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The mysterious Kalinda Sharma: the best bisexual character on TV

When Jill Flint appeared on the first season of The Good Wife as FBI agent Lana Delaney, she was attempting to seduce Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) in two ways – sexually and professionally. But Kalinda wasn’t interested, at least not in the job offer. Although she shared some flirting over dinner and a kiss behind a garage door, the relationship didn’t advance, as Kalinda wanted to stay where she was, working at Lockhart & Gardner.

On last night’s episode, “Net Worth,” Kalinda sought out Lana’s help, which turned into another dinner, with some more forwardness from Lana and a brief discussion of Kalinda’s sexuality. (The use of The Kills‘ “Black Balloon” was a superb choice for this sexy scene.)

Lana: I’m taking off my shoe. See?

Kalinda: I can see.

Lana: I’m stretching out my foot. Are you alright with that?

Kalinda: Oh you have to stretch, stretch.

Lana runs her stockinged foot up Kalinda’s leg to the edge of her skirt around her thigh.

Lana: I have an offer for you. Come work for me. It’s not good at Lockhart Gardner and it wont’ be good for quite some time.

Kalinda: And why is that?

Lana: Your firm is representing Bishop, the drug dealer.

Kalinda: Yeah he has legitimate interests.

Lana: He has no legitimate interests. [Runs her foot up Kalinda’s dress an inch] The firm is in danger. Come work for me.

Kalinda: We had this conversation. I like where I am. [Lana runs her foot back down to Kalinda’s boot]

Lana: Why do you like men?

Kalinda: Why do I like men?

Lana: Yes, sex with men. Why do you like it?

Kalinda: I don’t distinguish.

Lana: You don’t have a preference?

Kalinda: Uh…

Lana: You were saying?

Kalinda: I was saying Italian, Mexican, Thai – why does one choose one food over the other?

Lana: Because sex is not food.

Kalinda: Because of love.

Lana: Or intimacy. Don’t you want intimacy?

Kalinda: No.

Lana: [Phone rings] I have to get that.

Kalinda: Then you’re going to need your foot back.

The next scene shows Kalinda leaving, walking down the hall, and so it would appear nothing else happened between them. But she doesn’t far before running into Blake (Scott Porter), her frenemy who has also provided some sexual tension with Kalinda on screen.

Even more so than Lana, she needs something from Blake. He has some evidence she wants back in her possession: the infamous bat she used to vandalize his car and possibly have killed a witness with. They go back to his place, where Blake pats Kalinda down, looking for her weapon. “You missed a spot,” she tells him, and he finds it, her holster falling to the floor. He turns around and lets Kalinda take her turn.

Suddenly, they are facing each other both disheveled, half-dressed, having checked each other for wires. Now Blake is without a shirt and Kalinda is out of her dress and in her slip.

They continue in the same conversation, but stop when Blake comes close to Kalinda and moves to kiss her.

Blake: Donna thinks you like women more than men.

Kalinda: Sometimes. Depends. Where’s my baseball bat?

Blake: It’s in my bag.

Kalinda: I want it back. [He hands it to her from his bag behind him on the couch.]

Blake: So you’ll lay off?

Kalinda: Lay off what?

Blake: Everything.

Kalinda: Yeah. [She kisses him]

Blake: What do you care about Leyla?

Kalinda: I don’t.

Blake: Then what do you care about?

Kalinda pauses, then promptly swoops the bat up and swings it right into Blake’s torso. He collapses on the floor, barely able to breathe.

Without missing a beat, Kalinda dials security for the building on her cell and asks them to come help her boyfriend who is having breathing issues. But before she leaves, she asks if he has anything else to say. He manages to choke out, “I found your husband.”

The mystery with Kalinda has always been (and continues to be) whether she is motivated solely by getting what she wants professionally and not what she’s truly looking for when it comes to her own life. At this point, she’s had dalliances with men and women, and it appears that the only real relationship that has been acknowledged is the one she once had with Donna (Lili Taylor), who made an appearance in one episode earlier this season.

Panjabi spoke with The Daily Beast about her role, and why she thinks it’s Kalinda is of the most-loved new characters on television.

I don’t think there’s ever been a no-nonsense, bisexual investigator of Indian origin. I think people are always excited by something new. Some people just like her because she wears thigh-high boots and goes around smashing cars with baseball bats, but there are so many different reasons why people connect with her… I was worried that some people may find her too strong and too sharp.

Before this interview, Panjabi hadn’t acknowledged Kalinda’s sexual orientation, insisting that she’s a mystery that would be unraveled slowly. After this week’s episode, it appears that everyone in Kalinda’s life is just as confused as viewers are, with both men and women longing to know more about the guarded private investigator. But it’s not as simple as we all want it to be.

“I can understand men liking her because of the whole sexy thing,” Panjabi said, “but how many women resonate with that character surprised me. There are a lot of women like that in society who are intelligent but are not buttoned up, who are happy to celebrate their sexuality, who are confident about themselves, and who are respected by their superiors. It’s a new kind of woman on TV, but it’s just reflecting what’s going on in society.”

Kalinda is the only one who knows what she’s truly attracted to, who she is motivated to be with based on love or attraction rather than some other sort of gain – which is one reason she’s one of the best-written characters on TV today. She’s not transparent; she’s guarded, fearless and witty. She’s also gorgeous and has impeccable style. There are so many other things about her besides her sexuality or even her ethnicity that give her the depth audiences hope to find in strong characters.

“Kalinda is never looked at as somebody who’s bisexual or ethnic,” Panjabi said. “She’s just looked at as a confident woman … I’ve always tried to do roles where my ethnicity is just something that happens to be, as opposed to a big issue being made of it.”

So when it comes to the women and men in Kalinda’s life, it can be hard to decide if they are romantic interests or simply persons of interest. And that will continue to be shown in the next couple of episodes Panjabi said.

“The nature of the scene [this week] is whether we hate each other,” she said. “Suddenly, you have these two people so drawn to each other that it brings in the new dimension of the sexual tension between them. Are these two going to kill each other or are these two going to have sex with each other?”

“Over the next few episodes… one does happen. The temperature rises so much that things do have to go one way or the other. Blake will end up winning no matter what happens between them because something does come out [about Kalinda] that will probably surprise the audience… In the process, she builds a strong relationship with [Matt Czuchry‘s] Cary. With Kalinda, you never know which way it’s going to go, but it’s definitely a friendship that develops… and you realize there is a similarity between the two of them.

Cary is Kalinda’s contact at the State’s Attorney Office. Lockhart & Gardner is trying to woo him back to their firm, while Cary is trying to avoid his office looking into Kalinda as a possible murder suspect. They have a burgeoning friendship that doesn’t appear to be sexual, and Czuchry told E! he thinks the friendship will “grow,” but didn’t hint at anything other than a platonic relationship.

And as far as what will happen with Kalinda and Blake – will they kill each other or have sex – it might turn out to be closer to the former. Executive producer Robert King said at TCA last month that Blake will not be on the show much longer, and considering how much he likes pestering Kalinda, ridding of him in a permanent way is probably the only way.

Kalinda is not afraid to use any means to get what she wants, and that includes her sexuality. However, that doesn’t mean she throws herself at every political figure or person that has some kind of pull. Instead, she artfully leads them into wanting to seduce her, so she has them right where she wants them. So she’s an opportunist, but she’s an equal-opportunist, and fun to watch in action.

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