The Good Wife series finale: Julianna Margulies says fans will either 'love or hate it'

In anticipation of the Good Wife series finale on May 8, EW asked Julianna Margulies to give an exclusive teaser of the much-anticipated finale.

“The Kings always said it should end after year 7. I think they’re right, but at the same time, it’s going to be very hard to let go of a character and this family. The Kings had told me they knew how it was going to end. I said, ‘Well, I don’t want to know because I need to play in the moment.’ When I read the last episode, I went, ‘Oh my God.’ It’s pretty intense. And here’s the horrible thing: Due to actors’ schedules, we had to shoot the last scene of the last episode first. So that was just brutal.

“At the beginning of the series, there was Alicia, standing by the side of her man. For the finale, the Kings did something so brilliant with the way she reacts to how they’re standing at the podium once again. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but you’ll see a very subtle thing at the end that she does physically with Peter that’s very different from when you first met the two of them. There’s definitely a callback to the first episode.

“Christine [Baranski] and I were filming the scene late on Friday night, and I looked at her and I said, ‘The fans are either going to love this or they’re going to hate this, but there’s not going to be an in-between.’ Usually I write to the Kings right away after I read the script. I know how hard they worked on the last script, but I couldn’t write to them right away. I had to read it again. My husband said, ‘Well, how is it?’ And I said, ‘I need to read it again.’ Then I read it a third time and discussed it with my husband.

“I knew I loved it and I knew it was brilliant, but emotionally, I felt shaky after reading it. What’s great about sitting down with someone who’s not on the show was being able to hear his take on the ending and how these are all such complex characters. He said it all had to end in a complex way in order for it to stay true. He was right. And so I read it a fourth time with that in mind. The script for the last episode came with a bottle of wine from the Kings with the note: ‘It wouldn’t be right to not give Alicia a bottle of wine for when she reads this.’ I decided not to have the wine until I was ready to email them. After the fourth read, I opened the wine and wrote to them: ‘It’s nothing short of brilliant.'”

For more about the Good Wife finale, pick up this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly, on newsstands now or available here.