BWW Recap: The End Is Where We Start From on THE GOOD WIFE Finale

We're going to be talking about this one for a long time to come. Right? That ending. That slap. That lonely walk and that promise of another beginning, right at the end. Or an end right at the beginning, set out for us seven years ago, when Alicia Florrick was shocked into being, and here we are now, seven years later, shocked at what she's become.

Does that even make any sense? I think it does. I think I know what just happened, or had to happen. And yet I didn't see it coming - until it came.

THE GOOD WIFE? Brilliant and difficult to the very last frame ...

Right before I watched this final ever episode of THE GOOD WIFE, I went back and revisited the pilot. I've seen that very first episode many times, after my first, addictive introduction on a delirious long-haul flight all those years ago. But tonight I watched the beginning differently. I watched for clues as to where the Kings might take me at the end. And I have to say that the Alicia Florrick we see in the 'End' is essentially right there in front of us in the pilot, unfolding. She's right there when we see her stand up to her husband's nemesis, Glenn Childs. She's fierce. Protective. And unflinching in her quest to protect what is hers.

You've obviously never made a woman angry.

Alicia Florrick. You are the best anti-hero of my television lifetime ...

People are going to be angry after this. It wasn't a night of happily ever afters. In the end, no one has been saved from the clear eye and sharp pen of the Kings. Perhaps most shockingly, Kurt and Diane have been found wanting. Alicia and Lucca pulled the rug out from under them - us, too I suppose - by revealing that Kurt had an affair with his Protégée. Or maybe he didn't, but it's enough to suggest that he did, and suddenly all that perfect couple stuff seems silly, unexamined. He's a gun-nut Republican after-all. He likes Sarah Palin. Diane could only protect their bubble for so long.

Still. Did they deserve this ending? Illusions shattered all round? Was Diane as naive as Alicia in the end? Is that the whole point of this series? That you're going to be awakened, one way or another?

Did we maybe want to go out with a little of that blissful ignorance, too?

So what does happen in the end? What can we say for sure? Peter yet again escapes the arm of the law. Cary finds his purpose in teaching. Jason proves his investigative mettle, and Eli sets up Alicia as his next political pawn. The men just sort of carry on. But the women are changed for good. There will be no all-women firm. Two marriages have possibly ended. The tentative alliance between Diane and Alicia certainly has. Ambition and entitlement often made for tension between these two phenomenal women over the years, but it's still shocking, isn't it, that the pinnacle moment of the finale should end with an act of aggression between them?

Typing that sentence, maybe I understand. Or maybe I don't at all ...

Here's the part I loved. Josh Charles aka my great love Will came back. In the best way possible. In Alicia's mind and heart, when she thought about who she wanted to open the door to. Will Gardner was the love of her life. We can say it wasn't the thing in the end, who Alicia Florrick would end up with. But in a way it was always going to be the most important thing. Who she'd choose. Who she'd choose to be. I like to think Alicia chose Will. In the end. That she'll always choose Will, even in the reaching for Jason, or any other man that comes her way. Will Gardner, who loved her through, and despite, and because.

God, you're awful. And you don't even know it.

He loved her even then. And so do I. Right to the very end. I love that Alicia does all she can to protect her husband. To protect her ever-innocent daughter who is prepared to put her life on hold if her Dad goes to jail. I love that Alicia Florrick is now everything that Diane, Will, Kalinda and Cary have asked her to be. Even if that leaves her walking down a hallway on her own. Unsteady and without any of them beside her. Stronger and wiser, still, for having known them these last seven years.

This is where we leave her. Nowhere pretty. Nowhere resolved. No longer a good wife, but certainly one of the most interesting women we've ever known.

Maybe I understand. Or maybe I don't at all. Now excuse me while I go off and pour a drink in honor of Alicia. My beloved atheist, (semi) alcoholic, adulterous, ambiguous, altogether amazing Alicia Florrick.

THE GOOD WIFE.

The end.

Image Credit: CBS