Fans of The Good Wife were crushed when it was announced that character favorite Archie Panjabi was leaving the show. Panjabi, who won an Emmy for playing the character Kalinda Sharma, said it took kissing Gillian Anderson in the BBC/Netflix series The Fall for her to realize she had to move on from The Good Wife .
On The Good Wife, Kalinda doesn’t identify herself as gay or straight, yet she has relationships with both sexes. Other characters on the series have defined Kalinda as bisexual but Panjabi describes the character’s sexuality as “fluid.” Apparently, the tough as nails character was affecting her other work.
For those who watch The Fall, you can stop reading here.
In a scene, Anderson’s character makes a move in a bar on Panjabi’s character so a man would stop bothering them at a bar. That said, initially the scene didn’t read exactly how the show’s creator and director wanted it to.
In an interview with Radio Times , Archie explained what happened when her Good Wife character started to take a hold of her.
“When I was kissing her, Allan Cubitt, the show’s creator and director, had to say, ‘Archie, can you hold back?’ because Gillian was supposed to take me by complete surprise. I didn’t think that I was very forward in [the scene], but obviously after a while a character starts to affect you. I thought, ‘OK, I think it’s time to go now.”
Fans of Archie shouldn’t fret. The actress isn’t leaving on bad terms. In fact, she signed her own television deal with 20th Century Fox, which is currently developing a drama pilot for the actress to star in.
Although fans of the actress weren’t happy with her decision to leave, some said this was the best alternative. Since Season 4 it seems like the writers really didn’t know what to do with Kalinda. Things started to fall apart in Season 4 due to a weird domestic abusive relationship that entered into the picture when her ex-husband strolled into town.
The storyline not only derailed her character, but it also kept her disconnected from all the major players in the series. She went from the most interesting character to one that seemed the most out of place on the series. It’s because of this that the once prominent character lost her back bone and structure within the series very quickly. Instead of finding her footing, audiences are impatiently watching Kalinda flail back and forth between relationships, which is a far cry from the strong character she once represented on the show.
[Image via CBS]
