#later episodes starting from around season 1 ramble 7 on are increasingly better

[aspiring-holistic-otaku]

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[florrickandassociates]

Don’t really have much to say about Sharp Objects (it’s good but that’s all I‘ve got lol) but I’ve been moving on through my tgw rewatch and I want to talk about tgw with someone! So I was wondering what are your favorite relationships (romantic and otherwise) on the show? What’s your favorite season? What’s your biggest praise for the show and your biggest criticism?

Don’treally have much to say about Sharp Objects (it’s good but that’s all I‘ve gotlol) but I’ve been moving on through my tgw rewatch and I want to talk abouttgw with someone! So I was wondering what are your favorite relationships(romantic and otherwise) on the show? What’s your favorite season? What’s yourbiggest praise for the show and your biggest criticism?

So before I get in to my (very delayed) reply, just want tomake sure that all my followers are aware of @hermione-mak-gilmore‘s awesome TGW rewatch posts,which you can find here.

My thoughts, rambling and not proofread as ever, are under the cut. 

FavoriteRelationships:

Romantic: Diane and Kurt and no others. Okay, that’s a lie.I think TGW had a lot of compelling and well-developed romantic relationships,even if Diane/Kurt is the only pairing I would say I ship. If I expand my thinking to include romantic relationshipsthat were written well enough to elicit strong feelings and many, manythoughts, I have to mention both Alicia/Will and Alicia/Peter. Just look at thelayers in Will’s Decision Treesequence, or the subtle shifts in their relationship over the years, or theconflicting feelings of season three, or (oh my goodness) any of Alicia’sthoughts after Will’s death (excluding season 7 because season 7 doesn’t dothem justice lol). And for Alicia/Peter, every time the two of them discusstheir family or politics, I see why they’re drawn to each other, and every timethey fight, I see just how much history and baggage they have.

Not romantic: Alicia and Cary’s always underdevelopedpartnership, Alicia and Diane’s complicated friendship (and the power dynamics!And the paranoia!), Alicia and Eli’s mutual respect that turned into afriendship, Alicia and Kalinda (don’t get me started), Cary and Clarke’sfriendship, Diane and Cary (they’re so alike but never seem to be able to workwell together!), DIANE AND WILL’S PARTNERSHIP (that one gets to be in allcaps), Diane and Kalinda (I don’t think we ever got enough of them together),Eli and Peter, Kalinda and Will, Kalinda and Robyn, and probably every othercombination of characters.

Favorite Season:

My personal favorite season is probably season six but I’llbe the first to admit it’s not the best season (and that it is in factinfuriatingly terrible at many points). Instead of ranking the seasons I’mgoing to make a pro/con list for each of them…

Season 1:

Pros: Everythingis so simple yet effective! I love, love, love the structure and pacing of theseason (Alicia/Cary’s competition). The small moments are priceless, and everycharacter’s personality (especially Alicia’s) is well-established. And when Ilook back at season one, I can see all of the groundwork being laid for thetone/humor/style that’s become TGW’s signature.

Cons: It feelslike a first season. If this aired today and not in 2009, I’m not sure I would’vecut some weak early episodes as much slack as I did when I first watched. ThePilot is great (clichéd at times, but great) but it’s not until, what, episode14? That the show finds its footing. That’s a lot of time to invest in a showthat’s a mixed bag. There are lots of weak episodes (Unorthodox, I’m looking at you) and storylines (Peter’s retrial andall the conspiracy surrounding it).

Season 2:

Pros: Season 2contains Nine Hours, which is stillone of the best hours of TGW, as well as HamSandwich and that run of episodes from InSickness to Closing Arguments. Ifseason 2 were just its best episodes, it would easily be one of my favoriteseasons. But…

Cons: It alsocontains a bunch of filler episodes I can barely remember, a few too manypolitical plots about viral videos, and the nonsense that was Blake Calamar(and that never-ending hotel scene in NetWorth). Oh, and I’m here for the drama but Peter never slept with Kalindalol nope I don’t buy it.

