Episode 04 | Aired Oct 20, 2013


Elsbeth Tascioni represents Lockhart/Gardner in a sexual harassment suit, Diane and Kurt address some of the issues in their relationship, and Eli and Jackie lock horns
By Breia Brissey @ EW


The writers have been painstakingly laying the groundwork for the explosive response to Alicia leaving Lockhart/Gardner. Honestly, I was ready for it to all hit this Sunday. And was disappointed when last week's previews indicated that we'd have to wait two more weeks for it to all come to a head. But it's like the Good Wife writers know exactly how to silence my complaints: Just give me Elsbeth Tascioni, and I'm good.

"Outside the Bubble" delivered on all fronts, but as usual, Carrie Preston's Elsbeth stole the show. (We chatted earlier this week about her return. Read it here.) As Preston said, Elsbeth and the case of the week added a little levity to the show without totally ignoring the drama at hand. And it's finally happening, guys. Oct. 27. Be there. It's going to be awesome.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The case of the week featured Chrissy Quinn (Tracee Chimo, seen most recently on Orange Is the New Black), a paralegal at Lockhart/Gardner. Chrissy hired Viola Walsh (the returning Rita Wilson) to represent her in a sexual harassment lawsuit against the firm. Yikes. It certainly didn't help matters that Viola has a personal vendetta against Diane -- they've been competitive since law school.

Among Chrissy's complaints: Diane had her prostitute herself to a client; Cary showed her how he masturbated in the office; Alicia asked her how she lost her virginity; Howard Lyman tried to rape her; and Will created a hostile work environment by sleeping with underlings in his office. It was all pretty ridiculous. (Except for the Howard Lyman complaint because, well, he's Howard Lyman.) Lockhart/Gardner could settle for $2 million and insurance would cover 40 percent, but that option all but guaranteed they'd lose clients. So they decided to fight it.

And who's the best lawyer to represent the firm on such a ridiculous lawsuit? The equally ridiculous Elsbeth Tascioni, obviously. Elsbeth was full of her usual great one-liners (see memorable moments later), and her stand-out quirk for the episode was a treadmill desk, complete with a bracelet to keep her walking. Her kooky approach even won David Lee over. And it's no wonder this woman won an Emmy this year for her performance.

Elsbeth quickly countered the accusations against Cary and Alicia -- both were misunderstandings and clearly not out of line. But that still left Howard Lyman. Chrissy accused him of taking off his pants and exposing himself to her. When Elsbeth and Kalinda went to discuss this with Lyman, they were met with...quite the surprise. Howard was taking a nap on his office couch, sans pants and underwear. Apparently, he always takes it off for lunch. His bottom half gets all sweaty! Ewwwww.com.

But it wasn't Howard who requested Chrissy's presence in his office. It was actually Cary and Carey, posing as Howard. They knew about his lunchtime behavior, and sent multiple emails out to women and men on staff hoping to share the wealth (of grossness). Okay, guys. There's a time and place for office humor. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is probably not the time. Such a dumb prank.

Fortunately with the help of Kalinda, Elsbeth was able to neutralize the Howard Lyman issue. Kalinda found that Chrissy had unofficially accused her previous boss of sexual harassment. Elsbeth still had to address the complaints against Diane and Will, but before she could do that, she had to bring up another Howard Lyman issue. He'd taped one of his no-pants moments where he hit on another paralegal. They decided to bury the video. Oh, Howard. You dirty old man.

Next up was dispelling the accusations against Diane and Will. It was almost too easy. Diane had encouraged Chrissy to take the words of a client as a compliment. Chrissy saw that as prostitution. Diane saw it as the accepting of compliments from a gay fashion designer. And Will and his ex Tammy signed an affidavit admitting they had had sex in his office. But she wasn't an employee of Lockhart/Gardner, and therefore not an underling.

Alicia pulled Will aside after that and reminded him that Tammy was not, in fact, his only office sexual encounter. But after some flirty banter, they realized they both got off (no pun intended) on a technicality. They hooked up in his bathroom! And that's not technically his office. Glad we got that cleared up. This moment was almost too hard to watch. Because come next week, Will is pretty much going to hate Alicia. And it's not going to be pretty.

