The Good Wife

[twodollars]

I liked the finale. I love Josh Charles, so definite yum for me. I am a bit worried that they are setting up a custody fight for next season after the scene where Alicia doesn't make it to family dinner and Grandma just happens to be there.

And I was disappointed that it was Peter and not Cary that mailed the bloody glove. I don't want a redemption arc for Peter. He's the one person on the show is not gray to me. He is just a bad guy all-around.

[kostgard]

I've been busy yapping about the finale on another site, but I loved it.


I'm glad that they resolved the tension between Will and Alicia without guaranteeing that this means it's all "Happily ever after." They just decided to put aside all the issues and obstacles and do what they wanted for one night. The following morning nothing will be resolved, and if anything, Alicia's life will be a bit messier. I really, really hate it when shows drag out the "Will they or won't they" question for a ridiculous amount of time. This addresses it yet keeps the future wide open.

I am really, really looking forward to Eli and Alicia working together. I love their relationship and that she's one of the few people in the world Eli seems to genuinely like, but he's still gonna have to play politics with her because it's his job. And a part of me wonders if he won't start the grooming process to eventually get Alicia into office.


As for Peter, I don't want a redemption arc for him either, but the way it played out was perfectly ambiguous. He could have done it for several reasons - to help Alicia and win her back, it could have simply been Peter the Crusader and he didn't want to see an innocent man go to prison, or he could have done it to screw Childs over for revenge. Or maybe some combination of them all. I think Peter is still very much a gray character.


And I even liked that Kalinda is getting a bit of the "good girl" in her while Alicia is getting a bit of the "bad girl" in her. Kalinda actually objected to sleeping with a married person, and Alicia actually took Kalinda's advice and had a no strings attached ONS with Will because she wanted to. Maybe down the line they can meet in the middle and be friends again.

[Deleted]

I really liked the finale too. I'm glad that they didn't end it on a cliffhanger but still made you wonder what was going to happen next season. Having Eli at Lockhart and Gardner is genius.

Peter is still somewhat ambiguous but Jackie seems to have become a full on bad guy which is a little tiresome.I really hope they do not go the custody battle route. But I have faith that they will go somewhere unexpected with that.

The show is moving to Sunday night which I think is good. CBS was saying that is going to be their prestige night what with 60 Minutes, Amazing Race and The Good Wife. Of course CSI Miami comes on after that so I wouldn't say its that prestigious. The only downfall is it could be preempted by football a lot. Then again there might not be any football next season.

[Deleted]

Was the envelope sent to Will? I seem to remember that it was for him and Alicia took it for some reason? Did Peter know that this would happen? He did seem a bit surprised when Will told him that the glove landed on Alicia's desk so I'm not sure if he had planned it that way.


I didn't like the elevator scene but I did like that Alicia and Will got a break and their "one hour".

[Peggy Lane]

I hate that they are moving it to Sunday nights! I loved Cold Case but it never freaking came on on time and my DVR could never catch it.

The Will/Alicia scene was so good, and I don't even really like them together! I love that it was measured. It wasn't that they couldn't stop themselves from ripping each other's clothes off, it as that they were making a very deliberate choice.

I was reading about how Julianna M insisted on producing the show in New York, and I think that decision is one of the reasons TGW is so amazing. The talent pool is just different, and it gives the show such great actors for roles minor to major. Christine Baranksi, for example, whom just makes Diane so fun to watch.

[Mugsy]

I hate the Sunday night move too, for the same reason. CBS is notorious for not having its lineup on time during football season. Most networks get around that type of problem by scheduling filler from 7-8 that they can skip if something runs long, but 60 Minutes is apparently the holy grail and has to run, putting everything else late.

Weeknights at 10 are the best time for quality dramas.

Plus, it's against Desperate Housewives, which appeals to a lot of the same demographic. Ugh.

Although, this does bode well for Parenthood on Tuesdays at 10, since it and The Good Wife were fighting for the same viewers. And V is cancelled, so it does solve my Tuesday at 10 viewing dilemma.

[kostgard]

Sundays at 9:00 work for me - Sundays at 10:00 are when things get crowded.

I'm on the West Coast, so football delays usually aren't a big issue. CBS said at the upfront presentation that they will be rolling out a nifty new marketing plan for the show. So we'll see if it actually is interesting and if it works.

[Deleted]

Any night at 9:00 is better than 10:00 for me. I'm in the Atlantic time zone which is an hour ahead of EST so anything that airs at 10:00 we don't get until 11:00 which is a little late for me. Although strangely enough the Canadian channel used to show The Good Wife at 8:00 on Tuesdays where I lived which was nice, I could watch it while eating dinner.

It will be interesting to see how they market the show. It gets a lot of critical praise but I get the impression that its actual audience skews a bit older and conservative. I was on a couple of different message boards after the finale and there were a lot of complaints about the scene between Kalinda and the other female investigator. How it was disgusting and trashy. One of the things I like about the show is that it is adult in depicting sexual relationships and I hope they don't change that.

[kostgard]

I know that the show skews older (doing better in the 25-54 demo than the 18-49), and like Mad Men and 30 Rock it stews "rich" (I don't remember the exact numbers for TGW, but Mad Men brings in a lot of viewers who make $100K and above).

I would be surprised if it skewed conservative (outside of people on the internet who look for things to find offensive). I mean the show is stacked with liberal/not exactly socially conservative stuff - Peter is a Democrat (who has NPR on in the background while he goes down on his wife), Diane is a flaming liberal, Alicia is kinda weirded out by her daughter exploring religion, her son is dating a black girl, Alicia's brother is openly gay, and of course there's Kalinda, who bangs whoever she wants, male or female. Seems like Conservatives would have been turned off a long time ago.

But I completely agree - it is a show about grown-ups and is directed at grown-ups. I hope that doesn't change, either.

[Deleted]

I think it's the heir to The West Wing in the sense that it's by grownups, for grownups, skews older and richer, though perhaps more liberal. I mean, there has to be a reason that Buick is so heavily pimped out on the show, right?

I have now descended down the rabbithole of Youtube clips of Josh Charles. Yum indeed.