The Good Wife's Moral Crisis, Love Triangle "Trap" and Will Alicia and Kalinda Reunite?

Robert and Michelle King preview Alicia's breakdown and what's ahead for the hit CBS drama

By Chris Harnick Mar 02, 2015 3:10 AMTags
The Good WifeCBS

The Good Wife is back! But after their collective victory in getting Cary's (Matt Czuchry) charges dropped, it's not smooth sailing for Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) and Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi).

Now that you've seen "Dark Money," which featured a bawdy Ed Asner, Alicia having a little bit of a breakdown about her campaign and Lemond Bishop (Mike Colter) calling in his favor with Kalinda for helping Cary (when he was set for jail), we're sure you have questions. We have the answers courtesy of Robert and Michelle King, The Good Wife co-creators and executive producers. Was that the big favor Lemond Bishop demanded of Kalinda? Will Alicia and Kalinda have a final scene?

Read on!

Was that the big favor Lemond Bishop called in or can we expect more leverage over Kalinda?
Robert
: The big favor he called in—but it will have permeations to it.

OK, because when he asked her to pick up his kid from school, I was expecting more. But I assume there's some planning going on in Lemond Bishop's head and I can't wait to see how it plays out.
Robert
: What's always fun with us for Archie is you expect the operatic and you get sometimes the human. The show isn't Sopranos…the audience usually wants to go bigger than we go just because the show wants to stay in a human scale, so it seems like it could've happened to your friends or your enemies. That's one of the reasons why you want to surprise your audience about where things are going.

Patrick Harbron/CBS

Another surprise was the big kiss between Alicia and Johnny. It's generated a lot of questions and a lot of people—especially with that promo—are expecting the two of them to…meet again. Their lips to meet again, I guess. What can you tease? I know Alan Cumming has said he thinks Alicia is going to get laid again, and the promo seems to say that as well.
Robert
: [Laughs.]

Michelle: I think we can say, "stay tuned!"

Robert: Yeah, I mean what I like about Steven Pasquale, but also Matthew Goode, is they are both so good at playing the chemistry with Jules. We wanted to do something this year that avoided the love triangle aspect that are fun, but also become a trap for the series. One of those things is if we can keep those chemistries bubbling and trying to keep the audience guessing who's going to get in her pants, [Laughs.] I guess is a crass way of putting it.

Michelle: Or if anybody does.

CBS

Ed Asner was a hoot…His scenes were surprising and crass and wonderful…was there anything he wouldn't say?
Robert
: No! There wasn't. We were always a little worried that he wouldn't want to do that because we had to get clearance from CBS to say a derogatory word about gays…we were a little worried if he pulled back a little bit from it, it seems cutesy and kind of like "Archie Bunker later years" and you kind of wanted it to be appalling. He didn't back away and David Hyde Pierce didn't back away too. They were incredibly great about diving into that disgusting little scene they did.

Michelle: We're very lucky to be working with smart, sophisticated actors who really understand when dialogue is in service of character, so nobody had any qualms.

At the end of the episode, it seems like Alicia is at a breaking point. The campaign and all these kind of murky waters are getting to her. Where does she go from here?
Robert
: A lot of it is trying to figure out where her ethical line is drawn. What's lovely about doing so many episodes is the audience can be with her throughout all her transitions and all her metamorphosis, and kind of still cheer for her. But at certain point you're realizing, "This is not really a good thing she's doing here or there," and I think Alicia is finding her own moral qualms about whether she's hitting that line. Some of that has to do with her daughter's religion. And if not the idea of God, at least the ethical demands of what it means to be a good person and whether being a good person is that you do everything you can to win so that good can triumphant over evil or, in fact, are the steps along the way—the moves that you make along the way are part of what turn you into a good or bad person. I think that's what Alicia is trying to come to terms with. That's a very intellectual way of putting it. Jules, obviously you just watched the scene with her, she finds the emotional version of it. But I think for us, Alicia's trying to figure out if she can be a good person.

Right. It seems like she's running to make a change in the world, but at what price, basically.
Robert
: I think that's right. You see that with any president who runs. At a certain point, they have to do a lot of shitty things to get elected and they'll say they're doing it because if they don't get elected somebody worse will. At a certain point, the moves you make that get you there determine who you are.

I have to ask because I got this question on Twitter and for my own personal knowledge: Do you think Alicia and Kalinda will have one final scene?
Robert
: Uh…

Michelle: Again, stay tuned.

Robert: Yeah, that one we'll have to do stay tuned on. [Laughs.]

The Good Wife airs Sundays, 9 p.m. on CBS.