Good Wife, Great Lawyer, Terrible Friend

     Alicia Florrick's story came to an end Sunday night, but the ending was less of an ending than legendary "meta" show endings like The Sopranos.  Alicia (Juliana Margulies) has often been referred to as "Saint Alicia", the First Lady of Illinois, Peter's wife, and  Grace and Zach's mom. Yes, she is no doubt The Good Wife. When her State's Attorney husband Peter (Chris Noth, a.k.a. Carrie Bradshaw's Mr. Big) went to jail for corruption (and using government money for hookers), Alicia stood by him, sold the house, and got the kids set up in a stable home and public schools. She the got a job at the only firm that would hire her, ran by an old college pal, Will Gardner.

     Despite her occasional bad moments this season (calling in sick to work to spend the day in bed with her bad boy investigator Jason), and giving into her long-brewing affair with Will (Josh Charles) in season 4, Alicia is almost too nice. The most bold things she has done (running for State's Attorney, leaving Lockhart/Gardner to start a firm with Carey) were both things she had to be talked into. Time and circumstances have made Alicia more "bad", (relatively of course) because drinking too much wine and disrespecting her mother-in-law Jackie (Mary Beth Peil) are usually her worst crimes. Mrs. Florrick defended known mob boss Lemond Bishop (Mike Colter) and suspected wife-murderer Colin Sweeney (Dylan Baker) but never got involved in anything against the law. At the forefront of Alicia's moral code, the law is there and emotion is a close second.

     But "Saint Alicia" tossed off her halo in the series finale last week, giving into passion (not of the carnal variety), but in the "save my family" variety. With Zach running off to Paris to marry a grad student and Grace threatening to postpone college for a year, Alicia needed to get her ducks in a row. Her highness threw her partner and now ex-friend Diane Lockhart's (Christine Baranski) marriage under the bus to win a case, using associate Lucca to get the job done. Alicia insinuated Diane's ballistics expert husband could not be objective in his testing report because he had an affair with his protegee, a second ballistics expert called in on the case. Alicia won her case, which helped prevent her husband Peter from going to jail (again over a corruption charges). Alicia saved her family, walked away from Peter to chase Jason the investigator (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), lost both men, and got b****-slapped by Diane.

     This brings me to the point of this post. Alicia built herself a new life in Chicago. She left behind the cushy life of PTA meetings and dinners to jump into corporate law to save her family. Peter was mostly gone (in jail, at the Governor's mansion, sleeping with women). Alicia stayed with Peter to save her family. Alicia even went on the campaign trail for the presidential election to save her family. But when it comes to making friends, ALICIA IS TERRIBLE. The show should be called "The All-Alone Wife" because that's how she ended up. There was no Peter, no Jason, (no Will because he is long dead), no salvageable job at Diane's new female-led firm, and her kids are leaving the nest.

     Alicia doesn't have girlfriends like other female T.V. characters. She merely has co-workers, clients, and family. Sometimes these people overlap. Eventually, her mother-in-law and co-worker got married. Alicia's only true friend, former P.I. Kalinda (Archie Punjabi) left town a year ago after Lemond Bishop threatened her. It is important to make clear here, Alicia was mostly drinking buddies with Kalinda. When K.S. revealed she had also slept with Peter when she worked in his office. At this point, it's harder to find a woman that hasn't slept with Peter. Alicia began this season pretty despondent until she created a drinking buddy in Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo). The two women were working in bond court and eventually created a practice, and got hried back by Alicia's old firm. Other female friendships have not gone smoothly. ER alum Maura Tierney played potential donor Maddie Hayward several seasons ago. She invited Alicia out for a drink and Alicia deflected, saying she was married. Maddie countered, she just wanted to make a friend and she was not into Alicia in that way. Cold and calculating boss/co-worker Diane also had a tenuous relationship with Alicia. Diane grew frustrated when Alicia let her down more than once:  when Alicia left Diane's firm to anew and when Diane was promised an appointed  judgeship by Peter, only to be swapped in for a male candidate at the last minute. It seems the only constant in Alicia's life has been her daughter Grace (Mackenzie Vega), who pulled her weight this season as Alicia's legal secretary after school.

     The men in Alicia's life have also given her more heartache than friendship. Alicia/Peter's campaign manager Eli Gold (Alan Cumming) betrayed Alicia, lying for years about deleting a voicemail from Will just hours before he died. After a lot of time and wine, Alicia moved past it, but she seemed more betrayed by Eli than she ever did by Peter. As for Peter, he and Alicia became more like friends (and sometimes friends with benefits) over the last few year as their political aspirations eclipsed the family they tried so hard to save. Of course, Will let Alicia down by dying. They teased their possible relationship for so long, taking one step forward and back until it was finally too late and Will was violently killed  in open court. After Will's passing, Alicia became close with ADA Finn Polmar, who was with Will right before he died. Eventually their relationship crumbled and a close friend was gone. Of course, P.I. Jason was gone in the last scene, as he made it clear to Alicia he was truly a bad boy and couldn't stick around waiting for her to make up her mind, and he was a free bird and everything else that goes with those speeches.


     Last but not least, there's the unresolved issue of Alicia and Cary Agos (Matt Czurchy). Alicia's relationship with Cary has "carried" thorough the show since episode 1 and it was dropped like it was hot (one evidence tip in a case does not repair a friendship) in this last episode. This is literally THE FRIENDSHIP of the entire series. Both AF and CA were hired as junior associates in the first episode with promise of one being able to stay at the firm. We didn't want to like Cary from the start because he was fresh out of law school, a preppy blonde guy, and he walked in like he owned the place. He was entitled and privileged, a real villain type.  This is the guy in the 80's movie that Andrew McCarthy or James Spader would play.

     Will was always on Alicia's aside for obvious reasons, and as Diane took a shine to Alicia, she rose up the ranks at the firm and Cary got shafted. He left to go to the SA's office for a while to work off his bitterness. Later, Cary came back to Lockhart/Gardner and stayed there until he and the other associates got fed up, and he started a firm with Alicia. The guy became humbled and went on trial for a trumped-up charge of instructing clients how to bring in drugs into the country, and was almost jailed. Finally, Cary folded back into Lock/whatever the firm eventually became. Then what did Cary do a few weeks before the finale? He quit as Diane "locked in" her all-female led firm idea. He left without a fight. There was never any true resolution to the constant tension and competition between Cary and Alicia. In the end, I don't think Cary could stomach the life he built for himself. Alicia had something to fight for (however misguided her notion of family was) and Cary had nothing (especially after Kalinda left town). As for Cary's relationship with Kalinda, he loved her a lot. Maybe loved him, but she also loved several women. Often. It was just never meant to be. But Cary sincerely respected Alicia. Maybe Cary realized that he didn't want to end up like Alicia, at the top of her game and very abruptly, alone and back where she started? We see Cary in the finale, a guest lecturer at a law school, putting his valuable knowledge of both sides to good use. I can only hope we get some sort of Cary spin-off, maybe Cary could get a job on  a cruise ship or something totally out of character.

5.23.16  UPDATED See more unresolved plot points from The Good Wife finale.