BWW Recap: Leaving Home on THE GOOD WIFE

My heart hurts.

I want to go back to Season 1. When THE GOOD WIFE universe was whole. When we had Diane and Will, and Cary and Alicia. And Kalinda. Always Kalinda, working for everyone, figuring everything out, saving days and sharing shots (with the sublime Archie Panjabi doing her thing so well that she took home an Emmy award for her performance).

I want that back.

But Season 5 took Will away, and tonight, with the exit of Kalinda Sharma, THE GOOD WIFE fundamentally changed all over again. This was a goodbye without surprise, but forewarning in no way lessened the impact. I cried. A lot.

And now we have two of our original cast members gone:

I know that this happens in real life. People leave home. People move on - in all sorts of ways. But it always makes me sad when the cast of a much loved show gets smaller, when there is a kind of peeling away of the essence of that show, one original character at a time. And when it's a show as intricate and developed as THE GOOD WIFE, the loss is even more strongly felt. We've come so far with these characters. We know their stories. We care about them - almost as if we actually know them. To lose Kalinda is to lose that fictional friend we all wanted to have tequila with.

Well, except Alicia for these last four seasons.

But we'll come back to that sticking point. As usual I've started at the end. There was a beginning, and it involved Alicia stepping down as State's Attorney. Because this is a show that honors its history, the whole scenario is essentially a throwback to the pilot, complete with flashing cameras and lonely corridors. Except this time it is Peter standing behind a pale, unnerved Alicia Florrick as she faces her scandal. And there is no wake-up slap in the aftermath.

Just that timeless question asked when everything falls apart.

"What do I do now?"

What Alicia does is go back to Diane and Cary (and David Lee), with her tail between her legs. She wants to come back to the firm, and they want her back. Or do they? For the better part of the episode, everyone gets their wires crossed about this fact. It's not something we generally see on THE GOOD WIFE - a storyline where the viewer knows what the characters do not. Nope. On this show we tend to be surprised by plot turns (and/or devastated) but tonight we quickly learn that Alicia erroneously thinks Diane and Cary are plotting against her, and we just have to wait for them to have an actual conversation about it, instead of defaulting to the stealing of clients caper they all seem to do so well.

The truth comes out in the end, courtesy of Kalinda, who explains the concept of bad timing to Alicia (arghhhh! Bad timing. It ruins everything for Alicia), and confirms the firm does want her back, after all. Which would be great, and everything would be lovely again, but for Diane's new right wing, firm-funding sparring partner, R.D. He doesn't want any part of another Florrick scandal, and says he'll walk if the firm takes Alicia back as partner.

This might be home for Alicia Florrick. But thanks to R.D, she's no longer welcome.

I like RD. I like his debates with the "soft-hearted liberal" Diane, and I hope the wonderful Oliver Platt stays longer than some of the guest stars that have made themselves at home, only to have their characters disappear without explanation. I even understand why R.D doesn't want a Florrick on his team. But I'm not exactly happy that Alicia has been ousted, and how this season her fate always seems to be in the hands of powerful men.

I don't like that part at all.

Separate to the Alicia trying to come home storyline, we also get a side case of the week around mandatory sentencing, which at least offers some comedy with its commentary. Diane is trying to save a grandmother from serving years in jail after she was caught with drugs, and attempts to convince a caseworker - Linda Lavin, back as the not so aptly named Joy, the over-worker who managed Cary's parole - that the grandmother is in fact an addict. Fun fact: You can avoid jail time if you are a proven addict, as opposed to a little old lady taking the fall for someone else. The plan doesn't work, of course, no matter how earnestly the grandmother describes her high, and her desire to get all those horses off her back.

It doesn't matter in the end, because once again, Kalinda saves the day. She figures out that there were two less tablets than the amount required for mandatory sentencing to come into effect, so instead of jail time, the grandmother gets probation. Arbitrary, but true. Lives turn on the strangest calculations.

Which brings us back to the end. Kalinda has saved everyone who needs saving, and now it is time for her grand finale. She hands over evidence on Lemond Bishop to Geneva Pine - enough to see Bishop arrested before the hour is out, and she does it in a way that ensures Cary and Diane are free from any obligation to testify against him.

But this double-cross of the deadly Bishop means Kalinda has no choice but to leave.

Leave the show, that is.

She does so after a tender almost-goodbye to Cary, and a trip to Alicia's house. Alicia is not home, of course, so Kalinda leaves a note with Grace. Combined with fake Will from a few weeks back, this missed connection between Alicia and Kalinda feels just a little too much like the real world encroaching on our fiction, by the way. There should have been a scene with these two old friends together.

There should have been at least one scene.

But there is no scene. And there won't be. Archie Panjabi, our beloved superhero, zips up Kalinda's blue leather jacket, looks right at us, and says goodbye. Later, Cary finds Kalinda's apartment cleared out, and a gaping hole in the wall where her insurance money has always been stashed. And Alicia finds the note. She dismisses it for a moment. Then she doubles over and sobs. We don't know what the note says, and we probably won't ever know.

We just know it's definitely going to rain today. Kalinda has gone, and Will has gone. Nothing will be the same in THE GOOD WIFE universe.

A universe where our good wife is more alone than she has ever been. No matter how she originally thought it was going to end.

Sidebar on this sad night: Any fans been lucky enough to catch Renée Elise Goldsberry in HAMILTON at The Public? It's the hottest theater ticket in town, and our very own Geneva Pine features in the acclaimed production. It's almost enough to make you forgive her for sending Kalinda down the river. Almost!

Image Credit: CBS

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