"The Good Wife" finale: reviews and reactions roundup
After seven seasons and a slew of awards, "The Good Wife" gave its closing statements Sunday night, closing the book on Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) and her storied legal career.
First, the good news. "The Good Wife" ended its run on a high note, ratings-wise, bringing in 10.4 million viewers and giving it a 20 percent increase in the coveted 18-49 demographic from the previous week, according to Nielsen. The finale received the highest number of viewers for the show since November 2014, when it hit 10.72 million, and the series hadn't topped 10 million viewers since January 2015.
But while there were plenty of people watching, not all of them necessarily enjoyed what they saw. Some critics were on board with how the series decided to wrap everything up -- or more to the point, not wrap everything up -- but others were less forgiving.
"I did not find all the loose ends frustrating, because though there is plot left up in the air, Alicia's character is a certainty," Slate's Willa Paskin wrote.
"You almost had me, 'Good Wife' finale, right until the end. I have some very mixed emotions about that last sequence," Maureen Ryan wrote for Variety. "This last season was like the drama's lead character: Inscrutable, unpredictable, thoughtful, engaging, a little self-indulgent and never simple."
"This finale could make you furious, and you would be right for feeling that way," Kathryn VanArendonk wrote at Vulture. "But for the sheer audacity of it all, for its defiant embrace of opacity, I think it's right to admire as well."
And at the Boston Globe, Matthew Gilbert delivered possibly one of the harshest critiques of the swan song. "There wasn't much to love about the series finale of 'The Good Wife,'" he wrote. "Closure is overrated, especially for a series that has never been pat. But still I felt unsatisfied by the ending, as if something important was being withheld, as if the real step forward we've been waiting for will never be taken."
As far as viewer reactions went, fans online echoed the sentiments of most of the critics. Responses on Twitter were mixed, to say the least.