By Kate Linnea Welsh

“Bitcoin for Dummies” was one of those episodes of The Good Wife that revolves around everyone manipulating everyone else. Unfortunately, since Will is facing the very real prospect of jail time and Eli isn’t in the episode at all, the machinations are grim, without the undertone of playfulness this show often gives even cases involving serious issues. To make up for that, though, we get double Kalinda, as she plays a central role in both the case of the week and in Will’s legal woes.

A lawyer named Dylan Stack, who has Treasury agents literally following him around, comes to Lockhart/Gardner because of Alicia’s past dealings with Treasury. (This show is one of the best around at remembering to let previous cases affect new ones.) The Treasury department is after Stack’s client for supposedly creating a new online currency called bitcoin, and they’re after Stack because he won’t tell them his client’s identity. At first, Will is understandably reluctant to take on a possibly quixotic and high-profile case against the government in the middle of his own tussle with the State’s Attorney, but the representative of the brave new world of virtual money has arrived with piles of cash, and we know that Lockhart/Gardner needs cash. Judge Sobel quickly rules that Stack doesn’t have to give up his client’s identity, but since we’re still in the first half of the episode, that can’t possibly end things, and it doesn’t: Gordon Higgs, the same Treasury lawyer Alicia dealt with a few episodes ago, promptly arrests Stack for being the creator of bitcoin himself.

Perhaps characteristically, Will wants to go on the offense where Alicia and Diane are inclined to defense. They try to argue that bitcoin isn’t a currency at all, so it doesn’t matter whether Stack created it. But after some back and forth, including a fun cameo by CNBC’s Jim Cramer as an expert witness, Sobel rules that bitcoin is a currency, basically because it’s transferable and you can buy things with it on Amazon. I wasn’t entirely convinced – Cramer made some good points about bitcoin not having many of the characteristics of currency, including a central regulating bank, and another witness’s comparison of bitcoin to frequent flier miles seemed apt – but at least this outcome meant we got to spend the rest of the episode watching Kalinda run around a cryptography conference in pursuit of the real inventor of bitcoin.

Kalinda eventually figures out that bitcoin is three people, not one: Stack and his two partners all accuse each other in hopes of leading both Kalinda and the Treasury agents in circles. The most interesting element of this is that one of the partners is a beautiful young blond woman, and Kalinda astutely points out that the woman could use her gender and looks to deflect suspicion: Everyone assumes that the inventor of a revolutionary tech product must be male, and it’s satisfying to see a woman turn this discrimination on its head and use it to her advantage. In the end, though, it doesn’t matter that Kalinda is being manipulated, because she doesn’t need to have the true answer as long as she can play Higgs the way she wants, and no one on this show – with the possible exception of Eli – can manipulate like Kalinda. She sets up (and “accidentally” records) a meeting with Higgs at which she promises to unmask the real inventor of bitcoin, and this proof that Higgs doesn’t really believe that Stack is the inventor leads the judge to dismiss the case. At their last meeting, Alicia tells Stack that she bought one bitcoin, but that it didn’t feel real. Stack responds with unexpected words of wisdom that could be the tagline for the whole show: “Real’s gonna change. Just watch.”
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This post contains spoilers through the first episode of the second season of Downton Abbey.

So, caveat! I am almost but not entirely caught up on the first season of Downton Abbey, so I am relying a little bit on Wikipedia for backstory here. I will be caught up by next week, but for now, please be merciful.

I really am struck by the atmosphere of creative destruction in this episode, the way the war clarifies and distills the characters priorities. I agree with critics who say that Downton Abbey is predictable, more a product of its genre than a subversion of it. But it’s the rare thing that both can be qualified that way and that is executed so strongly that it’s a bracing reminder of why these cliches exist and are powerful. Even when I can see something coming from a mile away, whether it’s a hand injured in the war, a maid’s disappointment or a nobleman’s wrongfooting, it still lands like a blow to the chest. And there are enough surprises that are true to character that there’s fresh air in it.

