Judge Cuesta, played by David Paymer, presiding over Peter’s trial, adds to the many voices trying to steer Alicia in a new direction with his quotation of Orwell: “To see what is in front of your nose is a constant struggle.” Lucca gently scolds her early in the episode: “You tend to confuse responsibility and love.”. I just can't see, considering how fickle popular culture's audience is these days combined with how taxing the process can be to an actor, how the 22-episode formula lives on. The most obvious, telegraphed echoing in this finale is the shot with Alicia taking Peter’s hand, calling back to the opening premise of the pilot episode. In this last episode, we finally get Alicia standing alone. Him essentially giving her permission -- and even advocating for her -- to move forward with Jason felt, finally, as though Alicia can put the relationship she held with her former boss to rest for good. If she’s not standing beside Peter, she’s in an elevator with Will, or she’s on the other side of someone’s door, or she’s going up against Carey, or she’s sitting next to Kalinda at a bar (or not, as the case may be). You think I'm going to break down and cry? That’s a quote from me. The jury wants to hear the 911 call, not just read the transcript and they want to know what a strange noise is on the call. Alicia thinks she sees Jason waiting in the wings. © 2020 TV Fanatic Maybe that’s how we should imagine Alicia’s future. Not so much. That's simply not The Good Wife way. This point will surely be debated by fans in the court of recaps — and the appellate courts of comment sections. Or it’s horrible: Alicia, without a man, and also having betrayed one of her closest female friends, is left alone and chastised. Plea deals rise and fall with the political tides. An alternative view of which shows are airing next (list format). The AUSA offers a deal of one year probation, no jail time but Peter resigns his governorship. “There are genre-defying junctures where without a particular record, music would not have gone in various directions. King's passion for bringing the blues to a wider audience is in full flower on the landmark album, Indianola Mississippi Seeds. Josh Charles did indeed make a memorable return to the show to give Alicia a kick in the pants, although it’s not clear whether she takes all of his romantic advice. From Diane's facial reactions to Kurt's affair in court to the final 45 seconds, when we watch Alicia gather herself after all that’s happened … there are going to be a million and one reasons why all of us who love The Good Wife will miss The Good Wife, but my guess is that it might take a series re-watch to fully appreciate how stellar some of these performances were over time. Which might be one reason why it’s so strangely cathartic. My god, the acting. Alicia has an imaginary conversation with Will about what she should do next. Judge Cuesta says her testimony is inadmissible as this isn’t a murder trial but about bribery and corruption. We all know what happened with Archie Panjabi, real-life Margulies drama or not. Maybe you loved a few seasons. The ending leaves Alicia at a crossroads, professionally and personally. Oh my God, Offset!’”, Free Your Mind (to Think About En Vogue’s Billboard Music Awards Performance). The future. Just as Peter finishes, he goes to hold Alicia’s hand but she takes off to find Jason, only to find he wasn’t there after all. Country singer-songwriter Rachel Brooke reflects on life in a small town where winters are long and comforts can be few in "The Lovells Stockade Blues". Alicia accuses her of protecting her husband over defending her client. Going into it, you knew two things were inevitable: 1. If your review contains spoilers, please check the Spoiler box. Whine all you want about the later years, and this final season, and blah, blah, blah, blah … but if you're a fan of this show, seeing those two on screen together again really should have been a shot of adrenaline into your television nervous system. (The episode’s big move is to have Alicia be mansplained … about herself … BY A GHOST.) When it was at its best, The Good Wife spun its many plates with the best of them. Gaining confidence every day, Alicia transforms herself from embarrassed politician's scorned wife to resilient career woman, especially for the sake of providing a stable home for her children, 14-year-old Zach and 13-year-old Grace. Was Alicia too late? Your own feelings on the series might be mixed. Variety and the Flying V logos are trademarks of Variety Media, LLC. Vital evidence from missing bullets fades in and out of relevance, disappearing and then helping and then hurting Peter’s case in turn. Why? Did any of you even catch that? “It was romantic because it didn’t happen,” Will tells Alicia of their ups and downs. The series reaches its dramatic conclusion. Who did we ever see piss in his milk? Oceans of Slumber thrive with their progressive doom, grind legends Napalm Death make an explosive return, and Anna von Hausswolff's ambient record are just some of September's highlights. If we’re to believe that Alicia’s visions of Will are her subconscious trying to find a way to get her to act decisively, then it stands to reason that Alicia will use all of her formidable skills to chase down Jason or another man who can make her happy. Check out which shows are most popular at this moment in time. The Good Wife Season 7 Episode 22 Quotes. There was the slap. It took seven years, but Alicia Florrick seems more accustomed to this now than she ever did before. So, yes. The many dangers of our sad little lives are weaponized by this horror franchise. We get to this moment by spending most of the episode following Peter’s trial, which goes forward with the show’s traditional swerves and speed bumps. They've made no secret, especially during Emmy season, that they feel as though they should receive extra points for pulling all this off on the network that airs their series, and they're right. Instead, The Good Wife way means that the man watching in the wings at the press conference actually isn't Jason; instead, it's some silly janitor who represents little more than a figment of Alicia’s often-clouded imagination. It almost even lowered the impressive meter on the fun rapport that Jason and Alicia have. SPOILER ALERT: Stop reading unless you have seen the May 8 finale of “The Good Wife.”. There is a much more effective use of a cameo from David Boies. Whatever the case, it’s an unusually ambiguous moral place for Robert and Michelle King to leave their protagonist, who has so frequently and beguilingly defied audience expectations for seven seasons. The woman claims she left some time before the murder but her cell phone rings 23 seconds before it happens on the call. Besides: there was never any true way out for most of these characters anyway, if only because the people who created these characters have a very skeptical and very honest world view. Of course he hated her. Instead, The Good Wife way means that Alicia is going to get slapped by Diane (Christine Baranski) in a hallway because Alicia sold out Diane’s husband Kurt (Gary Cole) to keep her own estranged husband out of jail. At one point when Alicia seems floored by the mounting evidence of her husband’s guilt in the obstruction of justice issue, it’s Diane who reminds her: “He’s still your client. Over the course of the finale, she struggles with all of those possibilities, and in order to parse it all, she turns to — let me just say it again — the ghost of Will Gardner, who is apparently now the arbiter of Alicia’s every desire and feeling. Did you really think we would end up with Alicia and Jason (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) living on some peanut farm, 20 years later, in full and complete bliss? Alicia is grateful the firm's top litigator, Diane Lockhart, offers to mentor her but discovers the offer has conditions and realizes she's going to need to succeed on her own merit. Like a good legal thriller, CBS’ “The Good Wife” surprised fans right down to its closing moments as Alicia Florrick’s emotional roller-coaster ride of the past seven seasons came to an unexpected end. OK. It gives us an easy visual representation of exactly how Alicia feels stuck. All rights reserved.PopMatters is wholly independent, women-owned and operated. If she actually were ever to talk to him again, in that situation, needing that kind of advice, I've not a single doubt in my mind that his response would have been exactly the same. The AUSA tries to renege on the plea deal because the verdict came in so quickly but Alicia won’t back down and they stick to the original deal of two years if Peter surrenders today. She asks Kurt if the reason he sided with Holly is that he’s been having a long affair with her. So Alicia speaks to a ghost, then begs Jason to wait for her while she straightens out her life and the trial concludes.