Will's been gone a week before the partners start getting antsy about taking over his job as a named partner: Julius wants it because he deserves it, Eli wants it because everybody else wants it, and David Lee wants it because he's a dick. Diane's not having anybody replace the Gardner in her Lockhart just yet, no matter how scrambly and ratfucky and generally nasty they all get with each other. David Lee especially has his paranoia validated several times, both accidentally and less accidentally, which leads him to possibly involving Caitlin in the whole partnership mess.

Of course, it would really help if Will could just come and show some face, scare them back into the brush, but he's too busy being suicidal without the law. In fact, it's a smothering visit from his sisters (including brilliant-as-usual Merrit Wever) that drives him back into the firm: Once they decide that the woman he's pining for is Kalinda, the whole idea is so weird that he flees back to the office he can no longer use for its intended purpose. (Other fallout: Alicia cancels her divorce planning with David Lee -- surprise, he bitches! -- and takes up Kalinda's tax case, moving forward.)

After the longest, most boringest Cartier commercial* of all time, Donna Brazile convinces Eli that Peter needs to hire some friends into the SA's office if she's going to support him as the DNC keynote speaker. This is taken care of with a quick nepotistic phone call that ends up with Cary pissing off ASA Geneva Pine yet again, this time with a demotion. Everybody's all job crazy and mean and scared of everybody else. It's like Wendy Scott-Carr turned into a fog or fine mist and permeated the whole of Cook County with her stabby vibes.

(*How crazy is it that they'll sell this CBS ad time for shit like that and then you never even know if the show is coming on? I don't get how this works at all. Why would Cartier buy a five-minute ad space with a jaguar riding a biplane and a city riding an elephant and who knows what all, and then ask for the show that is only occasionally where it's supposed to be?)

The case itself -- something involving a suicide bridge and Dexter's brother filming the suicides there -- also leads into the upcoming ratfucking death orgy at L/?, with Alicia using Caitlin as a sort of fire-meets-fire weapon against good ol' Nancy Crozier. Yep, our favorite innocent young attorney fresh off the truck from Michigan is back, and let me tell you that she cannot handle Caitlin for shit.

In fact, Caitlin's so willing to play Crozier's "Help me remember how to be a lawyer, Your Honor Played By Josh Hamilton" game -- and so much better at it than Alicia could ever have been, even when she was an actual tween -- that she ends up impressing Diane and getting promoted to full litigator by the end of the episode: Sharing Alicia's assistant and taking up office space, not to mention Alicia's place in Diane's heart. So once again we have a sort of terrible tremble of the world at thinking about all the horrible places the Caitlin thing could still go... Especially if there's no bad guy.

Next week: BAD GUY! Colin Sweeney returns, Bebe Neuwirth is involved, I remember somebody I love got cast in this but I forget who. And more than likely Colin's going to be like, "Alicia you've changed. You're tainted and turning into a grownup and I no longer want to make a suit of your skin and wear it and be a pretty politician's wife," and Alicia will feel bad about it, and think about how maybe he's right, and then she'll be best friends with Kalinda again. That seems like the most likely scenario.