‘The Good Wife’ Season 3, Episode 8, ‘Death Row Tip’: TV Recap

By Susan Toepfer

CBS
Scene from “The Good Wife.”

The series, which once built so provocatively toward its many revelations, continues to meander this season. In short, the “Death Row Tip” episode is all over the map. Will and Alicia’s affair in particular seems to have lost steam—at least, any steam we can see—while Peter stays off camera and the writers play around with Kalinda, wondering what to do with her next. On the bright side, there’s an entertaining cameo by MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews.

Let’s try a different way to recap this week:

The legal case: The firm is hired by Tom LaVere, accused of killing his girlfriend, Adrienne. Cops accidentally discover her body when, acting on a tip from Death Row inmate Ricky Packer, they go digging for a dead drug dealer. They do find him, but also Adrienne, clad in Christian Louboutin shoes. Although she disappeared six months ago, Tom LaVere didn’t report her missing because they had argued and “she said she was going back to Canada.” Unfortunately, she was shot by his gun.

ASA Dana Lodge, Cary Agos’ new love, finds Kalinda sneaking around his brand new Deputy desk. The SA’s office has a 14-year-old pegged for the murder of the dealer and Tom for the murder of Adrienne. Kalinda suggests that both victims were shot by someone else, with the thug firing at Adrienne with her own gun (which Tom had given her for protection). But to prove this, she needs access to the street’s surveillance tapes.

Dana will give access only if Kalinda provides her with information about Will, who is currently under investigation by her department. “I know how you work,” Dana pegs her. “You get what you want without giving back and that’s not going to happen here.” So Kalinda agrees to investigate “the nature of the relationship” between Gardner and his friend Judge Baxter.

Meanwhile, Alicia is assigned to help Packer escape death, which she really doesn’t want to do, and who could blame her? The guy’s scheduled to fry because he raped, tortured and murdered two young girls, the same age as Alicia’s daughter Grace. Looking for something to back up a mercy plea, she visits his mother, expecting squalor and instead finding Leslie Uggams. Yes, Packer grew up middle class and coddled by his elegant mom (Uggams); he simply “liked doing mean things,” the local cleric advises.

But because everybody in this episode except Alicia appears to be against the death penalty, Father Jim and Mrs. Packer agree to come to court to lie about Ricky’s character and his “unfortunate upbringing.” This buys the firm at least 24 hours, so Alicia can go to the prison and try to get Packer to reveal the name of the true murderer, the guy Kalinda thinks committed both crimes.

She does so armed with a photo that Kalinda got from the surveillance camera, showing a dealer the investigator suspects “killed to get that corner. My guess is that he killed Adrienne, too,” she tells Dana. “You need to find that man.” Living up to her end of the bargain (sort of), Kalinda then tells Dana that Will and Judge Baxter had a falling out: “He was a corrupt judge. Will got him thrown off the bench.” No, Dana says, the SA got him thrown out; “Gardner didn’t do crap.”

Before heading to Death Row, Alicia, haunted by the crime scene photos, calls Grace to check that she always locks the door and comes home straight from school. In jail, Packer confirms that the guy in the photo is the killer but, wiping a tear from his eye, won’t give Alicia a name until she brings his mother and brother to visit.

That doesn’t matter, because Kalinda finds out the guy’s name and their client Tom is off the hook. Still, Alicia brings Mom to see the Dead Man Walking, who basically spits in her face, telling her and his brother they should “burn in hell.” So we’re all kind of happy Ricky’s not getting a reprieve.

The secondary plot: Political operative Mickey Gunn enlists Eli’s help with a candidate who may have to explain a compromising photo: Back in his college days, Robert Mulvey was caught in a sexual act with Santa. Actually, it was a statue of Santa, which “ain’t the real Santa, and there is no real Santa and it wouldn’t have a penis,” as Gunn so succinctly puts it. But Eli is justifiably worried about the “ridicule effect” of Mulvey “fellating Santa…I have to be blunt, Sir, because that’s how TMZ is going to report it, Fox is going to repeat it and John Stewart is going to finish it…Here comes Santa.” He wants to know if the Santa encounter was a one-off, or if Mulvey made it a practice of fellating statues back in the day. The politician denies any other concrete, plastic or marble trysts.

