ROBERT and MICHELLE KING – Co-Creators / Executive Producers
How does it feel to be on Season 5 of “The Good Wife”?
Michelle King: It’s tremendous. We’re coming up on our 100th episode. It’s really exciting for us.
Robert King: And exhausting. We end the year very tired and ready to collapse and then start reading the news and go ‘that’s interesting, this is fun, Anthony Weiner, really?’ So, all this starts to get you excited about going the year again.
2. How does the Season 4 finale set the stage for Season 5?
Sometimes it’s great to swerve left and then you swerve right, but I thought thematically it worked for us, in that you thought it was going to romance when in fact it was going to career-end romance. That sets up the next year, as we get to see how Alicia and Cary follow through. If they’re going to start a firm together, what is that going to look like – and they’re going to start the year saying it’s going to be the most ethical firm – and how are they going to be able to follow through? What will that do to Alicia and Will, especially if they take clients along with them? If you’re stealing money from the other firm, which is the way Will and Diane might interpret it, it’s not going to end well. The year for us is about civil war through seeing these characters we’ve embraced in a family and the wedge go in the middle of the family – and how will that renew itself or will it ever?
3. More on setting the stage for Season 5
Michelle King: I feel like we set ourselves up very nicely at the end of Season 4 so I am really excited with the stories we get to tell in Season 5.
Robert King: There is a certain inevitability from the way we left it in Season 4. I would say each year we start with this real excitement and fever pitch to do well, except you have to stretch it out over a marathon and not over a sprint. There can’t be just one burst of energy. There has to be this constant renewal and burst of energy.
4. How has Alicia’s attitude towards Cary changed since Season 1?
Robert King: Julianna’s character over the years has grown respect for Cary, because he wasn’t the yuppie suburban boy that you expect. He has gone through a lot of turmoil. He was fired. He went to the state’s attorney’s office then he came back. He was overlooked for partner, so I think Jules’ character has a real respect for how he keeps bouncing back and that is different from the very first year where everybody thought he was the cliché.
5. How have the fans reacted to the direction the show has taken in Season 5?
Michelle King: What has been nice with the fan reaction is people seem very genuinely excited to see what’s going to happen next professionally with Alicia. With these two firms splitting and starting up I think people see the possibilities and are excited about it.
6. More on fan reaction…
Robert King: I think fans embrace anything new – seeing new versions of relationships, different ways to click people together – and so it’s fun to see Alicia and Cary try to be the new Will and Diane. Everybody knows what that means, all the fans know what that means, and are they going to be up to it.
7. What challenges will Peter and Alicia face going into Season 5?
The bottom line is Alicia and Peter have agreed to recommit to each other and that played into Alicia wanting to move away from Will. The difficulty is that Peter now has moved into a position of power in the governorship and as much as he has sworn over the years to be a changed man, now the test is really going to be put to a test because our theory is that the closer men get to power – and women probably too – the more it becomes that Henry Kissinger like aphrodisiac to women. He is also tempted by using his power as we saw with Anthony Weiner. Power comes with some sense of sexual loosening, so that’s difficult for Alicia and Peter – it’s not that Peter necessarily even acts on it – but that kind of divide in the marriage is difficult and it’s happening at a time when Alicia is feeling her own roots in a way. She has got her own firm, she’s got power, and she may not need Peter as much anymore, so that is a tension in that relationship.
8. Can we expect more big name guest stars in Season 5?
Robert King: It’s still early days but there are people – we’re building a little further ahead so we know Carrie Preston is coming back – she is lovely as Elsbeth Tascioni, and was nominated for an Emmy. We know that Gary Cole is coming back. He plays Kurt McVeigh who is in this relationship with Diane. We know America Ferrera is coming back. She was with us the second year and she has this odd relationship with Eli Gold. Melissa George who is this wonderful actress who is the Ethics Committee Commissioner in the governorship and causes Peter many problems and…
Michelle King: Jeffrey Tambor.
Robert King: Jeffrey Tambor who plays a judge on Arrested Development and Larry Sanders Show. He plays a judge in two of our episodes and is going to cause troubles for Alicia in the future, and then there is Juliet Rylance who plays the romantic interest to Kalinda and we couldn’t be more excited. I mean, there is an intent on our part to focus on our cast – the civil war going on in our cast – but it’s always wonderful to get these people back.
9. What are your plans for the 100th episode of “The Good Wife”?
Robert King: We are intending for it to be a blowout episode. We want the 100th episode to be one of the best we’ve written, but we don’t know what we’re doing yet. There is a movie called Drowning By Numbers that had a countdown in the movie from a 100 to 0. We were thinking about that but then our shows rely on the ability to edit out scenes that aren’t quite working, so you’d throw it off. I think it will come down to a real turning point in Julianna’s life and a case that just blows everybody away.
Interview thanks to Channel 4.
An interview with the star of The Good Wife, Julianna Margulies, is here.