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The Good Wife Finale: Let's Break Down That Kalinda-Alicia Scene

Plus: Who was at Alicia's door?

joyce-eng.jpg
Joyce Eng

[WARNING: The following story contains spoilers about Sunday's Season 6 finale of The Good Wife. Read at your own risk.]

Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) and Alicia (Julianna Margulies) had their big reunion alright on Sunday's The Good Wife, and it was... sufficiently awkwardly edited?

Before we get to that, the set-up: Bishop's fixer Charles Lester (Wallace Shawn) is looking for Kalinda and has come to Alicia because she is the last person to talk to Kalinda, since, you know, she (falsely) said in court on last week's episode that Kalinda gave her the Internal Affairs intel. She shoos him away and stuffs Kalinda's note in her secret coffee container, while Lester hits up Cary (Matt Czuchry) and Diane (Christine Baranski) looking for Kalinda.

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Of course, one does not find Kalinda; she finds you. She corners Lester in the frozen foods aisle of the supermarket ("You looking for me?") and sets up a meeting with Bishop (Mike Colter). And before we know it, she slides right next to Alicia at the bar to throw back some final tequila shots and ask Alicia why she never gave Lester the note. Turns out it didn't contain her professing her undying love or demanding to know why they haven't shared a room together in two years, but was alas Kalinda's confession to bring down Bishop.

Alicia shrugs it off and gets deep about how losing the election made her miss popping back shots with Kalinda. Kalinda, in turn, admitting that she's "not very good at talking," tells Alicia, "My time with you, as your friend, was the best I've ever had. And I'm sorry. I'm really sorry that things got messed up." As she gets up to leave, Alicia, who later burns Kalinda's note, asks if she'll ever see her again. "I don't think so," Kalinda replies. "Goodbye."

First, standing on its own, content-wise, it's a nice, well-acted tete-a-tete between two former besties who have somehow fallen so far apart (literally and figuratively). But, while I appreciate the show's effort at a poignant final scene between them, a two-minute heart-to-heart does not placate two years of zeros scenes between these two, no explanation why and the sidelining of Kalinda's character. This was anticipated, yes, but not earned.

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Now, the scene. I'm gonna need physical proof that these two were in the same room. Because they weren't. And if they were, it was not for more than five seconds to sling back shots. But they really weren't. At no point did their eyes lock, their hands touch or was there a two-shot during the bulk of the conversation. Each was always blocked in a single shot with the other person's head just awkwardly in the frame during the convo, aka work a stand-in can do. I mean, I've seen scenes on The Hills faked better. Are they just trolling us? Maybe. But it's frankly sad that after two years, they couldn't even film a brief "pay-off" scene for real. At least it was miles better than last week's comical bar flashback.


As for Kalinda, she blows off her meeting with Bishop and basically blackmails Lester into leaving her alone since she has files on him too. And then she walks away like the BAMF she is. It's kind of fitting, given her character arc the past two years, that her final scene is with a guest star. Godspeed, Kalinda. You deserve better.

Elsewhere:

- Alicia old client Jacob Rickter (Seth Gilliam) has been arrested and held in a secret rogue police facility, which turns into her and Finn's (Matthew Goode) first case together. Yes, he decides to join her at her new firm. "I thought about it: You and me," he says at first. #subtext. But after the case, Finn, who earlier confessed that he and his ex-wife are giving it another go, says he can't work with Alicia because of their sexual tension. So for the second time in the episode, someone tells her, "I have to go." Does this mean no more Matthew Goode? If he's not coming back, I can't be too sad about it since they've sorely underused Finn.

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- Before Alicia can mourn Finn too long, someone is at her door. Not Finn again, but Canning (Michael J. Fox), whose wife, Simone, is now working at Lockhart, Agos & Lee. "Wanna partner?" he says, the final words of the season. I guess this is supposed to be interesting? We're basically back where we were two years ago with someone at Alicia's door offering to start a new firm together.
- Alicia nixes her in-the-works memoir after she discovers that Eli (Alan Cumming) has been editing it to craft a softer homemaker image for her. Why? See below.

- Peter (Chris Noth) has been asked to run for president (!) so he can be a viable candidate for VP.......... And that's all I have to say about that.

What did you think of The Good Wife finale and Kalicia's final scene?
(Full disclosure: TVGuide.com is owned by CBS.)

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