Don't worry, on Sunday night's episode of The Good Wife, Alicia may have fired Eli, but that decision barely lasted 24 hours before the two reunited. It was a strange hour for Eli, who received a surprise visit from his daughter Marissa in "Payback." With Peter launching his pre-Presidential campaign with a visit to Iowa to eat fried foods and pander to voters, and — even worse — Ruth's campaign strategy working, Eli's chances of getting his job as Peter's campaign manager back are getting slimmer and slimmer. But, is Eli ready to throw in the towel and abandon his revenge plans? That was the question up for debate when Alicia fired him.
As we know, Alicia is Eli's last hope of remaining close enough to Peter to either a) swoop in after Ruth makes a fatal mistake, or b) destroy Peter's chances from the inside. And in "Payback," Eli was forced to really decide whether or not he wanted to go through with his plans to get revenge on Peter, or move on with a different job — something his daughter wants him to do.
After trying to convince her dad to take another job in Israel, Marissa visited Alicia. In a short visit, she convinced Alicia that firing Eli might be what's best for him, and so that's what she did. Alicia even covered for Marissa when Eli asked her if his daughter had put her up to this. And, for 20 torturous minutes, we had to imagine a future of The Good Wife in which Eli and Alicia were enemies. Or worse, The Good Wife with no Eli Gold at all!
Luckily for us, Eli decided to turn down the other job and returned to Alicia to inform her he wasn't going anywhere. Alicia readily accepted Eli's rejection of his termination — she clearly needs him and isn't against being used to hurt her husband's political career. This was made abundantly clear after Eli's suggestion that Alicia create a debt strike to win her case of the week got her in hot water with the press, who were covering Peter's position against unions. In the end, Alicia won her case and Eli got a story in the press about Peter being a hypocrite. Win-win! Let's just hope these two are never, ever separated again.
Image: David M. Russell/CBS
