Episode 05 | Aired Oct 28, 2012

Lemond Bishop returns, the news of Peter's alleged affair finally breaks, and Nick creates more trouble for Kalinda
By Breia Brissey at EW



You gotta love situational ethics. In any other circumstances I'd probably be cheering for the FBI while they arrest a drug kingpin. Instead, I found myself tearing up as Lemond Bishop was whisked away by Federal agents. I don't want him to leave Dylan! Even with that guardianship arrangement in order.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Lockhart/Gardner's most lucrative—and dangerous—client Lemond Bishop returned seeking help after he learned his accountant had been arrested. As you'll recall, Bishop is a powerful drug dealer who uses the firm's services to represent his many legitimate businesses. Also on hand was Lesli (guest star Annabella Sciorra), the lawyer from the firm representing his drug business. Lesli advised Bishop not to overreact to the situation at hand, lest they set something in motion. But Bishop was worried that if he didn't do anything, he'd end up in prison. Unfortunately, his fate was sealed regardless of his lawyers' work.

Going off what little they knew—that Bishop's accountant had been arrested at his home—Diane, Alicia, and Lesli tried to preemptively figure out what was sparking the Fed's interest. The assumption was that it had something to do with his drug dealing. Lockhart/Gardner has always worked with Lemond's legitimate businesses, but the prospect of getting in on the drug side seemed particularly appealing thanks in part to their current financial situation. (Lemond's legitimate businesses bring in $5 million for the firm, while the drug side pulls in $20 million for Lesli's.) Even Clarke Hayden thought it was a good idea because "money respects money."

But then they discovered that Bishop's drug business was not the target of the investigation. Alicia & Co. began combing though his 20 legitimate businesses to determine which one was causing an issue. Bishop admitted that he often delegated tasks to many associates, making it even harder to pinpoint where any illegal activity might be taking place.

One of the great things about this storyline was how they involved Mr. Hayden and Cary. Hooray for Cary having more than two lines, and for his budding bromance with Hayden. It was fun to watch. Anyway, it was at Hayden's advice that they started to "check the footnotes" for accounting errors. The footnotes led them to one of Bishop's bakeries. Hayden called out the manager of the bakery with a super nerdy, but totally awesome speech about a 12 percent surplus on the books. And that discovery led the crew to a gym owned by Bishop where Hayden proved that you can't hide from the numbers.

Essentially, one of Bishop's associates, Dexter, had been laundering money through the legit businesses to accommodate the drug side. He'd started selling HGH, a steroid. And it had finally caught up with him. At least that's what we were led to believe. Shortly after this discovery, the FBI came to Bishop's house with a search warrant. Enter Lana Delaney, and a highly entertaining exchange between her and Kalinda: "You still working for drug dealers and pimps?" Lana asked. To which Kalinda deadpanned: "Yeah, and child pornographers." Those two.

During the search of the house, Kalinda noted an important detail: there were only federal agents, and no one from the DEA. If the search was truly about the HGH, the DEA would be there. But the search warrant was sealed, making it impossible to know what the FBI was targeting. Now for a brilliant idea from Cary: The court would have to unseal the warrant if someone was arrested in connection with the warrant. I was kind of bummed we didn't see the actual arrest, but having Diane, Alicia, and Lesli all turn to Cary and silently tell him he'd be the one obstructing just that day pretty much made up for that.

With the warrant unsealed, they learned about a confidential informant who'd been missing for 72 hours. It was that person's testimony that was fueling the search. With Dexter's help, they were able to determine that the CI was Christina Diaz, a woman who worked at the front desk of the gym, knew about the HGH, and was Dexter's sometimes lady friend. But the search for Christina was a dead-end. Literally. Kalinda found her in the trunk of a car.

That put them in the awkward situation of having to decide whether or not they should report what they found. But Bishop decided to play it safe, and they gave an anonymous tip about Christina's death. Since the Feds could link Bishop to the murder, he was just waiting for the knock to take him away. This episode is titled "Waiting for the Knock," in case you were wondering. And by the end of the episode, that foreboding knock had come.

