Everything You Need to Know About the Good Wife Feud

Fans of CBS’s excellent and underrated The Good Wife have likely heard about the rumored feud between actresses Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi. The two lead actresses, who play attorney Alicia Florrick (Margulies) and investigator Kalinda Sharma (Panjabi), were on-screen best friends and frequently featured in scenes together. At the end of season two, we find out that Kalinda once slept with Alicia’s husband. The betrayal created a huge wedge between the women, and they have barely interacted with each other since.

The fictional rift meant the two actresses shared far less screen time. But even after they made up on the series, fans may have noticed that the two stars rarely appeared on-screen together. Then rumors of a real-life feud between the actresses took off after BuzzFeed pointed out that Margulies and Panjabi hadn’t been featured in a scene together for at least 30 episodes. Since season four, all of their interactions have taken place over the phone or through a third party. Fans began to theorize that the two couldn’t stand to be in the same room together, but there was no confirmation of a real-life feud from anyone on The Good Wife.

Speculation continued after creators and showrunners Robert King and Michelle King announced that Kalinda would be leaving the series after season six. The Kings denied it was due to any bad blood between Panjabi and Margulies. “First of all, I was surprised people are keeping track,” Robert said about the actresses’ lack of shared screen time. “Second of all, part of that has been intentional, which is to try and show this relationship, which was a friendship so strong, is now so worse.” Margulies echoed those sentiments, saying that their separation on the show was a logical plot progression in the series. “I think [their friendship is] kind of played out because of circumstance. . . . I think Kalinda’s character seems to have gone in a different direction.”

Then came the season six finale, in which Kalinda and Alicia finally reunited on-screen to say their goodbyes—or so we thought. While many were thrilled to finally see these two characters together again, the twittersphere quickly pointed out that the scenes looked like they were shot on a green screen and edited together. TVLine later reported that the scene was shot separately using body doubles.

Before the premiere of season seven of The Good Wife, TVLine asked the Kings to comment on the trick season finale, and again, the producers evaded commenting on the rumored rift between the stars. “We’re making the show every day using tricks, like if you’re in a car and there’s green screen and it looks like Chicago out the window but that’s not exactly where we are,” Michelle said. “That’s an everyday, run-of-the-mill thing on the show.”

Meanwhile, after exiting the show, Panjabi kept the nature of her departure vague, but she hinted that things weren’t totally peachy on set. When asked about the controversial season finale, Panjabi’s answer seemed to speak to a behind-the-scenes tension: “You know, I can’t answer that, as much as I want to. But those decisions are made by the producers. I’m not privy to those decisions.”

Now the controversy has ignited once again. During an interview this past weekend at the New Yorker Festival, Margulies was asked to comment on the supposed feud. “Right, I’ve heard about [the feud],” she said. “Who says that? It’s totally gossip.” She added that the finale had to be filmed separately because Panjabi was shooting her other show, The Fall, at the same time and couldn’t make it back to New York. But after segments of the interview were published, Panjabi took to Twitter to set the record straight:

The Kings, Margulies, and CBS have yet to respond to Panjabi’s tweet, but this cycle of denials, accusations, and rumors makes this entire situation sound like something out of a future Good Wife episode. Kings, take note.