The Good Wife recap: 'Shiny Objects'

Welcome back, Elsbeth Tascioni! Both Carrie Preston and the case of the week return for “Shiny Objects.” And I’m definitely not complaining. It certainly wasn’t the strongest episode of the season, but any time Elsbeth is around, you can expect a little bit of crazy, and her latest return is no exception. The episode opens up with her on the treadmill, and we get a glimpse of what goes on in Elsbeth’s head. It’s pretty much what you’d expect: It’s a jumble of words, clowns, ice cream cones, traffic cones, pumpkins, candy, sand, sandwiches, and regular witches—soundtracked by xylophone music. You know, the usual. It’s been debated whether Elsbeth is a genius or just crazy. I’ve always thought she had to be a little bit of both. Her mind definitely works in strange ways, but that’s just it. Strange or not, it works.

Unfortunately, her weirdly successful ways were competing against Alicia and her team this time. Elsbeth and her partner Rayna Hecht (Jill Hennessy) sat opposite Alicia and Dean on a wrongful termination suit. Alicia’s client Camilla Vargas (Jan Maxwell) claimed that she was fired by Eric Napier and his company J-Serve solely because she’s a woman. (Think of a Jill Abramson-inspired story line.) Enter Tascioni’s tactics for the win. Alicia and Dean took an early hit on the case when Elsbeth made it about Camilla being a bitch, and not an issue of sexism. Elsbeth even inspires Dean to say, “We need to take her out.”

So both Dean and Alicia distract Elsbeth in court with a picture of a boat and penguins. It’s laugh-out-loud funny as Elsbeth tries to rein in all the things running through her mind. It shakes her enough that both sides agree to talk settlement numbers. But before they get too far, Elsbeth decides she will not get distracted again. So back to court they go.

This time, Alicia tries to distract Elsbeth with a picture of a cat, but Elsbeth powers through. It’s less than ideal for Alicia and Dean. But they catch a break when Josh Perotti (Kyle MacLachlan) shows up in court. Mr. Perotti’s got a thing for Elsbeth, so when she sees him in the back of the court room, she totally loses it. Outside of the courtroom, she accuses him of trying to rattle her. He insists he’s there on official business and asks to have dinner with her (and her sexy red hair, of course). As it turns out, Perotti is there on official business. He tells the judge J-Serve’s assets have been frozen pending federal criminal charges against the company. There’s an intellectual property suit at play, and that effectively ends the current case until the criminal one can be resolved. Rayna and Elsbeth want to work with Alicia & Co. to beat the federal case, so this will likely come back later in the season. (And maybe even next week since Carrie Preston is set to return to the next episode.)

Back at Florrick/Agos, they have bigger fish to fry. Diane inadvertently downloads a virus to all the firm’s computers, and they are instructed to pay $50,000 in the next 72 hours, or all of their files will be permanently deleted. To call this a problem would be an understatement. They call Cary to update him on the situation, but he’s busy having sexy time with Kalinda. Then, they call Kalinda to update her on the situation, but she’s busy having sexy time with Cary. Convenient! Ultimately, they decide they have to shell out the cash. They can’t lose their files, and if they alert the authorities, they run the risk of the investigation leaking. And looking vulnerable to the entire legal community isn’t an option. It’s decided that each partner will put up $5,000 to raise the ransom amount.

After the money is collected, Diane enters her routing number but nothing happens. Thankfully, there’s a helpline number listed, so what choice do they have? Diane calls the number only to be put on hold because, of course, they’re busy assisting other customers. They even have the quintessential on-hold music. And when it rains it pours, literally this time, as a pipe is leaking water onto Diane’s chair. She’s so over it.

UP NEXT: Diane returns to her old firm for a run-in with David Lee

Diane finally gets to speak to a real person, who informs her that her access code was sent to her old Lockhart/Gardner email address. And unfortunately, they won’t send it to a new email. Security purposes and all that. Diane’s left with no choice but to reach out to David Lee. She meets him in her old office, which he has now taken over. She tries to get the email back, and David Lee tries to get Diane to sign over the lease to the LG offices to himself and Louis Canning. Ultimately, David Lee agrees to give her the email, and Diane agrees to discuss the transfer of the lease. Well played, Diane.

Back at Florrick/Agos, they type in the decryption code, but it still doesn’t work. In fact, it just makes the countdown clock tick down twice as fast. While all this is happening, Kalinda goes to Lana (Jill Flint) to see if she can use her connections to find out who’s responsible for the virus. But Lana doesn’t like that she’s clearly being used. Lana decides to help Kalinda anyway, and they both pay a visit to Mr. Kellner (Gerry Vichi), whose IP address matched the one the firm’s money was sent to. Mr. Kellner is an elderly gentleman who’s clearly a pawn in this whole situation. He’s been unintentionally laundering money. When Kalinda tries to contact his point person (someone named “Mr. Black”), Kellner’s computer gets shut down, too. But she does manage to learn, through Lana, that someone in Russia is responsible for all of this.

Later, Kalinda has some more sexy time… this time with Lana. Cary actually calls while she’s there, but she says she’s busy working. He clearly knows something’s up. Lana tries to connect with Kalinda by talking about coming out to her mom, but Kalinda isn’t having it. She’s not interested in a real relationship with Lana. But is Kalinda ever interested in a real relationship with anyone?

