Goodbye to The Good Wife

Just a few thoughts on what was the best show on broadcast television.

These days broadcast television does not get better than what we watched for the past seven years on Sunday nights on The Good Wife. It won’t be the same. Intelligent and sophisticated, it was everything broadcast television surrendered to Cable leaving us with Reality TV  and drab old style police shows.  

If you were paying attention over the course of the show’s run, the finale was not as much of a shocker as some may have thought. Everyone’s world seemed to fall apart with Alicia’s betrayal of Diane Lockheart (Christine Baranski) in order to save her husband from a prison sentence. Diane’s slap across Alicia’s face cemented a downbeat ending that seemed oddly appropriate. After all, the show’s title was really an ironic take on the prickly lead character whose shades of goodness became more and more cloudy, like Peter (Chris Noth) her husband’s, with each passing season.

The show seemed to lose it way for a while when Will Gardner (Josh Charles) was killed along with the loss of Archie Panjabi as Kalinda. Apparently, Julianna Margulies and Panjabi did not get along. However, it managed to find its way back with the addition of characters like Lucca (Cush Jumbo) and Jason Crouse (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the latter Alicia’s newest lover, that is until he disappeared right at the end during Peter’s announcement of his resignation.

Undisputedly, the show was anchored by Julianna Margulies performance as Alicia.  She could reveal more with  small subtle facial movements than most actors can do with their entire body.

I will miss her.