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It's been more than three years since we said goodbye to Alicia Florrick in the seventh and final season of CBS drama The Good Wife, and we still haven't recovered.
Cue our excitement when it looked like Julianna Margulies was poised to put on another fabulous power suit and resume the role in spin-off The Good Fight. The series picked up 12 months after the events of its predecessor and stars Christine Baranski as Diane Lockhart, who loses everything after she's hit by a financial scam.
Margulies was set to appear in the show's third season, which wrapped up in May this year. Back in February, co-writer of both The Good Wife and The Good Fight Robert King (his wife, Michelle, is his writing partner) told Deadline about their potential plans for Alicia.
"We thought maybe about making a big episode where she would be at the Resistance," he said. "Diane and her face each other... that would be the end of the story. It felt like an asterisk."
Watch Now The Good Fight seasons 1-3 (Amazon Prime Video)
But disagreements over pay put a stop to Alicia's comeback.
"We love Julianna, and there's a long history there," said Julie McNamara, executive vice president of original content for CBS All Access, at the Television Critics Association.
"We wanted her to guest on The Good Fight. There was a different expectation as to what that means. It didn't work out. We have another project in development with her to star. We'd love to see her on the service in the future."
She added: "It was a deal that didn't work out. I won't go into the specifics, but the deal didn't work out."
But Margulies did go into specifics, telling Deadline that show bosses "refused to pay" what she asked for.
The actor wanted a full per-episode fee rather than the rate offered to guest stars, and she added that she hadn't asked for more than her regular rate. It was also reported that the fee Margulies requested was pretty much in line with what she had received on The Good Wife.
"I'm not a guest star," she continued. "I started the whole thing with The Good Wife. I wanted to be paid my worth and stand up for equal pay.
"If Jon Hamm came back for a Mad Men spin-off or Kiefer Sutherland wanted to do a 24 spin-off... they would be paid.
"To be perfectly honest, I was shocked. I was more surprised than hurt. I thought, what are you worth? If you are worthless, if you are not valued for your work, than what's the point?"
On a separate occasion, she said: "The showrunners had found a nice away to reintroduce my character, a story that was to span three episodes. I was really excited about the idea, but CBS refused to pay my [ask]."
Margulies previously told Deadline about the major effect that playing Alicia had had on her life.
"I think about her all the time," she said. "I think about how she would answer a question. I could be in the middle of a conversation and I wonder, 'How would Alicia answer this?' She's just so much smarter than me. I do think about her. I miss her and I love her."
But despite The Good Fight returning for season four in 2020, Margulies, who speaks very highly of the show, said that she wouldn't be popping up in any future episodes.
Sorry, folks. Not the news you wanted to hear.
The Good Wife and The Good Fight are available to stream on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and CBS All Access in the US.
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