The Good Wife

[frelling_tralk]

Urgh feeling really aggravated with The Good Wife right now! I know that most people liked season 6 the least, but for the first half of that season at least I was happy with the character work and relationships, when they all came together for Cary's defence it felt like they were people who cared about one another. But now? Diane and Cary barely felt like a part of Alicia's world for most of the season, it *should* have felt like quite a shocking betrayal for Cary to be pushed out in favour of Diane joining forces with Alicia, but these characters all feel so detached from one another these days that you barely get the sense that they ever did have a history with one another. When was the last time that Alicia was even in the room with them both at the same time?

In season 5 I cared about Cary and Alicia striking out on their own partly because of how that shock up some of the core relationships, Will's response to the news and his freaking-out at Alicia mattered to the characters, just as Will and Diane's relationship always made it easy to care about all of the firm politics going on, but now in season 7 it's very much a case of who cares. It feels like the only character that the writers care about servicing any more is Alicia, and their only goal is to end the season with Alicia divorced, independent, and a name partner with Diane. I don't get why Diane is suddenly now fixated on wanting to partner with Alicia though, she was the one that didn't want Alicia back at the firm a few episodes ago, and it was Cary's suggestion to bring Alicia back.

Seriously poor Cary! First Alicia convinces him to let Diane in on the start-up firm that was his dream, then they basically turn his ideal firm into a carbon copy of the firm that he wanted to escape from, and then Alicia lies to his face about Diane's plan to cut him out and have an all-female firm. Well not that I'm sure the writers have any of that straight, with Alicia's reference recently to how she was offered partnership in the firm by Will, they all seem to have forgotten that the original L&G firm is now owned by Louis Canning

If anything it would have made more sense to end it when Alicia and Cary started up their new firm as the new Will or Diane, or even when Alicia and Lucca were setting up their own practise, if they really wanted to end it on Alicia being in a good place and setting out on her own. This whole storyline is just a complete rehash of her becoming a partner at an established law firm (L&G in all but name frankly), only with barely any stakes this time

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_profiterole_/]

they all seem to have forgotten that the original L&G firm is now owned by Louis Canning
Oh yeah, I forgot about that too. XD

I would have stopped watching at the end of the season even if the show hadn't been cancelled. I don't understand how we went from the first 5 seasons, which were so good, to the last 2 seasons.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah I felt like that when I first heard the spec that there might be an 8th season, everything about the show feels so tired and ready to be over that I could not have sat through another season. I was more of a fan of season 6 then most were, I really enjoyed the first half at least, but season 7 has been all over the place when it comes to having the cast isolated in their own storylines. There was next to no attempt to give Alicia any connection with Diane and Cary all season, and now we're supposed to buy Diane suddenly being all gung-ho to go into partnership with her? And I can't even follow what's going on with Peter lol, surely it would have made more sense to bring back some bombshell from the past to shock the audience with there, instead of having an indictment for something that there's never even been mentioned before? (at least I don't think we've heard of it anyway)

What is the most bizarre to me is that they seem to have dropped any attempts to set up interesting relationship dynamics, Alicia is almost more alone now that she was at the beginning of the series!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_profiterole_/]

I don't really know if S7 is worse than S6 or if I just got tired of the averageness. A few average episodes are okay in the middle of great episodes, but there aren't any great episodes any more. As you say, Alicia is alone in her storylines and everyone else is kind of alone too, with alliances changing every 2-3 weeks. :/

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah the writers could have chosen to build up a closer Diane and Cary alliance even for season 7, just *something* to get you invested in these characters and their interactions with one another, but they seem to have completely lost sight of the fact that it was the people first and foremost that got audiences to care when it came to all the political manoeuvres and firm politics. The firms upheavel in season 5 being the prime example of that with Will and Diane feeling so betrayed by Alicia and Cary, the history that those characters had with one another really made you believe it and be torn on who to root for when they were facing one another in court, whereas you can't hope to repeat that in season 7 when none of these characters seem to even like one another very much any more/barely appear in scenes together

[12-12-12.livejournal.com]

This is the last season, right? I'm probably going to watch the series finale just out of sheer curiosity re: how it all ends, LOL.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

It is thankfully! It's pretty much just been the Alicia Florrick show since season 6, and I loved Alicia at one point, but it's hard to watch any show when the main character is an island. Alicia barely has any meaningful relationships with anyone (well maybe her bottles of wine), and Diane and Cary have been particularly isolated from Alicia in their own storylines for most of the year. Some of the cases that Diane has been stuck with have just been painful to sit through with how pointless they were, and I'm not even sure why they bothered signed Matt for another season when Cary has been a complete spare part all year

I can't believe how fast I turned on this show, I was LOVING it up until midway through season 6 :( It's just such a mess now, the character interaction is all so meaningless that I can't imagine how they can get a satisfactory ending from it. Well they're been trying with rushing Alicia into returning to L&A and teaming up with Diane for some kind of ~feminist~ ending, even though none of it makes any sense.

[malicat.livejournal.com]

It seems that I have cut my losses early enough... You are right,not all of season 6 was bad. The first half was actually excellent but that got overshadowed by the abysmally bad second half. But you know,even then I still CARED but when I was still watching in season 7 I didn't really care anymore. I have kept up a bit and read what happened and it all makes no sense to me. Like,I'm all for Girlpower11! and women kicking ass together and I always wanted that for Alicia and Diane but after everything that happened,why would they work together again NOW and kick poor Cary out???

