'Good Wife' stars talk election, Kalinda
LOS ANGELES – Oh, the smart, sexy and occasionally confused thoughts that go through Alicia Florrick's head.
PaleyFest fans got a look into The Good Wife lead character's internal thinking Saturday at a screening of tonight's episode, Mind's Eye (CBS, 9 p.m. ET/PT), that was followed by a panel featuring the show's stars and top producers.
Moderator James Corden, who licked the "beautiful" Matt Czuchry's face and kissed co-creator Robert King on the lips, provided a preview of the style he will bring as the new Late Late Show host (CBS, March 23).
"Each season we try to do a show, somewhere in the middle of the year, that kind of recalibrates, sums up, has almost all the cast in it and kind of resets it for the second half of the year," King told fans before the screening at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
The episode takes place in the mind of Alicia (Julianna Margulies) and features a broad range of characters, including an ailing Louis Canning (Michael J. Fox) and the late, great Will Gardner (voice cameo by Josh Charles), whose face is never quite seen.
Still trying to come to terms with Will's death, Alicia is thinking about an important election interview and settling a lawsuit with Canning, but her focus is interrupted by steamy thoughts of Will, campaign manager Johnny Elfman (Steven Pasquale) and fellow attorney Finn Polmar (Matthew Goode).
During the PaleyFest LA 2015 panel, an annual presentation by The Paley Center for Media, Wife co-creator Michelle King, who is married to Robert King, praised CBS for letting the series explore controversial topics. "They allow us to talk about all the things you're never supposed to talk about at a dinner party – religion, race and sex."
Before the panel, the Kings and stars Margulies, Czuchry (Cary Agos) and Christine Baranski (Diane Lockhart) talked to Paste BN about the critically acclaimed sixth-season drama's major storylines, including Alicia's run for state's attorney and Cary's arrest on drug charges, and the upcoming departure of Archie Panjabi, who plays investigator Kalinda Sharma.
(Panjabi, who has a development deal that includes a drama pilot, wasn't present and the Kings wouldn't discuss how Kalinda's story ends. One PaleyFest fan pleaded that she not be killed.)
Margulies, who referred to Alicia's relationship with husband and Illinois Gov. Peter Florrick (Chris Noth) as "a Bill and Hillary story right now" during the panel, wouldn't reveal the election outcome but said she loves the story.
"There's something about politics that's so horrible and sexy at the same time," she said. "When she was a lawyer, (Peter) wasn't threatened by her, but when she goes into politics, I feel like she's gotten a little competitive with him and I love that."
That state's attorney election will happen in "the next two or three episodes," but the ramifications, whether Alicia wins or loses, will play out longer, Robert King says.
"It impacts all the characters," Michelle King said. "There's a law firm that's going to be impacted by what happens with Alicia's race, a family."
Although Cary was cleared of the drug charges, that story is far from over, including potential ramifications for Kalinda, who appeared to have opened herself to legal problems while trying to help free her sometime romantic interest.
"A big piece of the end of the season is with Kalinda. Some things are going to come back around and some new things are going to come up," said Czuchry, who said he still doesn't know the final details of the character's departure. "Cary is not in prison but he's still going to have plenty to go through at the end of the season."
Other plots will focus on 3-D printing technology as it relates to guns and the issue of business owners, such as bakers, who have religious objections about serving gay couples who are getting married.
Asked to pick wish-list guest stars during the panel, Margulies mentioned Alfred Molina and Baranski talked about Alan Rickman. In upcoming episodes, Ed Asner will return as a sleazy, rich campaign contributor and Oliver Platt will play a conservative billionaire who hires the liberal Diane to join his think tank, Baranski said.
"We lock horns politically," says Baranski, whose character's husband, Kurt (Gary Cole), another conservative, also is back. "She literally goes out in the woods with them. It's a wonderful episode where we go shooting."