CBSAlicia Florrick doesn't have a little more Fight in her after all. The Good Wife star Julianna Margulies won't strap on her Alicia Florrick wig once again to appear in The Good Fight, her show's spinoff that's streaming on CBS All Access this February, at least this season.
"We talked to Julianna about the show and her relationship to it and we kind of agreed that The Good Wife ended that story," The Good Wife and The Good Fight co-creator Robert King told reporters at the 2017 TCA Winter Press Tour. "I don't think you'd expect that this year."
Set one year after the events of The Good Wife series finale, The Good Fight finds Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) forced out of her high-powered law firm and forced to start over after a financial scheme wipes her out. Diane joins Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo) at her firm and brings alongside her goddaughter Maia, played by Game of Thrones' Rose Leslie. Sarah Steele returns as Marissa Gold. The cast also includes Erica Tazel, Justin Bartha and Delroy Lindo.
"I just emailed her this morning. We're great friends. She passed the baton on to me. She was done. She said, 'After seven years, I'm exhausted. I've told the story. I need to get back to my husband and my child and my life.' So that final episode was a real culmination of seven years," Baranski told reporters. "We're dear friends. I love Jules, I love her husband. She just gracefully passed the baton on, and now I've passed that baton on to Cush and Rose and Erica. We've got five wonderful leading ladies on this show."
While Margulies won't be stopping by just yet, there will be some familiar faces popping up in a guest spot. Carrie Preston will do a guest arc as the fan-favorite attorney Elsbeth Tascioni and Gary Cole, Zach Grenier and Jerry Adler will also reprise their Good Wife roles. The Kings announced other returning actors include Matthew Perry, Rita Wilson, John Benjamin Hickey and Denis O'Hare.
The Good Wife ended with Alicia covering for her husband, yet again, being the good wife for the last time. She had a rude awakening—a slap from Diane—that brought her to her senses about exactly who she had become.
"I thought it was exactly how it should end," Margulies told E! News. "I know a lot of people were upset by it...I think it's—she's going on to do her thing...She's not cowering behind a slap."
"Because it ended in such an ambiguous and tragic way, if you have her do one thing, that would seem like the end of the story. So we kind of wanted it to be that strong of a demarcation." Robert King told press about Margulies returning after The Good Fight's 2017 TCA Winter Press Tour panel.
The Good Fight premieres Sunday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. on CBS. Episode two will debut that same night on CBS All Access, the network's streaming platform.