Last night on The Good Wife, the relentlessly Zeitgeist-y lawyers of Lockhart Gardner took on a client who may sound familiar: a twentysomething computer programmer turned billionaire looking to sue the makers of a film based on his life — and more specific, the founding of his now wildly popular website — for defamation. Yes, it’s The Social Network, and while Good Wife made a few small attempts to acknowledge its movie inspiration (“He’s another Zuckerberg,” notes Christine Baranski early on), the episode still unapologetically borrowed the movie’s entire backstory, right down to the fictional ex-girlfriend who inspired the website’s creation. Case in point: the screenwriter very obviously based on Aaron Sorkin, whose scene is available here, at the 16:20 mark. Vulture can’t speak to the real-life Sorkin’s sartorial preferences (beyond his love of being tan), but we’d guess that he actually does enjoy turtlenecks, because everything else here is spot-on. Obnoxious and arrogant fast-talk! Former drug problems! Feuds with blog commenters! And major points to Good Wife writers Robert and Michelle King for re-creating the Social Network deposition scene while denying Fake Sorkin any zingers on the level of “Have I adequately answered your condescending question?” If only they’d thrown in some pedeconferencing. Anyway, now we’re really looking forward to Sorkin’s 30 Rock appearance, because it’ll be a similar roast, but to his face. Game on.
