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

[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