Excerpt from the statement by Robert and Michelle King on the end of the series

Yes, Alicia's story contains tragedy. We still love her. And we hope you do too. The ending is supposed to be unsettling. But we don't think characters need to avoid tragedy to be embraced. We were tempted to have Alicia chase after a man in the end -- stop him from getting on a train or an airplane at the last minute, hold him, kiss him. We like those endings. But there was something false about it here. It isn't who Alicia is. In the end, the story of Alicia isn't about who she'll be with; it's about who she'll be.

I agree with not ending the series on her chasing after her boyfriend or her husband, but I would have enjoyed a 60 minute finale of her and Ghost Will having fun in the manner of Truly, Madly, Deeply, having fun and solving legal puzzles together.

Having read the whole letter from the Kings, I guess I see what they were trying to do, but for me I feel like Breaking Bad just DID that x1000 and on meth and steroids, so it's maybe not as interesting as it might have been 5 years ago. Oh, wait, did the heroine just betray her friend Diane without realizing what she had done? Because down in Albuquerque there's a dude who betrayed everyone he loved while becoming a meth kingpin who burns people's faces off, just because he liked it.

For me, there is also an element of not believing Alicia wouldn't understand or acknowledge the position she was putting Diane in by cross examining her husband. Alicia has become more powerful, but she is not really less sensitive than she was at the beginning of the series. She still groks that people have feelings about her and generally doesn't try to stomp all over those feelings. Like, in the finale she feels that Cary doesn't much like her anymore and won't help her, after a history of Cary seeming increasingly frustrated by her position on things. She has to be convinced into talking to Cary. It's hard to see that same person making the decision to discredit Diane's husband with rumors of an affair, no less, with no apology or acknowledgement of why Diane might be walking toward her completely incensed. So I think this was bad writing, trying to force a resonant "slap" in to bookend the series, when I don't think the Alicia we know -- even Season 7 Alicia, would have betrayed Diane that way without a second thought or apology.

I'm talking about JM because she apparently ran another (well liked by the fans) actress off the show and there are rumors that no one can get along with her, and the finale of her seven season show leaves her seemingly bereft of any of the most important relationships she had during the show except her kids and perhaps Eli and Lucca. Gone are Peter, Josh, Ghost Denny (or if not gone, perhaps lukewarm), Cary, Kalinda, that DA dude who saw Josh die, and even her last remaining mentor Diane. *poof*

I have watched other female driven shows, like Weeds and Veep and Scandal, and not judged the actress by the plot of the story. But there is a weird connection here that I'm not going to pretend to ignore.

Why are we talking about JM's personal qualities at all? We don't know and it's not relevant anyway. The ending is only remarkable in the sense that it is a woman who ends up learning to use her own power to get the results she wants. If it were a man, no one would be discussing whether or not he was a nice guy in real life. I think what she did to Diane was awful, but I know why she did it, and it was her choice. The ending is basically saying that she will be powerful, but she will pay a horrible personal price for that, like every other powerful human being, male or female. Personally, I think the ending was a lot stronger than the season as a whole.

Well, the last series that ended with the main character not dead but alone and alienated from everyone he had ever known or loved was Dexter, and we all know how great THAT finale was and how it went over with fans. Not sure why any mainstream actress would think that was a good idea. We certainly don't have to like her and she certainly doesn't have to have a happy ending. I think giving her the romantic ending with Ghost Denny would have been a terrible, old-fashioned end to the series. But THIS finale? Except as a comeuppance to an actress who seems like a pill to work with, it didn't work for me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but you are crazy if you think Marguiles WANTED that ending where she betrayed her friend (not even for a good reason really) and turned into a sort of milquetoast villain. Going full on Walter White is one thing, but making sort of grey line trade offs isn't really that compelling. Plus now peole kind of dislike her. So I am highly skeptical Marguiles was enthuastuc about that ending.

Yes but your perspective is entirely that of a viewer who reads magazines. Mine is that of a TV insider whose entire working life has involved the actual, not public realities of making TV.

Please explain WHY Marguiles would have lobbied for that ending. I think it makes her look like a jerk, and not in an empowering way, and leaves people mad at her.

NP> because it is the direction Alicia has been going all along. There was never a redemption for her. One by one,she managed to alienate all the people close to her. This was the natural conclusion for her. She is a true politician now.

Is there some rule we have to like the characters we watch?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused. Does this mean that Diane's husband actually was having an affair with his student?

Also confused!

We don't know. We will never know. We are not meant to know. It is possible, but never confirmed one way or another.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but you are crazy if you think Marguiles WANTED that ending where she betrayed her friend (not even for a good reason really) and turned into a sort of milquetoast villain. Going full on Walter White is one thing, but making sort of grey line trade offs isn't really that compelling. Plus now peole kind of dislike her. So I am highly skeptical Marguiles was enthuastuc about that ending.

Yes but your perspective is entirely that of a viewer who reads magazines. Mine is that of a TV insider whose entire working life has involved the actual, not public realities of making TV.

Please explain WHY Marguiles would have lobbied for that ending. I think it makes her look like a jerk, and not in an empowering way, and leaves people mad at her.

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused. Does this mean that Diane's husband actually was having an affair with his student?

Also confused!

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but you are crazy if you think Marguiles WANTED that ending where she betrayed her friend (not even for a good reason really) and turned into a sort of milquetoast villain. Going full on Walter White is one thing, but making sort of grey line trade offs isn't really that compelling. Plus now peole kind of dislike her. So I am highly skeptical Marguiles was enthuastuc about that ending.

