The Good Wifehas been on a much-too-long eight-week hiatus.
But thankfully, Alicia Florrick & Co. are back in our Sunday night lives.
So lets dive right in to Parallel Construction, Bitches.
Credit: CBS
The episode opened up at Alicias apartment while she and Grace watched the fake AMC showDarkness At Noon.
(Sample dialogue: There are lines, and then there are lines!)
Anyway, Mr. Lester told Alicia they had a Lemond Bishop problem.
Because when Lemond Bishops around, theres usually a problem.
So off to court they went, with Lockhart/Gardner on hand to represent Bishops legitimate businesses.
note: Its pretty weird to hear Jack Davenports American accent.
Id rather him stick tohis true British form.
And yes, Im choosing to ignoreSmashlike most of America did.]
But its Will Gardner to the rescue!
He called Howard Lyman to the stand.
Based on our previous encounters with Howard Lyman, you would have thought this would be a total disaster.
The DEA quickly amended their story to say that Bishop was moving product theday before.
Kluger wasnt too pleased with the DEAs flip-flopping: You cant do this.
You tell a story, and you stick to it.
Speaking of Judge Kluger, earlier this season he called Alicia and asked her to lunch.
And in this episode, the two were going to follow through with their outing.
Apparently, Kluger just wanted to talk to Alicia about a book he was writing about lawyers.
But now that he was overseeing the case of the week, Alicia wondered if she should cancel.
Cary convinced her to keep the meeting.
He told her another judge just called him, and promptly left.
But he is learning Mandarin!
But Alicia was confident that none of them could be responsible for the leak.
Bishop and Lester were pulled over for a routine traffic stop en route to OHare.
But it wasnt all that routine since DEA Agent Lee Cheswick (Matthew Rauch) was in tow.
Unfortunately, Bishop had more than 900 grams of cocaine in his trunk.
But wait a second, Cheswick!
Its just regular pancake mix.
(On a related note, Im now craving chocolate chip pancakes.)
Anyway, Lester and Bishops plan worked.
And in an odd turn of events, it appeared as though Alicia was responsible for spilling the beans.
But we know that she wouldnt do that.
That led them to believe that their phones were being tapped.
But not by the DEA like they assumed.
Its the NSA!And weve come full circle, here.
Lemond Bishop arranged to get Florrick/Agos some burner phones to stop the DEA from listening in.
But we know that its much bigger than that.
So the burner phones didnt do much good.
But Florrick/Agos thought they were getting ahead of the prosecution on Lemonds case.
Cary recommended they get a preservation order.
And while it was a great idea, Judge Kluger shot down their request in court.
Tyler and Dev alerted the powers that be at the NSA.
Apparently, the NSA is encouraged to share its findings with other departments.
So the DEAwasusing information gleaned from the NSA taps to take down Lemond Bishop.
Oh, the tangled webs we weave.
The NSA cut Cheswick off from using any more of the taps.
That didnt keep Lemond Bishops case from going to trial.
But there was even more drama there: Frank Asher resigned mid-trial due to an interoffice matter.
AUSA Victoria Alvarez (Rosie Benton) was there to replace him, effective immediately.
That obviously set off red flags for Florrick/Agos.
They looked into Ashers resignation, but didnt have much luck on that investigation front.
So Lester put Asher on the stand in Bishops case to ask about the active wire tap.
And unsurprisingly, Asher decided to plead the Fifth.
That got Carys wheels turning: He remembered an article he read about the NSA.
The NSA is allowed to hand tips from their investigations off to other departments, including the DEA.
The DEA cant use classified information to build a case, so it creates a new evidence trail.
And thus, the parallel construction.
(Hey there, episode title!)
In the end, all the issues with the prosecution worked in Lemond Bishops favor.
The case was dropped, and back he goes to his usual illegal activities.
Meanwhile, Eli and Marilyn were still in a battle of wills about the potential voter fraud scandal.
Marilyn stood by her decision to file a less-than-conclusive report.
And Eli kept pressuring her to amend her report to reflect more positively on Peter.
But this argument became moot when an unmarked black van showed up in front of Marilyn.
We already knew this voter fraud scandal wasnt going to get pushed under the rug.
But things just got a lot more complicated.
And the complications continued when Nelson went to light a fire under Alicia.
Alicia sent Nelson on his merry way without helping him.
And whos at the root of all this evil?
Will Gardner, of course.
NEXT: Cary and Kalinda share an intimate moment…. Nelson Dubek decided to pay a little visit to Mr. Gardner.
But despite Wills obvious issues with Peter, he stood firm against Nelson.
He just kept repeating that he was bound by attorney/client privilege.
Nelson even offered Will a grant of transactional immunity if he would agree to cooperate fully.
Will wasnt intimated and ended up with a subpoena.
And the plot thickens!
Early in the episode, they were out drinking, but there was clearly some animosity between the two.
You want to get me to talk, you just saytalk.
Dont play games, Kalinda warned Cary.
So color me surprised to find them in bed together just a few scenes later!
(My reaction can be summed up in this one gif.)
And since Im a big-time Cary/Kalinda shipper, I was really pleased with this development.
But leave it to Kalinda and Cary to talk shop instead of talking dirty.
He told her he was telling the truth.
But Kalinda immediately went back to Diane and said he was lying.
Im glad these two seem to have a, um, healthy relationship.
Cary: Thank you, Diane!
I think this will make sense if I get more wine.
Alicia, talking aboutDarkness At Noon