With six hours left on the countdown, Kalinda manages to locate the bad dude Boris Ivankov (Misha Kuznetsov) and by remotely administering his webcam, she calls him out. Carey Zepps happens to know Russian, so he translates the interaction. Kalinda threatens to delete Boris’ hard drive if he doesn’t release the Florrick/Agos files, but he doesn’t care if she destroys his network. He promises to start a new one. Sensing he might balk, Kalinda has a stellar backup plan: She floods his computer with anti-Putin propaganda. And that’ll do it. All of Florrick/Agos is back online! But Diane is still reeling from the poor office conditions. After a light burns out and she comically discovers a cockroach, she decides she’s had enough. She tells Alicia about still owning the lease at the Lockhart/Gardner property. Looks like they might be making a move soon.

Also, things end pretty poorly between Lana and Kalinda. Kalinda accuses the former of stealing files from her desk, and Lana’s none too pleased about it. Their “relationship” was already on shaky grounds, so who knows how that one will play out. Speaking of unknowns, it was announced this week that Archie Panjabi will leave the show after her contract expires at the end of the season. After Will Gardner’s untimely demise, it seems unlikely that they’d kill Kalinda off. But I suppose anything is possible. It will definitely make me read into all her interactions as the season continues. She loves her job, so something big has to happen for her to make an exit. Accepting theories now.

Anyway, in state’s attorney news, Finn Polmar agrees to endorse Alicia when she announces her candidacy, even if it hurts his relationship with James Castro. Unfortunately, both Alicia and Finn fail to consider how Eli and Peter will react to this endorsement news. Eli tells Alicia that Peter won’t come to the announcement if Finn is also there endorsing her. She needs to have Finn endorse her at a later event or not at all if she wants Peter’s support. Awkward. Johnny Elfman is initially in favor of the Finn Polmar endorsement, but he recognizes that Peter’s support is more important.

UP NEXT: An epic fight, and the episode’s best moments and lines

Alicia meets with Finn to tell him the bad news, but after a chat with him over drinks, she decides she doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. She’s moving forward with Finn’s endorsement regardless of the consequences. The next issue is whether or not Peter will stay on stage while Alicia makes her announcement. Eli wants him to leave. Johnny wants him to stay. So Alicia uses this as a negotiation tactic. She agrees to Peter leaving the stage, as long as Finn can introduce her, too.

This leads to an epic showdown between Peter and Alicia. (Seriously epic. I cannot do it justice.) Alicia may need Peter, but Peter needs Alicia, too. At what point does their marital arrangement blow up in their faces? They don’t live together. They’re free to see other people. They clearly aren’t happy together, but yeah, they need each other. Alicia’s going to face more scrutiny as her campaign for state’s attorney really ramps up. I imagine this has all got to come to a head soon. But when? Who knows?!

Finn goes through with his endorsement of Alicia, and it appears as though Peter will not show up after all. But at the last second, he comes in, makes his statement, and stays on stage at Alicia’s side. The episode ends with the press juxtaposing the photos of Alicia standing by Peter six years ago, and now Peter standing by Alicia. And so the campaign begins.

The best moments and lines from “Shiny Objects”:

–Eric Napier: “I have business with the governor’s office, and their lead attorney is the governor’s wife.”

Elsbeth: “WHHHAAAAAT?!! Alicia!!”

–Alicia: “If I fall, you’ll catch me?”

Finn: “No. I’ll be plummeting with you.”

–”Didn’t the misbehavior of the Mr. Other CEO Guy just sensitize you to not letting Camilla do the same thing and encourage you to say never again?” —Elsbeth, being Elsbeth in court

–”Eli, obviously this matters to you because you’re here. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out what your problem is.” —Alicia

–”Why are all the computers here counting down? I feel like I’m in a Bruckheimer movie.” —Eli

–David Lee: “Oh, Diane. Forget something on the way out like the silverware?”

Diane: “David, I’m awaiting an important email that was inadvertently sent to my LG email address. And I need you to do me the courtesy of forwarding it.”

David Lee: “Certainly. Just as soon as monkeys fly out of my butt.”

Diane: “Well, that was fairly crass.”

–”I am visualizing stillness over here.” —Elsbeth

–Johnny and Eli making themselves scarce right before Alicia and Peter go talk

–Peter: “I need you, but I don’t need Finn Polmar.”

Alicia: “Well suck it up, Peter. Because he’s part of the deal.”

Peter: “Really? Who’s the one sucking it up?”

(Ed note: Oh no, he did not just say that!!)

–Eli’s face after Peter and Alicia’s big argument

–Diane screaming at the cockroach she finds in the office

–Fun fact: Carrie Preston tweeted that Elsbeth was originally distracted by dolphins, but the writers changed it to penguins because they thought penguins were funnier

–Preston also tweeted that there were kittens on the set that didn’t make the final cut of the episode

Do you think it makes sense for Florrick/Agos to move back to the Lockhart/Gardner offices? Will we ever see the new Florrick/Agos face David Lee and Louis Canning in court? Or will they just let that firm dwindle into nothingness? How do you think the writers will handle Kalinda’s exit from the show? I’ll be sad to see her go, but I don’t think they’ve utilized Kalinda to her full potential the past few seasons. And with so many characters and story lines, I get how it’s difficult to get everyone equal screen time. But I hope that when she does leave, it will be on good terms. And even better? I hope there’s a really awesome Alicia/Kalinda moment before it all ends. The two haven’t had a single scene together in the first five episodes, which is kind of crazy.