Isn't The Good Wife great?

[sabrelady]

 

I plotzed last night when Ruth told Alicia to get away from Peter as soon as possible! I'd like to see Peter assassinated and Jackie and Alicia battling it out to finish out his term as Governor. Jackie should win, of course, just to send Eli over the edge! 

With the repetition of " a target on his back" I think the assassination thing-y could happen.  Would be a nice bit of "the mills of the gods grind slowly" & would free Alicia up for  new and PUBLIC relationship(s).

Yes the kids lose their father but really? how involved has he ever been with them? close brackets and be done.

 

 

 

"

 

 

 

"

 

[SmoothLover]

I think Alicia will quit the law firm, divorce her husband, kiss the kids good bye and then jump in a truck with Morgan and head for the open road.

 

I have always found it interesting that Madam Secretary does better in the ratings. Maybe it is the time slot.

[SmoothLover]

Bump. They could have given Victoria Clark a line.....

[Call_me_jorge]

NEXT WEEK IS THE SERIES FINALE! Where did the time go?! It felt like just yesterday when it started! What were your favorite or least favorite episodes? The episode with the shooting will always stick out, but I always could never get out of my head was the episode where Alicia was like yelling at the judge and even though he was threatening to put her in contempt she screamed back he should be. 

[SmoothLover]

I always looked forward to watching it. The show will be missed. RIP in reruns.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

I should change the thread title to "wasn't The Good Wife great?" - I'm still enjoying it (to a degree), but it's time to go. 

[sabrelady]

Last episode next week. Maybe David Lee will have the 29th floor fall on him?. And she should know by now , if u bet everything on a relationship with a guy you are gonna lose.. yourself. And isn't that what the shows damn journey about?

[Jay Lerner-Z]

I hope in the last episode Alicia finally takes off her wig, followed by her face, as it is slowly revealed that she has been one of The Witches all along. 

 

[Jordan Catalano]

I'm gonna miss the hell out of this show. I've said it a hundred times, but even at it's worst THE GOOD WIFE was still better than pretty much anything else on television and will absolutely go down as one of the greatest series in the history of the medium.

[adamgreer]

Call_me_jorge said: "NEXT WEEK IS THE SERIES FINALE! Where did the time go?! It felt like just yesterday when it started! What were your favorite or least favorite episodes? The episode with the shooting will always stick out, but I always could never get out of my head was the episode where Alicia was like yelling at the judge and even though he was threatening to put her in contempt she screamed back he should be. 

 

Their "red wedding" episode (the one where she and Carey leave the firm) will always be their best episode  

 

[AC126748]

If the series had a "red wedding" episode, I would say it was the one where Will Gardner was killed.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Easily one of the best TV dramas of all time. Impeccable writing and extraordinary performances. So sad to see it go as I've been a religious viewer since Day One, but happy it's leaving on a high note with the original writers still on board.

[Mister Matt]

I'm finishing it out, but I still think it started strong and then floundered when Will left, regurgitating the same conflicts over and over.  It was an interesting POV on politics, law and family structure that descended into typical soap drama with bits of humor and classy music.

[Margo319]

Besides the presence of Josh Charles, I hated the finale and hated the ambiguous ending.  Bullsh*t.

 

 

[sabrelady]

Agree re Josh Charles. I guess Alicia finally got to say goodbye.  I don't disagree about ambiguity but convoluted would have been a bit more accurate.  I know Marguilles  said some would like it and others would really dislike but shoot but who  did they think would like this hot mess.  Talk about not with a bang but a whimper.

[Margo319]

Agreed.  The best season of The Good Wife was season 5.  These past two seasons have been weaker overall IMO.

[Call_me_jorge]

They should make a spinoff with Lucca. Also did anyone else think it was weird for sutton to come on? I thought it would turn out to be a crossover with younger. 

[Margo319]

Pretty much sums up my thoughts on the finale.

[Jordan Catalano]

I don't know what to make of this. I think the finale was anything over than "brilliant" or "amazing". You can have an ending like that for a two hour film, but not a television series where people have given 6 years of their lives watching it and following these characters. 

[Jordan Catalano]

Reading some of the reviews from tonight's episode and I'm glad they're calling the writers out for that ending and mainly for being disrespectful to the fans of the show who have come to expect so much more from the storytelling of the series. 

[SmoothLover]

So much for Alicia evolving. The ending was rather sad I thought. I thought she would at least end of alone but ok with it.

On another note I thought Madam Secretary had a very touching season finale.

[Call_me_jorge]

https://twitter.com/thegoodwife_cbs/status/729541525294682114

[Call_me_jorge]

I understand what they were trying to do, but to have Diane be the victim seemed so out of the blue. It should have been someone Alicia victimized throughout the entire show. Kalinda obviously should have been the victim to slap Alicia. 

