--- title: "The Good Wife" year: 2009 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/the-good-wife" fi1m_score: 84 critics_score: 81 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-09-17T01:15:08.603494+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T01:15:19.490221+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Good Wife (2009) Created by Michelle King, Robert King · 43m · MPA TV-14 · Drama **Fi1m score: 84** · Critics 81 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* She stands by her man for one press conference, then makes him watch her win > Robert King and Michelle King’s legal drama starts as a tidy network procedural and, without ever dropping the case of the week, turns into a long, cool study of a woman deciding how ruthless to be. Margulies holds it together; the last two seasons wobble. ## Synopsis Chicago, 2009. Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) stands beside her husband Peter, the top prosecutor in Cook County, as he resigns over a scandal involving prostitutes and misused money. Then he goes to prison. Thirteen years after leaving the law to raise Zach (Graham Phillips) and Grace (Makenzie Vega), she takes a junior associate’s job at the firm run by Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) and Will Gardner (Josh Charles), an old friend from law school. She competes with Cary Agos (Matt Czuchry) for one permanent position. Her first case is a pro bono retrial nobody expects her to win, and the firm’s investigator, Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), is deciding whether she is worth helping. ## Review It begins with a press conference. Peter Florrick, the top prosecutor in Cook County, is resigning over prostitutes and misused money, and his wife stands beside him in a grey suit and says nothing. Robert King and Michelle King, who created the programme, keep the camera on Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) rather than on the man speaking; she is looking at a loose thread on his sleeve. In the corridor afterwards she slaps him, once. Some months later he is in prison and she is a first-year associate at a Chicago law firm, past forty, handed a pro bono case nobody wants. The shape is a familiar one: a case each week, tried inside 43 minutes, with a longer story about a marriage running underneath. What the Kings did with it across seven seasons and 156 episodes is the reason to watch. The cases are good, but the programme is about a woman who has been humiliated in public working out, week by week, how much of her decency she is prepared to spend. We recommend it to anyone with patience for a long series. The last two seasons need more of that patience than the first five. Margulies plays Alicia on the intake of breath. She listens, her face barely moves, and then she says something precise. In the pilot a partner reminds her she has been out of the law for thirteen years, and her reply is a slight lift of the chin. We felt the slap in the corridor in our own hand, because for the previous three minutes Margulies had shown us a woman holding herself completely still, and the release was ours as much as hers. The firm around her is well cast. Christine Baranski’s Diane Lockhart runs the place in tailored jackets and large brooches, and Daniel Lawson’s costumes tell you who holds power in a room before anyone speaks; Alicia’s suits start dark and plain and get sharper as she does. Josh Charles’s Will Gardner is the law-school friend who hired her and would like it to be more than that. Matt Czuchry’s Cary Agos competes with her for one permanent job, and the writing is fair to him, which it did not have to be. Archie Panjabi’s Kalinda Sharma, the firm’s investigator, walks in wearing boots and a leather jacket with a small notebook, and for several seasons she is the most interesting person on screen. Fred Murphy, Tim Guinness and M. David Mullen shoot the offices as glass boxes, everyone visible to everyone, and the courtrooms in warm wood and low light, so a cut from one to the other is a cut from being watched to performing. Matthew Budgeon and Stephen Hendrickson give the partners views of the city and the associates a corridor. David Buckley’s theme is quick strings over a ticking pulse, the sound of someone late for court. Editors including Paul Karasick and Dody Dorn cut the cross-examinations as a line, a face, a line, and they hold up on a second viewing. The best idea was to let the politics leak in. Alan Cumming arrives as Eli Gold, a campaign strategist with a phone in each hand, and the programme improves the moment he does; his scenes with Margulies, two people who dislike and need each other, are among the best written in it. The cases keep finding subjects most television had not yet noticed, search engines, wiretaps, what a phone company knows about you, argued before a rotating bench of judges with tics. The judges are sometimes too cute; the arguments are real. What does not work is what rarely works in an American network drama of 22 episodes a year. There are weeks when the case is filler and the marriage is parked. The cast turns over in the last two seasons, and we will not say how or why; Cush Jumbo’s Lucca Quinn, Matthew Goode’s Finn Polmar and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Jason Crouse are all good and none is given quite enough to do. By the seventh season we were bored, and then annoyed at being bored, because Margulies and Baranski were still doing the work and the scripts were not meeting them. It is a 12 certificate, and the sex is discussed more than shown, which suits a programme in which everyone is always at work. Watch a season at a time with a gap between episodes; it was built for the week’s wait and it is better with one. Alicia pours herself a glass of red wine at the end of most days. It is rarely her husband she is toasting. *Fi1m score 84, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say All six reviews are positive, and the praise gathers around two things. The first is Julianna Margulies as Alicia Florrick, whom nearly every critic singles out: a quiet, controlled performance as a woman whose private humiliation is played out in public. The second is the way the series takes a standard CBS legal procedural and uses it as cover for a workplace drama and a study of a marriage, with the cases kept brisk and the personal material simmering underneath. The reservations are mild and the spread is narrow. Variety is the coolest, finding the show solid and safe and squarely in the network’s comfort zone. The warmest reviews come with hindsight: Collider, writing long after the run ended, sees it grow from a familiar premise into a sharp thriller and character study, and Vulture finds a cynical, erotic streak in its handling of politics and scandal that the pilot-only notices from 2009 do not yet detect. ### Reviews we read (6) - **Vulture**, Emily Nussbaum (85/100, inferred): The series uses its familiar case-of-the-week structure as a bait-and-switch for a cynical, erotic meditation on politics, scandal, and modern marriage. It stands out for exploring these themes on a psychological level with characters who display realistic ambition and cold streaks. