Back in October, Archie Panjabi announced she’d leave “The Good Wife” at the end of the season. The news knocked the wind out of the CBS drama’s sails.
Panjabi’s character, investigator Kalinda Sharma, isn’t the lead — it’s called “The Good Wife,” after all, not “The Sexy P.I.” — but she’s always been one of the show’s load-bearing pillars. Kalinda was sexy, smart, confident, determined. Mysterious, but not a complete blank.
For the past few months, though, Kalinda’s been a ghost of her former self. Sorry, but we didn’t sign up to watch her mope around, be lovey-dovey with a boring love interest (Matt Czuchry’s milquetoast Cary), or chauffeur the son of drug dealer Lemond Bishop (Mike Colter).
Still, it was unlikely that showrunners Michelle and Robert King would send Panjabi whimpering off into the night, and last night’s episode was a long-overdue return to form for Kalinda. Well, sort of — it’s obvious she’s been damaged, maybe in a permanent way.
First, we saw Kalinda kick some sleuthing butt again, when she broke into Bishop’s hard drive while also framing one of his associates for the breach.
But she also found time to say goodbye to her two biggest allies, albeit remotely. She had a cryptic phone conversation with Diane (Christine Baranski) and left a note for Alicia (Julianna Margulies). When Cary went to her apartment to say goodbye, it was empty, as if it had been ransacked.
Kalinda’s upward, if bittersweet, arc paralleled Alicia’s humiliating downfall.
First she had to resign from the position — state’s attorney — to which she’d just been elected, then she got embroiled into a misunderstanding with Diane that led to a fight. Getting that mysterious note from Kalinda was the last drop, sending Alicia into a full Susan Hayward meltdown.
How the mighty have fallen . . . again.
Alicia is down, but she has options, not to mention a show named for her. She can start yet another firm, write that book Peter (Chris Noth) suggested, or become house counsel for the Gallo Winery.
As for Kalinda, some fans are hypothesizing that this was the last we’d see of her. Yet we’re going to venture that the Kings know we need full closure, and she’ll be in one or both of the season’s remaining episodes. She just can’t leave us this way.