Also did anyone catch the ad for the new series created by the people behind the goodwife? 

[AC126748]

To me, the finale was excellent and completely represented the show (and the character of Alicia) itself. It was fascinating. It was messy. It was frustrating. It eschewed easy answers. It flirted with closure and catharsis -- but pulled away from them at the last minute. A complicated goodbye to a complicated show.

[Petralicious]

I think how Diane handled Alicia in that hallway was great! I have wanted to do that for a while too!

[AC126748]

Robert and Michelle King have written a goodbye letter to fans, posted on CBS's website.

Dearest Good Wife Friends,

"Thank you" is easy. "Goodbye" is harder.

Thank you for an extraordinary seven seasons of support, encouragement, and commitment to The Good Wife. To say that we could not have done this without you is an understatement.

This is the second time we've written you about the creative decisions involved with The Good Wife:—the first was with the end of Will Gardner; now it's with the end of the series. Both goodbyes involved difficult decisions, and if you found some value in the earlier explanation, you might find some in this one.

We wanted this series—a series that stretched over 156 episodes—to have some shape, some structural meaning. So after we realized we wouldn't be cancelled after 13 episodes, we started to devise a vanishing point we could write toward. That structure, in our minds, was simple. The show would start with a slap and end with a slap. Each slap would involve Alicia. This would be the bookend. She would slap someone who victimized her at the beginning of the series; and she would be slapped by someone she "victimized" at the end.

In this way, the victim would become the victimizer. This is the education of Alicia Florrick.

Alicia's character, to us, was about change. Each season she made choices she could never have made the season before. So over the course of seven years, she became tougher, more powerful, more cunning. Of course, we loved Alicia for this. Each decision made sense in the moment, and we forgave her or congratulated her each time. Even her decision in this last episode—the one that resulted in Diane being hurt—came out of her parental need to keep Grace from following in her path. She didn't want Grace to put her future on hold in order to stand by Peter.

But together all these decisions, legitimate as they were, added up to a character who was becoming more desensitized to her impact. She was becoming more and more like her husband, and, ultimately, Diane was the collateral damage.

That we found interesting. Over seven years could you completely remake your character? Could a victim become a victimizer?

(By the way, parenthetically, that's the cool thing about TV. It allows you to develop a concept that more resembles life. A character keeps changing over the course of seven years, but instead of reading about it in a novel over a weekend, you experience it over the actual seven years—with actors who age along with their characters—except for Grace who seemed to be 15-years-old for a few years. Sorry.)

One theme we kept returning to over and over in the series was: politics isn't out there. It's not something that happens in D.C. or on the news. It happens in our offices, our homes, our marriages. That's why we ended the series the way we did. Alicia is no longer a victim of politics. She is someone who takes charge, someone who controls the agenda.

On one level this is empowering. It allowed Alicia to control her fate. But it also changed her. Ironically, at the exact moment she found the power to leave Peter, she realized she had become Peter.

And that's tragic. Yes, Alicia's story contains tragedy. We still love her. And we hope you do too. The ending is supposed to be unsettling. But we don't think characters need to avoid tragedy to be embraced. We were tempted to have Alicia chase after a man in the end—stop him from getting on a train or an airplane at the last minute, hold him, kiss him. We like those endings. But there was something false about it here. It isn't who Alicia is. In the end, the story of Alicia isn't about who she'll be with; it's about who she'll be.

There is hope in the ending too—we believe. Alicia composes herself and marches toward the future. The two slaps to our mind are chapter endings and headings. If the slap that started the series woke Alicia up—helped her overcome her naivety about her husband and the world's corruption—then this second slap wakes her up to her own culpability. The question is what will she do with that?

Anyway, we should leave it there. We loved writing this series. We loved the comedy, the drama, the tragedy. We loved the lion telephone with Glenn Childs' voice. Elsbeth Tascioni facing off with Bob Balaban. Moo Cow. Eli's raised eyebrow. The Sexual harassment video Alicia and Will were forced to watch. Will clearing Alicia's desk. Cary's trip on mushrooms. Diane's weakness for guns. The YouTube videos the NSA guys sent back and forth.

It's hard to not write for these characters anymore. They seem very real to us—as if we'll turn a corner at the market and find Patti Nyholm there shopping for diapers; or turn another corner and find Judge Abernathy Feeling the Bern.

We've had fun. Thank you for having fun with us. We've also felt sad. Drama embraces both. So thank you for feeling sad with us too. And mostly, thank you for allowing these characters into your home every week for seven years.

It's been an honor to write for them, as well as for you.

With all our gratitude and affection,

Robert & Michelle King

 

http://www.cbs.com/shows/the_good_wife/news/1005197/the-good-wife-creators-say-farewell-spoilers-/?ftag=MKT-01-10aaa7b