Episode 20 | Aired Apr 14, 2013

The hacker group Anonymous takes an interest in the case of the week, Alicia calls out Cary on possibly leaving the firm, and Diane continues to be vetted for the Illinois Supreme Court seat
By Breia Brissey @ EW



The end is nigh! There are only two more new episodes left of season 4, so let's dive right in and talk about "Rape: A Modern Perspective." The case of the week featured a young woman, Rainey (Makenzie Leigh), who was suing her alleged rapist, Todd Bratcher, in civil court. Bratcher (Jason Hite) took a plea bargain during his criminal trial, and as such, got off scot-free. With Princeton -- and not prison -- in Todd's future, Rainey wanted to make sure there were some consequences for his actions.

But the case, led by Will and Alicia, hit a wall before it even began: Rainey tweeted "I don't care if they put me in jail. Todd Bratcher raped me." Unfortunately, Judge Parks (David Fonteno) had placed a gag order on the trial in an effort to keep it out of the press, and Rainey's tweet was a violation of that gag order. Will advised her to invoke her Fifth Amendment right, but Rainey refused. So Judge Parks had no choice but to hold her in contempt of court and send her to jail.

Parks agreed to release her if she apologized and promised to not tweet again about the case, but Rainey stood firm in her conviction. She knew if she lost the case, it would be on record that she was sorry for calling Todd a rapist. And she refused to apologize for the truth, even if that meant staying in jail.

Meanwhile, Alicia had a meeting with tech entrepreneur Dylan Stack (returning guest star Jason Biggs). He wanted Lockhart/Gardner to take on a class action suit against prosecutorial overcharging. After a chat about idealism versus reality, Stack threw down large, well, stacks of money on the table -- enough money to get Alicia to take his case back to the partners with her recommendation.

This meeting with Stack became even more significant when Zach received a text message from an anonymous source with a video attachment. The video featured Todd Bratcher and his friends playing around with a blow up doll, and joking about raping Rainey. Zach showed the video to Alicia, and she and Will tried to get it admitted into evidence on the case. Jesse Martin, one of Todd's friends, authenticated the video. But since it was clearly hacked from Todd's cell phone, Judge Parks wouldn't let them show it to the jury.

Later in court, Alicia saw Stack sitting in on the trial. She put two and two together and figured he had something to do with the mysterious text message Zach received. But he claimed to have no involvement. Even though Stack's -- or someone's -- methods were unconventional, Alicia couldn't deny the usefulness of the video. Will was able to get Todd to bring up his deposition in court, and through a loophole, they were able to get a small portion of the video shown as a means to impeach him as a witness.

Then it was Grace's turn to receive an anonymous text, this one containing an image of a passed-out Rainey with Todd giving a thumbs up next to her. The picture was saved as "Idealism.jpg," and Alicia went straight to Dylan Stack to confront him again about involving her children in the case. Again, he denied that he had anything to do with it, but this time admitted that he had some friends who were likely involved. Stack said he'd shared the case with them as an object example of what they'd be up against, and they wanted to help.

Just like the video, Alicia and Will knew they couldn't use the incriminating picture as evidence because it had been obtained illegally. But since they knew it existed, they asked Judge Parks to subpoena Todd's server records to get the picture that he'd deleted. Judge Parks granted the subpoena, but the win was short-lived. The same photo ended up online, courtesy of Stack's friends.

Todd's lawyer brought in Dr. Brinks (Stephen Plunkett) to testify that Rainey's injuries weren't indicative of rape, but rather her gymnastics career. In the midst of his testimony, Stack brought Alicia some scholarly papers written by Brinks in which he claimed women could not get pregnant while being raped. And that pretty much discredited his testimony. And then some masked protestors were escorted out of the courtroom for voicing their support for Rainey.

It became evident that Stack's friends were really the hacker group Anonymous -- hence all the secrecy. And when their first efforts to get new evidence admitted into the case were thwarted, they turned things up a notch with a viral video. The video illustrated the flaws with the case, and called out Judge Parks for enabling a rapist. Then, it listed the addresses for Todd and his friend Jesse Martin. And even though Will and Alicia had nothing to do with Anonymous, or their video, they took the fall for it. Judge Parks immediately declared a mistrial. Even though it wasn't technically Stack's doing, he paid the price for being involved. Alicia told him that the firm would no longer take part in his class action. (More on this later, because Diane also played a role in dropping his business.)

