‘The Good Wife’ recap: This Monday is not so good to Lucca

So it’s official, “Good Wife”-ers, we are now in our last season of “The Good Wife.” I’m flooded with emotions, but there’s too much to cover about this week’s episode to posit about the series just yet.

Despite Alicia’s hearty laugh at the end of the last episode when Cary asked her to return to Lockhart, Agos & Lee, Alicia and Lucca felt they had no choice but to join the firm. Now that they’re back, they’re having trouble dealing with the lack of independence and the bureaucracy that comes with working at a big company—not to mention the (not so) subtle racism that’s happening.

Alicia and Lucca immediately stumble into a complicated case when IT director Howell (Jason Babinsky) asks them for advice. While at a big tech conference, he found a brand new, not on the market yet, tablet from our favorite search engine, ChumHum. CEO Neil Gross is apparently expanding ChumHum into the gadgets business, but it appears his chief tech guy was a bit careless with this particular device, perhaps showing it off to impress women and then losing track of it. (I believed Alicia’s cross-examination, even if the ant-obsessed judge on the case didn’t.) Since finding the tablet, Howell has received offers to review it for publications, and to sell it for $100,000. That’s quite a pretty penny! He wants to make sure he’s within his rights to sell it, and if Alicia and Lucca will represent him.

Lucca immediately agrees, and sets out to prove that he’s within his rights, but Alicia, and especially Cary and Diane, are hesitant. But when uniformed men from an agency called TAPS, the Technology Allied Protection Service—who appear to be under Gross’ thumb—arrest Howell for stealing the device, the firm leaps to action to protect their employee.

Turns out, though, that Cary and Diane have plans for Lucca that do not involve the Howell case. They keep telling Lucca she needs to meet Monica because they’re sure to like each other, and they assign her to assist Monica on the latest Dipple case. Yet it seems so painfully obvious that they’re making a gigantic assumption based on race. How can they not see how transparent this is? Who knows if Lucca and Monica do, or will, actually like each other—though their joke about spirituals is pretty funny.

Lucca doesn’t want to play, and has too much invested in the Howell case, perhaps even getting too involved. She leaves Monica alone, instead choosing to help Howell. When her witness, the disdainful Anthony Dudewitz (Joey Slotnick) strikes a fatal blow to Gross’s case and TAPS retaliates with a search warrant, we learn that Lucca has possession of the tablet. She really should not have such a seemingly strong hand in this situation.

Alicia also suspects Lucca of coordinating with the potential buyers, since they upped their bid to $250 grand. But the team realizes that it’s likely Howell’s 419,000 Twitter followers helped jack up the price, because they’re all clamoring to hear his review of the gadget. This helps Alicia and Lucca find their winning strategy: Howell is considered a citizen journalist, so he’s able to do with the device as he wishes.

But Lucca’s reluctance to toe the company line lands Alicia in Diane’s office for a talk. Is Alicia supposed to be Lucca’s supervisor? Why wouldn’t Diane talk directly to Lucca about her behavior? Alicia defends Lucca by telling Diane that she’s capable of much more than grunt work, but Diane seems skeptical (there’s that not-so-subtle racism peeking through again).

Meanwhile, the charmingly sarcastic Sarah Steele is back as Marissa (I cannot get enough of her), as she’s slaving away at a disgusting-sounding hipster juice bar. When a cute young guy—who we’ve seen before—asks her out for lunch, she says yes. They chat about her time in Israel, but when the conversation turns to her dad and her work for the governor’s wife, Marissa suspects that he’s up to something and records the conversation. She is a smart cookie—part of why she’s so awesome.

He is indeed up to something, because he is Roland Hlavin (John Magaro), the slimy undercover FBI agent who tried to sting Judge Schakowsky. When Ruth Eastman comes back and confronts Eli because of a subpoena she received, Eli realizes that this time, Hlavin’s going after Peter. For what, exactly, we’re not sure. Eli’s worked with Peter for so many years now that it could be anything. But it’s clear they’re trying to unseat the governor, in scandal. Poor guy. Can’t they ever leave him alone?

Ruth surprisingly pays a visit to Alicia to warn her, and basically tells her to cut her losses. What exactly does that mean? Is she advising Alicia to divorce Peter? It’s not such a bad idea, really, and I suspect many wonder why she hasn’t done it before. I’ve certainly wondered that. Does she really stand to gain anything from her relationship with Peter at this point, other than getting dragged through the mud yet again? Perhaps it is time—especially now that the series is officially coming to an end.

Speaking of relationships, not much happens on the romance front, other than Alicia and Jason acknowledging that they kissed, and they face no work conflicts because he’s freelance. So that paves the way for big progress next week. If I don’t acknowledge it then (I might have to miss next week’s recap), I will definitely do so with the following recap.

So what do you think, “Good Wife”-ers? Should Alicia finally divorce Peter? What do you think the FBI will pin on him? Do you have any theories for the end of the series? Are you sad that our favorite law procedural is ending?

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