The Good Wife - Season 7 (1 Viewer)

[NeilO]

Just read that interview, Adam. Thanks. It is quite interesting there - honesty not the best policy in all things.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Mid-season premiere promo:

 

[Mike Frezon]

Cool.


Thanks, Adam.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I am finding this to be an EXTREMELY long wait until the next episode January 10th!

 

[Matt Hough]

With characters this rich, the wait is ALWAYS torturous. This has been the case since season one. Every hiatus has been cruel and unusual punishment.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

It's hard to imagine this episode not being Julianna Margulies's Emmy submission for this year, and rightfully so: It ran the range from rage to sadness to numbness to self-pity to some small measure of begrudging acceptance. The best praise I can give Ms. Margulies is that every single beat, every single moment felt exactly, achingly true to the Alicia I've gotten to know over these seven seasons.


And then to sandwich that with the absurdity that is the Iowa caucuses. It was one of the better structured episodes of the season, with the storylines crossing in interesting, meaningful ways. When Zach dismissed the whole of Iowa (or at least rural Iowa) as basically unsophisticated, drooling rubes, I kind of wondered if the writers' "View of the World from 9th Avenue" mindset was coming out. While what followed show a modicum of additional nuance, it's pretty clear that the writers weren't any bigger fans of the Iowa caucuses than pretty much everybody else who isn't a pundit or from Iowa.


I did love that Grace was sort of a rock star to that high school senior in Polk County who's headed to Georgetown the following school year. We see these characters in all of these intimate domestic scenes, and it's easy to think of them as ordinary people. But they're not ordinary people; they live their lives at least partially in the public eye, and it makes sense that when Grace has shared her views publicly over the years, there have been people out there listening. And her Christian faith plays well in a very evangelical state. I can see how another girl roughly Grace's age who is trying to reconcile millennial generational values with a devout Christian faith would be drawn to someone who's on a parallel journey.


God help me, but I'm actually rooting for Howard and Jackie. They're two characters who make it very hard to like them, yet are definitely more likable (or at least, less unlikable) together. And that shady and ill-conceived scheme to shelter $2.2 million was classic David Lee.

The firm being investigated for racially biased employment practice seemed like a storyline the show was dutifully letting run its course. It still isn't working for me, since it's a little too conceptual instead of emotional. It'd be one thing if we'd been invested in Monica when this whole thing kicked off. But I wasn't, and I'm still not. She still feels like a storytelling prop rather than a living breathing character. That's no criticism of Nikki M. James's performance; the problem isn't the acting, it's the writing. The character just wasn't executed well.

It was weird having Chris Matthews, broadcasting from his Hardball set, be presented by a local network affiliate. I get that CBS wouldn't want to advertise an MSNBC program, but leaving all network identifiers off the screen would have been less distracting than the obviously phony network identifier.


That last shot, with Peter seeking comfort from Alicia like a child running to his mother after a scraped knee and Alicia providing it, is a metaphor for their entire marriage.

 

[NeilO]

Great episode. It showcased just how bad a decision it was for Eli to tell the truth about deleting that call. This looks to continue to have reverberations.


I thought it was amazing as they were trying for their 29th voter and they were wanting to remove that hyper-Florrick-fan until they realized that he was bringing them the needed voters. I actually was more surprised that he hadn't been in there earlier.


So now the firm has pledged to make Howard emeritus. I wonder how much of that $2.2 million will have to pay for that.

 

[Matt Hough]

We haven't heard the last of $2.2 million; you can bet on that.


I agree that the discrimination storyline has been the weak link this season: not well written nor well executed.


Everything else about the episode, however, was aces. And I'm really liking Alicia's partner more and more with each episode.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Everything Alicia in this episode was aces.


But everything that took place in that Iowa gymnasium was crap.


I was VERY disappointed with the nonsense of what happened in that Iowa gym. First, that little vignette came, practically, out of nowhere. The premise of the 29 supporters was hastily constructed and explained.


"We need people!" Who dropped the ball?" "I'm calling the cavalry." "What are we going to do? We've only 3.6++

36.got 28." "We need one more." "Yay! We've got 29!" "Uh oh." "We lost one. Where'd the youth minister go?" (Why was she identified as a youth minister?) "She's joined Hillary's group." (Why was there no explanation of this action by this unseen person?) "Uh oh. What are we gonna do now?" "Look! Here comes the weird guy in the Revolutionary War garb! He's embarrassing! Um, no, wait a minute...he's actually saving the day!"


