Sometimes the tail wags the dog, and that is just what’s happening on The Good Wife with the story of Kalinda’s creepy, abusive husband Nick. Fan response to the storyline that involves everyone’s favorite leather skirt, boots-clad bisexual investigator Kalinda Sharma (Emmy winner for the role Archie Panjabi) and Marc Warren has been so negative that the show’s creators Robert and Michelle King will write the character out of Kalinda’s life sooner than anticipated, they told TV Guide.
"You don't give James Bond a girlfriend,” the Kings said of introducing Kalinda’s husband, whose presence has seriously wrecked her game.
Regarding fan response to the story Robert King told TV Guide:
“I think a) people just don't want Kalinda to go there, which I think is a worthy response that I never thought of and b) I think that it was pushing buttons that are not really healthy buttons to push, which are about domestic violence and dominating men and things like that. I thought it would come across as Kalinda was giving as good as she got, but it's not coming across that way.”
Robert King went on to praise Panjabi’s acting chops and said they often try to push the envelope with the character because Panjabi is so capable, citing the story line in which Alicia (Julianna Margulies) discovered that her husband Peter (Chris Noth) had slept with her best friend Kalinda.
“We did want to see another side of Kalinda because we know in Archie we have an actress that can handle almost anything you throw at her,” Robert King said. “But I do think the audience teaches the storyteller and this is a case of the audience teaching the storyteller the bounds of where they think Kalinda's universe is. We tried to push the boundaries of that when we had Kalinda sleep with Peter. We were worried that that was going out on a limb, and the audience seemed to respond well. So we went another step here.”
As the Kings plan to transition Nick out of Kalinda’s day-to-day the Kings have promised to explore the show’s core family/friendship relationships of Alicia, Kalinda and Cary (Matt Czuchry) more.
Regarding the Alicia/Kalinda friendship Robert King said, “There are probably no more two different people than Kalinda and Alicia, yet that is the core friendship that will survive the test of time.”
Photo via CBS.
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