Eli then convinces Gunn and the candidate to get in front of the story by releasing it to Chris Matthews. “Eli Gold and Mickey Gunn,” Matthews (quite successfully playing himself) greets them. “I think that’s the third sign of the apocalypse…you guys working together.”

Matthews gets one look at the photo and laughs—regrettably, not his trademark “Hardball” ha! but something subtler. While he is dubious that “servicing Santa” isn’t about the candidate’s morals, he seems to agree to position his report as a story focusing on how Mickey Gunn will deal with the photo.

Whoops. Turns out, Mulvey is indeed a serial statue molester, and Chris airs the photographic evidence. So the politician temporarily withdraws from campaigning, sidetracking the Santa scandal by announcing his addiction to alcohol and plan to enter treatment.

Alicia and Will: One brief scene, in which Will tells her, “Diane’s been eyeing us like we’re a lawsuit waiting to happen.” (No kidding.) Alicia asks if he wants to “pause.” They decide against that because, as Alicia points out, “even if we say we will we won’t.” Will starts to ask her if Peter knows about the two of them, but is interrupted by Eli calling him to a meeting. Alicia says she doesn’t think Peter knows “anything, but it’s never mattered to him.” (Ha!) She then asks if Peter has talked to Will and Will lies, “No.”

Eli and family: There are some funny scenes of Gold with his daughter Marissa, who’s hanging out unhelpfully in his office. “Why is it every other kid in the universe knows about computers except you?” he wants to know. He is further miffed to find out that Marissa’s mother, his ex, plans to run for the state senate despite his Episode 6 vetting, which uncovered her affair with a “good Bin Laden.” (This of course makes no sense whatsoever—would she really run if that tacky fact would be uncovered?)

Marisssa for sure doesn’t want Mom to run. “You know who gets hurt in all this? The children,” she says, balking. “They’ll talk about how you’re divorced and I’m the child of a broken home and how I’m dating a communist.”

Forget the communist. Just to annoy Eli even more, Marissa apparently has her eye on Zach. The next thing you know, she’s in Alicia’s apartment, all dolled up and flirty, giving him “computer help” and also offering some tips on how to work his parents’ divorce to his advantage.

Jackie and family: The mother in law from hell shows up unannounced (why does this woman still have a key??), substituting for a Peter pickup, to find Marissa with Zach and open the door to Grace’s wacky (and here heavily war-painted) tutor. Jackie then decides to do the laundry, and finds some sexy Alicia lingerie in a basket. This leads her to rifle through Alicia’s bedroom drawers and attempt to turn on Mrs. Florrick’s computer (a particularly unconvincing moment, since presumably even Jackie would know about laptops and passwords).

Kalinda and everybody: Our girl appears to be flirting with Cary’s new crush Dana, which really pisses him off. Dana responds to his accusations by insisting, “I’m not a lesbian.” And of course Kalinda isn’t always a lesbian either, as she shows when Cary grabs her for a kiss, seems to be about to take her right in his office, and then abruptly stops. This does not please Kalinda, who is left adjusting her leather and mini and wondering, “What was that about?”

That’s a nice end to the episode, but there’s another great Kalinda moment when she tells Will she’s been ratting him out to the SA. “You in trouble?” she wants to know. “I’m in somethin’,” he says. “I’m not sure what I’m in.” He says no, he did not pay off Judge Baxter, “but I think I know why they think I did.” When Kalinda offers to help him, he says, “I feel like hugging you,” which would be so wrong on so many levels, although a lot of fun if Diane and/or Alicia walked in.

“No,” Kalinda says at once. “Just ask for my help.”

Susan Toepfer is Entertainment/Features Editor of More magazine.

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