Lemond was clearly going to leave without putting up a fight. So why did the FBI have to make a big scene in front of his son? To pull on my heartstrings. That's why. They'd already set up all this emotional turmoil with Bishop and Dylan. Bishop really didn't want to let his son down. But I guess that's the life of a drug dealer. Or at least the ones on TV.

Meanwhile, Peter's campaign picked up where we left it last week: Jackie was having hallucinations, and Eli was furious with Jimmy V., the blogger who threatened to expose Peter's alleged affair. (Sidenote: How awesome was it when Eli wrote down Jimmy's phone number on the back of a campaign worker's shirt?) Eli asked Diane to strike the fear in Jimmy V. by threatening him with a cease and desist order. But since Diane was preoccupied with Mr. Bishop, Eli had to settle for Will's help. (When Peter later found out Will helped Eli out, he was super pissed. Peter made it pretty clear he'd rather be publicly accused of an affair than ever receive any help from Will again.)

Will threatened Jimmy with a cease and desist letter and a $3 million defamation law suit should he go ahead with the story. But the warnings fell on deaf ears. Will told Eli that Jimmy would be publishing the story no matter what. Like a hawk, Elie watched PoorAnarchy.com waiting for the blog to go live with the news of the affair. When the story finally broke, Eli was ready to spin it in their favor, but Peter insisted that Eli shouldn't even dignify the story with a response. To make matters worse, a Photoshopped version of Indira Starr helped the piece go viral. On the bright side, Peter did shockingly well at the straw poll, gathering more than 90 percent of the votes.

But Peter's triumph at the polls wasn't enough to keep Maddie Hayward on board. Maddie even called Indira Starr, herself, to get the story straight from her. Based on what we know about Starr, I thought her encounter with Hayward would finally put this all to rest. But their conversation—which we didn't get to see—had quite the opposite effect. Maddie officially withdrew all support for Peter. At the end of the episode, Maddie called Alicia to let her know she was no longer supporting Peter's campaign, but that she hoped they could remain friends. Awkward.

Let's shift to the relationship everyone loves to hate...or in this case just hates. Too bad that Nick/Kalinda relationship hiatus lasted just one episode. Nick found himself back in the Lockhart/Gardner offices wanting to talk to Kalinda—the investigator, not Kalinda his wife—about the bid for his tow truck company. But the conversation they had wasn't really about Nick's truck company: "You think I should move my business to Chicago and incorporate with him." "You came to us to vet your options and we did.... Beyond that, you can do what you want." This led to another dispute between the married couple regarding Kalinda and Lana. Nick complained about Kalinda's girlfriend on the side, and they glared at each other a lot. Eventually Cary noticed the two fighting and came out to check on Kalinda. But she still didn't tell him what her real connection to Nick was.

Since he has some obvious anger management issues, it was no surprise to learn Nick ransacked Lana's apartment. Lana assumed it was one of Bishop's cronies because she'd been going after him. Kalinda confronted Nick about it, and even called in a false break in at her own apartment to get Nick in trouble. But she backed off when he showed her he'd found where she'd hidden part of his money. He gave another one of his "I love you, Kalinda" speeches, and then warned her that Lana didn't have Kalinda's best interest at heart because she had pictures of Kalinda with Eli in her apartment. I'm not really sure she should listen to the guy who definitely isn't looking out for her best interests. BUt something he said must have struck a chord because later when Lana asked Kalinda to not let the case get in the way "of us," Kalinda harshly said there never was any us.

So much happened in "Waiting for the Knock." What did you think of the episode? Did you enjoy the added screen time for Cary? Did you like Clarke Hayden's bigger role at the firm? Do you think Lana is hiding something, or was that just Nick being an asshole? What about Lemond Bishop's case. I'm sure we haven't seen the end of that. And most important, what is the deal with Maddie Hayward? Is she hiding something? And what about her conversation with Indira Starr could have possibly been so damning to completely withdraw her support from Peter.


All credit goes to EW.com