Self-Condemned
Maia brings Lucca along as her lawyer to talk to an FBI agent about her family's Ponzi scheme. She ends up digging up a lot of memories from her teen years that in retrospect prove the investment deal was shady and that her parents had affairs, and that she just didn't understand it at the time.
Colin Sweeney is the victim in a police brutality case, and since Adrian wants the cop in question off the force, he agrees to represent him. Turns out his girlfriend threw drugs out the car window when she saw the police car, causing the police to pull them over, and Sweeney's charming personality did the rest. They find the evidence on the cop's dashboard cam footage.
Tropes
- Actually Pretty Funny: When she hears that Sweeney is vying for an ambassadorship, Diane bursts into laughter.
- Call-Back: The victim of police violence that Adrian and Diane represent is Colin Sweeney from The Good Wife. He says Alicia didn't have time.
- Chewbacca Defense: When the facts are against them, Diane and Adrian briefly use the "pounding table and being outraged" method to interrupt the prosecutor.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Maia's age in flashbacks is shown by her hair being long and frizzy, rather than the straight powerhaircut she sports in the present day.
- Fake Memories:
- Maia clearly remembers things that never happened, like going to the doctor on a certain date and her tennis teacher flirting with her. Turns out she subconsciously rewrote her memories to hide from herself that her parents had affairs.
- Madeline invoke's this trope as she tells about the time when she was eight and her wishful thinking made her remember a visit to the Bozo show that actually only happened to her sister.
- Flashback: Maia gets a lot of these in the episode.
- Loophole Abuse: Agent Starkey tries to corner Maia by presenting her with papers she signed on her eighteenth birthday, but Maia points out that she signed them at her birthday party, which took place three days before her actual birthday.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Even Sweeney tries this, comparing himself to Rodney King and thanking a black witness with a dap greeting.
- Running Gag: Birds flying into Madeline's office window.
- Shout-Out: Madeline calls the interview with Maia "Remembrance of Ponzi Schemes Past" in reference to "Remembrance of Things Past".
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Madeline considers anything that comes after the phrase "the truth is" to be this.
