As if there was any way Cary wasn't going to be an ass-ache about this, and honestly you can't blame him. Not getting the promotion is, the way it went down, pretty much a demotion, but if you can't rest in the knowledge that you are at least a known superstar -- non-financial compensation of a sort -- then you really do have nothing. How is this any different from his experience of being Deputy SA for five seconds? Well, for starters, the person whose opinion he respects most and who's basically always been firmly in his corner just showed up to question his judgment in front of his entire team. So there's that.

FEDERAL CASE

Elsbeth and Perrotti engage in a furious battle over whether or not she's due discovery on his witnesses and what they do and do not know. Her point is, this is the way the law actually works. His point is, this is a special case because Elsbeth is going to send Eli to beat up all of his witnesses. Case in point:

Perrotti: "Mr. Landau, you were a witness to Eli Gold purchasing votes? And you conspired with him? And you had a pang of conscience, and came to me?"
DNC Frank: "Indeed, all of these things are true. And then yesterday, he came and menaced me at my office."
Elsbeth: "You've got him by about a hundred pounds and three feet of height. How is it that he menaced you?"
DNC Frank: "He knocked my keys on the ground, it was terrifying."
Elsbeth: "Give me a fucking break."
Perrotti: "The point is that the defense can't be trusted with discovery this early in the game."

Elsbeth, later: "My bad. I assumed you wouldn't attack him like a rabid dog. What the hell does he have on you, Eli? You are so cagey all the time that even four episodes into this storyline it could still go either way. It would be sickening if you weren't so goshdarn likeable."
Eli: "Seriously, there was no vote-buying."
Elsbeth: "I mean, I myself heard that wiretap we got kicked out, so I know for a fact that isn't true."
Eli: "But he doesn't. If he says it happened, he's lying."
Elsbeth: "What I need is to find out who's corroborating this story, then. And then get them to stop it, without accusing you of something even more awful and provable. So we take the thing that's pissing me off, and we make that the new issue."