It's almost like this award-winning well-written drama got taken over by the writers of Full House for about twenty minutes.


Outside of that bit of weirdness, I gotta agree with Adam that the rest of the episode was brilliant.


Along with the discrimination storyline...there hasn't been much involving Lockhart, Agos and Lee that has worked.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

To be fair, Mike, from everything I've read that's really not that far off from the actual Iowa caucus process!

 

[Mike Frezon]

Yeah, Adam. I understand about the vagaries and quaintness of the Iowa Caucuses.


But the slice of the Florrick experience in that gymnasium to gain "viability" was exceptionally poorly constructed and written (with the haphazard creation of a series of mini-crises that had no bearing on any of the story arcs in the show) and played out nothing like any other bit of drama I can think of over the seasons of The Good Wife.


The whole thing just seemed out of place.


Most of the action on the bus, however, really struck me as classic TGW.

 

[Stan]

God help me, but I'm actually rooting for Howard and Jackie. They're two characters who make it very hard to like them, yet are definitely more likable (or at least, less unlikable) together. And that shady and ill-conceived scheme to shelter $2.2 m

illion was classic David Lee.

Rarely disagree with you, but the whole Jackie/Howard story is absurd. Jackie drives me crazy. They should have killed her off years ago with a heart attack, stroke or something. Howard does provide some comic relief, but is now becoming more and more of a main character. I hope their side story ends quickly.

 

[Carabimero]

The show is still very good, but not as good as usual this season. Still, it's better than most. Hope we're not seeing the beginning of the end.


It was painful seeing Alicia behind those dark glasses. I don't mind the main character being down for a while, but I never want her to be out.

 

[Matt Hough]

I just read this afternoon that the Kings are leaving after the current season. If the show gets picked up, it will be without their considerable guidance and worldview. I'll be a bit apprehensive about a Good Wife without the Kings in control.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Not a shocker given that the Kings have said from the beginning that they have a seven-year plan for the show. The only reason the show isn't for sure ending after this season is because of CBS's pathological need to keep shows going far past their shelf life. People give Bays & Thomas a lot of shit for the way "How I Met Your Mother" ended, but I think CBS deserves just as much blame on that one. The ending they conceived and shot during season two would have worked fine if the show had stuck to the four or five seasons that would have been natural for it. But no, instead CBS dragged it out for 9 seasons. And somewhere in season four, once they realized it wasn't ending anytime soon, they started spinning their wheels.


I love "The Good Wife", but if seven seasons is the right time for it to end, seven seasons is the right time to end. It's managed premium cable quality storytelling for the vast majority of its run, but instead of 10-13 episode seasons it's pulled off 22-23 episode seasons. If it were structured like a cable show, the show would be somewhere between its eleventh and fourteenth season. When you take that into consideration, it's amazing that we don't have more complaints than we do. If the Kings are ready to end it at the end of this season, CBS should honor their wishes.


The really perplexing thing is that it's not even a major rating performer for CBS. CBS kept it on its schedule because it's been the network's prestige show. But continuing it into infinity with whatever writer happens to be available to man the ship this season is the surest way for CBS to turn something special into another of its formulaic procedurals.


First the games they're playing with "Person of Interest" (which has also not been shown the respect of advance notice whether this season is it or not) and now this news about "The Good Wife". I don't have a lot of respect for the CBS execs right now.

 

[Carabimero]

I love Alicia Florrick. Maybe they can do something bold and spin her life in a new direction away from all the clutter starting to mount.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I just read this afternoon that the Kings are leaving after the current season. If the show gets picked up, it will be without their considerable guidance and worldview. I'll be a bit apprehensive about a Good Wife without the Kings in control.

Gilmore Girls, anyone?!?

 

[Carabimero]

Gilmore Girls, anyone?!?

The scenes between Alicia and Grace are very good. I just want to see Alicia fight and be smart. Not win all the time, not be happy all the time, but fight and be smart.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Alan:


I was very clumsily making a reference to the fact that the Palladinos weren't around for the final season of The Gilmore Girls and we saw a precipitous drop in quality.


I was trying to make the point that something similar would likely happen with The Good Wife if the show continues without the Kings.

 

[NeilO]

Considering that season to season it has seemed to be have on the bubble whether it was renewed, continuing it beyond the Kings just doesn't seem to be a good idea unless they handpick their successors and plan an arc out before leaving.