All sorts of madness went down tonight on The Good Wife. We explored some odd friendships, Michael J. Fox returned, relationships changed and strangest of all Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) from Dexter played a religious conservative! Who would have guessed.

The Good Wife Recap “Parenting Made Easy”

Strange friendships and alliances
This show is known for some quirky characters – not David E. Kelly quirky, just interesting. And this week they were all out in full force. First, Wendy Scott Carr is frustrated that Peter won’t give her all the money she wants for the corruption case involving Will. So she decides to hire her own freelance investigator… Andrew Wiley (Tim Guinee). As soon as Wiley sees his buddy, Cary, he is annoyed. Can’t a guy just be a stay at home dad without having to use his super investigator powers? Wiley makes it known to Will that he is going to be looking into Lockhart/Gardner’s amazing win record – 80%! Where does he tell Will this bit of info? At the judges/lawyers basketball game that for some ridiculous reason Will still goes to! The best part of this scene is Wiley’s kid just riding her tricycle around them in circles. Kids!

As for Wendy Scott Carr’s other partner in fighting crime, Dana, she is still working the Kalinda angle with no discernible purpose, as far as I can see. They go out for drinks and Dana feels compelled to tell Kalinda how Cary talks about K when Dana has sex with him. What? Even Kalinda’s like, “Dude… boundaries.” Kalinda also calls Dana out on her flirting, saying at leas she doesn’t flirt unless she plans on following through, unlike SuperTease, Dana. I don’t know what to say to that.

And as for the man of the hour, Will… he makes a new friend this week. Eli! Elli is sad and lonely because he has no clients. Diane says it is because he doesn’t know how to play well with others, so like a good mother hen, she sends him out into the office to play nice. He lands on Will’s office. Will tells Eli if he shows up for staff meetings and acts like he wants to be part of the team, they can work together. Oh, and gee, can Eli, I don’t know, make Peter stop investigating him?! Eli had no idea, and I have a feeling it will be quite the scene when he asks Peter about it – as Will said, if Will goes does, Lockhart/Gardner goes down, and so does Eli.

The Triumphant Return of Louis Canning
The case this week involved a professor, Pamela Raker (a not at all Deb-like Jennifer Carpenter) at a university being fired, she claims for rebuffing the sexual advances of the Provost. This is just an arbitration, so instead of a judge there is an arbitrator (the always hysterical John Michael Higgins), but he’s just as bizarre as all the judges on this show, so I’ll take it! Taking the lead on this one is Caitlin, and on the side… Martha. Awkward! Martha is very very bitter and giggles her way through Caitlin flubbing the start of the case to try to screw Caitlin up. Alicia is this close to jumping over the table and punching her, I think. I kind of love that even though Caitlin wasn’t her choice, she stands by her.

When Caitlin makes a turn in the case – the provost fired Pamela not for the original sexual harassment but for her political views and there is no limit to the monetary value of that kind of arbitration – Martha gets scared and calls her boss. Welcome back to the wonderful, the glorious, Louis Canning (Michael J. Fox). Every single moment between Alicia and Louis is gold. I could seriously just watch the two of them every week. Louis and Alicia talk about “their children” Caitlin and Martha, and end up fighting some of the battle themselves. But eventually, Caitlin and Alicia pull ahead proving the provost didn’t like her for her religious views and Louis offers a deal.

The two go out to dinner to discuss the details, but not before Louis tries to get Alicia to join his firm. He points out that he has kids, Diane and Will do not, so he makes it a priority that his employees get home to see their families. And his big bad corporate clients – well they do a lot of good in the world, so Alicia can’t use that excuse anymore. But before she can really say no, she gets a call from Grace. She sees she missed 12 calls and there was a voicemail from Grace that sounded like a scuffle. And so begins every parent’s worst nightmare.

The Dangers of Butt Dialing
At the start of the episode, Alicia awoke from a dream where something happened to Grace and it caused her to worry all day. She kept checking in on the kids and Grace worried that something was wrong. Alicia wrote it off as too many distractions, and Grace in her 14 year old wisdom, said to get rid of the distractions (foreshadowing!). Grace also talked about not being sure about parts of the bible (you know, killing gay people) but still finding it all important. As much as Grace drives me crazy, it was a sweet mother/daughter moment.

But when Alicia gets those mysterious calls, she understandably starts to freak. Louis, being the good guy he is, helps Alicia out, driving her around. Zach says he didn’t see her because he came to the office to do more work on Alicia’s computer. Kalinda overhears Zach on the phone and starts to help out. Meanwhile, Alicia goes to school where Grace’s friend tells her that Grace got in the car with a strange man! Eek! Alicia calls Peter and the two of them basically rain police down on the city to find missing Grace. Alicia is extra worried because there is something going down with Donny Pike – the white supremacist that Colin Sweeny talked to in prison in order to get a conviction.

But it’s not a cop that finds her, of course, it’s Kalinda, who followed Grace’s cell signal to the point where it died… near a church. Which she is inside being baptized by that youtube preacher kid. Not being murdered by a white supremacist. I’m a little disappointed in the fake-out, but I think the point wasn’t her getting hurt, and I get why this makes more sense. Kalinda takes her home where Grace just says she accidentally butt dialed her mom (!!) and Kalinda asks Grace not to tell Alicia that she was the one who found her. Awww. Will comes in, wondering why Alicia hasn’t answered her phone and sees her hugging Peter and Grace. Sad face.

Oh, and as for Louis, he used that opportunity, once Grace was home, to find an incriminating email from Pamela in Alicia’s bag. So he won the case! But as he says, “If your daughter hadn’t returned home, I wouldn’t have looked. I’m not a monster!” God, I love him. And he once again tells Alicia she will join him eventually. And I have to admit, I more than a little want that to happen.

The Right Thing To Do?
All this trauma with Grace made Alicia get angry at herself for spending all this time with Will and ignoring her kids. She even angrily throws a black negligee. What did the negligee do?? The next day at work she goes to Will and breaks it off… right after he had a talk with Kalinda about wanting to have kids with Alicia. The heartbreak!! They hug it out and Alicia leaves crying. It’s so sad.

Then Diane, who has been telling Will to break it off for the sake of the firm, comes in with a scotch and tells Will he did the right thing, assuming it was him who did the dumping. Will’s face basically tore my heart out as he agreed with Diane that Alicia would get over it. Because you know he was thinking that yes, she will, but would he?

Alright… now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to weep in a corner thinking about Josh Charles’s face in that scene. We’ll meet back here next week to discuss Cary having Kalinda put in handcuffs. And not in the fun way.

Written by Melissa Miller. Find her on Twitter @serrae

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