"Wife" followed Alicia Florrick (played by Julianna Margulies), who chooses to stand by her husband, a disgraced public official, after his various scandals come to light. At the same time, Alicia is re-entering the workforce; after law school, she decided to start a family, but now it's up to her to support them. She starts at the bottom of the ladder as a junior associate in a prestigious firm, and over time, the series perfectly interweaves her senses of personal and professional upheaval in a fast-paced world that's content to dwell in so many shades of gray.
Margulies, already an Emmy winner for her role on "ER," collected two additional Emmys as well as a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for her multifaceted portrayal of Alicia. (If you ask me, THIS scene alone from earlier in the year could easily net her another award or two.) Margulies walked her years-long tightrope of conflicting emotions with impeccable precision, knowing that one slip would spell disaster for Alicia's level head and even keel. She performed her job, as an actress and as a character, above and beyond the existing merits of the show. It's Alicia's humanity that forms the core of the series, as she grows over the years with dignity and grace and rises through the ranks to become a stronger and more capable person despite her circumstances.
Aided by a reliably solid ensemble cast and an A-list cadre of guest stars, Margulies and "The Good Wife" tackled their weekly cases, long-term plot and character arcs, and commentary on current events with both deft humor and delicate drama. The heroes don't always win, but they're not always perfect either. "Wife" was at its best when it argued cases we've seen countless times in other media, or even those drawn from real life, but used them to explore the characters' shifting senses of duty versus morality. This was never a show that relied on soapy melodrama, ridiculous plot twists, or structural gimmicks like a non-linear narrative. Instead, week in and week out, it was simply and straightforwardly one of the best-written and acted shows on television. Given the dimming quality and originality of most broadcast network series, that in itself was quite a stunt.
All of this background sets the stage for where we found Alicia going into the final episode: at a crossroads. The series had come full circle, with her once again facing the choice to stand by her guilty husband or follow her career and her heart to a fresh start on her own. The choice seemed simple, given her independent trajectory in more recent episodes, but the consequences were what genuinely surprised me. Alicia's last interaction with a colleague from day one, who started as her mentor before treating her as a peer, was so terse in its final moments that my jaw literally dropped when they parted.
On any other show, the main character's ending -- happy or otherwise -- is met with some amount of positive reinforcement. Here, it's less of a definitive ending and more of an uncertain new beginning. Alicia finally has what she wants, or at least she's in the position to get it, but we don't get to savor that moment of victory. Instead, we only see her resolve, fully aware that while this chapter of her life is over, her work is hardly done to keep what she's earned. To me, that conclusion works far better for such a character-driven story than the often-misleading platitudes of "happily ever after."
In one of television's most spot-on music selections in recent memory, Alicia's deliberation near the beginning of the episode and her decision right at the end are set to Regina Spektor's bittersweet ballad "Better," which implores its subject to feel something, anything, other than sadness. It's almost like the show's creators (who wrote and directed the finale) are using the song to simultaneously apologize to and thank the audience. They can't make you feel better about the series coming to a close, but they can still make you feel proud to have been part of Alicia's journey.
No comments:
Post a Comment