Sad and Satisfied: The Good Wife Final Season Finale Episode - Spoilers

Though perhaps in the minority, "End"  finale of The Good Wife's seven season series, felt just right to me.  It even made me tear up slightly at one point. I am going to miss this series, though it clearly had run its course and it was time, maybe even more than time, for it to wrap.

"End," the season's finale episode's ambiguity, is what many seem to dislike. But then life doesn't run in tidy, structured television arcs and novel narratives.  Many wanted Alicia to end with new love, surrounded by female friends in a successful all female firm.  Most of all viewers seemed to dislike having old love come out of her own past passion and loyalty to give her advice, because he's a he.  She's supposed to do it all on her female empowerment.  But -- her empowerment came directly out of how good a lawyer she's been during all these years.  She got to use and show her capacity and talent and brilliance because her old time love Will, provided her the stage on which to show the scope of her abilities -- they'd been in law school together, as her husband Peter had been.  Will, it turns out, was the heart and soul of that law firm, and when he was murdered, the heart and soul went out of it, confusion and backstabbing took the place of the deep partnership that he had with senior partner Diane.

The almost-this-is-a-dream sense of the last scenes was realistic too, considering how much stress everyone's been under for so long, and in this particular sequence, how sleep deprived. O, did this show on Alicia's bare, colorless face. Only Diane rose above it in the final scene, standing at Peter's press conference in a metal-silver suit that may as well have been a suit of armor. That she bitch slapped Alicia, yah -- and a lot less lethal for them both than a sword or halberd. It's Diane's life that was destroyed in that courtroom case defending Peter from obstruction of justice and corruption.

Diane's life was destroyed by the Florricks standing together for the sake of family and career.  Alicia made the same sort of decision that Diane would have made -- if it had been her husband as client, and Alicia's husband as witness. Nor was this the first time Diane was screwed over by the Florricks (she as supposed to be appointed to the state supreme court, and then wasn't for political convenience) though nothing this emotionally and personally devastating, as making her husband admit to having an affair with another witness in the case. Alicia was fortunate that Diane is so intelligent she didn't use a weapon beyond her hand.

Though, let's be honest here.  Diane had more than once screwed Alicia over when it was to the benefit of her law firm and the senior partners' profit,  or when professionally useful . . . . Nevertheless, the destruction of Diane's marriage by the Florricks for their own sake is merely the canary in the coal mine telling we the audience how many lives along the way have been damaged for the sake of Peter's political ambition.

The worst looking wig ever!

Though, there's this -- never has a bitch slap improved a woman's hair before, leaving Alicia looking much, much better after Diane cracked her cheek. Why o why those hideous wigs for Alicia Florrick all season 7?

The crumbling of all Diane's world was there fo all the world to see in Diane's face when Luca went to cross Kurt. In front of that judge who disliked Diane already.  And he knows and so does everyone else in the courtroom, and soon everybody else too.  While Kurt felt betrayed by her.

Mirroring Alicia's devastation in the first season's episodes, dealing with infidelity's endless revelations: in public.

It's almost as though the real story of "End" is Diane's.  What is she going to do now?  We know Alicia will be fine, option choices already dangling in front of her.  I'd like to see what happens with Diane now.  The actress is certainly more than capable of carrying a show on her own.  Diane Lockhart was my favorite character.

Farewell, Good Wife.  I began watching you in Chestertown, Maryland, back in 2010. The series began on CBS in the fall of 2009, concluded in the spring of 2010. I caught up with the first season via netflix in the fall of 2010 when it began again the fall of 2010, streaming weekly, with breaks, from the network).  As with the ensemble characters of The Good Wife, so much has happened in my life since then.  I'm going to miss you, all of you -- with a few exceptions, hello, Canning!.  But, yah, time to move on.