The Good Wife: Driven
November 15, 2015 9:46 PM - Season 7, Episode 7 - Subscribe
Our main lawyers are all in on a case involving an accident in a self-driving car, which leads to either OMG THE SINGULARITY fears, or OMG HACKERS fears. Also, meet Courtney Paige, a possible new donor to Peter's campaign. Between her and Vice magazine noticing that Peter and Alicia haven't shacked up in three years, Alicia suddenly has a new roommate again, and Grace has a new birthday. Oh yeah, and Jackie and Howard are engaged! In other news, the election board is fighting over whether or not to renew their old contract or get new voting machines.
All Fear The Driverless Car: Louis Canning is representing Wendy, a lady who ended up paralyzed for getting in an accident with Tim, who was in a self-driving car that he says apparently took itself over for a bit during the drive. Diane and Cary are on the side of the car company exec, Mr. Ephraham, Louis gets Tim to go to Alicia and Lucca. It's a motherfucking three-way!!!!!
There's lots of arguing about technology vs. human nature--"Technology can overcome most obstacles, but it can't overcome human nature," says Mr. Ephraham. Notable things about the driving experience that night: it was raining hard, Wendy just sent a text, Louis bitches Alicia out for blaming the victim and is all, you used to be a nice person, you know!
Notable things about self-driving cars: they followed the law so well that they let everyone drive ahead of them at a four-way stop, so they had to implement a "fuzzy driving" feature, in which a car becomes more aggressive and more human and less safe. Oh yeah, and SOMEONE erased the hard drive of the car (the T-port) after the accident.
Enter Anthony Dudewitz, the car's original developer, who hates the other guy and is bitter and angry as hell. This shall be fun! Jason has viewed Dudewitz's TED talk and suggests some questions for Alicia to ask him, which boil down to: he fears the Singularity and he created something so complex he's not totally clear what it can and can't do. Ruh-roh, now we can all get creeped out by A.I.
Alicia, Lucca, Tim, Jason, and Dudewitz all go driving in the self-driving car and discuss Tim's observation that after he turned off the defroster, the car rolled down the windows and did a few other things. Could there be another human involved? Not in the car, a hacker! The hack came from inside the company!
The Boring Married Couple: So Vice magazine has just figured out that Alicia and Peter haven't shacked up in three years. Eli attempts to warn Alicia that Peter's moving back home, but she's in a deposition and doesn't answer the phone. Thus, she is unpleasantly surprised when she and Jason are alone (she asked him to sign paperwork releasing them of liability if he punches anyone, and then offered him pizza she doesn't have, followed by offering him mini-tacos--hey, they haven't expired yet!) by Peter and his hordes of staffers.
Then Courtney Paige, a potential wealthy donor, enters the offices, and Eli both listens in at the wall and tries to get Nora to figure out if it's Courtney or not--check her hand for a scar does not go so well. Nora is eventually all, I graduated summa cum laude and studied at the Sorbonne, "I'm done playing I Love Lucy for you." Anyway, yes, it's Courtney, she's interested but sick of sex scandals--and Eli invites her to Grace's birthday party. When's Grace's birthday, incidentally? March. Alicia's response to this: "I have no words. You can keep talking, but I have no words for this."
Alicia and Peter at home: she breaks out tequila for two. Samples from the conversation:
"Tequila? You've graduated." -P
"There's nothing greater than a good cross." -A
"You wanna get laid?" (Yes, Alicia started it.)
"Do you?" -P
"Sure. I've got 20 minutes." -A
"Me too." -P
"Next stop, Lincoln Bedroom." -P
"You think it's different there?" -A
"Everybody gets laid there." -P
Peter puts on loud music and then the phone rings.
"That's another million dollars." P
"Which do you want more?" -A
"Peter, I basically seduced you. You don't have to call me in the morning." -A
"It's always sexier not to care." -A
"Why is that?" -P
"Because sex is sexier without love." -A
Eli of course walks in as they're getting dressed and Alicia has great just-fucked wig hair. How are you doing, Eli? I'm not sure. You catching a cold? Nooooo... "You're being smart, aren't you?" Eli says to her. "Always," she says, as she struts out the door.
SO THERE YOU GO.
Happy Birthday, Grace! When's your actual birthday? "The fourteenth...." Courtney and Grace hit it off, talking about the king of Saudi Arabia. AND THEN JACKIE SHOWS UP WITH HOWARD. "Oh dear god, what are you doing here, Jackie?" Eli SNAPS. As she barges in, Peter is all, "You call that standing guard?" and Eli is all, "A man has got to know his limitations and your mother is mine!"
Jackie and Howard just love talking to an African-American woman. "I like Peter's African-American friends!" Jackie says, and later calls her "an inspiration to all urban children." Howard shares the charming story of telling MLK, Jr. at Selma to speed things up so he could get to his car. Then they announce their engagement! Peter is horrified and baffled and Alicia is laughing her head off and is dying to know how it went down.
