I haven’t watched a full episode of The Good Wife in a few months. It’s not for lack of trying, or for lack of interest. I just hate the way CBS organizes their Sunday schedule and I’m tired of waiting out some basketball game or football game or some special programming and then waiting out some stupid reality competition ahead of The Good Wife. Plus, I got sidetracked when PBS Masterpiece really got going with Downton Abbey and Sherlock. At the end of the day, The Good Wife is more fun when you buy the DVDs and can do a season marathon.
That being said, I did watch the first, say, six episodes of this season and I was really impressed by the way the writers had revitalized the show. Making Alicia and Cary leave Lockhart Gardner to start their own law firm brought such energy to the show, and seeing how Diane (Christine Baranski) and Will (Josh Charles) dealt with that betrayal was fascinating. I’m ride or die for Diane/Baranski, but over the past two seasons, Josh Charles has been doing some of the best dramatic work of his career. Quite honestly, I love everyone on that show.
But now something has changed… SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Josh Charles has left the show. And it’s not like they just sent Will Gardner to jail or to another city or something. They killed him off!!! Deadline had a lengthy interview with the showrunners about it, and the basic story is that Josh Charles wanted to leave last season, and Julianna Margulies (who also produces the show) convinced him to stay for half a season so they could write out the character properly. Apparently, Josh left the show because he wanted to move on to other projects, and I guess he was tired of playing Will Gardner. Which is really weird, because Will Gardner was a really great character and it seemed like a great acting challenge for Josh.
In the Deadline story, the showrunners are making a big deal about how Will’s death is going to affect Alicia, but I’m worried about Diane. Diane is going to be a f—king mess!! Diane and Will were the real heart of the show. Is that a controversial opinion? I sometimes got tired of the Will-Alicia-Peter love triangle and felt like it had been exhausted. But I could never get enough of Will and Diane and how they dealt with each other as friends, business partners and colleagues. Theirs was the true love story, an adult love story about business and friendship. Sigh… I loved when Will and Diane would dance with each other. They were amazing.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see where The Good Wife goes from here. I hope they bring in another series lead who will bring something interesting to the table for Diane and Alicia.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I heard it was written poorly. That there could have been other, better ways to write off a character given so much notice.
Did you see the episode? It wasn’t written poorly at all — I thought it was really well done. And I am stunned that he’s dead! Wah!
Yeah, it was done well. I think some people who wrote reviews are complaining about the show resorting to the go-to vehicle of killing someone off, rather than the writing of the scenes themselves.
I tend to look at killing off a main character as brave. So many times the show runners make a lame excuse for a character to leave in hopes that the actor will come back. I love The Walking Dead, and they have had some shocking deaths. This season they killed off arguably the most beloved character – just because they could. I hear Game of Thrones does the same.
How did they make him die?
It was well written and a total shocker. I love The Good Wife!
It really pissed me off that this spoiler was posted on the show’s Facebook page just a few hours later, before I got to see the episode (I don’t live in the US). No warning or anything. Ruined the whole experience for me. :/ :/
Will Gardner will be missed for sure!
That happened to me last year on Downton Abbey and I knew about the two deaths all season but couldn’t tell my husband. People didn’t warn that there were spoilers. Boo.
I saw this post this morning too, before watching the show. There could have been better ways to suggest there was a big spoiler on the front page without letting you know at first glance that either Peter or Will died. Annoyed!
Knox Overstreet for life!!!!
Yup.
That was my fav movie for ages and I had the biggest crush on him way back in the day. lol
O captain, my captain!
What a cutie…
You took the words right out of my mouth, Nawanda! No wait that was the other dude – Dead Poets – for all you young folks out there who haven’t seen it – is a great movie!
I saw the producers’ letter before the show too and I was LIVID. It was posted within minutes of the show with no spoiler warning.
That said, “To Mutt!”
JESUS F**KING CHRIST! DID THAT HAPPEN!?
I literally sat open mouthed for like 10 minutes after!
ME TOO!!!!!
Yeah that’s a great summation of my reaction as well lol….
I loved him. Miss him like a relative. I was so shocked, i thought maybe it isnt real. I hate, hate, hate that he left. This show was the best on tv. Dont know if it can be good again.
I hadn’t seen anything about Josh Charles wanting to leave so I didn’t see this coming. But… Wow… Totally shocked… I rewound it to double check. I was too shocked to cry (but giant sook that I am, I did shed a couple of tears after a minute, cos if it’s bad enough to make Kalinda cry it’s baaaaaaad). Plus I loved Will even when he was being an a$$ to Alicia. I loved him and Diane too.
Today though I’m good! I think it’s going to open up a lot of fresh story lines. Though my first thought was Peter’s off the hook!
