CBS
Spoilers for the season finale of The Good Wife coming up:
In a couple of recent Good Wife reviews, I expressed some misgivings over the show’s introducing Peter’s affair with Kalinda as a storyline. It’s not that it’s implausible, but the show has become much stronger and more complex than its original concept—i.e., political wife tries to move on from being humiliated by adultery. The Good Wife, I thought, shouldn’t need to refresh itself by giving Alicia another affair to get over.
Then again, yesterday we got news of Arnold Schwarzenegger having out-Petered Peter, fathering a child by his family’s housekeeper of 20 years. If reality keeps renewing The Good Wife’s premise, why shouldn’t The Good Wife?
“Closing Arguments” was a satisfying season finale in part because it didn’t set up the next season with a dramatic cliffhanger: it just set up some fruitful premises. Peter is in the State’s Attorney’s office again, meaning that he’ll be working against Alicia in court (and not just divorce court, assuming things go that far). There’s already a potential run for governor, for which Peter badly needs Alicia, and doesn’t have her. And—as the final moments thankfully showed us without any mystery—the show resolved the will-they-won’t-they between Will and Alicia: they will, and they did, leaving us to wonder how things will be in the office next season.
First, though, the episode gave us a trial storyline that served to show why the characters we love need to be together. Not Alicia and Will: Alicia and Kalinda. As the race against the clock for the exonerative DNA evidence unfolded, “Closing Arguments” demonstrated that, even as their relationship is estranged, these characters are very good at what they do, and they need each other. (The scene in which Alicia recognized this, uncomfortably but professionally calling Kalinda into her office to confront the mysteriously-appeared glove, was excellent.)
The final act of the episode, meanwhile, was a study in how to resolve a romantic tension plot. The show—and numerous promos—made no secret of the fact that Will and Alicia were going to hook up one way or another. There was no handwringing or surprise crisis, just a series of farcical light teases—a little dramatic foreplay, if you will—as they tried in an overbooked hotel to have “good timing” for one hour. Josh Charles played the scene nicely as Will tried to keep his cool in the face of a string of tiny frustrations (hesitating too long over $7800 for the Presidential Suite could have blown the moment).
And the last moment was the best narrative use of a hotel keycard since at least last week’s Friday Night Lights: as Will was halted at the door of the suite by an uncooperative lock, Alicia—with great poise by Julianna Margulies, who conveyed that her character is used to resolving little crises—took the keycard, turned it over and got the greenlight.
That’s teamwork. And I look forward to more of it next year.