This is it! In its final episode, The Good Wife rose out of the ashes of a mess of a season and grasped at the character-driven brilliance it had in its heyday. Before that, it attempted to make sense of a character whose contradictions, changes, and choices were opaque to her and wonderfully complex on screen.
I’ll recap it, then follow up with final thoughts—a farewell to this flawed masterpiece of a show.
Is everyone ready for the finale tonight? I can’t quite believe it’s really over. Here’s a recap of the penultimate episode, which was, on the whole, quite moving.
This was an amazing episode. There were no filler scenes, which is usually a big problem; every scene was meaty and moved the plot line forward; many storylines came to well-deserved climaxes that have been coming for a long time; every major character had sympathetic motivations, even when they were at odds; and it was genuinely heartbreaking in several spots. Solid work, Nashville.
Someone over there at CBS looked at my Secret Dream Diary of Guest Stars I’d Like To See and put them all in this episode. Veronica! Owen! Zach! Marissa (I guess)! Everyone but Josh Charles, who we’re still hoping is on his way back for one more appearance.
Anyway, we come back up on the same conversation between Jason and Alicia that ended last week’s episode. Alicia repeats that she wants Jason. Which is a huge step for her, just to say what she wants (even if what she wants is kind of stupid). Jason confirms that she’s not getting divorced because of him: it would be a bad idea because he doesn’t know what they are yet.
Men who are this afraid of commitment are really kind of arrogant, aren’t they? He’s acting like she’s too stupid to notice that they haven’t made any commitments to each other yet, or too blinded by love of him to understand what a risk it would be to give up marriage for undefined FWB situation. Calm down, buddy. I don’t think she’s going to perish for love of you quite yet.
The AV Club wrote a fantastic article on how the Good Wife broke all the rules of TV legal dramas, and then broke itself. Also, the NYT did a great interview with Julianna Margulies and the Kings – though they got quickly shut down when they asked about Archie Panjabi!
Last week was Charlotte Bronte’s 200th birthday (read our piece on Villette here). Electric Literature ran an interesting piece (that we VEHEMENTLY disagree with) on rereading Jane Eyre and finding it somewhat less awesome.
We saw The Huntsman: Winter’s War last Friday. We were all really excited for it, and at least one of us was also pretty drunk, but we HATED it. Here are some takes from around the web:
Gizmodo says, “The fact that we get to see this pointless, silly movie made with an A-list cast… is one of the great marvels of our age.”
The Mary Sue laments that it’s “generic white male hero number eleventy five million.”
The Atlantic mourns the “bizarre camp classic that almost was.”
Nice title, right? Like, I hope that describes every episode of any show I might write someday, otherwise I’m probably doing it wrong.
That said, there were some pretty good twists in this episode, so we have to hand it to the writers!
We ended last week’s episode on what was supposedly a cliffhanger, but if you were looking forward to seeing the resolution of that big question (will Alicia wait to divorce Peter till after his legal troubles are over) happen onscreen, you’ll be disappointed.
That said, this episode finally zoomed up to full speed and delivered a whole bunch of major plot developments. I also had the privilege of seeing this screened with a large and very engaged audience at the Tribeca Film Festival (my write-up is here), which made it really fun.
About your recapper: I haven’t read any of the relevant comic books, but I do know that The Punisher will be showing up in this season, played by Jon “M’ask you sum’min” Bernthal. (I also watch The Walking Dead. Let’s not talk about that right now.) I’m also technically writing this having already watched the whole season, because I couldn’t stop. This will make it slightly awkward when I make fun of the show for awkwardly telegraphing things that are obviously going to happen, but I think we can all get over it—and I promise to warn you before any actual-factual spoilers, but there shouldn’t be any.
About the show: Charlie Cox is Matt Murdock is Daredevil. He has a cool suit. Vincent D’Onofrio a.k.a. Kingpin a.k.a. Wilson Fisk is in jail. Karen Page killed a guy last season and feels guilty about it. Foggy is Matt’s buddy, and law partner, and knows that Matt is Daredevil. He doesn’t really approve.
Let’s get started!
Previously on Nashville: Star Autumn Chase almost took Layla on tour with her, then went with Scarlett and Gunnar instead; Maddie thought something might be wrong with Colt; some girl named Vita stole from Deacon and disappeared, which somehow made Rayna really passionate about helping troubled girls; Luke asked Will to come back to his label; and Juliette quit a movie to be with her daughter.
Scarlett and Gunnar are in Dallas to join Autumn Chase’s tour. Scarlett is freaking out about “remeeting” Autumn—even her hair, which has a sort of “twelve-year-old boy who just woke up” vibe to it right now, looks freaked out. Gunnar light-heartedly teasing her for her fangirlishness, so she teases him back about his love for James Taylor.
They arrive at Autumn’s tour meeting, and Autumn gives them big hugs and a glowing introduction to her crew. Scarlett gushes under her breath to Gunnar about how amazing Autumn is, only to watch Autumn wrap up the meeting by coolly firing a guy in front of everyone. She strolls away, and Scarlett and Gunnar make “oh fuck” faces.
I went to a Tribeca Film Festival screening today of tonight’s new episode of The Good Wife, followed by a discussion with Robert King, Michelle King, Julianna Margulies, Matt Czuchry, and Cush Jumbo about the show and the upcoming finale.
First of all, the episode was fabulous. You should all watch it. The drama kicks up for both the clients and the main characters, and some of our favorite guest stars are back (notably Dillinger and the rest of the NSA crew, plus the inimitable Kurt McVeigh). Cary makes a sad-eyed appearance, and there’s also an amazing moment between Peter and Alicia that shows so many layers of how they feel about each other. I’ll be recapping it later on, but yeah. Tune in tonight.
Adversion 