[Major spoilers…IF you haven’t already managed to have last night’s shocking episode ruined for you by the internet.]
“The Good Wife” is on a creative hot streak this year with many proclaiming it their best one. It’s not easy for a show to do that in their fifth season. It’s downright IMPOSSIBLE for a CBS procedural show to do it in their fifth season.
All was going well for the rest of the season with juicy plot lines like whether Will (Josh Charles, more on him in a minute) would mend his relationship with Alicia, while also being tempted to testify against her husband Peter who just so happens to be the governor of Illinois. Oh, and then of course the increasing competition between shark Will and the upstart Florrick/Agos firm. It was going to be interesting…until the unthinkable happened…
[Last chance for a spoiler alert.]
…And Will was gunned down in court by his own client, a mixed up kid he was defending for murder. It looks like his client was trying to hit the prosecutor played by Matthew Goode but wound up hitting Will instead. The prosecutor lived, but Will died. This is definitely the most surprising episode of any show this year and probably the last few years.
NOOOOOOOOOOOO! You could practically hear the internet scream, and I actually think this was a huge tactical and strategic mistake.
Why He Left: In fairness to the show, apparently Josh Charles wanted to leave the series at the end of season 4, but they persuaded him to stay for most of season 5 to finish his arc properly. But Michelle and Robert King (the married couple that created and run The Good Wife) chose to kill Will off rather than move his character to a different city or just write him out of the show in some other way. Big mistake all around…here’s why…
Why The Show is in the Wrong: Will was my favorite character on The Good Wife. I know not everyone feels that way (the message boards are so devoted to Alicia that they hate Will, her antagonist this season), but everyone does feel he had a lot of story left in him. Nearly all of the show’s major plot lines—-both this season and for the show as a whole—-hinged on him. There’s the layered and exciting short term question of “Is Will going to break attorney/client privilege to lock up his nemesis Peter Florrick, technical husband to the love of his life?” And the equally exciting and layered question of “Who will Alicia ultimately pick: Will or Peter?” Both of these questions are now gone.
The show should have ended Will’s arc by making his affair with Alicia public news at the end of this season, publicly shaming “The Good Wife” causing Will to move out to New York or L.A. to expand Lockhart/Gardner like he’s been wanting to do all season. This would have actually caused more ripples and juicy plot lines since Alicia would now feel what it’s like to be slut-shamed instead of the public relations angel. Then they could have at least had Will back for a few episodes at the show’s very end to wrap up Alicia’s love triangle and also when Josh Charles has (probably) figured out that the grass ain’t always greener, and it’s a hell of a lot better to have a great role on a long-running TV show than be the fifth lead in an independent film maybe 500 people will watch. Speaking of…
Why Josh Charles is in the Wrong: Apparently, Josh Charles is a great guy (I’ve heard people who’ve actually met him say this), and I don’t mean to talk him down personally or professionally, but you don’t leave a show like The Good Wife to chase a nonexistent film career. [Taraji P. Henson made a similar mistake on the other CBS show people under the age of 60 actually watch “Person of Interest” and now the show is boring and she’ll be back on another TV pilot this Fall.] How many more years could The Good Wife have possibly run? Maybe one more season? Maybe two at the absolute most?
He should have stuck it out to continue Will’s juiciest story lines to date. I think being the fifth lead in an indie film can wait two years. Sorry Josh, but it’ll be three or four years of floundering around out there without steady work (maybe do a play) and then you’ll probably be back on another TV show that might not last a season. This happens all…the…time (just ask Christopher Meloni, who was apparently bored with “Law and Order SVU” but forgot that his career before it wasn’t exactly A-list and is now on the embarrassing-looking “Surviving Jack” which probably won’t be around for two full seasons).
Why CBS is in the Wrong: They advertised “The Good Wife shocker on March 23rd” for weeks. They hyped it up and said “don’t miss the episode everyone will be talking about.” If TGW went through such pains to keep their shocker a secret, why advertise it? Sure, most of us thought it would be something like Alicia getting outed for sleeping with Will, and nobody thought a show that rarely devolves into violence would be dumb enough to kill off its most plot-dependent supporting character, but still…
Then CBS made the equally egregious move of showing us “scenes from the rest of this season” right after the shocker. See, when the shocking episode ends, most of us would want to be left wondering “what the hell happens now?” But CBS—-in their infinite capacity as the most boring network on TV—-decided to tell us all exactly what happens for the next four or five episodes so that there’s no room for wonder or mystery. It was a really stupid decision…not like the entirety of killing off Will in a non-sensical plot twist that barely makes sense.