A mistrial would mean Rainey could spend months in jail for her contempt charge while waiting for a new trial date. So Kalinda approached the detective (Brian D'Arcy James) who worked the original case in an effort to get more information about Todd's confession. Detective Nolan told Kalinda that upon questioning, Todd admitted to everything. But Todd's lawyers got his full confession thrown out because of a technicality. Kalinda convinced Detective Nolan to let her have a copy of the testimony. And true to the brand, Kalinda anonymously uploaded that confession video to the Internet.

Judge Parks was still the presiding judge until a new one was named on the case, so Will and Alicia were able to use the new video to prove that Rainey was speaking the truth in her tweet. They wouldn't necessarily be able to use the confession video as evidence in a new case, but it was enough to get Rainey out of jail in the interim. (I wonder if we'll see a conclusion to this case next season?)

In other firm developments, Alicia saw Cary meeting with the fourth-years while she was out with Dylan Stack. Alicia questioned him about his plans to leave the firm, and he told her he and the other fourth-years weren't plotting anything. Cary made it clear that he was upset about losing the partnership, but that he trusted the partners to make good on their commitments.

Additionally, it came to light that Cary and all the fourth-years were taking their vacation days at the same time. David Lee & Co. were worried that they would jump ship, and David Lee suggested they fire Cary to cause some dissension. But Alicia quickly quelled their fears by saying that she was the original ringleader of the group attempting to leave after they reneged on the original partnership offers. But just to cover her bases, she asked New Kalinda to do a little digging.

New Kalinda discovered that Cary had purchased $12 million worth of malpractice insurance, with an $800,000 deductible. Alicia confronted him with that knowledge, and Cary finally admitted to his plans to leave the firm within a month's time. He knew coming clean to Alicia could get him fired, but he again offered her top billing -- Florrick, Agos & Associates -- and asked her to join him in his new venture: "You and I are the new Will and Diane. Alicia do me a favor and think about [leaving with us]."

Cary called out Kalinda on talking about his plans to leave, but she was clearly shocked by the accusation. She'd promised not to say anything, and she'd kept that promise. But since Cary hadn't told anyone else, he assumed she'd spilled the beans to Alicia. And if Kalinda wasn't already suspicious enough of New Kalinda, this pretty much solidified her fears. New Kalinda was up for a review, and Kalinda later caught her in a lie about shooting her brother. Despite her suspicions, when it was all said and done, Kalinda recommended that the firm keep New Kalinda on.

Meanwhile, Diane was still dealing with the vetting process of potentially become a Supreme Court justice. In addition to Kalinda's work, Peter sent Jim Moody (Skipp Sudduth) to look into Diane's affairs. The main point of contention, unsurprisingly, was Diane's relationship with Kurt McVeigh. (Props to The Good Wife writers for finally addressing the connotations of his last name. I was born and raised in Oklahoma, and the name "McVeigh" will forever in my mind be associated with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings.) Moody pointed out that something superficial, like a name, could make or break a candidacy. But I also loved Diane's comeback: "For example, having a middle name Hussein?"

Anyway, Diane spilled the beans that she and Kurt were more than just "casual friends" and told Kalinda and Moody of her plans to tie the knot with the (gasp!) Republican. Moody asked Diane to meet with Chief Justice Ryvlan to quell any fears about her appointment. Additionally, he asked that Diane and the firm no longer represent Dylan Stack. Diane went to Will and asked they drop Stack as a client. She claimed it was in the firm's best interest, but she was pretty transparent. She clearly was focused on her justice appointment.

Diane made good on her promise to visit Chief Justice Ryvlan (Jeffrey Demunn) to comfort him about Kurt McVeigh. But Ryvlan shocked her, saying his real concerns were about her other "partner," meaning Will. Yup, his biggest concern was her relationship with Will Gardner. Ryvlan gave this big speech about Diane reaching the top of the mountain in her law career with the justice position, and that he didn't want anything to stand in the way. He made it perfectly clear that that "anything" could be Will. Talk about complicated.

Then, of course, the other partners found out about Diane's potential career move, and they weren't too happy about it either. But if Peter loses the election -- and based on next week's previews, I suppose that's a possibility -- perhaps all this is moot. (And if Peter loses to Chandler Bing, it's just moo.)

All credit goes to EW.com