Kalinda and Alicia, reunited at last! The Good Wife is losing ace investigator Kalinda Sharma when star Archie Panjabi leaves the show at the end of season 6, and it appeared that the character’s quiet, arguably unsatisfying exit in the April 26 episode would be the only goodbye for someone who played such a central role in the series.
Luckily, that wasn’t it for the fan favorite character. Executive producer Michelle King told Entertainment Weekly with 100 percent certainty that Kalinda would be back in the finale.
The episode “answers a lot of questions regarding Kalinda, which I think there will be some mystery about,” EP Robert King told the magazine. “Has she truly left the show? Or are there still beats to be handled with, or story elements to be handled with her? So [the finale] answers the question of Kalinda for the year.”
The Florrick, Agos and Lockhart investigator abruptly left town in the April 26 episode after turning in drug kingpin Lemond Bishop and admitting that she’d faked computer data in a pivotal case. What’s more, Kalinda and her former BFF, Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), haven’t actually shared any scenes in two seasons.
That’s going to change in the finale, TVLine reports. There will be a “satisfying, heartbreaking, funny” scene between the two women, whose relationship has been strained since Alicia learned that Kalinda slept with her husband. One thing you won’t see is another scene between Kalinda and her on-screen love, Cary Agos (Matt Czuchry).
“That is the final scene between Cary and Kalinda,” Czuchry told E! Online of their episode 20 encounter. There’s no proper goodbye, he confirmed. “I think that’s the heartbreaking thing for Cary and for the audience as well — there is a lack of closure there. … She disappears mysteriously in the night. That, going forward for Cary, is going to be hard to handle in terms of lack of closure and no proper goodbye.”
Panjabi signed a development deal with 20th Century Fox Television in October, and will eventually star in a TV pilot for the studio.
Catch The Good Wife on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on CBS. The season 6 finale airs May 10.