For me this will or should go down in TV history as one of the biggest shockers ever. It was a genuine shock – not a manufactured ones a la Scandal.
Ive spoiled it for myself and will watch tonight but I have to give them points for keeping it secret. I read a lot of tv blogs and had no idea this was coming…
Poor Diane 🙁
I spoiled it for myself too! I shouldn’t have clicked on this story – but I will complain about the thumbnail picture. Seeing Will made me super curious.
According to his interview with TV Line (link here), Josh Charles wanted to leave the show both because he wanted a new creative challenge but also because he’s newly married guy who wants to start a family. He said he’d be open to a new TV show but one that’s more like 10-13 episodes per season instead of 22 like The Good Wife.
I know the show is called “The Good Wife”, but Will was the best thing on it for me, Alicia came in second.
I was stunned by the show killing off Will. But at the same time I think Will would have been a difficult character to write off in a different way. They already did a story-line with his law license being in jeopardy. He wasn’t exactly the type to to just move away and leave the firm.
Exactly, and given how much he fought Cary and Alicia when they left, he wouldn’t have just walked away from LG after going through all that.
You know that you can watch recent episodes on cbs.com right?
I will miss Will. Hope his new endeavors work out.
I’ve been a casual watcher at best so I rolled my eyes at all the “you’ll never see it coming!!!!” promos. Well I was wrong to dismiss it, that’s a pretty impressive shocker in the spoiler/internet age.
I was completely shocked – I saw no spoilers, no promos, had no idea he wanted to leave the show, and I was just so surprised.
Considering how great the show has been this season, I’m surprised he still wanted to leave, but I’m really glad he stuck around for all the stuff with the new firm and a definite exit. He and Diane are the best part of the show, I really don’t like Alicia all that much honestly, and I don’t really care about her and Peter so much (or their kids who I find very annoying). If nothing else, I hope this gives Diane a lot more screen time, and opens the door to some of their great guest stars (Michael J Fox, Carrie Preston, Martha Plimpton) getting bigger roles.
Such a tricky move for them. I couldn’t avoid spoilers despire being several eps behind in U.K. due to you know, breathing near the internet. Ugh. So I watched the (thanks official Goodwife youtube) clip of it going down. It feels shocking, yet being in an earlier phase of this season somehow weirdly prescient now. I keep thinking about Diane and her husband the gun expert and where this will take them. She was softening on guns bigtime, having a little shooting party in the woods, etc., I can see that changing now.
The way they handled the shooting was nothing short of brilliant. It’s not about seeing the shots fired, it’s about the terror, the dreaded sinking knowledge that the world is about to change. They captured that with Diane and Kalinda’s responses to perfection. The Good Wife has never been afraid to shock or hit hard, I always feel like people who don’t watch the show think it’s just some soapy lawyer show, when it is seriously hardcore drama when it’s on form. It has never been afraid to toy with your heart and then crunch it up so I really shouldn’t be surprised.
And yet…ultimately I don’t see how it can last much longer now. Even for those who don’t ship Will and Alicia, their dynamic was like the beating pulse of this show. For me anyway. It’s funny because my Mom only started a couple of seasons in and she is not nearly so devastated by this as I am. So who knows, maybe not everyone’s heart is broken. I believe the show has layers that can elevate it past this, but for me its soul is kind of dead now, much as I love the other characters, esp. Diane, Kalinda and Eli. I think the writers did the show a slight disservice emphasizing Alicia’s journey > all in their letter defending this move. Alicia has lost a lot of footing for a lot of people since she went back with Peter. Will was her possible ultimate redemption, and that is gone.
The only thing that will keep me engaged now is if they stop screwing up Kalinda, give us more Baranski, and take down Peter. But it all feels sort of hollow. I really don’t see why Josh Charles couldn’t have cut back to a few eps a season or taken a year off and come back later on. Killing him is huge, there is no happy ending now for many if not most of the fans of this show and that could seriously be the end of it. They have created a final chapter that is sad and depressing, regardless of who Alicia meets now or what else happens, there will always be a huge gaping hole of “what if?”
Agree with your analysis Mrs Darcy.
Wow, sure did not see that coming. Kalinda shedding tears was nearly as shocking as Will dying.
Yes! I was so shocked to see Kalinda crying.
TGW without Will? 🙁
No more Will. Urgh.
I think it’s killed the show for me. I love JC and Will was a great character- complex but ultimately endearing and I loved his friendships with both Diane and Kalinda. It’s so nice to see a man/woman proper friendship without any stupid sexual tension.
I used to love Will and Alicia together but she has become so hateful this season- the way she lied to Will’s face for weeks about leaving the firm, being all flirty with him as she was working on stealing clients and then acting all wounded and self-righteous about his reaction? Please.
