Finn Polmar made his first appearance on The Good Wife in the same episode Will was killed. Early on, his charm holds up next to Will as they banter and battle in the courtroom, but only Finn leaves alive. Introducing Finn at the same time they kill Alicia’s biggest love interest on the show is a brutal way to introduce a new hot love interest for Alicia, but that’s what he becomes. Alicia first speaks to Finn while he’s in the hospital recovering from his gunshot wound, and she asks him to tell her about Will’s last moments. Their soft “hi” as they great each other is tender and sad, a hint of things to come. (Maybe it’s only in hindsight I see chemistry in these first moments as well, but I swear it’s there.)
Over the next season, Finn and Alicia dance closer and closer to each other without ever actually consummating anything. They don’t even kiss. Instead, they speak in codes and intense glances. Their sexual tension becomes a fully formed third character in every scene with them. In one episode in Season 6, Alicia was having a rough time with her husband Peter (Chris Noth) while she was running for state’s attorney. She goes to Finn’s office late at night. “Do you want to talk?,” he asks her. “No, I don’t,” she said. He places his hand on top of hers—and I screamed at the TV. And then they get interrupted, and Alicia flees the scene.
Are you kidding me with this? She goes into his office late at night, confused and sad and wanting him. Their attraction has been building and building. They finally touch, alone, in the dark. And then she walks away.
The next day he goes to see her, this time in her office in the daytime. She says she wishes things were simpler and she always hated that these office walls were glass—presumably because if they weren’t she’d sweep the papers off her desk and they’d bang right then and there. But they don’t. (I yelled at the TV again.)
At some point in a will-they-won’t-they romance, the couple in question needs to actually do it. And I don’t necessarily mean it—having sex is one way to resolve the tension and the storyline, but they could also commit to each other, go on an actual date, or have a world-ending drag-out argument. Something, anything, needs to happen to recognize their journey and make all that pining worth it.
This isn’t just about my desire for everyone on every TV show to kiss (my husband often teases me for yelling “make out!” at pretty much everything I watch). No, this is about narrative payoff. With the extended sexual tension over weeks and months that is possible on a TV show, the show is making a promise that a storyline is developing. If it fizzles into nothing, that can feel like a cheap way out or a winding road that went nowhere—and that’s frustrating in any storytelling scenario. When the tension is as good as it is between Finn and Alicia and it still doesn’t go anywhere, it feels like such a waste: a waste of acting talent, a waste of a story thread, and a waste of time.
