Kimberly Potter’s Trial for the Death of Daunte Wright
Kimberly Potter knew she was going to be killing the people in her life on CBS’s “The Good Wife.” But not all of them, at least at first.
“You think they’re just going to fly out the door and walk out on you,” Potter says. “And then the other characters all start to get out of that loop in the last episode and that’s when you kind of realize the power that you have and what you’re truly capable of.”
Potter spent hours at a time with Daunte Wright, also known as Pinkie, and helped the former cop – who had fallen in with the wrong crowd – cope with how his life was going to change from there.
“He was crying to me,” she says. “I was saying, ‘What’s wrong?’ and I remember asking him, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ And he was just like, ‘I just want the afterlife to keep going, I just want to get to the other side and they need me back in line.'”
And to make sure he did, the show also concocted a plot line involving a victim identified only as Susie. Susie had been brutally murdered, but not the way Pinkie thought. When Brown was about to hand Susie’s body over to police, the detectives told her they were going to send her away for a couple days to rest in the afterlife. At that point, Susie argued that she wasn’t sorry about her life, but she still wanted her final hours to be peaceful and pain-free.
The show got its main title to read, “Susie is taking a nap at 40 feet.”
“The writing was impeccable,” says Potter. “Every little detail was so on point and true to life that I just couldn’t help but laugh. I was like, ‘Whoa! There is no sarcasm in this show!'”
“Good Wife” fans first met Susie at Patti Nyholm’s home, during a work intervention for her at 32 feet. That was when Nyholm predicted she would be found in the afterlife when Pinkie went home. (Pinkie later explained it was all tied up with his interest in the supernatural and a possible ex-girlfriend who may have prophesied he would wind up in jail.)
Because of the media, Susie stayed in the spotlight for months. She was even included in a segment that went along with the documentary “Tales from the Crypt: City of Angels.” While Susie was laying in her bed dreaming the demons would go away, an outside voice commanded her to wake up and resume the journey.
So now that the show’s over, it’s time for Susie to rest. But we might not hear her voice much in the future.
“Because of this big comic book arc coming up, you’re going to see her in that much more of a world of diehard action characters,” Potter says. “So you’ll see her jumping off buildings and going down ravines. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her get a superhero name and get superpowers.”