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I’ve had a couple of brief exchanges on Twitter regarding the fate of Kurt and Diane’s marriage. I have been assured there will be no breakup but … after this week’s episode I’m sticking with my assumption that these two cannot survive this fallout from the January 6 insurrection and Kurt’s possible involvement. Of course it has to be taken with a grain of salt that the man Diane turned in will say anything to get himself the lightest sentence possible, and even if Kurt was the ringleader of the group of veterans who stormed the Capital, Diane would surely stand behind him. I think. But is Kurt able to stand united with Diane now that he knows she’s the one who called in the tip on his ‘friend’?
This drama unfolded when Charles Lester paid a visit to Carmen to give her a tip that Diane’s apartment was about to be raided by the FBI. Carmen immediately called Diane with just over five minutes before the FBI was to arrive, but said she was sworn to secrecy as to where she got the info. Thinking they were coming for her, Diane panicked and called Liz and Jay to find out how to delete all of her work files from her laptop. Except she had five boxes of files in her closet from working remotely during the pandemic. Which she accidentally knocked over. But she was more concerned about an envelope Kurt was burning in the fireplace, which he refused to divulge the contents. And the FBI did show up, led by Nancy Crozier who informed Diane they were there for Kurt, not her. In court, Crozier — who kept reminding everyone she is four months pregnant, to the judge’s sarcastic delight — is insistent that she now does need Diane’s files because she ‘accidentally’ dropped her own files and now they need to go through Diane’s files to separate them. The judge finally shut Crozier down and told her a neutral third party would do the separating so as to protect Diane’s privileged case files.
But it got worse when Lester gave Diane another tip that Crozier was convening a Grand Jury, and Kurt was about to be served. Except it wasn’t Kurt who got the summons, it was Diane (well, they both did but she got hers as she was calling Kurt to warn him). And that’s when it all went south for the pair as Crozier had obtained a recording of Diane calling the FBI. Crozier tried to paint Diane as someone withholding information on the other men because she ‘identified’ one man, but Diane was able to turn the tables, a little too smugly, by telling the jury that it wasn’t she who identified the suspect, it was her firm’s investigator. The jury didn’t seem at all thrilled with her attitude, especially in how she talked to Crozier. When Kurt took the stand, Crozier immediately went to town to paint him as a terrorist in front of the jury trying to link his last name, McVeigh, to that of the Kansas City bomber. Kurt invoked the Fifth Amendment to every question … until Crozier played him the recording. We don’t know what happened in the room, but on the way out he was obviously furious with Diane and said he needed a new lawyer. And he chose … Julius! And now any information Jay has, he can’t tell Diane.
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Meanwhile, because Diane was tied up with Kurt and the FBI she missed her meeting with Judge Wackner and asked Liz to handle it. Wackner was sitting in the lobby when he overheard Liz ask to be notified when he arrived, so instead he laid low and decided to take a tour of the office, sitting in on an associates meeting … who thought he was there on a fact finding mission. He was. For himself, not STR Laurie, learning all he could about jury trials. And now suddenly his 9 3/4 court is holding jury trials and his first case involves $4 million. Marissa made her way to the court and discovered who exactly was behind the $5 million cash influx to help Wackner build his court — David Cord. But what exactly is his goal? First he hires Reddick-Lockhart to go after the media, and now he’s funding an ‘imaginary’ court? One thing that Wackner is attempting to prove, though, is that juries are inherently biased so in the trial he is requiring everyone coming to testify to be in full mascot costume to hide their identity and, most importantly, their race. Also, to prove that people can’t disregard something they’ve already seen and heard, he had the lawyers take a picture while wearing a diaper and sucking their thumb … something the prosecutor thought was not going to be shown in court.
Liz is finding her hands full at the office not only covering for Diane and trying to figure out what’s going on with Carmen, but she engaging in what some may consider a highly unethical relationship with Del Cooper, who is also a client. Cooper is launching a new comedy streaming service and wants the firm to vet a transcript of a comedy special that may contain questionable elements. Things get off to a bad start when the partners butt heads right from the first joke (a stereotypical joke about Black men having large…), each of them finding something offensive. Jay suggests to Liz that everyone in the room is too old to make these kinds of judgments so the younger associates are corralled into the job, but with David Lee overseeing the efforts, the Nigerian of the joke is changed to Norwegian … which renders the joke incomprehensible and is met with buckets of sarcasm from the comedian. Liz’s relationship with Del might survive this, but their business together may not. Especially after someone in the mail room produced a bunch of cards that granted the holder permission to tell one ‘offensive’ joke on a particular topic. HR was not happy and called everyone to be questioned but Liz took the lead and tried to get them to understand how this was all supposed to work. The takeaway is that people in HR have no sense of humor.
And to top things off, Charles Lester shows up at the office with an ultimatum. Liz and Diane know that the person who gave Carmen the information about the FBI was one of her two clients, and they are not happy that someone who’s been there for a few weeks is already wielding such power, even though Carmen is trying to remain neutral. But Lester notifies them that his client wants only Carmen to represent him. Liz and Diane tell Carmen she is more than welcome to stay, and follow their rules, or she can go out on her own. Carmen decides to stay, and Lester seems satisfied with the decision. But sooner or later, this seems destined to blow up in everyone’s faces. Actually, the whole firm is a powder keg at this point, and an unholy alliance may have formed as Del was leaving the office at the same time as Wackner and Cord, sharing an elevator and ideas.
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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