Chrissy's suit was quickly losing ground, but someone from the firm leaked the Howard Lyman video to Viola's team. Kalinda gave Cary a heads up that it was one of the "rebel" fourth years. She gave him a 30-minute head start to deal with Tony. But that didn't go too well. Tony threatened to rat out the other fourth years when they fired him. He would lose his bonus if he lost his job, so he wanted to share the bonuses with the rest of the fourth years. Ugh, Tony!!

In the end, that video leak didn't matter. The real nail in Chrissy's lawsuit coffin was a testimony from Kalinda. Chrissy accused pretty much everyone of some sort of misconduct -- except Kalinda. And the reason? Chrissy and Kalinda had an ongoing flirtation (and, ahem, likely more) going on at the office. Sorry, Chrissy. Game over.

Diane's return to the firm for the suit wasn't as uncomfortable as I suspected it might be. But she did have an odd encounter with Will. She told him they still hadn't negotiated her exit package. His response? They had negotiated, she just hadn't accepted. Diane told him she would accept the current offer if he'd let her finish out her gun control case and her Sonya Rucker contract, and indemnify her from Chrissy's harassment case. (She didn't want the negativity to affect her judgeship.) Will reluctantly agreed.

Meanwhile, the fourth years approached Alicia in the office. They were having trouble downloading case files because of the firm's firewall. They needed her to use her partner access to get them the files they needed. Alicia was hesitant, but apparently she agreed to do their dirty work. As Diane was trying to download Sonya Rucker's case file, she realized Alicia was already using it. Alicia apologized to Diane, saying it was just a mistake. But the red flag had already been raised.

Diane's suspicions continued throughout the episode, and culminated in her meeting with Sonya Rucker. Diane baited Sonya into telling her about leaving Lockhart/Gardner. "A firm with the governor's wife on the letterhead is hard to pass up." The episode concluded with Diane going into Will's office to share the not-so-good news: "Alicia's leaving the firm with Cary, and she's taking our top clients." Oh, snap!!

Diane was called back to the firm to deal with the ongoing case, but prior to that she was airing out her aggressions on the gun range with Kurt. Later in the episode, the couple was interrupted at lunch by two of Diane's old law school pals Francesca (Helen Carey) and Lyle (Robert Klein). It became abundantly obvious that Diane's friends did not approve of Kurt or his last name. It was awkward.

Fran and Lyle later visited Diane at her home to discuss their concerns about Kurt. (How could she possibly be with a Palin supporter?!) They tried to convince her of her lapse of judgement, and Fran threw back some advice Diane had originally given her: Make sure your love can survive outside the bubble. (Hence, the episode's title.) Diane, although appreciative of their concern, told them to leave her love life alone. But that visit planted a seed of doubt in Diane's mind that she couldn't immediately shake. So she asked to meet Kurt's friends.

But Kurt's friends are all hot women in their 20s. Diane was none too pleased, and this set off an argument between the two about whether or not they should even get married. Thanks a lot, Fran and Lyle! But despite the fight, Diane went to city hall later in the episode and married her right-winged, gun-loving fiancé anyway. Adorable. I love Diane and Kurt together, ideological differences and all.

Over in Eli Gold world, he was dealing with his nemesis. No, not Becca. The elder Mrs. Florrick. Peter's mom was back and stirring up trouble. Without consulting Eli, she'd asked for the inaugural ball to be moved to the governor's mansion, and the unions threatened to strike. So Eli put his foot down, and told her not to challenge his authority. But he should know by now that things are never that simple when it comes to Jackie Florrick.

With Jackie seemingly in her place, Eli was still surprised when Ronnie (Dan Lauria) wouldn't call of the union strike. They had issues with Peter's support of the Governor of Wisconsin. It came to Eli's attention that Ronnie and Jackie were friendly. So Eli had to go back to Jackie with his tail between his legs, and apologize for his behavior. This scene was pure perfection because Eli had to approach Jackie in her elderly exercise class. Anyway, Eli needed Jackie's help with Ronnie, so she leveraged to get what she wanted: Control of the inauguration and decorating Peter's offices. Jackie: 1; Eli: 0.

Memorable lines from "Outside the Bubble":
++ "I keep asking questions until they make sense." —Elsbeth

++ "Whenever you want something changed around here—no matter how small, no matter how insignificant—you have to ask.... You have to ask me. Not Peter. Not Alicia. Not the little fairies that sit on your shoulder. Just me." —Eli, to Jackie

++ "Where do you get your hair done?... I wish my hair would behave. It just flops." —Elsbeth, interrupting herself while talking to Kalinda


all credit goes to EW.com