I don’t know what they are going to do now but if they use his death to exonerate Peter I am going to be soooo angry. There are multiple videos that prove electoral fraud so surely the election should be invalid (at best)?
I never found the Will-Alicia relationship credible (she looks more like his babysitter than his girlfriend; ditto Kalinda and Cary) or compelling. It would have been better to entrench the enmity between them this season, but I can see now why they laid on another layer of nostalgia/mush, especially last week. Well, if this is the only way they”ll begin to move on… e.g. I expect to see Alicia defending Kalinda re: the latter’s presumed murder of her husband one day.
I’ve never cried when it came to a television show before. I’m not going to lie when I say this made for do it. Then I ended up annoyed that Josh Charles was handed such a well rounded, complicated and amazingly written character and he decided to give it up. He’s never going to find anything half as good as Will Gardener. Also, I was really hoping Willica would be end game.
Big shock. Will was probably my favourite main character behind Kalinda. I really hope this doesn’t mean more Peter, I hoped he’d just end up back in jail this season and Alicia would finally dump him for good.
I’m not sure how the whole competing firms thing is going to work now Will’s dead. Without that competition between Will and Alicia, it’s a pretty blah storyline, so hopefully they don’t try to recreate that energy with another character.
Apparently there was a TV person statement released saying that after the drama of this episode The Good Wife is going to go back to its comedic side!!!!! I mean WTF? They kill off the main male lead and change the whole dynamic of the show and the cast, and they want to go back to silly gimmicky judges and quirky lawyers for the next few episodes?
NOOOOO! I want to see tears and Peter deposed as Governor. Even if they can’t prove he knew about the ballot boxes surely the election has to be voided (is that even a verb)?
Looks like Michael J Fox will be the new Will??
Lockhart Canning?
Holy shit that would be amazing!
“Apparently, Josh left the show because he wanted to move on to other projects…”
Uh-oh. This has David Caruso syndrome written all over it! I can’t help but to feel that this was a HUGE mistake on Josh’s part. I mean, the show is a still relatively new smash hit. Have we learned nothing from the Dan Stevenses of the world?? Sad.
I don’t know . A lot of insider TV people seem to think the show only has one or maybe two years left anyway. It’s definitely gone downhill in quality even though the acting is still pretty awesome.
There’s also mention of Josh Charles wanting to start a family and looking at shows with shorter seasons.
I follow him on Twitter and he seems like a petty down to earth and sensible guy- not exactly a Caruso type. He wanted to leave at the end of last season but Marguilies convinced to stay longer so that they could finish his storyline better.
I hate MJF’s character and it would really grate to see him as the new Will. I hope they keep his input to a minimum. They should have Patty Nyholm as his replacement- she was terrific and her and Will liked each other despite being opponents all the time.
As much as I like Michael j fox, I will miss the Will character and Josh Charles. He was so good on that show. Can’t believe he left. And the only thing he has lined up is an indie film with Sarah Silverman. :p
Is this the show that Blind Gossip was talking about . Was he being plotted against by another male cast member who wanted him gone and they had a big blow up on set. All the pieces fit as the blind says he will never be back. If so I say the nasty plotter is Mr Big.
I was just reading that and thinking the exact same thing! The timing is a little too coincidental to not be about Josh Charles and Chris Noth. I swear if he got rid of Josh and ruined Will/Alicia I will be MAD AS HELL.
Me, in my blissful ignorance, had always just assumed that Will and Alicia would be end game. Please please please tell me this doesn’t mean she’s going to end up with Peter.
No, she definitely won’t now, the writers as much as said it in their vt talking about everything being levelled for Alicia, and the fight between she and Peter in the series coming attractions looks set to be a blazer. They will have Alicia rise from the ashes, realizing the error of her ways in forsaking true love, dump Peter’s ass and no doubt she will find love again. Meanwhile no longtime fans of the show will get their happy ending. It sucks no matter which way you spin it imo. I am so mad right now. This is a case of artists, i.e. the writers and cast, over-intellectualizing a thing to justify it, discounting that this universe they have sold to loyal fans actually means something to them, and setting it on fire to stir things up for a bit. The trouble is everything now, no matter what they do, is an anticlimax. No ending for Alicia can compare to the one she might have had with WIll.
Of course there are fans who think this is all great and fun and will spin the show into exciting new directions. For me it feels empty now though, and I love many of the other characters. I am pissed that they have probably wrecked Diane’s marriage because I fricking love her and Gary Cole together (yeah how are all the guns in her house going to feel to her now?).
I just think killing him was a mistake, because from this (admittedly upset) vantage point, it feels like the main thing I will remember about the show now long after it is gone. It’s a pretty shoddy move if you ask me.