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah season 6 was already starting to lean a bit too heavily on only being interested in exploring Alicia's character towards the end, but there was still enough there to save it for me. But for season 7 Diane and Cary may as well have been on a different show to Alicia for all the relevance that their plots were having to the main character! And it does matter how the ensemble works together and the connections that different characters form, I can't understand why the writers suddenly decided that it didn't

There was a never-ending battle with Howard Lyman at L&A as well urgh, the writers seemed desperate to include that character again and bring him into the new firm. No wonder Cary was left disillusioned! Diane basically overruled everything that he didn't want when it came to his new firm being top-heavy with older partners who didn't contribute anything, then kicks him out the door for Alicia, even though the show had never gone with the narrative that Cary was a bad lawyer before. In season 1 it was emphasised that they were more or less on equal footing, and Alicia had to use her connections at the end of the year to get the spot, but suddenly Diane is entirely unimpressed by Cary's abilities and only able to view Alicia as someone worth partnering with. It all seems to again be about propping up the lead character at the expense of the rest of the cast, something that they never had to resort too with Alicia and Cary's competition in the first season

[bm-shipper.livejournal.com]

Well, at least the show was/is put out of it's misery as it got cancelled, right? ^^" But I seriously hate it when you basically "hate!watch" a show, and I have one show where I'm doing that right now as well ^^"

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

It's really sad that it's going out like this, but yes I'm glad that this is the final season at least. I could not have forced myself to watch an 8th season with the way that things have been going, but it would have been frustrating to drop it on a cliffhanger, so at least the story will be properly completed in a few episodes time

[mfirefly10.livejournal.com]

Diane and Cary barely felt like a part of Alicia's world for most of the season...When was the last time that Alicia was even in the room with them both at the same time?

It feels like the only character that the writers care about servicing any more is Alicia...

This is pretty much why I gave up on the show earlier this season. It was pretty clear after just a few episodes that everything the show was doing was to service Alicia and that the writers didn't actually care about the other characters anymore. I got that feeling a lot in season 6 too so having it continue in season 7 is what made me finally drop the show.

I love Alicia a lot (or at least I did during the first 5 seasons when the show was still good) but I also love Diane and Cary and I hate that the writers care so little about them. One of my favorite things about season 5 was seeing Alicia and Cary branch out and create their own firm, as well as what the consequences of that were for Diane and Will. Alas, once Diane joined the firm at the end of season 5, it became this musical chairs thing of who was running the firm/being pushed out at any given time.

I liked the idea of Diane and Alicia joining forces but that was back during the years when they had an actual friendship. The end of last season and what I saw of this season showed that they basically had no relationship whatsoever, let alone a friendship that would lead to a good working partnership like the one between Will/Diane or Cary/Alicia. It's such a shame that the writers were willing to sacrifice Alicia's relationships with Will and Diane for whatever plot-related nonsense they've had going on lately.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I was feeling a bit more positive about the show at first with what they were setting up with Alicia working with Lucca in bond court, but yeah it quickly became a drag when a good chunk of the show was being spend on characters that the writers clearly no longer care about. I hesitate to say whether this is down to Julianna being executive producer or not, but it does feel like the show has become so Alicia-centric that the shows only concern is how to end things for her character, so there's lots of focus on Alicia acting freer with Jason and being ready to ask Peter for a divorce finally, as well as rushing her into partnership with Diane for the end of the series. And that's all well and good, but some of the other characters (Diane and Cary again!) are now being written to suit Alicia's character, rather than with their own story arcs first and foremost in mind

I agree with everything that you said, I was a really big fan of Alicia and Cary growing closer in season 5 with their new partnership, but Will's death seemed to make the writers panic and return everything to the status quo as soon as they possibly could, yet at the same time Will's death seemed to make them lose interest in having any interesting relationship dynamics with their main cast

[bigboobedcanuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm really pissed with how this is going down with Cary. After everything they've been through, more firm machinations is such bullshit. I want Alicia, Cary, and Diane being an awesome team. Cary is my boy, and he is being so screwed. They better make this right. :|

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah I'm really pissed at how obvious the writers make it how little they care about Cary :( They never did anything with him after his trial arc either, he's just basically been a voice in the background for most episodes, they've barely bothered keeping his character consistent. For a start the writing for both Cary and Diane when it comes to interacting with people of colour has been so clunky this season. It's like the show can now only see Cary as a privileged white male, and so of course he would be clumsy in his interactions with black women and suggest that Monica and Lucca should automatically become friends, even though that's complete character assassination with how he was portrayed in the past six seasons. Ditto with how out of touch Diane suddenly was, even though she was always shown dealing with people of other races (including partners at the firm) without being super awkward about it


And now the show clearly wants us to root for Alicia and Diane cutting Cary out him for an ~all-woman firm~, even though he's been the one who's had Alicia's back for a long time now. It was Diane that cut Alicia out because of her right-wing client being against her, and it was Diane who hesitated at Cary's suggestion to bring Alicia back to the firm, but suddenly we're supposed to be all gung-ho for this out of the blue partnership just cause they're both women?