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‘The Good Wife’ Series Finale, Best Moment In The Show’s History

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 06:36 PST, May 13, 2016

The Good Wife has never had a reputation for huge rating numbers during its seven-season run on CBS, but the series finale surely became an exception, according to Variety. The show’s finale became the evening’s most-watched program and dominated over other programs in its timeslot.

The series finale of The Good Wife came somewhat unexpectedly, as the revelation about the series’ finale came during CBS’ coverage of the Super Bowl in February.

Even though the Mother’s Day holiday on Sunday was expectedly an unpopular day for television, the Good Wife finale still managed to set its largest audience record since 2014. The CBS show averaged a 1.2 rating/4 share in adults in the age group between 18 and 49 and 10.5 million viewers overall in the 9 p.m. timeslot.

Thus, compared to The Good Wife’s previous episode, the finale episode saw a 20 percent boost in the demo and increased the number of viewers by 1.3 million total (from 9.19 million a week ago). It was the show’s largest demo score since January this year and its biggest overall audience since the episode that aired in November 2014 and brought 10.72 million viewers.

The Good Wife dominated in the 9 p.m. timeslot in the 18-49 and 25-54 demos as well as the number of total viewers. Fans of The Good Wife, written by creators Robert and Michelle King, note that the CBS show has seen its better days in previous seasons.

The Good Wife is a mix of legal drama, political intrigue, and soap opera, and until the last episode aired, there had been no plot indications that the show was coming to its end. But it’s official now — The Good Wife ended its 156-episode run last Sunday, and now fans of Kings’ dramas can turn to their new project Brain Dead, which premieres next month on CBS.

The Good Wife finale ended its seven-season run the same way it started in its pilot on September 22, 2009: with a speech, a slap, and Alicia Florrick (played by Julianna Margulies) all by herself, according to Vox.

The series finale reviews have been rather mixed, but that’s not surprising, as most fans of The Good Wife who liked the first few season were left disappointed after the major plot twists in the show’s fifth season. In fact, it’s believed by many critics that the CBS series has never really recovered from that point.

However, the Kings still managed to remind The Good Wife fans about that original appeal of the CBS drama that it lost about two years ago. In fact, that original appeal of the show made it one of the most rewarding projects on TV.

And the very moment that reminded fans about the original appeal of the show was an exact shot-by-shot recreation of the Good Wife pilot episode. It can be said that the show ended where it all began.

In the finale, Peter Florrick (played by Chris Noth) and Alicia hold hands and enter a press conference where Peter is set to resign his governorship, because of circulating rumors that he helped one of his donors’ relative get away with murder.

Just like in the Good Wife pilot episode, the moment when Peter and Alicia hold hands is shot from behind. And as they enter the press conference, Alicia doesn’t pose for the cameras, and she gets distracted by a man she sees in the audience. It was Jason, her sort of boyfriend. So she left the press conference to find Jason.

And then that slap happens. That recreation of the slap from The Good Wife pilot episode was mesmerizing, and fans of the show even note that it was one of the best moments in the seven-season run of the show.

[Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]

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