Goodbye, Alicia

Editor’s note: Spoiler alert for anyone who missed The Good Wife last night.

Alicia Florrick, you have made us proud. And shown women everywhere what is possible. As well as what it means to love and truly be loved in return.

I didn’t like The Good Wife farewell last night. But I do today. Last night I was disappointed, because your future seemed ambiguous. Today, I see there was no other ending. After you couldn’t reach Jason, after you abandoned Peter at the last second, and after Diane slapped you, it felt like you were in limbo.

Until I watched the pilot episode again. There you were, naïvely standing beside your man in spite of everything he’d done. That’s when I realized that leaving you hanging, as happened in last night’s ending, was the only option. It was, after all, in keeping with your growth during the last seven seasons.

Except your creators, husband and wife writers Robert and Michelle King, didn’t do that. Instead, they gave you choices—much as women today have choices.

Let’s face it; seven years ago you didn’t have many. You had been absent from the job market for thirteen years. You stood at your husband’s side, looking frightened and confused, while flashbacking to the video scene that the prosecution leaked. That humiliating scene of Peter with a prostitute. When you turned and saw him standing there, addressing the crowd, a white thread on his dark suit jacket caught your attention and—good wife that you are—you instinctively reached out to remove that small imperfection from his person.

But before you could, he grabbed your hand and pulled you behind him and away from the crowd. Your body language was very telling. You let yourself be dragged along by Peter, because you didn’t know what else to do. You clearly didn’t know what you wanted seven years ago.

Through Diane Lockhart’s words, we learned how you reached that point in your marriage, and how, fifteen years earlier, you had graduated at the top of your Georgetown Law School class, and “clocked the highest billable hours” at the law firm where you then worked for two years. And how, after trading your career for marriage and motherhood, you became tentative and insecure.

What happened to you, Alicia? I daresay the same thing that happened to us all. You ditched your dreams and doused your desires to wholly support those of your mate. Somehow, you lost your footing, and yourself, along the way. It took you a while, but you finally found yourself again. I have to say, “you’ve come a long way, baby!” You’ve shown us that following around a husband with such questionable ethics (not to mention corrupt habits) is detrimental to one’s well being. Because any man who can’t behave well with a woman of your caliber, intellect, and beauty, is simply unworthy of you.

Now about your rendezvous with Will Gardner last night. Personally, I don’t believe in ghosts. But I do know how valuable it can be when troubleshooting a situation to carry on a hypothetical conversation with someone else inside your head. Role playing, if you will. And Will, who was once so important to you, was the appropriate person to turn to, as you came to terms with your future. So yes, I cheered at Will’s return last night, as his words of wisdom. After all, isn’t that how your story as a career woman began, with Will advising you in your first case at Stern, Lockhart and Gardner?

As someone who has loved and lost, I also understand your intense need for closure. Especially when that lost loved one was The One. Before, you didn’t have that, Alicia. When Will died, you lost the chance to tell him how you really felt. But last night you got to say those words. Some of the most romantic ever, and some I’ve said and heard myself.

“I’ll love you forever,” you told Will.

“I’m okay with that,” he said, as he held you close.

What could Jason Crouse—as handsome as he is and wherever he is—possibly even say to compare with that?

Last night, someone tweeted that your departure was absent any feminism. At first, I agreed. Then I thought back over your last seven years. Almost throughout, women helped women, which is what Diane called the “closest thing we have to an old boy’s network in this town” when we first met you in September 2009.

And I’m sure you never intended to ruin Diane’s marriage or humiliate her like you did—but let’s be honest, don’t all good wives let their female friends flounder when they’re called upon to stand by their men?

Actually, I think you’re more of a feminist by far than you were before—choosing who to love and leave, and living life on your own terms. You are no longer that timid creature who once used to make a pot roast and then call Peter, asking if he was coming home for dinner. Nor are you the new attorney who advised her first client to “put on nice clothes and makeup. Force yourself to . . . for you. It’s the superficial things that matter right now.”

What you showed us last night, what we’ve learned as we’ve taken this wild ride with you, is this: women remain stuck when they don’t have options. Like you were, seven years ago. To have options, like you, we need money—and money usually only comes with employment. The more money, the more options. That’s what feminism means, what equality provides.

When we first met you, you tightly grasped your husband’s hand. Last night, your hand was moving away before his fingers even reached for yours. But your heart was already gone. Headed for a bright, independent, and satisfying future.

I wish you well, Alisha.

* * * *

Boy, have I been busy! My seventh book, Shatter the Silence, the long-awaited sequel to my first memoir, was released May 7. That’s on the heels of Tales of the Vintage Berry Wine Gang, a collection of my newspaper columns from 1988-91, which came out in April. Prior to those two books, Guilt by Matrimony was released last November. It’s about the murder of Aspen socialite Nancy Pfister.

My memoir, Sister of Silence, is about surviving domestic violence and how journalism helped free me; Cheatin’ Ain’t Easy, now in ebook format, is about the life of Preston County native, Eloise Morgan Milne; The Savage Murder of Skylar Neese (a New York Times bestseller, with coauthor Geoff Fuller) and Pretty Little Killers (also with Fuller), released July 8, 2014, and featured in the August 18 issue of People Magazine.

You can find these books either online or in print at a bookstore near you, at BenBella Books, Nellie Bly Books, Amazon, on iTunes and Barnes and Noble.

For an in-depth look at the damaging effects of the silence that surrounds abuse, please watch my live TEDx talk, given April 13, 2013, at Connecticut College.

Have a great day and remember, it’s whatever you want to make it!

~Daleen

Editor’s Note: Daleen Berry is a New York Times best-selling author and a recipient of the Pearl Buck Award in Writing for Social Change. She has won several other awards, for investigative journalism and her weekly newspaper columns, and her memoir, Sister of Silence, placed first in the West Virginia Writers’ Competition. Ms. Berry speaks about overcoming abuse through awareness, empowerment and goal attainment at conferences around the country. To read an excerpt of her memoir, please go to the Sister of Silence site. Check out the five-star review from ForeWord Reviews. Or find out why Kirkus Reviews called Ms. Berry “an engaging writer, her style fluid and easy to read, with welcome touches of humor and sustained tension throughout.”