BWW Recap: That Thing Six Years Ago on THE GOOD WIFE

I need a moment. I need six years of moments. I thought I'd be fine. I'd read the fan forums, seen the preview. Assumed it was going to be about that thing. That thing six years ago. And then it was about that thing. And my heart remembered all its damage, because you get wiser over the years, and six years might be a long amount of over, but you never really get over missed connections - not the ones that matter.

Tonight Eli told Alicia about the voicemail he deleted all those years ago. The message from Will she never got. And here's why Eli's confession matters:

There is always the first time someone lets you down. Always the first wound, and even if they tend to that wound after, even if they do everything to make up for what they inflicted, it's hard not to hold on to that very first time. The first time you were a bright spark of hope, and the person who lit you up looked at your light, and asked you to lay down your torch. See, that's what happened when Alicia heard that first voice message from Will six years ago, the one where he said she was right, that he didn't have a plan, and they should leave it at that.

You have to imagine that even when they got together later, even when they had their exceptional moments, his initial reluctance, that original dimming, was always in the back of Alicia's mind.

It's always what we remember.

So, to discover there was more to it. To find out that Will actually retracted his initial ambivalence within seconds, that he called back straight away, and he said that he was in, that it was love after-all. That has to be a life altering moment. A realisation that what you held on to all these years, what you told yourself about why it wouldn't work out - well that probably wasn't the reality of it, after-all.

Turns out, the truth was so much better than anything you could imagine.

Ahhhhhhhh.

This recap. There was an interesting case, a glad-I-didn't-find-out-the-meaning-of-KSR-when-I-googled-it-yesterday case. One that made me dislike that creepy guy from THE AFFAIR even more (which is saying how good I think Josh Stamberg is, by the way). There were also some great scenes back at the increasingly empty Lockhart, Agos and Lee, including a return of Casual Cary, and a stellar high-five situation between Cary and Diane. Watching the episode, I even wrote down some quotes to use in tonight's piece:

"How are we? Everything good?" - Eli to Vanessa Courtney. I was going to use this quote to discuss how many times the notion of good was used in "KSR".

"We just don't wanna be like you!" - Homogenous white dudes associates to Cary. I was going to talk about how every generation thinks they are inventing the struggle, when the truth is, history so often repeats our mistakes.

"Some upsetting things..." - Lucca to the jury when discussing the creepy Doctor on trial tonight, and the abuse fantasies he played out online that may or may not have been set in motion in the real world if he hadn't been arrested. I was going to just be depressed about the general state of the world in this part.

"That someone could be so good..." - Alicia to Lucca at the bar as they discussed said creepy Doctor. I was going to get wise and philosophical about the parallels between who we are, and who we want to be. And more importantly perhaps, who we so desperately want other people to be.

"Will you call me?" - or maybe - "Will you call me!"

I dunno. That last one between Alicia and Jason before he left just made me sad. The idea that we can ask for what we want. But still make it sound like a question.

And then the last scene. Eli's confession to Alicia.

"Six years ago you got a message from Will Gardner."

Like I said at the start of this rant recap, I was fairly certain Eli's (previewed) confession was going to be about the voicemail he deleted. Certain enough that I went back a few days ago and watched the Season 2 premiere episode, the one where Eli deletes said message from Will. And I thought about it. I thought about my bias as a committed #Willicia fan, and then I thought much harder about how we can only ever make our choices based on the information we have at hand. And how hard it is to undo our mind once we believe something to be true. Once we've committed to an idea.

Alicia never believed Will wanted the drama. And so even after they got together, even after they tried, she backed away as soon as it got too hard. She'd heard him say he didn't have a plan. And she believed him.

In this context, that deleted voicemail set the course for the rest of her life.

I'm not saying Will is faultless here. He could have told Alicia - many, many times in fact - what he'd said in that deleted message. He could have owned it. But here's the thing. In the weeks after his second voicemail, he thought she heard his declaration of love, and decided not to respond. He had weeks to sit with the idea that Alicia didn't want him, even after she knew he'd (probably) loved her since Georgetown.

How hard it is to undo our mind once we believe something to be true. Once we've committed to an idea.

And that's it. I'm done. I rest my case on why that damn voicemail was so important.

I hate missed connections. And I think I'm going to hate the broken bond between Eli and Alicia even more.

Winter hiatus is upon us. Good. I need a break. But not for too long, of course. Come to think, a week would do it...

Happy holidays everyone. Thanks for reading. See you in the New Year. May your own bright sparks be ever lit.

Image Credit: CBS

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