Alicia offers Eli a drink, but Eli wishes for a gun. She is all, "Give up, Eli. Bad things happen or they don't. But there's just too much craziness in the world." Like you and Peter? Well, the old Alicia would have been provoked by that, but the new Alicia just doesn't care. Eli apologizes to Courtney for the situation and she says she likes reality and that Eli shouldn't worry so much. Anyway, she found P&A boring, like a real married couple, so she'll back him.
The Election Board Wars: Remember that whole "blindly vote for whatever I say, Alicia" thing? The vote is on whether or not to renew their current voting machine contract with KLT (which has ties to Frank Landau's wife) or replace them with Swan Systems (which one board member, Chuck, is part owner of). Even though Alicia knows jack shit about this, the all-male board demand she be the tie-breaker with no knowledge. Alicia gets yelled at by both dudes, one offering bribery (Chuck offers: wanna be head of the board? No!) and the other offering threats. Alicia still hasn't voted by the end of the episode, to which I say FEH.
Though to be fair, other than the election board plot, I enjoyed the hell out of this.
This is gonna have an awesome Quote Corner!
* Lucca asks Alicia if she misses big law--no, not really, and the money never somehow materialized. "I'm a much calmer person now," she says. Lucca basically chokes and says, "Oh god, that's a terrifying thought!"
"I think we're treating Alicia like an enemy when we should be treating her like a free agent." -Diane (Duh.)
"I'm an insomniac. You'd be surprised what I get into late at night." --Jason, leering and smirking.
"So you're saying the robots are coming to get us?"--Alicia to Dudewitz.
"The sheep are too busy watching TV." --Dudewitz, taking pot shots at us all.
"Humans. Always there to disappoint." -Dudewitz.
All Fear The Driverless Car: Louis Canning is representing Wendy, a lady who ended up paralyzed for getting in an accident with Tim, who was in a self-driving car that he says apparently took itself over for a bit during the drive. Diane and Cary are on the side of the car company exec, Mr. Ephraham, Louis gets Tim to go to Alicia and Lucca. It's a motherfucking three-way!!!!!
There's lots of arguing about technology vs. human nature--"Technology can overcome most obstacles, but it can't overcome human nature," says Mr. Ephraham. Notable things about the driving experience that night: it was raining hard, Wendy just sent a text, Louis bitches Alicia out for blaming the victim and is all, you used to be a nice person, you know!
Notable things about self-driving cars: they followed the law so well that they let everyone drive ahead of them at a four-way stop, so they had to implement a "fuzzy driving" feature, in which a car becomes more aggressive and more human and less safe. Oh yeah, and SOMEONE erased the hard drive of the car (the T-port) after the accident.
Enter Anthony Dudewitz, the car's original developer, who hates the other guy and is bitter and angry as hell. This shall be fun! Jason has viewed Dudewitz's TED talk and suggests some questions for Alicia to ask him, which boil down to: he fears the Singularity and he created something so complex he's not totally clear what it can and can't do. Ruh-roh, now we can all get creeped out by A.I.
Alicia, Lucca, Tim, Jason, and Dudewitz all go driving in the self-driving car and discuss Tim's observation that after he turned off the defroster, the car rolled down the windows and did a few other things. Could there be another human involved? Not in the car, a hacker! The hack came from inside the company!
The Boring Married Couple: So Vice magazine has just figured out that Alicia and Peter haven't shacked up in three years. Eli attempts to warn Alicia that Peter's moving back home, but she's in a deposition and doesn't answer the phone. Thus, she is unpleasantly surprised when she and Jason are alone (she asked him to sign paperwork releasing them of liability if he punches anyone, and then offered him pizza she doesn't have, followed by offering him mini-tacos--hey, they haven't expired yet!) by Peter and his hordes of staffers.
Then Courtney Paige, a potential wealthy donor, enters the offices, and Eli both listens in at the wall and tries to get Nora to figure out if it's Courtney or not--check her hand for a scar does not go so well. Nora is eventually all, I graduated summa cum laude and studied at the Sorbonne, "I'm done playing I Love Lucy for you." Anyway, yes, it's Courtney, she's interested but sick of sex scandals--and Eli invites her to Grace's birthday party. When's Grace's birthday, incidentally? March. Alicia's response to this: "I have no words. You can keep talking, but I have no words for this."
Alicia and Peter at home: she breaks out tequila for two. Samples from the conversation:
"Tequila? You've graduated." -P
"There's nothing greater than a good cross." -A
"You wanna get laid?" (Yes, Alicia started it.)
"Do you?" -P
"Sure. I've got 20 minutes." -A
"Me too." -P
"Next stop, Lincoln Bedroom." -P
"You think it's different there?" -A
"Everybody gets laid there." -P
Peter puts on loud music and then the phone rings.