The walls between the upstairs and the downstairs were already crumbling in the first season, whether in Lord Grantham’s tie to Bates or Carson’s confession to Lady Mary that “even a butler has his favorites” after he reassures her that her life isn’t over yet. But the war’s brought them down in force, with Isobel as something of an intermediary. First, there’s Sybil, who, after realizing bitterly that “Sometimes it feels as if all the men I ever danced with are dead,” decides she wants to try nursing, and by extension, learn how to be a functional woman rather than an ornament of the aristocracy. “Have you ever made your own bed, for example? Or scrubbed a floor?” Isobel asks her gently. The scenes of Mrs. Patmore and Daisy trying to teach her how to do the simplest tasks, including filling a kettle without drenching herself, are kind, revealing Sybil’s foibles but helping her work beyond them. It’s fascinating to see Violet and Lady Grantham’s response to her desire. Violet, surprisingly, sides with Isobel, insisting that “You can’t pretend it’s not respectable when every day we’re treated to pictures of queens and princesses in a Red Cross uniform.” And Lady Grantham’s concern for Sybil ultimately undoes her objections: her daughter’s emotional well-being trumps her concerns with propriety. “I was worried about Lady Sibyl. But I’m not worried anymore,” she tells the butler. “Carson, the cake will be a surprise whether you approve of it or not, so please don’t give it away.”
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By Kate Linnea Welsh

The Good Wife returned from its holiday hiatus last night with an episode that focused almost solely on the firm, rather than Alicia’s personal life, while losing none of its usual stakes or tension. The case of the week involves a couple called the Huntleys who are suing Lockhart/Gardner for alienation of affection when they represented the wife in their divorce two years earlier. David Lee, the head of family law, claims the case was straightforward, but it soon comes out that he, or maybe Kalinda, hired a stripper to get Huntley drunk and caught in a DUI sting so that his wife could get full custody of their daughter. He didn’t tell the client that he did this, and now she’s claiming that David hired a stripper to seduce her husband so that they wouldn’t reconcile. Alicia assisted with the case in her first year with the firm, so she’s put in the middle of things: in her deposition, she is first accused of using the events her own personal life to create false rapport with Mrs. Huntley and convince her not to reconcile, and then she comes dangerously close to perjury when she’s asked whether David hired the stripper. Alicia neatly skirts this: she can truthfully say that David did not hire the stripper to seduce Huntley, because he in fact hired the stripper to get the man drunk. The fact that Alicia is both willing and able to thread that needle illustrates the way she’s learning to play the game without completely abandoning her principles.

Alicia is more directly involved, though, when the Huntleys give up on the alienation of affection suit and instead accuse Lockhart/Gardner of fraud. David got one of Huntley’s companies for Mrs. Huntley in the divorce, and Julius’s department later helped her sell it in a way that resulted in the firm ultimately making more from the deal than the client did. This shouldn’t be an issue because there’s a standard rider that clients sign in divorce cases like this that waives this conflict of interest – but no one can find the rider, and Alicia is on record as the one who filed the final paperwork. Alicia tells Kalinda that she can’t actually remember filing it – and then David appears, claiming to have found it misfiled in Cary’s old paperwork. Alicia, to her credit, immediately goes to Diane with her suspicion that this is a new piece of paper that David had slipped in with some other paperwork so she’d sign it unnoticed. Diane tells her to stick with her “best memory,” which is of signing the paper, and insists that “testimony isn’t about right and wrong.” The Huntleys’ lawyer is suspicious too, and when he’s unable to break Alicia, he deposes Cary, assuming bad blood between Cary and his former employers. But Cary offers a full-throated defense of Alicia and the firm in general, as Alicia appears equal parts surprised and touched and Diane looks on like a proud mother. Afterward, Alicia expresses her surprise to Cary, who just says, “Wow. Things change.” When they worked together, Alicia was identified as the naive idealist and Cary as the amoral striver; neither was ever really that extreme, but now they’ve all but met in the middle. And when Cary, in seeming good faith, publicly pronounces that Alicia has a level of integrity that Alicia herself questions, it’s another reminder that on this show, it’s dangerous to assume that our guys are the good ones and the other side is all bad. Indeed, Diane ultimately wins not through proving the firm’s innocence but by producing more pictures of Huntley with a woman not his wife.
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We’re done with Boardwalk Empire and Homeland for the season, and while I’ll pick up The Walking Dead and Community when they return, we’ve got some pretty substantial space in the schedule. What do you want me to recap? I’m happy to pick up an ongoing show, or to give a shot to a new one — I’ll definitely be doing House of Lies. Nominations go until noon on Friday: we won’t do a formal vote, so second things you want even if someone’s already tossed them in the pool. I’ll make a final schedule and publish it on Monday.