Season 3:

Pros: It has somereally great standalone episodes.

Cons: It has somereally terrible episodes and subplots. Alicia’s wig. A general lack ofdirection that makes even enjoyable subplots seem meaningless and distracting.

Season 4:

Pros: Everythingfrom The Seven Day Rule to What’s in the Box? is some of thestrongest material ever on the show. The introduction of memory pops!

Cons: Beginning ofKalicia ban, NICK SAVARESE’S EXISTENCE, Mandy Post Idiot Reporter (yes she getsa mention), deeply boring cases and plots in the first half of the season, someweird stuff for the Florrick kids.

Season 5:

Pros: HITTING THEFAN. THE DECISION TREE. A FEW WORDS. DRAMATICS, YOUR HONOR. THE LAST CALL. Idon’t think any other season has as many pivotal, perfect episodes. And seasonfive has the strongest structure of any season (season one is a close second)with its five episode arcs that make you forget the bad, slow episodes becausethere’s always a great, dramatic episode in the near future. Season five makesthe most of four seasons of worldbuilding. It’s smart and exciting and dramaticand it still feels like almost everything is motivated by character developmentrather than a need for plot (see: office politics in the later seasons, or howclumsily Bond is introduced at the beginning of season two). Also thescore!!!!! Season five is the year the score becomes truly incredible.

Cons: Some of theseason five episodes are weak, y’all.We, The Juries is terrible, and thatepisode and Goliath and David were acomplete waste of time (but we got Thicky Trick out of the latter so it canstay). Most of the episodes that aren’t the big ones are similarly weak. TheKalicia ban continues, and unlike in season four, Kalinda’s material reallysuffers as a result. It feels like she has a nude scene in most episodes. Andthen the last run of episodes in the season has its moments, but most of it isjust… directionless and not very good. You can tell the writers were building to 5x15 and then had to scramble tofind new directions in its aftermath.

Season 6:

Pros: The writers’dedication to exploring Alicia’s journey and how she’s changed over the years.The beginnings of the Cary arc. Some good material for Kalinda (and some badmaterial but I’ll get to that). Prady is a perfect opponent for Alicia. Johnnyis a great addition to the cast. Some really great Alicia/Peter moments andfights.

Cons: The Debate. The separation of the leads,which probably happened because of (ugh) the Kalicia ban (UGH). Not only arethe leads separate from each other, they’re separate in glaring ways. It’s notsimply that Alicia’s off running a campaign (a very good reason she might notbe interacting with Kalinda day to day)… it’s that Alicia’s running a campaignbut her law partners have no opinions about it, until they suddenly do, butthen they suddenly don’t again. How am I supposed to be invested in interpersonaldrama when they aren’t laying groundwork? Season five used up so much of thegroundwork laid previously that the show needed to take a minute to reset andplay out its new conflicts before rushing into more dramatic storylines.Instead… Diane’s at the firm now, Alicia’s running for SA, Cary’s in jail, and thefirm’s somehow back at LG (and somehow hasbecome LG by the end of the season). I don’t think season six contains manybad ideas, it just doesn’t juggle its ideas well. A better version of seasonsix wouldn’t just give us great Alicia episodes, it would use conflicts at theoffice and the way the other characters view Alicia’s campaign to add another layer.I personally didn’t have any trouble figuring out why Alicia was running for SAbut I know that’s been a top objection to s6, and I understand where it comesfrom. A better arc—one that forced Alicia to explain her motivations to othersand devoted more time to Alicia developing policies and meeting voters andvolunteers—would’ve given me more of the character development I love and helped to make the arc succeed forothers.

Season 7:

Pros: Lucca Quinn.

