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tamoline The Good Wife was a legal procedural that ran from 2009-2016. It was also the first fan community I was ever part of - one of the few I've ever been part of for that matter - and the one I've written most stories for. I was recently feeling nostalgic about that, so I started rewatching the series, and I'd forgotten how much I'd honestly liked it.
The titular character is Alicia Florrick. At the start, she's the wife of a disgraced ex-State's Attorney, Peter Florrick, who's in prison for corruption, who stuck by her husband even through the scandal of her husband sleeping with prostitutes being splashed all over the news. She has two teenagers, has lost her nice house and has to work for the first time in thirteen years, which she does by brushing off her law degree and going to work in the law firm of an old flame, Will Gardiner.
The format of the series is mostly case of the week, but there were also continuing storylines that featured every week and helped bind it together. Some were about the continuing woes of the law firm, some were personal to various of the characters - most either Alicia's, or weaving around her. Her plotlines with Will and Peter are more or less what you'd expect from above - a will-they, won't they with Will, a struggle to move on with Peter, along with involvement in his renewed political career.
It may not surprise people who know me to learn that neither of those relationships really grabbed me, and I wouldn't have such nostalgia for the show if that had been all there was. I'd have probably still enjoyed it, but I probably wouldn't have gotten involved with it fannishly. That's all due to another character, Kalinda Sharma. She was the in house investigator for the law firm, and quickly became Alicia's best friend at the firm, as well as her regular support. Kalinda by herself was fairly fascinating, if a tad problematic in places. Openly bisexual, which included using flirting and even casual sex with various contacts (there's that bad rep), she was also immensely guarded and very much a commitment-phobe, wary about too close relations with anyone.
And - for the first three and half seasons - Alicia was the most important person in her life, despite a massive breakdown in their relationship towards the end of the second season. This isn't just subtext - there's at least three times people explicitly try to manipulate Kalinda using Alicia, and someone else mentions that she has a special voice on the phone when talking to Alicia.
And it's pretty much the most textured relationship in the show while it lasts. We get to see it before and after, the slow attempts to rebuild that are that much more fragile because there is no lasting bond between them. Alicia is married to Peter, and due to mother issues, is massively reluctant to give up on that. Her relationship with Will is honestly a lot more shallow. But with Kalinda... it's because they both choose it.
I'm generally much more drawn to subtext than main text - I'm interested in fleshing things out, a need that well done main text usually satisfies. The only relationship I've written for which is really main text is Root/Shaw from Person of Interest and that was a) not main text when I started and b) relationships in general not being the focus of Person of Interest, so there was that much more to flesh out. But with Alicia and Kalinda, there was enough main text to make things interesting - if isn't main text that Kalinda is in love with Alicia, whether platonically or romantically, then it's definitely the next best thing and Alicia would have a lot of mixed feelings to work through in any relationship - while still being sub-texty enough to work for me.
'While the relationship lasts' being the operative phrase, of course. After halfway through the fourth season, the two characters never share a scene again, for no textual reason. Sometimes they talk to each other on the phone, but even at the end of the sixth season - after two and a half seasons of separation between what had been one of the central relationships of the show - the two characters finally have a scene together - where the two actresses clearly aren't sharing the room at the same time. Experiencing this in real time left a really bad taste in my mouth, so we didn't even watch the last season, and tainted my memories of the earlier seasons.
(It's fairly obvious that there were behind the scenes shenanigans in play here, but eh.)
I'm just approaching that point in my rewatch with a certain amount of melancholy, but I'm hoping that - with foreknowledge - I'll be able to enjoy the rest more this time. Maybe even watch the last season! I do have a vague hankering to write fic again, but I have FemslashEx to deal with first, so I'll have to see if I'm still in the mood after that.
The titular character is Alicia Florrick. At the start, she's the wife of a disgraced ex-State's Attorney, Peter Florrick, who's in prison for corruption, who stuck by her husband even through the scandal of her husband sleeping with prostitutes being splashed all over the news. She has two teenagers, has lost her nice house and has to work for the first time in thirteen years, which she does by brushing off her law degree and going to work in the law firm of an old flame, Will Gardiner.
The format of the series is mostly case of the week, but there were also continuing storylines that featured every week and helped bind it together. Some were about the continuing woes of the law firm, some were personal to various of the characters - most either Alicia's, or weaving around her. Her plotlines with Will and Peter are more or less what you'd expect from above - a will-they, won't they with Will, a struggle to move on with Peter, along with involvement in his renewed political career.
It may not surprise people who know me to learn that neither of those relationships really grabbed me, and I wouldn't have such nostalgia for the show if that had been all there was. I'd have probably still enjoyed it, but I probably wouldn't have gotten involved with it fannishly. That's all due to another character, Kalinda Sharma. She was the in house investigator for the law firm, and quickly became Alicia's best friend at the firm, as well as her regular support. Kalinda by herself was fairly fascinating, if a tad problematic in places. Openly bisexual, which included using flirting and even casual sex with various contacts (there's that bad rep), she was also immensely guarded and very much a commitment-phobe, wary about too close relations with anyone.
And - for the first three and half seasons - Alicia was the most important person in her life, despite a massive breakdown in their relationship towards the end of the second season. This isn't just subtext - there's at least three times people explicitly try to manipulate Kalinda using Alicia, and someone else mentions that she has a special voice on the phone when talking to Alicia.
And it's pretty much the most textured relationship in the show while it lasts. We get to see it before and after, the slow attempts to rebuild that are that much more fragile because there is no lasting bond between them. Alicia is married to Peter, and due to mother issues, is massively reluctant to give up on that. Her relationship with Will is honestly a lot more shallow. But with Kalinda... it's because they both choose it.
I'm generally much more drawn to subtext than main text - I'm interested in fleshing things out, a need that well done main text usually satisfies. The only relationship I've written for which is really main text is Root/Shaw from Person of Interest and that was a) not main text when I started and b) relationships in general not being the focus of Person of Interest, so there was that much more to flesh out. But with Alicia and Kalinda, there was enough main text to make things interesting - if isn't main text that Kalinda is in love with Alicia, whether platonically or romantically, then it's definitely the next best thing and Alicia would have a lot of mixed feelings to work through in any relationship - while still being sub-texty enough to work for me.
'While the relationship lasts' being the operative phrase, of course. After halfway through the fourth season, the two characters never share a scene again, for no textual reason. Sometimes they talk to each other on the phone, but even at the end of the sixth season - after two and a half seasons of separation between what had been one of the central relationships of the show - the two characters finally have a scene together - where the two actresses clearly aren't sharing the room at the same time. Experiencing this in real time left a really bad taste in my mouth, so we didn't even watch the last season, and tainted my memories of the earlier seasons.
(It's fairly obvious that there were behind the scenes shenanigans in play here, but eh.)
I'm just approaching that point in my rewatch with a certain amount of melancholy, but I'm hoping that - with foreknowledge - I'll be able to enjoy the rest more this time. Maybe even watch the last season! I do have a vague hankering to write fic again, but I have FemslashEx to deal with first, so I'll have to see if I'm still in the mood after that.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-11 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-11 03:22 pm (UTC)Diane was fairly great. She actually made it to the successor - and way more political - series, The Good Fight. We did watch that for a few seasons, but it never quite grabbed us in the same way.