This post contains spoilers through the Oct. 16 episode of Boardwalk Empire.

Tonight’s episode is all about knowing where you fit and the consequences of refusing or failing to fit into that role — and in one shocking reversal, a usurpation of the role someone else has established for you.

First, there’s Chalky, caught in an impossible situation after he gets out of jail. At first, things seem to be going well as he gives permission for an aspiring doctor to court his daughter and promising to help an elderly woman with noisy neighbors and a younger man with an abusive employer at a community meeting. But then, as that meeting’s almost over, the women of his community challenge not just Chalky’s conduct as a community leader but the very nature of his role. “Those white men cut his throat while he was loading your trucks with your illegal liquor,” one woman tells him bitterly. “You walk around, take a bite out of everyone else’s plate. Don’t get nothing back but a summer clambake and a Christmas turkey.” Largesse is not enough in the face of systematic racism, a point Chalky makes to Nucky later, who responds by insulting him, saying, “It’s always about money, Chalky…you can thank me by being a good boy. I gave you my word. Now save your strength. And enjoy your family.”

Is it any wonder Chalky melts down (after maintaining his composure earlier when his daughter’s request that he help her with her homework almost reveals his illiteracy) at that family dinner he’s supposed to be enjoying when his wife serves duck instead of Hoppin’ John to his daughter’s suitor so the family will look upscale? “It’s my house. And my country ways put the food on this goddamn table,” he curses, before declaring that it’s clear who the field hand in his house is and retreating to the garage while his family plays piano. The roles he’s being asked to play are impossible: his capacity for violence is critical until it’s shaming, his ability to earn buys his family’s passage into a future where he doesn’t have the skills to join them or to fit in. And I still can’t figure out his relationship with Nucky, who seems to regard Chalky as his equivalent, but lesser shadow, in a mirror, lesser land.

An outwardly sustainable relationship, Margaret and Nucky’s, appears tested this week as well. Nucky insists on giving bonuses to the servants despite Margaret’s insistence that they can’t really afford it. But when she gives them the money before warning of a coming pay cut, they aren’t grateful, and she resorts to brittleness with the women she was on the verge of drinking away her sorrows with last week: “I believe it’s customary to say thank you. What is it, ladies? Speak your minds.” When they tell her that a sloshed Nucky promises them raises, Margaret says coolly, “Well, it’s a special kind of fool who relies on the promises of a drunkard.” And later, she asks Nucky for $100, ostensibly for new clothing for the children, but mostly to see if she can get it.
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This post contains spoilers through the October 16 episode of The Walking Dead.

Well, The Walking Dead is back, and grimmer than ever: Andrea’s suicidal, Sophia’s lost in the woods, Lori and Shane can’t quit each other, and God appears to hate Rick Grimes.