"That's another million dollars." P
"Which do you want more?" -A
"Peter, I basically seduced you. You don't have to call me in the morning." -A
"It's always sexier not to care." -A
"Why is that?" -P
"Because sex is sexier without love." -A
Eli of course walks in as they're getting dressed and Alicia has great just-fucked wig hair. How are you doing, Eli? I'm not sure. You catching a cold? Nooooo... "You're being smart, aren't you?" Eli says to her. "Always," she says, as she struts out the door.
SO THERE YOU GO.
Happy Birthday, Grace! When's your actual birthday? "The fourteenth...." Courtney and Grace hit it off, talking about the king of Saudi Arabia. AND THEN JACKIE SHOWS UP WITH HOWARD. "Oh dear god, what are you doing here, Jackie?" Eli SNAPS. As she barges in, Peter is all, "You call that standing guard?" and Eli is all, "A man has got to know his limitations and your mother is mine!"
Jackie and Howard just love talking to an African-American woman. "I like Peter's African-American friends!" Jackie says, and later calls her "an inspiration to all urban children." Howard shares the charming story of telling MLK, Jr. at Selma to speed things up so he could get to his car. Then they announce their engagement! Peter is horrified and baffled and Alicia is laughing her head off and is dying to know how it went down.
Alicia offers Eli a drink, but Eli wishes for a gun. She is all, "Give up, Eli. Bad things happen or they don't. But there's just too much craziness in the world." Like you and Peter? Well, the old Alicia would have been provoked by that, but the new Alicia just doesn't care. Eli apologizes to Courtney for the situation and she says she likes reality and that Eli shouldn't worry so much. Anyway, she found P&A boring, like a real married couple, so she'll back him.
The Election Board Wars: Remember that whole "blindly vote for whatever I say, Alicia" thing? The vote is on whether or not to renew their current voting machine contract with KLT (which has ties to Frank Landau's wife) or replace them with Swan Systems (which one board member, Chuck, is part owner of). Even though Alicia knows jack shit about this, the all-male board demand she be the tie-breaker with no knowledge. Alicia gets yelled at by both dudes, one offering bribery (Chuck offers: wanna be head of the board? No!) and the other offering threats. Alicia still hasn't voted by the end of the episode, to which I say FEH.
Though to be fair, other than the election board plot, I enjoyed the hell out of this.
This is gonna have an awesome Quote Corner!
* Lucca asks Alicia if she misses big law--no, not really, and the money never somehow materialized. "I'm a much calmer person now," she says. Lucca basically chokes and says, "Oh god, that's a terrifying thought!"
"I think we're treating Alicia like an enemy when we should be treating her like a free agent." -Diane (Duh.)
"I'm an insomniac. You'd be surprised what I get into late at night." --Jason, leering and smirking.
"So you're saying the robots are coming to get us?"--Alicia to Dudewitz.
"The sheep are too busy watching TV." --Dudewitz, taking pot shots at us all.
"Humans. Always there to disappoint." -Dudewitz.
Did anyone else notice that Tim (the guy in Louis Canning's case) is the guy who's "thing" is doing a Marty McFly impression in High Maintenance (03:21 in this episode)?
posted by AceRock at 7:39 AM on November 16, 2015
posted by AceRock at 7:39 AM on November 16, 2015
The episode ended with everyone looking to Alicia for her vote on the voting machine issue so I hope the next one begins with her saying: "The hell with all of youse, I'm outta here" and walking out.
I like Jeffrey Dean Morgan but that constant smile is really starting to bug me. He needs to dial it back.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:09 AM on November 17, 2015 [1 favorite]
I like Jeffrey Dean Morgan but that constant smile is really starting to bug me. He needs to dial it back.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:09 AM on November 17, 2015 [1 favorite]
Alicia still hasn't voted by the end of the episode, to which I say FEH.
Yeah, they picked the wrong thing to use as a cliffhanger here.
I liked the rest of the episode. Eli is apparently back to helping Peter's campaign, Norah was hilarious ("I graduated Summa cum laude and spent a year studying French poetry! I'm done playing I Love Lucy for you."
I liked all of the family stuff, Howard and Jackie were great, and I loved Jason's Ted Talks reference. As soon as he said that I thought "I bet that guy's a singularity nut."
On top of that, Alicia spent the whole episode just being in the same room as lots of different characters. God, I missed that...
posted by mmoncur at 10:29 PM on November 17, 2015
Yeah, they picked the wrong thing to use as a cliffhanger here.
I liked the rest of the episode. Eli is apparently back to helping Peter's campaign, Norah was hilarious ("I graduated Summa cum laude and spent a year studying French poetry! I'm done playing I Love Lucy for you."
I liked all of the family stuff, Howard and Jackie were great, and I loved Jason's Ted Talks reference. As soon as he said that I thought "I bet that guy's a singularity nut."
On top of that, Alicia spent the whole episode just being in the same room as lots of different characters. God, I missed that...
posted by mmoncur at 10:29 PM on November 17, 2015
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That door hitting the desk everytime it's opened never gets old, though.
posted by cardboard at 7:09 AM on November 16, 2015