David M. Russell/CBSKalinda Sharma, you've heard of her, right? She's the badass investigator on The Good Wife played by Emmy winner Archie Panjabi. Yeah, it's ringing a bell now, right? She hasn't had much to do on the hit CBS series recently, but that's about to change.
"Kalinda, I'd rather not tell where we're going, she was a little bit adrift in the first half of the year," Good Wife cocreator Robert King said at the 2014 TCAs. "She starts exploding in the second half of the year. Her story starts crystalizing."
During season four of The Good Wife, the show introduced Kalinda's husband, much to viewers' dismay. The backlash caused writers to move storylines around and essentially put Kalinda on the backburner. Robert praised Panjabi's work, but said the difficulty with Kalinda at times is fitting her into the storylines. They've heard your cries, Good Wife fans, and are making a change for the second half of season five.
Executive producers Robert and Michelle King revealed CBS had no qualms about blowing up the status quo of The Good Wife and moving Alicia to her own firm. Robert said the series is about the education of Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) and that seismic changes are the only way to go about that. The Kings said their instincts now are to keep blowing things up in Alicia's life. Alicia left Lockhart/Gardner and started her own firm earlier in season five. Since then, many episodes have depicted the two firms going at it in court. That will change, the cocreators revealed. Look for the two to have less courtroom interaction and get their own stories in the second half of the season.
"A lot of it is it's a show that survives on having a lot plot going on at the same time…a lot of it is going to have linkages that are outside of the case. I think a lot of the repetition we're experiencing now is because we're on opposite sides of the cases…but there are other ways that they bump into each other in the course of a day," Robert said. "So we're doing that and also you may find that the A case will be Lockhart/Gardner one week, or it might be Florrick/Agos."
With the law firm split came another big change: Alicia vs. Will instead of Will loves Alicia.
"Our thinking was that hate feels a lot like love. When things go sour, the passion doesn't go away. It turns negative, so we wanted to be true to that," Michelle said. Will is currently grieving the loss of Alicia, something he's denying, the Kings said. Look for his energy to hurt the firm he's so desperately trying to bring back to the top. Could the two firms be forced to merge to save themselves down the line?
"We're not telling nobody!" Michelle said.
"That would be one of the crown jewels," Robert said. "We talk about that a lot."
On the other side of the coin is Peter's (Chris Noth) election fraud storyline. The new governor will become embroiled in scandal that reared its head in the season-four finale.
"It wasn't going to play out that long until the Chris Christie thing," Robert told reporters. "There's so much juicy stuff there about what your underlings supposedly do for you. And when you give them a path, are you giving them a path that says 'I want you do everything you can even to the point of breaking the law'?"
The Good Wife won't tackle the Christie scandal directly, but Robert said it's "fun seeing how a governor gets his underlings to do things that he kind of wink-wink wants done."
"The appeal for all these stories starts from reality, and if you're in Chicago, there's dirty stuff going on, in a lot of these government offices, certainly not every one, but plenty," Michelle said. "It certainly makes for entertaining TV."
The Good Wife has become known for its guest stars as much as it has for its stellar series regular cast. One of those recurring guest stars is Michael J. Fox, and the Kings are itching to get him back in the fold now that he's wrapped shooting on his NBC sitcom.
"We're trying to make that work. I think you can even say that," Robert said. It's looking like we'll see the return of Fox's Louis Canning, after all. Robert said he and Margulies are quite fond of working together. That's great because viewers love seeing them together!
The Good Wife won't be back with new episodes until March 9—you should see the amount of special events happening on Sundays—but before they show left for its little hibernation, it gave us "Thicky Trick." The episode about a musical TV show and band facing off in court was supposed to be for Christine Baranski's character, Diane, but she was busy filming Into the Woods, so Josh Charles' Will Gardner became the lead. After the episode, the show released a music video for the song featured in the episode and yes, we're sorry it's stuck in your head again too. It's here with us. Always.
The Good Wife is currently hitting creative highs in its fifth season, which is rare, but just how much more does the show have left in it? CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler said she hopes the show last's "forever," but the Kings may have other ideas and an end game. Series star Margulies previously hinted at a seven-year plan for the show.
"No. I don't," Michelle said about an endgame plan. "Maybe Robert does! In other words, yes, we have vague ideas about where this might end, what happens between now and then and how long between now and then. I don't know. Alicia remains a fascinating character to me and I am fascinated to follow her life. She feels very real and very true to me, so I'm eager to see where she goes."
The Good Wife airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on CBS.