selenak

makamu asked me about this. Well, in retrospect, ideally, I think the show could have ended with the fifth season. The fourth had had some dry spells, but the fifth was superb, firing on all thrusters, so to speak.

Alicia and Cary (as well as several of the younger lawyers at L & G) leaving, founding their own firm and establishing it against the odds as serious competition to L & G was exiting to watch. Will's unexpected death was a genuine tragedy, and I'm speaking as someone who didn't like Will, the fallout of which was dealt with very well. I would have been fine leaving it there. Not sure whether or not I would have let Diane at the end of the season/show join F & A as well; I mean, I love Diane, but in retrospect that move started what I truly resented the most about season 6 and what, in addition to all the repetitive storylines and recurring guest stars that had outstayed their welcome for me, drove me away long before the show finished: the reset button which in s6 had Alicia & Co. literally end up in the old office again, becoming L & G once more, taking away nearly everything that had exited me and made me happy about the fifth season. And Alicia & Cary standing on their own at the show's end would have signalled a cleaner break with the past; I'm a fan of "one chapter closes, a new one begins" type of endings.

If there had to be two more seasons, here's what I WOULDN'T have done, in that imaginary universe where there would have been no rumored backstory drama involving the show's lead and her aversion towards other actors: another campaign storyline (there had been more than enough of those by that point), or any other storyline, that basically isolated Alicia from the rest of the old regulars. It's not just a matter of the relationship with Kalinda. I had been invested in Alicia's relationship with Cary evolving from rivalry to comradery to partnership. Her scenes with Diane had been interesting before they turned into "wasn't Will the greatest!" (justified in the aftermath of Will's death, but not endlessly after). And one reason why Alicia endeared herself to the audience back in the day to begin with was that she was, in fact, a good lawyer (note: this is not synomymous with "good person"), capable of being brilliant in court. Giving her a storyline in which she hardly has any court scenes anymore, showcasing her skills, and instead campaigns took that away without replacing it with something equally interesting and revealing about her (those debates with her opponents weren't). I also would have stopped replaying former highlights endlessly. No more Colin Sweeney with eternally the same type of episode. (No more Colin Sweeney, full stop. He was creepily entertaining the first two times, but not thereafter.) Elsbeth had gone from original to trademark quirky for quirkiness' sake. As for Lemond Bishop, by the time I quit the show in s6, I felt like it was eternally wavering on just how ruthless they wanted him to be.

Now, from what I heard, there were objections to the finale on account of Alicia basically ending up in Peter's position from the pilot, literally (getting slapped post PR appearance, in her case by Diane). This, I actually would not have had a problem with; The Good Wife wasn't obliged to end up on a "Female Empowerment Yay!" note, complete with Alicia divorcing Peter and sailing into a happily ever after with Will or whoever the love interest would have been or as a virtuous single, and I could see Alicia's story coming full circle like this, as opposed to ending on a positive note (which would have been the case had season 5 been the final season). However, I would have suggested earning it another way. If you want Alicia going from heroine to antiheroine and/or do "the education of Alicia Florrick" as "the corruption of Alicia Florrick", don't pull your punches by letting that slap be about using Diane's husband to score a courtroom victory (going by fannish osmosis here, I never saw the finale myself, like I said, I quit two thirds into s6). Maybe Alicia in the last season comes up against a younger idealist (ideally female, but I'd also take male), and wins, but also realizes she's come full circle in that she's now the biggest shark and her opponent is who she used to be? Or: maybe she loses and ends up in prison (as Peter does in the pilot), but resolved to start anew as soon as this is over because she always will?

As for Kalinda. Back when I quit the show, I knew the character was about to be written out as the actress wanted to leave. One way I could imagine this happening was for Kalinda to fake her death in a way that incriminated Lemond Bishop, stealing a ploy from Dürrematt's "Der Richter und sein Henker" - after a life time of being unable to prove the crimes of a supervillain, he's at last pinned down for a murder he didn't commit and which he therefore couldn't prepare an alibi for. This would have given Kalinda a reason to leave and also simultanously have dealt with Alicia and Kalinda keep a wife murdering drug lord at liberty and in power for years. In the hypothetical scenario where Archie Panjabi doesn't want to leave, I could also see Kalinda going into a P.I. partnership with Robin, whose sudden dissappearance in s6 I much resented (along with almost everything else about s6).

Cary: again, if the show doesn't end with him and Alicia founding their own firm in s5, I'd have let him end up as not just a but the State Attorney. When Alicia campaigned in s6 it was for a negative reason (she disdained her opponent), not a positive one, but s2 had established Cary actually caring about pursuing justice and villains, as compromised as the state attorney's office was, and I could have seen him ending up in that position by the time the show ended.

Diane: I'm still planning to watch The Good Fight - loved the first few episodes, but then I went to New Zealand last year and by the time I was back I couldn't catch up anymore, so I'm waiting for the show to end up on Netflix or Amazon. Don't spoil me. But based on the first three eps, yes, that's fine by me for Diane.

All in all, though: yep, "let the show end with season 5" is still my favourite solution.

The Other Days