“Watch out for friends”.
Behold what’ll be the final words we hear from Ruth Eastman (Margo Martindale). It’s her advice to Eli (Alan Cumming) as he returns to his office to re-head the Peter Florrick (Chris Noth) administration. She’s heading out to work on congressional campaigns, presumably never to be seen again in The Good Wife universe. Eli says he wishes he treated her better. Ruth, in all her wisdom, agrees.
And then … wait. Hold on. We’ll get to this week’s episode, “Tracks”, in a second (or, well, maybe we won’t). But before we do that with any level of detail, it’s imperative to talk about precisely what this twelfth episode of season seven left me feeling, and that feeling is this …
There is no possible, comprehensible, reasonable and/or logical way that The Good Wife can return to television after this season (and, in full disclosure, I had not even read that the Kings announced last week they weren’t coming back after this season until after watching this week’s episode: AKA, the aforementioned conclusion came strictly as a result of viewing “Tracks”).
Alicia’s confused. She’s lost. The look on her face after Marissa (Sarah Steele) borderline begs her to forgive Eli, even if Alicia “needs time”, says everything. Not only about the character (Julianna Margulies), but also about the series. I believe her hurt. I believe her anger. I believe everything about what Alicia is trying to convey.
But the hopelessness on her face that fades out this week’s episode is perhaps the most enticing moment season seven has provided thus far. Because she’s right. All at once, the weight of life’s decisions and realities fell upon those tired eyes. The memory of Will (Josh Charles) — and all its complications — has been thrust back into her head with more consistency than ever. The career she jumpstarted in the wake of her husband’s unfaithful actions — and, again, all its complications — has taken too many turns for someone who’s been back in the workforce for only seven years.
Which leads me to why this series is almost done: much like the options for Alicia Florrick herself, there’s nowhere to go.
In hindsight, from a series standpoint at least, when Alicia initially left Lockhart/Gardner to begin Florrick/Agos, the show’s creators, Robert and Michelle King, should’ve introduced an entirely different cast of characters. Because if we were going to dance a dance that has Alicia competing with her former employer … only to go back to her former employer … only to leave her former employer … well, how does anybody – or more importantly, any story – have any credibility?
It doesn’t. Which is why there are really only two positions to take on where Alicia is at right now as a character:
1) Get over it. Stop being stubborn. Stop brooding. Stop letting your pride get in the way. Yes, what Eli did was wrong, but don’t forget how your relationship with Will turned out anyway, so let’s ease up on him a little. Plus, much like you, everyone wants to be his or her own boss, but typically, that’s not how life works. Lockhart, Agos & Lee will bring its own set of frustrations, but is it truly feasible to work for the rest of your life out of an apartment?
Or 2) Yeah, girl! Go get ’em! Never forgive Eli! Tell Lucca (Cush Jumbo) to get bent if she wants to head over to Lockhart, Agos & Lee! You can do it all on your own! Your seemingly never-ending misery is everyone else’s fault and they all need to pay! Never let go! Fight the good fight!
If the inevitable is position No. 1, then these last handful of episodes have been set up well for a rebuild as the season (and perhaps the series) winds down. If it’s No. 2, then there’s no earthly reason Cary (Matt Czuchry) or Diane (Christine Baranski) or David (Zach Granier) or Howard (Jerry Adler) or Lockhart/Anything should have lasted a second longer than the middle of season five.
Thus, we are where we are. Alicia, as illustrated at the end of this week’s episode, has absolutely no idea what the hell to do with her life. Will she end up back with Diane and Cary and the ghost of Will (Josh Charles)? Smart money says yes, no matter how many NOs she cried near the end of this episode. But when she does that … well, then what? We, as viewers, are just supposed to buy into it?
Or, more importantly, we, as viewers, are supposed to look at Alicia with any amount of credibility, moving forward?
You can only cry wolf so many times before people tune you out. And because this is a series that has prided itself on being as true-to-life as possible through the years, it’s hard to think that the Kings aren’t super-aware of the fact that if they put Alicia back where she started, there’s no way she can leave, there’s no way she can hold on to her anger and still be taken seriously.
So, it’s interesting now. The show is off next week. It’s back on the final day of January before presumably being off again for the Super Bowl, the following week. Season six had 22 episodes. The episode coming back after the Super Bowl would be this season’s 14th. That would give Robert and Michelle King eight hours of television to bring everything to a close. The most compelling notion in The Good Wife land has been, for a while now, the fact that the Kings have known since season one how they wanted to end this story. So, with the news of them not being back next year (CBS owns the show, so it could theoretically continue under a different regime, but let’s not even start going down that road … yet), we at least know that, if nothing else, their ultimate ending to their ultimate story will be revealed in the coming months.