In an interview with Colson Whitehead about his new zombie novel, Zone One, that I’ve got going up a little after 4 p.m. today, we spoke a bit about what happens to social norms when society collapses: do people try to build societies based on radically new rules? Or do they preserve their traditions. A milder version of that tension is present in tonight’s episode. Lori expresses some discomfort when the characters come upon a huge number of cars full of the dead — and of valuable supplies. “This is a graveyard,” she says. “I don’t know how I feel about this.” But where Lori sees desecration, Carol sees a small potential for liberation. “Ed never let me wear nice things like this,” she remarks, holding up a pretty red blouse. And Lori’s moment of nerves doesn’t mean she’s consistently committed to upholding old norms, or that it’s easy for her. She’s struggling with her attraction to Shane, who she doesn’t want to sleep with, but she can’t quite walk away from either. “Just trying to be the good guy, Lori,” Shane tells her, informing of his intention to leave the main group. “Even if you don’t see it.”

Andrea’s similarly struggling with her relationship with Dale, and her larger need to find a reason to keep living after the loss of her sister. Dale confiscates her gun after she fails to put it back together in time to protect herself from the walkers, but also because he believes she’ll use it. “You chose suicide,” Dale protests when she demands her gun back. “What’s that to you? You barely know me,” Andrea spits back to the man who’s come to think of himself as related to her. “I didn’t want your blood on my hands…What did you expect? That I had an epiphany? Some life-affirming catharsis…I wanted to die on my terms, not torn apart by some drooling freaks. You took that away from me…You took my choice away from me. And you expect gratitude?”
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By Kate Linnea Welsh

This second episode of The Good Wife is all about perception and the burden of proof, as Lockhart/Gardner defends a mountain climber whose book about his brother’s death accuses another climber of refusing to help his brother and stealing his oxygen tank. When the case is dismissed from an American court, the British plaintiff takes it to a court in England, where the burden of proof in libel cases is reversed — instead of the plaintiff having to prove that he was libeled, the defendant must prove that what he wrote was not libel. The book wasn’t published in England, but the plaintiff himself bought a few copies from Amazon, solely to have grounds to bring the case — and Will, whose sense of right and wrong crops up at interesting times, is outraged and accuses him of “libel tourism.” When evidence from another book is suppressed because of a super-injunction — and previous discussion of it in the press inadmissible because of a super-injunction of the super-injunction — Alicia has Eli’s Twitter ninjas create enough hubbub to make it into a current news story. It’s further proof this show has perhaps a better understanding of social media than any other show on TV. The British lawyer, of course, is outraged: “Where is the respect for our laws when any young thug with a computer and a Twitter account can circumvent a lawful injunction?”

As the British trial progresses via videoconferencing, the culture clash gives the show plenty of space to make points about class and power. When Alicia points out that the plaintiff is rich and the defendant is not, the lawyer immediately scoffs, “Oh, let’s not make this a classist issue, shall we?” And when the same lawyer tries to threaten Will, he suggests that real British strength lies with the struggling commoners rather than the refined aristocracy: after a long monologue disavowing tea and cucumber sandwiches, he concludes with “I’m the England of football hooligans and Jack the Ripper. And this England don’t play nice, and they don’t play fair, and they don’t. Ever. Stop.” (Will’s hilarious response: “When you want to intimidate someone, don’t use so many words. Intimidation isn’t a sonnet.”) Meanwhile, much is made of the fact that Will and Alicia’s cohort on the defense is a solicitor rather than a barrister, and Irish, to boot. The judge deliberately calls him O’Brannon rather than Brannon – making his name sound more Irish than it is – until he decides to show his respect for Brannon’s argument by suddenly getting his name right. When Brannon apologizes to Alicia about his “inbred deference” to “greater rank,” she says she has the same problem but is “trying very hard to change.” It could certainly be argued that trading her powerful husband for her powerful boss is not necessarily the greatest step toward this change, but at least Will’s American Revolution sexual fantasies sound more fun than the fantasy of an intact marriage with Peter.
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A quick note: I’m not caught up on the first season of Boardwalk Empire yet, though I hope to be by next week. So please excuse any errors, omissions, generalized confusion, etc. I’ll be up and running soon, I swear! This post contains spoilers through the first episode of the second season of Boardwalk Empire.

