‘The Good Wife’ Bosses Talk Ending The Show, Spinoff Potential

“The Good Wife’s” current season will be its last,
but before the show ends its run in May, the final nine episodes will include
appearances from familiar faces.

“Yes, a lot,” Executive Producer and Co-Creator
Robert King told reporters on a conference call on Monday, when asked about
past cast members coming back. “Can I just say though, we’re in the works
right now trying to get a few, and we will know, I would say, within the next
week.”

Robert and fellow EP and co-creator Michelle King were also asked on the call if there was a possibility for Josh Charles’ character, the late Will Gardner, to return, and for Alicia (Julianna Margulies) to finally divorce Peter Florrick (Chris Noth).

The-Good-Wife-Bosses-Talk-Ending-The-Show-Spinoff-Potential
‘The Good Wife’ Bosses Talk Ending The Show, Spinoff Potential (CBS)

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“Alas, Will Gardner’s dead, so that’s sort of problematic right there. And in terms of whether she’ll divorce or not, I think we should probably stay mum,” Michelle said.

“The only thing we’d say about the Josh character Will is I think he weighs heavily on the narrative even if we don’t have him in person and that seems to be something we haven’t figured out too, so I’m trying to leave you kind of with empty answers on both of those,” Robert added.

The producers said Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) will not be back (Robert noted Archie has a new show), but one person who will return is Gary Cole, who plays Kurt McVeigh.

Robert and Michelle said that in the beginning, their original plan with CBS drama “The Good Wife” was a 13-episode run,
but after they were picked up, their plan grew to seven seasons.

“Having come from screenwriting and movies before this,
it was always thinking in terms of what is the beginning and the middle and the
end of a show that could go on years, and we pretty quickly thought that the
show could only really support, and the story of Alicia Florrick could only
support seven years, so we started to build towards that,” Robert said.
“So what you’re seeing in the last nine episodes is kind of — if it were
a movie, it would be the third act of the movie. Well, actually this last year,
has been that, but just trying to somehow find completion in a forum that tends
to rebel against completion, which is broadcast, network TV, which really does
want to be an ongoing structure basically — how do you find a way to give it
shape?”

There was a possibility for the show to carry on beyond a seventh season without them, but that was up to the network, the Kings said. Ultimately, the decision was made to end it at the end of the current one.

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“We felt very fortunate and flattered that we’re being
allowed to end the show together with the writers and the other producers the
way we would hope it would end,” Michelle said.

The Kings, though, didn’t rule out talk of spinoff
potential.

“At this point, nothing’s off the table, but there’s
nothing formal and sure, maybe,” Michelle said. “We’re not saying no
to anything at this point.”

“I think what would be appealing about it is there are
all these fun characters that you maybe didn’t see as much as you wanted, not
only Elsbeth Tascioni, the Carrie Preston character, but Patti Nyholm – the
Martha Plimpton character. What’d be fun is if you could find a way to spin off
kind of an ensemble that maybe wasn’t at the center stage of ‘Good Wife,’ just
’cause all those characters, we wished we’d had more time with,” Robert said.
“We wished they were regulars and you could explore other lives, but the
show has always been kind of geared around the Alicia character and so, anyway,
I guess the bottom line is what would be appealing is pursuing a different
ensemble.”

“The Good Wife” airs Sundays at 10/9c. The series
finale will air on May 8.

Jolie Lash

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