WHAT HAPPENED THIS MORNING

Turns out that this morning, four hours before the Cheese Guild showed up at Lockhart, Gardner, our CEO took his garbage out. There were already reporters there; he hadn't been counseled on gravity or the sacrifice, hadn't changed his tie, hadn't met Eli Gold. And when they descended on him, he gave them the same line he'd prepared when it happened, the authentic answer Eli hated so much: "What else did these kids eat?"

Eli storms into Diane's office and down the guy's throat. It's scary. Even though she doesn't react to this screaming in her office, Diane's a little thrown, just watching the guy saying it's not fair for them to play this footage so late in the day, as if he'd just said it. Playing it after his carefully prepared statement. Like there's some big book of what's fair and what's not.

Eli: "Oh, where do you live? Fairyland? Of course they can do that."

It's a better story; it's a more competitive image. Eli burns our CEO as their spokesman and calls for an immediate recall of all the cheese on all the shelves in Illinois. The Guild lady argues with gravity -- "I don't think that's possible..." -- and Eli explains, once again, the new normal, the fundamental assumptions that just changed again. "He just blamed the victim. It just became possible."

ZACH IS FINE

Alicia: "How are the kids?"
Owen: "Good! Grace is bonding with a shy dance teacher and Peter told Zach that he slept with another woman."
Alicia: "What?"
Owen: "Oh, Grace is bonding with a..."
Alicia: "No. What did Peter say."
Owen: "Oh yeah, he told Zach -- your son -- that he -- Peter -- was at fault for you kicking him out, because he slept with somebody else. And so now I'm wondering who that somebody else was..."
Alicia: "Zach told you this?"
Owen: "He did!"
Alicia: "And what did Zach say to him?"

Nothing, of course. Not our little surveillance expert. Owen presses her for this latest bit of news, but it's too awful to think about, much less say.

Alicia, staring into space: "I have to go back work..."
Owen: "Work is your new avoidance tactic."
Alicia: "Then it's about the kids. How are they, how is Zach?"
Owen: "Uh, Zach is fine. Zach is wondering how you are. Which is how?"
Alicia: "I've got to get back to work."