'The Good Wife': America Ferrera, please come back

America Ferrera and Jerry Stiller joined "The Good Wife" for a pair of guest-starring roles. We give America a big thumbs up and Jerry a big thumbs down, though it wasn't his fault. It was the character we didn't like.

Case of the Week

Gary Cole is back as Kurt McVeigh. Diane's speechlessness when she spots him is adorable. Kurt is being sued by Jason Beltran, a man freed because of a crime lab mix-up or a frame job, depending on who you ask. He was either involved in a bank robbery where cops were shot or he was an innocent bystander.

Tommy Segara is the attorney for Beltran, who claims the cops framed Beltran and got the crime lab to fabricate evidence and McVeigh to change his testimony. His insistence that Diane not be the pretty face defending them gets her to take the case for McVeigh.

Diane and McVeigh have some gun-fueled sexy time before he officially hires them, so that's fun. Maybe she'll be less intense at the office after this roll in the hay with Bingo Bob.

In court, Jerry Stiller is the presiding judge Felix Afterman, who has a bit of a problem staying awake and seems fairly addled. Beltran's lawyer is arguing that McVeigh is racist, by citing his membership in the Tea Party and that he has testified against four times as many black defendants as white.

Meanwhile, Diane's defense is that McVeigh made a mistake, which she dispatches Kalinda and Alicia to find. Kalinda and Alicia go to Cary for help because Beltran's lawyers are coming after the SA's office too.Cary discovers that the same bank had a "suicide by cop" a few months before the robbery and the bullet fragment from that is what McVeigh thought was from Beltran when he gave his testimony.  

Kalinda realizes the surveillance footage of the robbery/shootout has some frames missing, so Cary gets her the original copy. She realizes the bullet that killed the cop ricocheted off a truck driving through the parking lot. When they get the real bullet, it could only have been fired from where Beltran was standing. The case against McVeigh is dropped.

McVeigh proposes that he and Diane go away together after the trial is over, but Diane can't leave the firm in the turmoil it's in right now. Here's hoping McVeigh keeps popping in from time to time.


Campaign

Eli gets a "silver bullet" to take down Wendy Scott-Carr. It turns out she had an illegal nanny named Natalie Flores (Ferrera) for five years. Eli meets Natalie and she's adorable, charming and smart, so he's instantly smitten. He finds out that her citizenship lawyer is a scam artist, taking her money with promises of citizenship, and he puts pressure on the lawyer to help her quickly because he knows when they break the story she'll be deported to Mexico.

Natalie figures out that Eli is not just looking for a nanny and she drops her big bomb on him on their dinner date. The story breaks and Natalie is completely harassed, Eli feels guilty and we are left wondering if we will see Natalie again. And WSC is probably dunzo.
 

Goodnight, Gracie

Grace is in trouble at school for wearing a t-shirt that has a cross on it and says "I am the mustard seed." The school has restricted all sayings on shirts. Alicia goes to talk to the principal and makes her cry because apparently thoughts of people are threatening to sue for 1st Amendment violations. The crying was an interesting twist. I was expecting a huge confrontation and I like it when I am surprised by a show.

I'm really torn on this issue, just BTW. I am a big 1st Amendment advocate, but I also don't think kids should be able to wear whatever they want to school. However, if you're going to outlaw one type of slogan (like hate speech), you have to outlaw them all (like pro-gay slogans or Christian slogans or what have you). I also substitute taught for awhile and the outfits the girls would come to school in was alarming. I was 20 years old and the 8th grade girls had on outfits I would not wear to a night club. Hmm.

Sorry. Tangent. So Grace is really getting into this religion thing, watching a YouTube channel for Mustard Seeds that encourages kids to question their parents and be a rebel like Jesus was, but also that Jesus wanted anarchy, which ... isn't exactly what Jesus wanted.

Now Grace starts having that lovely teenage problem of seeing everything as black and white, or in this case as you either love Jesus or you hate Jesus. Uh, does she know what "agnostic" means? Or even "atheist," which is not necessarily a "Jesus hater." I thought Grace was supposed to be smart. This is annoying.

In the end, Alicia is going to help Grace explore her religion by driving her to church and handing her a Bible.


The Tangled Web

Derrick goes to Will and says that Diane is on to them, as he knows Diane is gearing up for a fight by isolating Derrick's people. Will asks her to dial it down a little, but instead she goes to Derrick and Will about rounding up the equity partners next week. Presumably this is where they vote Derrick out.


Thoughts & Tidbits

• I thought Jerry Stiller was a completely wasted guest spot. Maybe they're setting this up for a future episode where Alicia has to get him disbarred for being so out of it, but I just found his character annoying and unbelievable, really more of a caricature. This show is known for outrageous judges, but this really rang false with me.
• America Ferrera, on the other hand, was awesome and I would really like to see her stick around so Eli can repair things with Natalie.
• After making Wendy Scott-Carr such an interesting adversary for Peter and Childs, this was a rather anticlimactic exit. I hope this isn't the last we see or hear from her.
• Loved Alicia's responses to Grace. "Just taking another hit off the crack pipe."