BWW Recap: Everything Is Taken Care Of on THE GOOD WIFE

What do you do about everything?

It's a question asked of Alicia by a twitchy guy at the start of "Sticky Content", and it's also a question I'm asking myself right now. How do I recap an episode where nothing much happened action-wise, but at the same time everything that happened was so important, and so worth talking about? My notes across the hour are scribbled and barely legible because I wouldn't hit pause, and they're underlined all over with my shorthand code for Ah-ha! and Oh my god! - because ultimately, this ostensibly sleeper episode was a dream for an obsessive fan viewer like me, laden as it was with meaning, and delicious nods to the past.

So what do you do about everything? Let's give breaking it down a try, at least ...

Everybody loves Alicia

Well, everybody loves our good wife except Josh, the slice and dice video guy hired by campaign manager Johnny to produce an ad for Alicia's State's Attorney race. Josh is in fact only just starting to like Alicia, and she's not even making the liking part easy, thanks to her reluctance to trade on her marriage, or her grief over Will's death, and her pact of sorts with opponent Frank Prady to not go negative.

Prady, up by 3 points in the polls, is the one to suggest the two opposing candidates stay above the fray, and though Alicia is smart enough to doubt Prady's motives (he too has things to hide, after-all), there's also something of the pre-politics Alicia here, clearly wanting to believe that it's possible for fights to be fair.

Prady is making it easy enough for her to believe him, too. He gives her a box of dirt oppo research his team has compiled on her, and says he won't use any of it against her. Maybe he won't, maybe he meant it - or maybe he's the smartest one in the game right now, understanding that the way to really use it is to leave the box and all its secrets with Alicia - and wait for her to open it.

Which she does, of course, after distracting herself with her regular dose of bad TV, and over-poured wine.

The content of the box shocks Alicia, but is less than surprising to viewers - Peter is sleeping with the intern's mom, Ramona. Yup - Peter is sleeping with (or was sleeping with?) yet another one of Alicia's friends, and once again, he's been caught in the act. Well done, Prady - that should slow Alicia down. Except, Prady hasn't really mastered our good wife yet, has he? What might debilitate someone else tends to invigorate Alicia Florrick. Discoveries of her husband's infidelities have after-all sent her off in some crazy, inspired directions in the past.

Peter's betrayals pushed her back into law, for a start. Then into the arms of Will Gardner (could you use his full name, please!).

And now, with this latest discovery, it seems she's finally motivated to play the political game. She is ready to leverage her marriage, to essentially fake it for the public by sitting lovingly next to Peter for an interview about their romantic beginnings. And she's more than ready now to leverage the changing power dynamic within her marriage, advising her philandering husband that she will never again stand by his side if he gets caught with Ramona.

Alicia acts when she's mad, Frank Prady. Your little Pandora's box has set the good wife into a furious kind of motion.

Yeah, I'm fine sitting

It also sends Alicia onto the late night couch of Finn Polmar. Finn, with his slow, considered way of speaking, as if his mouth is made of velvet. Wait. What? Sorry, I've slipped over into fan-fic mode for a second - it's the fault of that office view, and the little sighs, and the way he looks at her. The stillness, and the waiting, as if he senses how easily she could be scared away. Okay that's dangerously close to sending me back to fan-fic-ville (not that there's anything wrong with that, hey), so I'll stick to my analysis: Alicia runs to what she wants, when she has been disappointed by what she has.

It's like the disappointment gives her a kind of permission.

There are parallels galore here between Finn and Will. It's not so much that the two characters are similar; it's the way Alicia needs them to be, and what she's afraid of. She creates something chaste, lovely between herself and the men she desires, a kind of wall of friendship, and then panics when that friendship deepens. Maybe she'll be smarter this time around, or maybe Finn is actually smarter than Will when it comes to how Alicia works.

(I miss you, Will - but it wouldn't be hard to be smarter. What the hell was all that bad timing stuff, anyway, you romantic, pessimistic fool?!).

We'll see. I really, really hope we'll soon see.

He's talking about murdering you - this week!

Meanwhile, in the latest installment of the Cary-case, we have the FBI capturing Lemond Bishop on tape ordering a hit on Mr. Agos - which they promptly share with the beleaguered lawyer in an attempt to get him to turn on Bishop.

The FBI wants to help Cary. If he helps them, that is, by turning in the scariest criminal on TV. Cue the noir-ish turn of tonight's episode, with lots of foreboding music and hovering shots of Cary living with his new what's-around-the-corner reality.

Special Agent Lana Delaney looms large in this piece of dark theatre; she's one of the obvious villains in Cary's new world. He outs her as Kalinda's girlfriend to her boss, and later, I'm fairly certain Cary (inadvertently) outs her to Bishop, when he asks Bishop if the FBI recording is real.

See, much like Alicia wanted to believe Prady wouldn't betray her, Cary is having a hard time believing Bishop would order him dead. Or maybe, much like Alicia, Cary is a master of avoidance and denial, and doesn't want to face the truth of what his life has become.

By the time our master of THE GOOD WIFE universe Kalinda confirms the tape and the threat is real, Cary has already taken himself to Bishop's house and placed himself right in his line of site. Because ... actually, why, Cary, why?! We get that you don't want to be scared of the corners, but as Carter, the bodyguard Kalinda procured for you said so, so sanely - "People sometimes have a reason to be afraid." Bishop is worth being afraid of, Cary - heck, even the normally imperious Diane Lockhart is a little bit afraid of him!

But now Bishop knows about the tape. And the FBI knows Lana leaked it to Kalinda to help Cary. So Bishop wins again - and once again I have the feeling that Lana is the character being set up for the biggest fall here. It is especially ominous that Kalinda is now ready to get serious with the beautiful agent, because Kalinda's not allowed to be happy, right? She's not allowed to have friends, or keep them.

On this, we'll once again have to wait and see. Nothing is resolved in this hour. Nothing much happens at all. But everything happens at the same time.

What do you do about everything ...

Sidebar: Everyone knows that standing in the rain did not make Alicia the happiest she's ever been. The happiest she's ever been is on a rooftop in Manhattan with Will Gardner. We have proof. We have the memories as proof, and they've been revisited many, many times since that extraordinary 100th episode of THE GOOD WIFE, right? Case very firmly closed on this one.

Below, get a sneak peek at next week's episode titled 'The Trial':

Photo Credits: CBS

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