Directed by Rod Holcomb
Written by Angela Amato Velez
Clarence Wilcox (Curtiss Cook) is on trial for killing a cop, but his wife, Patricia (Linda Powell), swears Clarence was at home when the crime occured. Patricia hands out photos of her husband with their young daughter, this is highly effective in getting defense lawyers to care about the case on a human level.
The case has garnered national attention, including a TV movie, Cop Killer. "In Cop Killer, our client is seen shooting the victim," Will Gardner tells a panel of judges. Will convinces the judges to send the Wilcox case back to Judge Cuesta (David Paymer) to review an earlier ruling. Cuesta does not like the prospect of his earlier ruling being reversed.
The firm calls in an expert to show everyone that they have trouble identifying people of another race than themselves if they only saw them briefly. This seems to help with the case, but not enough. Testimony from Detective Shores (Nestor Serrano) really hurts the case.
Kalinda suggests Alicia visit Peter (Chris Noth) in prison for help with the Wilcox case. Alicia's reluctant. Kalinda visits Peter. It turns out that Peter can help with the case, but he wants to transmit that information without prison surveillance. A conjugal visit from Alicia's the only way. Kalinda also notes that Peter is already plotting a political comeback.
Alicia's shocked when she learns that Kalinda visited Peter in prison. "Don't visit my husband in prison," Alicia orders Kalinda. Then Alicia applies for a conjugal visit to get to have a private conversation with her husband. Peter imparts to Alicia useful information about the Wilcox case.
With the new information and a little more investigating by Kalinda, the defense seems to convince almost everyone that Wilcox is innocent. But prosecutor Matan Brody (Chris Butler) has a counter-argument. The case could keep going and Cuesta is sick of it, but the judge remains reluctant to reverse himself.
So Cuesta suggests to Brody a way to save face: blame the whole handling of the case on the state's attorney at the time the crime took place, Peter Florrick. Brody accepts the suggestion and Wilcox is released. Brody gives a press conference and blames the debacle on Peter Florrick, the very person who provided the missing link needed to free Wilcox.
Tropes
- Actor Allusion: An early scene where Alicia tries to send an email just before the deadline and Cary calls the recipient to make sure it gets there is pretty identical to a scene on an episode of Gilmore Girls where Matt Czuchry's character on that show did the same thing.
- Artistic License – Law: Turns out only six states allow conjugal visits in their prisons, and Illinois is not one of them. So in real life, Alicia would have no way to have sex with Peter while he's in jail (not that she's particularly interested), and, more importantly to the story, he wouldn't be able to tell her anything without the prison surveillance picking it up.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Peter gets a call to report to the visitors' room, and we see that a security camera monitor shows Alicia walking through a prison hallway. But then it turns out that Kalinda is Peter's visitor, not Alicia, who went to visit Clarence, not Peter, at the same time as Kalinda went to visit Peter.
- Alicia pulls this on the witness in-universe. She switches the faces in the photos so the real criminal is wearing the innocent convict's shirt and vice versa, and proves to the woman that she was identifying sweaters, not faces.
- Chekhov's Gun: Early in the episode, an expert shows the staff how hard it is for people to correctly identify an individual of a different race that they only see in passing or just not clearly. Later, Alicia switches the faces on the mugshots, so that their most likely suspect is wearing a Bulls sweater while the man the key witness previously identified is not, to show the witness that she was wrong.
- Shout-Out to the Chicago Bulls: It's made out to be an important point that the cop killer was wearing a Chicago Bulls sweatshirt when he committed the crime. But it's actually of little probative value because pretty much everyone in the courtroom has a Chicago Bulls sweatshirt.
- Take a Third Option: Even when it seems to have been very clearly established that Clarence Wilcox is not the cop killer, Judge Cuesta is reluctant to simply free the defendant. The back and forth between the prosecution and defense could drag out indefinitely. So Cuesta takes the unusual step of suggesting to the prosecution a way to free Wilcox while saving face: by blaming Peter Florrick for the handling of the case at the beginning.
- TV Telephone Etiquette: Cary's on the phone with a judge's clerk to make sure they get a document Alicia just e-mailed. Cary does say "thank you" to end the call, which could be interpreted as "bye," but does not actually say "bye."
- Walk and Talk: When Alicia and Cary go to Legal Aid to discuss the Wilcox case, they talk to a Legal Aid lawyer as they navigate a narrow hallway.
