The Good Wife 📺 Reasons To Watch

Reasons You Need

To Watch

‘The Good Wife’

By Tyler Coates - Jun 29, 2015 

10 Reasons You Need To Watch ‘The Good Wife’

The Good Wife is the best show on television. There, I said it. Yes, you wouldn’t expect as much from a network legal procedural airing on Sunday nights on CBS, but it’s as groundbreaking and transgressive as anything you might find on a cable network or a streaming platform. It’s so good that I managed to watch the first five seasons in a six-week period after begrudgingly watching the pilot after friends harassed me for months about what I’d been missing out on.
Being a late adopter isn’t so bad, as the series first five seasons are available to stream on Amazon Prime. It also means I can ecstatically discuss what’s happening on the show with my equally enlightened friends. Still not convinced? Let me break it down for you and try to convince you to give The Good Wife a shot.

1

It's not just for moms
The title alone makes The Good Wife sound like a cheesy soap or, at best, a cheesy legal procedural. But it goes knee-deep into the intersection of political machines, the muddy grey areas of the legal system, and social justice. Sure, there’s the expected relationship woes for Alicia Florrick and her disgraced politician husband, but that is just the tip of the iceberg for this brilliantly crafted series.

 
2

Alicia Florrick is one of the most smartly crafted female characters on TV

A former stay-at-home mom who gave up her law career for her husband and kids, Alicia is forced back into the workplace when her State’s Attorney husband goes to prison after a corruption and prostitution scandal. Initially timid and cautious about returning to work, she quickly becomes one of the fiercest lawyers in Chicago. But that doesn’t mean her personal life is at all settled, as she struggles with her feelings toward her boss and her continuous rocky relationship with her husband once he’s released from prison and runs for governor of Illinois.

3

Peter Florrick is just as compelling

Peter is initially the villain from the series’ start: he cheats on Alicia, and brings shame to the family after soliciting prostitutes. He could have easily remained a static, despicable character — but that’d be too boring. Instead, he is exonerated and returns to politics, getting his old job back and running for governor of Illinois. And his marriage to Alicia remains one of the most progressive and thoughtful TV pairings in recent years, as at times it’s as loving as it is incredibly flawed.

 

4

The friendship between Alicia and Kalinda is complex

Kalinda is the badass investigator at Alicia’s firm, and the two quickly become friends outside of work. But their friendship is tested when a secret from Kalinda’s past comes out in the open — one that reveals the nature of her work with Peter Florrick. The pair then struggle to repair their broken friendship, which is fun to watch only because you get to figure out exactly when Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi started to hate each other in real life.

5

There's an intense love triangle

The previously mentioned relationships between Alicia and Peter and Alicia and her boss, Will, get super crazy around Season Three, when the latter turns from professional to romantic. It throws another wrench into the cog for Alicia’s job, which is already constantly complicated thanks to her husband’s political career and her status as a high-profile politician’s wife. But the show keeps its audience on their toes — it’s almost impossible to pick just one suitor for Alicia because her respective relationships with both keep having twists and turns.

6

It has amazing guest stars

In addition to it’s already amazing cast, The Good Wife features a slew of guest stars every week, with many returning for regular gigs as judges or opposing attorneys. Some of the best judges are played by the likes of Denis O’Hare, Bebe Neuwirth, and Ana Gastayer, while Martha Plimpton and Mamie Gummer are two of the more ruthless lawyers that Alicia and her firm go up against (or, in some cases, must collaborate with). But the most notorious and infuriating recurring character is Michael J. Fox’s Louis Canning, a cunning lawyer with ambitions to take over Alicia’s firm.

7

It's not just a case-of-the-week series

Like the rest of CBS’s line-up, The Good Wife is a case-of-the-week procedural, with its plots and story lines wrapping up in each episode. There are a few narrative arcs, of course, that follow Alicia and her husband’s marital woes as well as his political ambitions. In Seasons Five and Six, however, the show shifts drastically to feature several serial narratives at once as Alicia and her colleague, Cary Agos, leave their firm to start their own.

8

It tackles Internet culture without being lame

Yes, the fake Google / Facebook mashup that’s a heavy moneymaker for Alicia’s firm has a groan-worthy name: Chumhum. But despite the somewhat stilted website titles, The Good Wife focuses heavily on new media and the ways in which it frequently complicates the law. Alicia is often a bit out-of-touch when it comes to social media and Internet culture, which is why, thankfully, her son Zach is there to pick up the slack.

9

It makes fun of cable TV

In the Golden Age of Television, gritty cable shows with anti-heroes seem to overshadow traditional network dramas with their episodic narratives and 22-episode seasons. That’s why The Good Wife stands out as such a stellar television series: it has the characteristics of a network series while having the writing, acting, and filmmaking talents of a cable series. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sometimes throw shade toward the offerings on HBO, AMC, and FX. A recurring gag in Season Five involves Alicia watching Darkness at Noon, a brutal crime drama that looks a bit like HBO’s True Detective combined with AMC’s Low Winter Sun. The best part? Alicia can’t help but hate-watch even though she can’t seem to follow the show at all.

10

Christine Baranski

I mean, come on. She’s a goddamn boss.

http://decider.com/2015/06/29/10-reasons-you-need-to-watch-the-good-wife/