While Lockhart & Gardner begins a merger with Derrick Bond's firm, Alicia is ordered by a judge to co-counsel a man accused of murdering his business partner, who wants to fire his attorney in favor of pushing a conspiracy theory that the government had him Killed to Uphold the Masquerade.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Chewbacca Defense: Salle's wild-card strategy of trying to frame the federal government for the murder of his business partner is derided by the prosecutor as a "unicorn defense", and he fires his original counsel when he won't go along with it. Alicia finds a way to make it work, including deliberately putting an uncooperative witness on the stand, knowing she will take the Fifth and muddle things.
- Consummate Professional: Alicia is reasonably sure from the beginning that her client is guilty, but nonetheless follows her professional ethics and defends him within the law to the best of her ability, even finding a way to make his "unicorn defense" work well enough to get a hung jury.
- A Fool for a Client: Actively analyzed. Vance Salle fires his original defense attorney and insists on representing himself because the attorney won't go along with his preferred defense that his business partner was assassinated by the government for leaking hacked Defense Department documents. Judge Matchick openly tells him this is a terrible idea, and appoints Alicia, who happened to be in the courtroom for unrelated reasons, as co-counsel. Salle insisted he was smart enough to handle it, but by the midpoint of the episode he's realized how hard this is and thanks Alicia for having his back.
- Gambit Pileup: Vance Salle goes for a so-called "unicorn defense" on his murder charge by trying to frame the feds for killing his business partner. S.A. Glenn Childs accuses Judge Matchick in absentia of trying to boost his political ally Peter Florrick by appointing Peter's wife to defend Salle, to which he responds by reassigning Cary Agos to prosecute the case, who is able to poke holes in some of the defense's more successful arguments. Alicia pulls one of her own by immediately resting the defense's case and playing for a hung jury when the murder weapon is found, then persuading Salle to plead guilty for a sweetheart deal before the state can retry the case.
- Got Volunteered: Alicia is ordered to take Salle's case by Judge Matchick and shepherd him through representing himself, even though she has a civil court case next week. Will is understanding about it and takes her off that case since with the impending merger with the Bond law firm, they now have enough personnel to handle things without her.
- Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Vance Salle accuses the federal government of having his business partner assassinated after they leaked files hacked from the Pentagon on their website. He is, of course, lying his ass off.
- Off on a Technicality: Downplayed: Salle pleads guilty, but gets a much lighter sentence than he might have otherwise (Illinois had the death penalty at time of airing), courtesy of Alicia planting enough reasonable doubt to get a hung jury and then ending the trial before the prosecution could enter the murder weapon into evidence.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: Peter and Alicia have a sex scene where he goes down on her to, of all things, NPR's All Things Considered playing on Alicia’s radio. Chicago Public Radio returned the favor with a joke about this episode on that weekend's edition of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.