As a first time Boardwalk Empire watcher, one of the things that struck me most strongly about the show is the extent to which it feels like reading a Little Orphan Annie comic strip. Everything’s a bit of a cartoon, whether it’s the Commodore dashing about his living room with a spear, Jimmy’s mother’s cartoonishly poisonous sweetness towards his new wife, or the show’s racial politics, even when they’re relatively good.

One thing I thought the show did very effectively in that early scene when the Klan attacks Chalky’s operation was to communicate the simultaneous menace and goofiness of the Klan. “Purity, sobriety, and the white Christians’ Jesus,” is a stupid-sounding phrase even within the context of the time. But uttered by a man who’s just shot your warehouse full of holes with primitive automatic weapons, the conviction of that ridiculous phrase actually makes the people uttering it more terrifying. They’re driven to all of this by a flimsy, incoherent cant.

It’s also interesting to see Michael K. Williams, who played the ultimate loner as Omar, have a constituency as Chalky. And even more interesting to see him carve out the best of multiple bad options in what’s essentially a no-win scenario.”I got four boys dead in that warehouse. Half a dozen wounded. Including a woman,” he tells Nucky, sick to death of Nucky’s promises to take care of yet another problem that for Nucky is a business impediment, and for Chalky is a matter of life or death. “How’m I supposed to know that?…I’m done with this shit. I got my family and I got my people…The ten thousand black folks who make this city home, busboys, porters…you go school these crackers less you all find out…You ready for what happens here? I turn up on the end of a rope?” He’s offering himself up as a firewall, a sort of flawed martyr. Chalky can hold back the black community in Atlantic City for a while, but what he’s promises Nucky is sort of an inverse of the crucifixion. White Atlantic City residents essentially have to take the bet that if they hang Chalky, their city won’t explode.
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A note from your blogmistress: Since four of the six shows you most wanted recaps of happen on Sundays, I’ve asked my good friend and Good Wife maven Kate Linnea Welsh to help out with that show. If you’ve got questions or observations about the recaps, send ‘em to me, and I’ll pass your emails on to her. This post contains spoilers through the first episode of the third season of The Good Wife.

By Kate Linnea Welsh

Season two of The Good Wife ended with a newly separated Alicia disappearing into a hotel room with her college friend and now boss Will, but when season three picks up, such private concerns are put on the back burner as Lockhart/Gardner is thrust into a hot-button case: a prominent Muslim client asks them to defend a Palestinian student accused of starting a fight between Palestinian and Jewish students at a local college’s interfaith event. A Jewish student was murdered the same night, and Cary, now working for Peter, manages to manipulate Alicia and the defendant into exchanging the riot-related charge for a murder charge. The questions raised at trial revolve around the location of bias: Do we assume that the victims were attacked because they were Jewish, or that the defendant was arrested because he was Muslim? Or both? The controversial, high-profile nature of the case leads the lawyers to bring up a potpourri of other issues, as they discuss everything from cross racial identification to the relationship between violent video games and real-life predilections to whether a professor’s radical political views can be used against his student.

Of course, the case ends up not being about religion or politics at all. One of the defendant’s roommates was the real killer: he was in love with the victim, and this was actually a crime of passion made to look like a hate crime. While I suppose this ending was useful as a reminder that people generally act as individuals, not as representatives of a demographic group, I was frustrated that the resolution neatly allowed the show to get out of really dealing with the any of questions it had raised. It did, however, allow Eli Gold to give this funny-but-true summary of what a case like this wound up meaning for groups whose fundraising is dependent on public perception of these issues: “Is it good for the Jewish League Fund? I don’t know. A Muslim was the killer, but he was also gay and sleeping with our guy, so I would call that a classic mixed message.”
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Okay, we’ll start with this, and as folks coalesce around a sense of what fall shows they want to discuss, we’ll revisit this. But we’re definitely going to do Boardwalk Empire, The Good Wife, Homeland, The Walking Dead, Community, and Parks and Recreation, which will start tomorrow. I was also thinking of doing a joint post on Pan Am and The Playboy Club, which I think belong in conversation with each other, if that’s agreeable to folks.