With the spinoff of CBS’ legal drama The Good Wife officially confirmed, the show’s creators, husband and wife Robert and Michelle King, talked to The Hollywood Reporter about how the spinoff came about and also talked to them about their new show, BrainDead.
The spinoff of The Good Wife will take place about a year after the events of the series finale and will focus on Diane (Christine Baranski) and Lucca (Cush Jumbo).
Both Robert and Michelle said they’re going to miss all of the characters they created over the past seven seasons of the original show. And for fans who might miss some of the characters, at least Diane (Baranski) and Lucca (Jumbo) are comfirmed to be back for the spinoff.
Contrary to what was originally reported, the Kings aren’t writing the first episode of the spinoff. Instead, the spinoff’s showrunner, Phil Robinson, who directed some of the episodes from the seventh season, will be writing the first episode. However, the Kings will still serve as executive producers of the show, which doesn’t have a title yet.
They said the idea for the spinoff started taking off during the 18th and 19th episodes of the final season, which is when they talked to Baranski about it and asked if she would want to do a spinoff. They said it also took them longer to see if Jumbo would do it because the Kings didn’t know what kind of commitments she had in London, where Jumbo is from.
Robert King also said that the spinoff show is going to be different from The Good Wife because of how different the character of Diane is from the character of Alicia is.
The Kings new show, BrainDead, centers on Laurel, a new Capitol Hill staffer who discovers that aliens have come to Earth and have started eating the brains of members of Congress.
The show stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Laurel, the staffer who discovers that aliens have started eating the brains of the politicians. Fans of Winstead may recognize her from some of her horror movie roles, including a role in Final Destination 3 as the main character. She’s also starred in 10 Cloverfield Lane as Michelle. She had a role in PBS’ Mercy Street, a period drama that follows two nurses during the Civil War. One of the nurses works for the Confederate states and the other works for the Union. Winstead played Mary Phinney, an abolitionist.
BrainDead also stars Danny Pino as Laurel’s brother, Luke. Pino recently wrapped up a guest starring arc on Scandal. Before that, he was a regular on seasons thirteen through sixteen of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
When it comes to BrainDead, Robert King made it seem as if some of the characters from The Good Wife could reprise their roles, saying “Luke and Laurel need a lawyer, and we were wondering if it should be a lawyer from our show. I mean, an actor that we love working with, but whether that lawyer retain her name or his name.”
Could that be how Alicia Florrick makes her comeback? Only time will tell.
BrainDead premieres on CBS on July 13 at 9 p.m. The official release date for the spinoff of The Good Wife hasn’t been released yet but is expected to be released for streaming on CBS All Access in the spring of 2017.