I’m a late, late late-comer to the Kalicia (that’s what it’s called, yes? I spent a while looking for the portmanteau and then this typo seemed to make a lot of sense) train but I am on. Freaking. Board now.

Despite my love of femslash, I usually pick my ships based off of canon (don’t ask me how long I shipped Finchel). I mean, Nathan and Audrey? Castle and Beckett? No-brainers. I didn’t really have a Good Wife ship, though and would have been fine with Alicia ending up or not ending up with Peter or Will, and for a short time, in a not-serious way, Eli (until Natalie Flores came along, and omg, how adorable are they??).

Of course I had seen the Kalinda/Alicia shipping and was unswayed by friends’ evidence and arguments. Alicia just seemed to like Kalinda’s friendship and Kalinda, well, there might have been interest on her side, but she was so inscrutable. It was hard to tell with her.

But as I was finishing up the second season, all of a sudden there such an obvious display of how much they could and did affect each other. Those moments above and everything they represented changed everything. Look at how they lose control! Nobody else has made either of them come this close. Of all the relationships on the show, romantic, familial, friendly, competitive, the show chose to focus on this one. It wasn’t a well-written fanfic or an offhand remark by an actress but the show’s own very clear pushing of Kalinda and Alicia’s relationship as Very Important. More than Alicia’s with Peter or Will or Kalinda’s with, well, anybody.

It’s perhaps perverse that the obvious depth of the hurt they both suffered from the other (Alicia’s more justified, of course) was the turning point of the ship for me, but that’s how it is. They work well together and were great as friends but they feel so much where the other is concerned. I can’t not ship them anymore.