Yes but your perspective is entirely that of a viewer who reads magazines. Mine is that of a TV insider whose entire working life has involved the actual, not public realities of making TV.

Sorry, but you are crazy if you think Marguiles WANTED that ending where she betrayed her friend (not even for a good reason really) and turned into a sort of milquetoast villain. Going full on Walter White is one thing, but making sort of grey line trade offs isn't really that compelling. Plus now peole kind of dislike her. So I am highly skeptical Marguiles was enthuastuc about that ending.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the finale would have been significantly improved if it had ended with a Ghost Will vs. Ghost Denny thunderdome.

After hearing the gossip about Marguiles pushing Kalinda off the show out of professional jealousy, as well as the possible honesty in Josh Charles's voice when he told Alicia he really hated her, I wonder how much of this womp womp ending had to do with the actress's actual personality and the feeling that she shouldn't get what she wanted.

Hardly. She was (Marguiles) so powerful by the end of the show - in real life, as a producer, exec producer, whatever - they would have written it almost exactly as she the actress would have dictated it.

Not true. I read an I yet view with her where she said she had to read the finale script three times to come to terms with it, and even then she still didn't know how she felt about it. She DEFINITELY did not dictate that finale.

OMG you are so naive. That's a PR interview, you know that, right?

No one in their right mind would have kicked Archi Panjabi off that show - it literally wrecked the show to remove her. But JM insisted. So...

I'm confused. Does this mean that Diane's husband actually was having an affair with his student?

I wonder how many times they "had" to film that slapping scene, eh? Maybe a bunch of times, just to make sure they had a good one in the can?

I mean, in a meanish way, I kind of liked seeing Marguiles get treated so badly in the finale because she forced out Kalinda, who I really liked and who was a really interesting character for the series. And yeah, as the other article says, Josh Charles leaving seems fishy as well when he promptly went off to work elsewhere. And they let him get really mad at Alicia before he left, too.

^^^ This is from last year, but some good points are raised about how JM gels - or doesn't - with her colleagues.

http://www.pajiba.com/tv_reviews/does-everyone-in-the-good-wife-cast-hate-julianna-margulies.php

Does Everyone in 'The Good Wife' Cast Hate Julianna Margulies?

By Dustin Rowles | TV Reviews | December 15, 2015 | Comments (101)

It was an open secret in the entertainment industry that Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi were not fans of one another on The Good Wife. For a few seasons, their characters worked together frequently, but they didn’t share a single scene in the last three years of Panjabi’s stint on the series until the sixth-season finale (and everyone knows that even that finale scene was faked — the two actresses filmed their scene together separately). When Margulies tried to dismiss talk of a feud, Panjabi basically gave her a passive aggressive f*ck you on Twitter confirming that there was, indeed, a feud.

But what if Panjabi was not the only actor on The Good Wife who had a problem with Margulies? Maybe this wasn’t a case of two actors who disliked each other, and more of a case of an entire cast that dislikes Margulies?

It was actually Joanna that put that bug in my head, and I can’t not see it when I’m watching The Good Wife now. The evidence is staggering. We know about Panjabi. Consider, also, the fact that Josh Charles abruptly left the series while never giving a particularly good reason for doing so. It’s not like he was tired of series television. He quickly jumped in over on Master of Sex, and he also fit in Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp . Why would Charles leave a good gig like that, where his character was beloved, and where he was being paid well?

Then they tried to replace Josh Charles on the series. Twice, really. Steven Pasquale left the series after an extended stint, and Mathew Goode — despite being elevated to a series regular — also left the series with little explanation. The Finn Polmar/Alicia Florrick romance just fizzled away.

It’s not that unusual in a legal drama for characters to frequently come and go with little or no explanation regarding their disappearance, but consider the fact that Jess Weixler (who played an investigator) and Michael Boatman (who was a partner at the firm) both also just kind of vanished.

Also, what the hell happened to Zach Florrick? Graham Phillips hasn’t been seen on the show since May. That’s weird. On top of all the other disappearances, it’s even weirder. Plus, after this week’s winter finale, do we even know if Alan Cumming is going to return?

But the kicker is this: The seventh season of The Good Wife has largely been disastrous because it’s an ensemble cast and the ensemble has been completely separated. It’s a show in the home stretch (many believe this will be the final season), and suddenly, Alicia is working on her own while Diane and Cary have a separate firm. That makes no sense. That’s a season 3 arc. It hasn’t been working very well, but it means that the only two other cast members who have been on the series for the entire 145 episode run rarely if ever share a scene with the lead. Christine Baranski and Matt Czuchry have been spotted in the same room with Julianna Margulies in a couple of scenes, but half of their brief interactions are — again — over the phone.

Basically, the series’ lead has been pushed out onto an island, where she’s basically working with Jeffrey Dean Morgan (who just left the series for The Walking Dead) and Cush Jumbo. There’s a Chinese Wall between Margulies and the rest of The Good Wife.

One last note on this “conspiracy,” and it’s not something I would’ve thought much of, except in light of everything else. Julianna Margulies is a very attractive woman. The show has always lit her in such a way as to bring out her attractiveness. But then, during a scene two weeks ago and for no apparent reason whatsoever — it was a really weird, pointless shot — the camera zoomed incredibly close on her face and just hung there.

This was the shot.

Screen Shot 2015-12-15 at 10.50.34 AM.jpg

In light of everything else going on with the show, all I could think was, “Oh my God! The camera person and the episode director hate Julianna Margulies too.”