The Good Wife, Season 5, Episode 13, “Parallel Construction, Bitches”
Written By Erica Shelton Kodish
Directed By Matt Shakman
Airs Sundays at 9pm EST on CBS
The mid-season break The Good Wife took over the last few months was almost certainly not built into the show’s plan for the season (if it was, it was not handled particularly elegantly). Where plenty of other network shows have taken to doing “mid-season finales” and structuring their longer, more unwieldy episode counts like two mini-seasons that form a more coherent whole, this is a show that works best as a behemoth, a large series of interconnecting plotlines that slowly fade in and out of relevance and become increasingly or decreasingly important across the season. The Good Wife is one of the best shows on television at keeping multiple plates in the air with a solid level of success (Justified leaps to mind as a possible comparison, but that show has shorter seasons and a tighter focus), and if not every plot works, that is simply a part of the way this show functions. This is a well-oiled machine with so many moving parts that when one falls out of whack, it is easy to look at another, shinier piece and take solace in that.
“Parallel Construction, Bitches” brings back two plot-points that have laid dormant for a while in classic Good Wife fashion: the NSA wiretap of Alicia and her lunch date with Jeffrey Tambor’s judge. It was clear that both of these would return at some point, and both are worked fairly seamlessly into this week’s case-of-the-week, which sees Lemond Bishop disadvantaged by Alicia’s tapped phone (via the titular parallel construction, which lets the NSA share information with the DEA so long as the DEA can build a separate case for conviction) and Charles Lester (the always-welcome Wallace Shawn at his sleaziest) on the case. Lester is a classic recurring character in this show’s well-honed mold: he is fully fleshed-out from the first time we meet him, and every subsequent appearance carries just a little more baggage. His terrifying ability to know everything is still deeply unsettling, but this time around, we get the pleasure of seeing just how rarely Lester has seen the inside of a courtroom.
The NSA plotline as a whole is incredibly frustrating, but this actually makes it one of the more effective of The Good Wife’s “ripped from the headlines” stories. Watching our characters foiled at every turn by un-feeling techies with the thinnest veneer of legality covering their deeply problematic taps is infuriating, but then, that is the point the show is trying to make. The new pervasiveness of our surveillance state is likely to make the sort of thing we are witnessing here more prevalent in our culture, and the deep discomfort this plotline evokes is a good indicator of how well that will go over. For bonus points, the NSA guys are increasingly tied up in our characters emotionally, and they comment on the soap opera plotting with a wryness that is incredibly fun. Sure, the show is sort of mocking its fan-base here, but in a reasonably good-natured way. It is a little bit of humor on top of the sort of “dark implications of our failed system” story this show likes to tell that makes the bitter medicine of the security state go down a little easier.
“Parallel Construction, Bitches” is an episode about compartmentalization and context. Its about the ways in which the various aspects of our lives bleed into each other in ways we cannot anticipate and cannot prevent. The NSA gets to tap Alicia because she is three steps out from a terror suspect in an old investigation, but that bleeds into the DEA and any other relevant agency that might arise. That tap bleeds into her relationship with Lemond Bishop and threatens a lucrative client relationship. And when, at the end of the episode, Will is questioned about Peter’s election rigging, all of the baggage we’ve seen accrue over this season so far bleeds into that scene. Will Gardner is very often an asshole. He is unscrupulous, manipulative, and vengeful. But when push comes to shove, even as we watch him struggle beneath the surface with his hatred for Peter and his anger at Alicia, he stands by his former client and former lover, because sometimes you have to file things away. Sometimes your personal feeling effect things they shouldn’t and you have to make choices about how much you let that influence reveal itself. Alicia is juggling her new firm, her obligations to Eli politically, her tumultuous marriage, her children, and her conflicted relationships with Lockhart Gardner. Her life is much more fascinating, intricate, and layered with drama than the show she and Grace watch throughout the episode. The only way Alicia can survive is if she compartmentalizes, if she decides where to file things and when they can be of use to her. Her mastery at this is what allows her to survive.
The election rigging tape is evidence of that bleed. It implicates nearly everyone in the show’s universe. Alicia served as Peter’s lawyer. Zach worked on the campaign and was instrumental to what happened that night. Will withheld information to protect Peter. Even Marilyn, with her pitiful lack of attorney-client privilege, could go down if she doesn’t cooperate fully. This video has suddenly become the crucial piece in the Jenga game that is Alicia’s life (and the construction of this whole show). Pull it wrong, and the whole thing comes tumbling down.
Notes:
-“Need anyone to hold hands with, Mr. Asher?” “I hold hands with justice, your honor.”
-“I thought you liked working with me, Alicia.”
-“That was…almost Will-like.” “Thank you, Diane.”
-“Which one is my husband?”
-What is with this show and the billowy under-the-covers shots?
-“Thank you, counselor. I’m actually familiar with the Constitution.”
-“I think this will make sense if I get more wine.” Alicia, coining my new slogan.