Uncivil war, tricks business as usual

PASADENA, CA - AUGUST 3: (L-R) Executive Producer Robert King, actress Julianna Margulies and Executive Producer/Creator Michelle King of the television show "The Good Wife" speak during the CBS Network portion of the 2009 Summer Television Critics Association Press Tour at The Langham Huntington Hotel & Spa on August 3, 2009 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Julianna Margulies;Robert King;Michelle King

PASADENA, CA - AUGUST 3: (L-R) Executive Producer Robert King, actress Julianna Margulies and Executive Producer/Creator Michelle King of the television show "The Good Wife" speak during the CBS Network portion of the 2009 Summer Television Critics Association Press Tour at The Langham Huntington Hotel & Spa on August 3, 2009 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Julianna Margulies;Robert King;Michelle King

Published May 19, 2014

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IF at first you don’t succeed, try again.

And that is what husband and wife Robert and Michelle King, The Good Wife’s executive producers and co-creators, did after their first attempt at a drama, In Justice, was cancelled after a run of 13 episodes.

Fortunately they bagged a winner with the script, storyline and cast of The Good Wife, which, while tagged by critics as ambitious at first, has become addictive viewing.

Michelle says: “It’s tremendous. We’re coming up on our 100th episode. It’s really exciting for us.”

Her husband picks up: “And exhausting. You know, we end the year very tired and ready to collapse and then it’s like you start reading the news and you go, well, that’s interesting, this is fun, Anthony Weiner, really? So, all this stuff starts to get you excited about going next year again.”

Robert explains the build-up to the new season: “Sometimes it’s great to swerve left and then you swerve right, but I thought thematically it worked for us, in that you thought it was going to romance and, in fact, it was going to career-end romance. How that sets up the next year, of course, is now we get to see how Alicia and Cary follow through. If they’re going to start a firm together, what is that going to look like? And they’re going to start the year saying, ‘it’s going to be the most ethical firm’, and how are they going to be able to follow through and what will that do to Alicia and Will, especially if they take clients along with them, ’cos I think everybody can say, ‘Oh, we’ll be great friends and this will really work’, but if you’re stealing money from the other firm, which is the way Will and Diane might interpret it, it’s not going to end well.

“It’s not going to be pretty, so it’s really… the year for us… it’s about civil war, seeing these characters we’ve embraced in a family and seeing this kind of wedge go in the middle of the family and how will that renew itself, or will it ever?

“Julianna’s character over the years has grown respect for Cary, because he wasn’t the yuppie suburban boy, the white-bread kid you expect. He has kind of gone through a lot of turmoil. He was fired. He went to the state attorney’s office then he came back. And he was overlooked for partner. So I think Jules’s character has a real respect for how he keeps bouncing back and that is different from the first year where everybody thought he was the cliché.”

In keeping with the title of the show, Michelle provides deeper insight into Peter and Alicia and the challenges that await them.

She offers: “The bottom line is Alicia and Peter have agreed to recommit to each other and that played into Alicia wanting to move away from Will. The difficulty is Peter now has moved into a position of power in the governorship and as much as he has sworn over the years to be a changed man, now he is going to be put to the test.

“Power comes with some sense of sexual loosening, so that’s difficult for Alicia and Peter and it’s not that Peter necessarily even acts on it, but that kind of divide in the marriage is difficult and it’s happening at a time when Alicia is finding her own roots, in a way. I mean, she has her own firm, she has power, she may not need Peter as much anymore, so that is a tension in that relationship.”

There’s nothing like tension to heighten the excitement. Viewers should hold on tight as it will be one bumpy ride with cleverly placed curve balls to heighten the drama and consequential nail-biting suspense.

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