Kalinda: dare we hope for something better than Season 5?
Don't read if you don't like **SPOILERS**. Like, really, don't!
From here:
Question: Any news on Kalinda’s storyline for Season 6 of The Good Wife? -Eve
Ausiello: Archie Panjabi’s alter-ego will have “a stronger through-line” in Season 6, promises creator Robert King, “and after you’ve seen the first episode, I think you’ll understand why.” King is reluctant to spoil too many details, but he admits that the show’s writing staff felt that in Season 5, “we’d lost some of the fun people who we’d built around Kalinda.” To remedy that, King says we’ll be seeing return appearances by Jill Flint (dropping by from NBC’s The Night Shift as enigmatic FBI agent Lana Delaney) and Kelli Giddish (on loan from Law & Order: SVU as Kalinda’s married paramour Sophia Russo). BONUS SCOOP: Seeing how Season 6 picks up right after the events of last May’s finale, Kalinda and Cary will still be dealing with the “bombshell” that went off in their relationship (Cary overhearing Kalinda admit to Diane that she uses him for intel, and the occasional couple’s subsequent - and pretty uncomfortable - sex scene.) “The bottom line is, none of that is forgotten,” teases King. Now the question becomes how/if they’ll recover.
Getting it quickly out of the way, let's say I'm interested to see if RK has reconsidered his "not close to rape" position on the C/K sex scene in 5x22 over hiatus. I was shocked that they "went there" with Cary's character when I watched it. And then horrified to find out that RK didn't think he actually went anywhere near the vicinity. Basically I'd welcome some consequences for Cary and Kalinda's relationship, because the male lens that made Kalinda a passive object in a storyline that was ALL ABOUT CARY'S MAN!PAIN is beneath this show. I am not getting my hopes up on this mind you.
This part: “we’d lost some of the fun people who we’d built around Kalinda.” sounds like pandering to me. But I'd rather watch Kalinda's spinoff within the show that stars Sophia and Agent Sexy than the gross one that starred Jenna and Damian, so I guess I'm buying. (It's sad that it's come to that!)
Then adding the information from this:
Yet while the writers aren't planning anything as earthquake-level intense as Season 5's one-two punch of mutiny at Lockhart-Gardner and Will's violent death, there will be a story arc introduced in the season premiere - one involving Kalinda - that comes close, Robert teases.
So . . . dare we hope that Kalinda has something meaningful to do. Remember last year Kalinda fans were assured we'd be happy after the first month. Oddly Kalinda having sex in the office with bug-eyed Chrissy wasn't enough to cheer us up. Then Kalinda's storyline was going to "explode" in the back half of the season. For that we got the literal explosion (via stock footage) of a watermelon. And we *still* weren't happy!
I do worry that words like "through-line" and "story arc" suggest that Kalinda will still be off on her own show. Perhaps she'll join in at whatever they call the firm once Alicia departs to campaign for SA in episode 5.
ETA: Based on the extended promo (which I'm pretty sure is for more than just 6x01) it looks like Kalinda's arc relates to Bishop. I won't tell you all the horrible ideas I had last season about Bishop when I was worried that Kalinda was going to written out, but let's just say -- watching him threaten Kalinda did wig me out rather.
In the meantime (and it's actually come to this) why are our ladies wearing the same outfit?
Alicia
Kalinda
OK, not identical . . . but what the hell?