Reaction Post - I miss this.

The Good Wife: 4x11 Boom De Ya Da.

In an episode working towards a "maybe this time, Alicia will REALLY beat Louis Canning" twist that was completely unexpectedly and in no way resembling last year's season finale (it was still fun though) reversed in the end, Alicia spent a couple of days waiting for Godot, Will and Diane plotted to escape wrathful Clarke Hayden's attempt to oust them from management via mediation, young Cary Agos cast his lot with the firm rather than Hayden, Kalinda Sharma made a joke about killing someone, and Eli watched his life become even more of a dramedy when Wendy Scott-Carr of all people sank her teeth into his business and L&G, while a young Wonder Boy started eating away at his job. A good week for everyone involved!

The case was  against a bank that left pools in foreclosed homes go stale, causing mosquitoes to breed and infect L&G's young client with the West Nile Virus (it also provided the show with a chance to show a rather pretty photo montage of the suburban McMansion dream failing, again photogenically). While Cary and Will worked on the case in Chicago, Alicia travelled to a beautiful hotel in nowhere, Minnesota, to dispose the bank boss, specifically about a letter the neighbourhood had written complaining about the unattended pools. Said boss proved elusive and represented by Louis Canning. While Mr Ingersoll comically does not appear and Louis Canning finds stale excuses for their obvious strategy (waiting for a merger to go through before even considering a settlement), the case zig and zagged, as cases do (it was about complicated latin names for mosquitoes and "attractive nuisances" and whether their client was ever allowed to be home on her own without a babysitter), until finally, Kalinda Sharma arrived at the hotel, which was really the best scene of the episode (especially because it contained a joke about KALINDA SHARMA KILLING SOMEONE, as if that would ever happen). 

Kalinda: God, it's quiet.
Alicia: Yeah.
Kalinda: You've had two days of this?
Alicia: And two nights. It's not that bad actually.
Kalinda: Really? I'd kill someone.
Alicia: You know what I miss about my old life, before the glamour and the law?
Kalinda: What?
Alicia: The quiet. At home in the afternoon, I would drink every day, at three o'clock, a glass of red wine, waiting for the kids to come home. I miss the silence in the house at three. Just... nothing going on.
Kalinda: I miss this.
Alicia: Yeah.
Kalinda: I'm sorry.
Alicia: I know. 

I'd say from the way that Alicia's face lit up when Kalinda appeared at her door ("Kalinda. And clothes!"), they've come pretty close to how they were before. 

She also swiftly came up with a working solution for the whole Godot thing, pointing out that the guy was actually seeking experimental treatment for cancer, and not telling shareholders of a publicly held company about a serious illness is a violation, so Alicia ended up blackmailing the guy into settling which would have been gross if the victim of the whole thing hadn't been a teenage girl who now requires 24 hour care. It was also another sign that this isn't the Alicia Florrick from a couple of years ago ("this is beneath you", says Louis Canning", "No, unfortunately it's not", replies new and improved Alicia Florrick). 

But it's never quite a win against Louis Canning, because meanwhile, Will and Diane have won their little fight with Clarke Hayden, because of the settlement, because Cary, to Clarke's visible chagrin that they weren't actually BFFs, stated he felt forced into helping him the bar exam, but also and most importantly because a firm had bought up all of L&G's debt. A good sign, surely, one of confidence? Except, as Louis Canning, accompanied by his rather charming wife, in the picturesque rainy landscape of Minnesota in Winter proclaimed, the firm is now essentially owned by Louis Canning. 

To make things worse, among the people who definitely do have bias despite claiming they don't have bias (doesn't everyone) and who take things way too personally (which Louis Canning never does), Wendy Scott-Carr turned out to be the person responsible at the DOJ for Eli's investigation, an investigation that already prompted the Democratic Committee to furnish him with a second in command, and when Diane tried to put an end to it, Wendy, as per usual, lashed out successfully, drawing L&G into the whole mess. And all of this is still about Peter. Indeed, "no one disappears. They all come back, like zombies" (except the ones who ran into Kalinda, because she knows to aim for the head). 

• Does anyone know the name of the song? It sounded like Hundred in the Hands, but I couldn't find it. 
• It's really good to know that Minnesota "five weeks before February" looks like an autumny photogenic wonderland (I'm not complaining, it's just funny to think that nobody in production was like, guys, this doesn't really work out, time-wise?)
• Alicia says she has cell phone coverage if "I stand on my bed and put my arms over my head". What a great running joke. 
• I'd say Alicia should know a thing or two about women going for men like Louis Canning? Peter Florrick isn't exactly the least bastardly man around. 
• Since T.R. Knight is now in the show (what a pleasant surprise) I'll go and compile a list of other actors and actresses in shows I don't watch that I wish were in shows I do watch. Surely there's still a place at the table for Kat Dennings?
• Diane's visible elation when the mediator proclaimed that "In here, I am the empress." was lovely.