as they continued to wear down the defense, they finally called for Alicia to have her client amend her case to cite sexism as the reason for firing instead of something that could jeopardize their link to the NSA and all of its nice money. After that was done, they were able to settle.

"...Baltimore?"

At Lockhart, Agos, & Lee, the interviews for summer internships (which continues to be a big deal but I'd never heard of this before on the show?) took a turn for the possibly litigious... A whip-smart, reserved young woman was interviewing for a position, and was asked very inappropriate, quite racist or condescending things by all 4 of her interviewers. Even though Diane vouched for Monica, stating that they needed more diversity, they needed people that weren't the same as they were in the firm, she was outvoted, and ended up having to call Monica in to tell her that they weren't hiring her. She responded in a very brazen way: by uploading the interviews that she secretly had recorded online, and showed the world how racist L/A/L could be. When Diane confronted Monica about how things were, she hit back immediately practically viciously, insinuating Diane slept her way to the top, and then made sure that she knew Diane's struggle could never be equal to her own. It was a very rough conversation. Not sure how this will go, but it seems like Lyman's bullshit ageism case has been replaced with a more legitimate racism case against the firm. 

Sidenotes:

- This episode felt really eventful... Was it just me?

- How in the world could all 4 of the partners be so blatantly racist and say so many amateur things like that? I mean, how has this firm not self-destructed by now?

- With the NSA analysts comes an abundance of goat videos. (Goat videos are my favorite...but they are so 2013)

- Are you team Monica? or do you think she's gone too far?

- Eli had almost no faith in that campaign, he thought Peter had no chance. Then, he saw Alicia's smile...

What did you think of this week's episode? Start a discussion below in the comments!

About the Author - Wilson Crawford

I watch way too much television. But nevermind that, something's on. Currently obsessed with The Good Wife, The 100, and Hannibal (RIP). Other favorites include Damages, Breaking Bad, 30 Rock, Mad Men, and Veronica Mars.

Recent Reviews (All Reviews)