Cons: Everythingthat is not Lucca Quinn. But seriously: there are a few things other than LuccaI like (the first few episodes where it seems like the writers are slowing downand re-establishing a status quo, Driven,Alicia’s breakdown in Judged, Party, the idea of ending the show witha slap, and the song “Better”), but mostly, I don’t like season 7 at all. Peterrunning for President is flat-out stupid, and an unforced error. Alicia’s wigSUCKS. Diane and Cary are off in silly plots until Alicia and Lucca(illogically, because of an uncharacteristically stupid thing Alicia does!)somehow wind up back at LG (or LAL, whatever, it’s LG). Ghost Will in thefinale is… not good (use Josh Charles, I don’t care, but bringing back Will inthat particular way is just fanservice). Peter’s trial at the end of the showis convoluted and I’m pretty sure the story changes from episode to episode.There are also some unnecessarily ridiculous reveals, like Peter sleeping withGeneva (no) and Kurt sleeping with Holly (very no). But my biggest problem withthe Peter-trial-arc is that it’s a repeat of the emotional beats from the endof season six. Season seven should not undo all of season six just so it can (poorly)attempt to do it over again. After seven seasons, it comes down to… Aliciabeing devastated over the voicemail (UGH) and Peter doing something sketchythat forces Alicia to play Good Wife again? Really? It’s like the writers chosethe easiest paths for creating drama (voicemail) and demonstrating growth (then/nowcontrasts). I don’t blame the writers, though, for how bad season seven is. It’sbecome increasingly apparent to me that CBS was fucking around with the show inseason seven: they rushed BrainDead to air like a month after TGW ended, whichmeant the Kings were probably spending most of their time staffing/writingBrainDead while they were working on s7 (they only wrote two episodes—the premiereand the finale). And as if that wasn’t enough, I didn’t believe it at the time,but I truly think CBS was hoping to renew the show for a Kings-less seasoneight. If that’s the case, then it makes sense that season 7 couldn’t take manyrisks and would have to get back to being a fun, simple workplace proceduralwhere all the characters worked at the same firm. So by the time the writerslearned the show was actually in its final season—despite the fact they’d beenplanning on seven seasons for years!!—it was too late to do anything other thantack on a rushed and repetitive arc to close out the show.

Biggest Praise(s):

·        ALICIA FLORRICK. I love Alicia more than I’veever loved any fictional character. That’s partially because of what she’s likeand largely because of how well, and consistently, she’s written.

·        A commitment to being realistic. I’m not sayingeverything the show’s ever done is realistic, but the writers were clearlyalways interested in creating realistic characters who lived in a realisticworld. I appreciated that the show acknowledged systemic, structural problems(within politics, criminal justice, workplaces, etc) and that it was alwaysaware of prevalent stereotypes and the importance of appearances. I think thatwhen people look back on TGW, it’ll be seen as one of the most accuraterepresentations of what the world was like in 2009-2016.

·        Casting, costuming, set decoration, and scoring.

·        Memory pops!

Biggest Criticisms:

When I rewatched season three (between seasons five and six)I said there were three main problems with the show that were especiallyapparent in season three. I’ll say them again here, and add one more.

·        Sprawl: Sometimes the show tries to do too much andit simply doesn’t have the bandwidth.

·        Bad pacing: 22 episodes is a lot. Oftentimes itfeels like the writers write BIG EPISODES and filler episodes, with no middleground. If the filler episodes were instead build-up episodes, the big episodeswould be even better and there’d be less filler.

·        Loss of focus on Alicia: When the show focuseson its central character, it’s less likely to turn into a sprawling,poorly-paced mess. My thinking is that if the writers focused more on Alicia,they’d have to be more deliberate about how they write the characters aroundher (to make the most of their screentime and establish their wants and beliefsso their interactions with Alicia are as meaningful as possible).

·        Since I came up with the criticisms above, theshow’s aired two full seasons since my original post (and I think I came upwith these criticisms before I even made that post), plus two full seasons of aspin-off, AND I STILL HAVE THE SAME DAMN PROBLEMS.