It makes sense then, that much like last week, “Tracks” was kind of a throwaway hour of TV. Nothing moved forward. The week’s case — a clear play on the “Blurred Lines” debacle that captivated the music world for a minute and a half in 2013 and 2014 — dominated a lot of the airtime. Lucca, who, let’s be honest, we were all hoping would end up with Cary, opted for Rowby (Matthew Lillard), if only for a handful of nights dedicated to wearing robes and listening to music. Alicia fired Grace (Makenzie Vega) in a moment that felt more weird than it did sentimental. The clients that Alicia poached are now being poached by Lockhart, Agos & Lee, because of course they are. And, turns out, a neighbor named Crystal (played fabulously by Ali Wentworth; shouts to In Living Color!) is mad that Alicia is running a business out of her apartment, so she wants to evict her.
Yet after seeing how this episode ends — and coming to the realization that this actually is going to have to be the show’s final run — it’s hard to not to think that Grace (Makenzie Vega) appearing at a housing authority meeting and successfully defending her mother … right before being fired by her mother … is supposed to suggest to us that Grace is going to grow up to be a hell of an attorney someday.
Cue the sentimentalities.
So, as Ruth said, “watch out for friends”, everybody. Except this time, don’t allow it to occur through the purview of malevolence. Instead, watch with the possibility in mind that these will turn out to be some of the very last moments you’ll ever get to spend with this group of comrades who may just be going away soon.
And if they leave, they won’t be coming back.
Approaching The Bench
I still can’t figure out the relevance of the Monica Timmons (Nikki M. James) angle. She’s there to represent how white the law firm is, and she’s presumably there to help change that. But the entire story has been marginalized through the weeks (which begs the question of what’s worse: never addressing how overtly white corporate America is, or addressing it flippantly for a few weeks and then burying it in the same way the problem is actually being buried throughout American society?). Her role this week was literally only to introduce the fact that they could get some of Alicia’s clients back. So … ?
Sorry. I just wasn’t a fan of the Lucca/Rowby thing. If the show officially goes away forever after the Kings step down, one of the more disappointing things is going to be what was left on the table with Lucca. I’d love to see that character grow through a couple of seasons. People loved Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) because she had depth, but they also loved her because the series allowed her to have depth. Lucca, for the most part, is seen in only courtrooms and Alicia’s apartment. I understand that everyone can’t be as mysterious as Kalinda, but I think there are other ways to make a television character interesting other than to have that character be over-the-top ambiguous. Which, as great as Kalinda was, let’s not lie to ourselves here: she was over-the-top ambiguous. The Cary/Lucca thing could’ve had legs, I tell you. It could’ve had legs.
“I like artists, but I lose interest in them real quick”.
Not in 10 million years could you justify a picture like that of Eli and Alicia. Do we forget what Eli was when he first showed up? Dude was a very conniving, very funny, very ambitious, very cynical, very aggressive, very slimy kind of person. He always butted heads with Alicia, and even when they were at their best, you can’t convince me — again, not in 10 million years — that a photo like that, where they practically looked like they were married for 12 years and just then discovering what a selfie was, could happen.
On the idea that the Kings step down, but somehow CBS wants to keep things going: What about a prequel focused on Will Gardner? Or Kalinda? Or both?
Those scenes where people were supposed to be playing live music were bad. Very, very bad.
Am I the only one who feels like if this series continued for another two years, Grace would look like she’s old enough to be both married and divorced?
So, I have a friend who’s a lawyer. He’s been confronted with a situation that may or may not have included romance and a client. When talking about this situation, he has noted many times — and I mean many times — that if he were to pursue the romance with the client, there could have been major repercussions. Now, I don’t know much about much. And I’m certainly not a lawyer (hell, I’m not even a readable writer [not true! — Ed.]). But even if there’s a sliver of truth to my friend’s stories … OK, I’m just going to come out and say it: it’s just impossible for me to believe that something like Lucca and Rowby’s kiss in the courtroom would be allowed.
Crazy Prediction of the Week: Remember when Lucca said something about getting back to the real world? Let’s say everything that happened this season thus far has gone down in some parallel universe and Alicia eventually wakes up, insinuating all of this was a dream, and when she wakes up … that’s right. Will Gardner’s sitting right next to her.