Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing 3 Body Problem; Bosch; Citadel; Criminal Minds; Dark Matter; Fauda; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outer Range; Outlander; Presumed Innocent; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Diplomat, Last of Us, Lazarus Project, Orville, Way Home; True Detective; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Monday, April 18, 2016

The Good Wife 7.19: Elusive Happy Endings

As The Good Wife winds down with the first of its four very last episodes - 7.19, on last night - we can naturally expect wrap-ups of some slightly secondary though important stories.

We had a nice example of that last night with Diane and her husband Kurt, replete with her calling him out about his predilection for hot young Republican blondes, and cursing out a game example of same when she strolls into Diane's office with an insistence on keeping the cushy deal Kurt made with her for his company. But the important thing about this little set piece is that it tells us Diane and Kurt have a good chance of living happily ever after - hard to come by and good to see in life in general and this narrative in particular.

The same, unsurprisingly, can not yet be said about Alicia. Though Peter's going back to prison and Alicia standing by him has a nice ironic poetry to it, as both acknowledge near the end of the hour, it's not what we want to see for either of them. Alicia can't be happy with the father of her children in jail, however much she may want to leave Peter in the past.

So how will she get Peter out of this mess? I'm thinking we haven't seen the last of the at-turns dangerous and buffoonish NSA and how it can unintentionally be of help to Alicia. If there's anything in the NSA recordings of Alicia relevant to Peter, she might be able to use that, and the NSA's understandable obsession with secrecy, to get Peter out of the clutches of the Feds. I certainly hope so - and, if not that, for something else that will keep Peter out of lock-up.

But is that enough of a happy ending for Alicia? She keeps insisting she loves and wants Jason, and he seems to feel the same, but for some reason I can't quite see that working out, either. In the end, I just don't think she loves him as much as she loved Will, and since he can't come back from the dead, well, Alicia's future happiness remains far more questionable than does Diane's.

Another reason why I wish this unique show weren't ending, but, hey, I just watch and review the best of television, I don't create it, and the most I can do is eagerly await and regret the three final episodes soon to air on Sundays.

See also The Good Wife 7.1: Shake-Up ... The Good Wife 7.6: Hillary, Trump, and Alicia ... The Good Wife 7.10: Selfish Eli

And see also The Good Wife 6.4: Run-up to Running ... The Good Wife 6.10: Cary's Fate ... The Good Wife 6.11: Kalinda for Cary