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2010/11/nussbaum.html) - **The AV Club**, Emily St. James (B+): The pilot is one of the best network dramas of the fall season. It quietly combines a staid CBS procedural format with workplace drama and intimate character study. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-good-wife-the-good-wife-pilot-1798206996) - **The Guardian** (80/100, inferred): The review praises The Good Wife as a strong legal drama import on Channel 4, highlighting its focus on courtroom procedure over personal backstory. It singles out Julianna Margulies' quiet, strong performance as Alicia Florrick for particular praise. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2010/jan/26/the-good-wife-legal-dramas) - **The Hollywood Reporter** (80/100, inferred): The critic calls Margulies the perfect choice for Alicia Florrick, praising her nuanced portrayal of a woman whose private life is shattered publicly. The premiere effectively introduces the character while delivering an intriguing case. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/good-wife-tv-review-93549/) - **Variety**, Brian Lowry (70/100, inferred): The critic finds it a solid-and-safe entry right in CBS's sweet spot. It blends legal procedural with high-profile betrayed-woman melodrama and benefits from Margulies' strong fit for the lead role. [Read](https://variety.com/2009/scene/markets-festivals/the-good-wife-2-1117941149/) - **Collider**, Jen Vestuto (90/100, inferred): The series is one of the greatest television dramas of the 21st century, evolving from a familiar legal premise into a razor-sharp thriller and insightful character study. It excels through its blend of weekly cases with long-form emotional and political arcs, anchored by Julianna Margulies' extraordinary performance as Alicia Florrick. [Read](https://collider.com/the-good-wife-legal-drama-julianna-margulies-greatest-21st-century/) ## Details - **Created by:** Michelle King, Robert King - **Creator:** Michelle King, Robert King - **Director:** Rosemary Rodriguez, Michael Zinberg, Brooke Kennedy, James Whitmore Jr., Félix Alcalá, Frederick E. O. Toye, Jim McKay, Robert King, Matt Shakman, Nelson McCormick, Rod Holcomb, Roxann Dawson, Griffin Dunne, Josh Charles, Kevin Hooks, Charles McDougall, David Dworetzky, Dean Parisot, Paris Barclay, Christopher Misiano, David Platt, Julie Hébert, Lesli Linka Glatter, Phil Abraham, Steve Shill, Tom DiCillo, Daniel Minahan, Peter O'Fallon, Joshua Marston, Alex Zakrzewski, Craig Zisk, John E. Gallagher, Gloria Muzio, Ted Humphrey, Phil Alden Robinson, Josh Charles, John Polson, Scott Ellis - **Writer:** Robert King, Michelle King, Ted Humphrey, Leonard Dick, Keith Eisner, Craig Turk, Corinne Brinkerhoff, Erica Shelton Kodish, Luke Schelhaas, Meredith Averill, Nichelle Tramble Spellman, Tyler Bensinger, Stephanie Sengupta, Todd Ellis Kessler, Adam R. Perlman, Courtney Kemp Agboh, Barry M. Schkolnick, Karen Hall, Jacqueline Hoyt, Julia Wolfe, Matthew Montoya, Aaron Slavick, Dee Johnson, Angela Amato Velez, Tom Smuts, Amanda Segel, Frank Pierson, Joey Scavuzzo, Leonard Dick - **Story:** Courtney Kemp Agboh, Meredith Averill, Julia Wolfe, Matthew Montoya, Leonard Dick, Keith Eisner, Steve Lichtman, Ted Humphrey, Corinne Brinkerhoff - **Teleplay:** Robert King, Michelle King, Leonard Dick, Ted Humphrey, Craig Turk, Julia Wolfe, Matthew Montoya - **Cinematography:** Fred Murphy, Tim Guinness, M. David Mullen - **Editor:** Scott Vickrey, David Dworetzky, Matthew Kregor, David C. Cook, Katy Skjerping, Hibah Schweitzer, Jacque Elaine Toberen, Paul Karasick, Jake Cohen, Robb Sullivan, Dody Dorn - **Music:** David Buckley, Dahmane El Harrachi, Danny Lux - **Production design:** Stephen Hendrickson, Matthew Budgeon - **Costume design:** Daniel Lawson, Louise Frogley - **Producer:** Julianna Margulies, Courtney Kemp Agboh, Corinne Brinkerhoff - **Cast:** Julianna Margulies as Alicia Florrick; Christine Baranski as Diane Lockhart; Josh Charles as Will Gardner; Matt Czuchry as Cary Agos; Alan Cumming as Eli Gold; Archie Panjabi as Kalinda Sharma; Makenzie Vega as Grace Florrick; Zach Grenier as David Lee - **Runtime:** 43m - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-14 - **Release (the US):** 22 September 2009 - **Genres:** Drama ## Where to watch in the US - Paramount+: streaming, hd - Paramount+: free, hd - The Roku Channel: free, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy, sd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, ES, FI, FR, GB, HR, HU, IE, IN, IT, JP, MX, NL, NO, PA, PE, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SI, SK, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - BAFTA Television Awards 2016: Best International Programme (nominated) - Primetime Emmy Awards 2012: Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series (won) - Primetime Emmy Awards 2011: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (won) - Primetime Emmy Awards 2010: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (won) ## If you liked this - *The Good Fight* (2017): Baranski carries on, angrier and stranger, in fewer episodes with far less filler. - *Damages* (2007), Fi1m 78: Glenn Close as a litigator you would not want to owe money to; colder, tighter. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/damages.md) - *Borgen* (2010): Danish politics, a marriage under the same public strain, and nobody shouting. - *Silk* (2011): British chambers, wigs and all, with Maxine Peake doing the quiet-then-precise thing. - *Better Call Saul* (2015), Fi1m 84: A lawyer working out how much decency to spend, one small compromise at a time. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/better-call-saul.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/the-good-wife