This is Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies). When fans of The Good Wife first met her in the pilot episode, she was starting as an associate lawyer at the law firm Stern, Lockhart & Gardner.
And this is Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi). She is an investigator whose work is invaluable to Stern, Lockhart & Gardner.
They're friends.
In fact, Kalinda went to the courthouse with Alicia in the pilot for Alicia's first case on her first day back on the job.
And when she won, Kalinda took Alicia out for the firm's "traditional" alcohol shot after your first big win.
It quickly became their own special tradition to grab a drink at a bar after work.
In the first two seasons of The Good Wife, Alicia and Kalinda spent many late nights working together at the office.
Or sharing information with each other immediately. (They were so close that Alicia could have been Kalinda's emergency contact at this point.)
They also shared a lot of personal stuff about their friends and family.
And themselves.
Kalinda has even spent the day working with Alicia in her bedroom.
A notoriously closed-off person, what Kalinda had with Alicia is the closest thing to a real friendship the investigator can handle.
And they really balance each other.
At the end of Season 2, when Alicia found out Kalinda had slept with her husband, Peter (Chris Noth), their friendship was very strained and the duo didn't work together for most of the action in Season 3.
However, in Season 4, Episode 11, Kalinda takes a bag of clothes to Alicia in Minnesota when her case runs long and it seems the two might finally be on a good path again.
So it's strange that just three episodes later it is the last time Alicia and Kalinda appear in a scene together. That final appearance? It's in Season 4, Episode 14, when Kalinda helps Alicia and Cary (Matt Czuchry) with a mock trial.
However, after setting up the agreement at the beginning of the episode, the two don't speak again. Rather, Kalinda delivers her updates to Cary.
Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi have not filmed a scene together since then. Or at least not one that has aired on television.
Even in the aftermath of the unexpected death of Will Gardner (Josh Charles), the two only speak on the phone; they're never in the same room together.
In fact, in the last 30 episodes — over a full season and a half — the two characters have solely communicated over the phone, if at all.
An obvious explanation would be that they no longer work at the same law firm. However, Alicia has returned to the Lockhart/Gardner offices many times and Kalinda has made a point to see Cary at Florrick, Agos and Associates. Suspiciously, neither woman is at their respective office when the other visits.
So what does this mean? Multiple requests for comment from showrunners Robert and Michelle King about the matter went unanswered.
This post previously stated that Season 4, Episode 11 was set in Wisconsin when it was actually set in Minnesota, as a Twitter user pointed out. It's since been corrected and we apologize for the Midwest mix-up!