AKA GAY GIRL IN DAMASCUS

The protest website where they found the pictures of Sara is called PINK DAMASCUS, so you already know exactly how this is going to go: A straight guy pretending to be a lesbian for some reason, I guess chronicling the protests by assuming the most different persona possible. Kalinda heads off to investigate, and Alicia keeps Caitlin back so she can be subtly nasty some more.

Alicia: "Caitlin, Viola approached you?"
Caitlin: "Yeah, and I obviously turned her down..."
Alicia: "Just so you know, they are doing this all the time. And you need to understand that it's a distraction technique, because they would never respect you or trust you if they poached you. You get me? This means nothing. You mean nothing."
Caitlin: "You're being really aggressive. Am I doing a good job?"
Alicia: "Oh yeah. You're doing fucking great."
Caitlin: "I don't understand your tone, but whatever. Guess it's on."

It's fairly awesome. Diane's applied that kind of pressure before, when Alicia was in danger of not thinking realistically, but for some reason it skews a whole other way when Alicia does it. And frankly, it never occurred to me, that whole "they'll never trust you anyway" thing, so props to Alicia... but it does cast a different light on all the times -- Walsh, Canning -- that Alicia's trumpeted her own loyalty in the face of their demonic offers. Every time Canning started to woo her, it felt like maybe one day she'd jump that way if L/G got weird enough, but now it seems she's never even considered it -- not because it would be wrong, but because it wouldn't be prudent.

Maybe it's just something she's figured out along the way, but overall this flinty Alicia -- still a woman who chooses her words more carefully than anyone on the planet -- has the potential to be intimidating as hell. Again, Alicia v. Caitlin seems like one of the diciest propositions, even for this very risk-taking show, just because of the age thing and the subtle boyfriend vibes they keep sending... but I can't help thinking that, done right, it could do a lot for Alicia's character that has nothing to do with man/woman stuff at all. And, this being a show that excels in talking about people as people -- even when gender's in the room giving you the hairy eyeball, which is always is and always will be -- I must say it's pretty thrilling to consider.