A bereaved wife sues a newspaper for damages, since they printed a cartoon of Mohammed. She hires Jonas Stern. After learning that the cartoonist is a kid and the plane bomb might have been an inside job, Alicia falls on dirty tactics — namely that she knows Stern is senile, and has a harder time focusing than he used to. She objects a lot to disrupt his concentration.
Cary learns that Julius and others may be defecting to Stern's firm. Peter's born-again Christian schtick continues.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Double Standard: Discussed. A witness claims that he disapproved of the paper printing the cartoon because it was disrespectful of religious faith. Diane counters by bringing up a photograph the witness printed of a crucifix immersed in urine titled "Piss Jesus", and argues the witness was fearful of retaliation rather than concerned with showing respect.
- Mistaken for Racist: Kalinda doesn't like the idea of racially profiling the bomber. Cary suggests it might be that the bomber was simply framing it to look like a Muslim did it as revenge for the cartoon.
- Offending the Creator's Own: An In-Universe example. The cartoonist, Tarik Bassir, is a Muslim secularist, and initially drew a generic Arab but then had the idea to draw the Prophet Muhammad instead. Both versions were mainly intended to make a point about racial profiling of Arab-Americans, but the Muhammad version had the added benefit of pissing off Islamic fundamentalists, whom Tarik wishes to reclaim the image of his faith from. Unfortunately, the larger point about racial profiling got lost amidst the outrage over the depiction of the Prophet, which is traditionally considered taboo in Islam.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Stern mentions what happened in Denmark after a Danish cartoonist did something similar.
- Scatterbrained Senior: Exploited: Alicia deliberately aggravates Stern's dementia symptoms by repeatedly objecting to break his concentration, wrecking his questioning of a witness.
- Would Not Hurt A Child: Lockhart/Gardner's client refuses to put the Tarik Bassir on the stand despite the benefit of him testifying, because he'd rather lose everything in the case than put the life of a child at risk from the terrorists suspected of attacking his newspaper.
