Anya

I see your point of view, but I personally really wanted the episodes to center on her, and think that would have been a great show. I wanted to know Diane more, her personal life, to see her be powerful in court, negotiations etc. To have someone to connect with and root for. There's something about the show that feels off when there is no clear leading actor/actress, and they kind of try to have equal screen time for everyone. There's no center point that ties everything together. It doesn't work for me and in the end I don't feel much for anyone, there are just too many cooks in the kitchen. And, well, I do think the acting is "ok" at best. Yes the roll reversal is good and hopefully has many reflecting, and maybe the writers wanted to emphasize that with "the fall" of Diane and not giving her space and a voice. But that for me is a different show than a spin off of The Good Wife starring Christine Baranski.

I'm not sure what happened or what the intentions were of this show. Diane Lockhart was supposed to be the star of the show? And now she's just showed to the side like a supporting character, and mostly has little involvement in anything at the firm. I'm now feeling that casting Christine Baranski was just bait to get The Good Wife viewers to tune in to the new show. She's one of the characters they focus on the least. I was very exited about this show because I loved Diane in The Good Wife. I loved seeing a woman with her power and dignity and leadership, and I really wanted to see her soar and be taken to a new level in this series, where she would be the lead instead of Alicia. I was also excited since women that age rarely are seen in great leading characters, and get to have lots of power and dignity. But she's been completely showed to the side, and is now even almost apologizing and shrinking down when she's in a meeting. It's a man that runs the show and has the lead, Barbara is his sidekick and every now and then Diane is allowed to show her face, if he allows it. And if she's in a meeting and tries to speak up or give an opinion, she is always reminded that she is not a named partner and has no real say or authority. And you see her shrink and be silent again and again. Sure, the show is good enough, and I would have enjoyed it. But this weird set up of putting Diane in a small role, a role where they have stripped away almost all her authority and pride, I keep waiting for Diane to get to shine and am constantly left disappointed about what the writers have done to her. None of the other actors are as good as Christine Baranski, and there was such momentum built around her from The Good Wife. I wanted and expected her to be the star. That's how they sold the show and now it's something completely different. I'm saddened to see her written as a supporting role, where she isn't given the opportunity to shine and to be the amazing Diane that she is. What a way to push a magnificent woman down and silence her. Now I wish she would not have been on this show, so we could have remembered her as the great Diane that she was in The Good Wife.

Don't get me wrong, the scenes were very disturbing, but I'm very curious about how they made the violence look so realistic. Usually in movies/tv, you can see that it isn't quite real. Like when someone chokes someone you can tell there's actually like a half an inch gap between the hand and the throat, and that the actor is just tensing their hand to get the effect. Physical violence in movies/tv generally looks fake and fairly "stuntman" if you look closely, even when well done, and mostly relies on the distraction of the actors ability to extrude anger, and techniques where you actually don't quite touch the actor. But when Alexander chokes Nicole, slaps her, presses her head into the couch very hard, it looks completely real, like there isn't any technique there to not hurt the actor. So I'm very curious how they achieved that without actually hurting Nicole. Or if at some extent (which I actually can imagine), she got a little bit hurt during filming, albeit she did it to make the scenes more powerful (which isn't unusual for actors to do to for "the art") There's probably not an expert on shooting these kinds of scenes in the thread (but one could hope! :), but I'm curious what you think about the filming of those scenes?

Oh I was so disappointed with ending of this! It was so predictable and unrealistic, and felt like such bad writing compared to the rest of the series. Then I learned it was a mini-series, based on a book. Before I knew that, my thoughts of the ending was, how will this show continue to be interesting next season? They could have explored the so well written reality of domestic abuse so much further. But well, there are no more seasons, so I understand why they had to wrap it up. :) But I still think the ending was so bad, be it book or television, it was the sloppy writing of someone who just wants to quickly wrap up the book/series. This tiny girl pushing a huge man would at the most had him wobble a little, or lose his balance, not fly backwards with great force. And falling down just a few stairs in highly unlikely to kill a person unless you are very unlucky. How he dies could have been written so much more creatively and intricately. I'm sorry the ending was so bad, it ruined the series a lot and ruined the momentum of great writing. But I'm very grateful how masterfully they handled the subject of domestic abuse.

Could someone explain to me the whole thing with the $800 leak?? I didn't follow that at all. Who is working with whom? What does it mean that Colin was the one who brought it up in the end? I'm sorry, I'm probably completely dense, but I completely lost track of all the pieces of this. Someone please explain? <3