Watch the trailer for The Good Fight’s upcoming sixth and final season and you’ll hear Diane Lockhart (the luminescent Christine Baranski) say: “Whatever we do, we just end up back at the start.”
But the start of what, Diane? For most TV shows, you could hear a statement like that and assume the season will draw to a close by coming full circle, but is that even possible on The Good Fight?
Season 6 of The Good Fight premieres exclusively in Australia at 8.30pm, Saturday 10 September on SBS VICELAND, airing weekly. Stream episodes at SBS On Demand after they go to air.
What makes The Good Fight such a glorious watch is the ever-growing, ever-evolving world-building taking place. This show not only repeatedly revisits characters (the lawyers, judges, media reporters, process servers, clients, NSA spies, etc.), but quite often considers how characters may have evolved in the time away from us. This is a fully-functional, living and breathing universe of characters.
To make things even more intricate, this is an inherited world. The Good Fight was a spin-off from The Good Wife, which itself built an extended world of characters. The Good Fight simply took The Good Wife Extended Universe (GWEU) and kept on building and growing it out further.
How does The Good Fight take things back to the start when the start is so nebulous, with so many of these characters joining the show as the GWEU grew?
Watching that trailer, it is clear the show isn’t that interested in merely celebrating its journey by linking it back to the start. Like all good journeys, the final season of The Good Fight is about all the friends we have met along the way.
As seen in the trailer, we’ll be spending time with these characters this season.
Diane (and Marissa)
Christine Baranski as Diane Lockhart. Source: © Paramount+
Like Diane, we first met second-year lawyer Marissa Gold (Sarah Steele) in The Good Wife. While Diane was there from the very first episode, Marissa was a fan favourite who recurred from midway through The Good Wife and became a regular on the spin-off.
The opening episode lets us see the two of them in a moment of vulnerable transparency. Diane is generally more guarded around people that don’t have her confidence, but they are playful in the way old friends can be.
Marissa and Diane in the return of 'The Good Fight'. Source: Paramount +
Liz Reddick
Audra McDonald as Liz Reddick in Season 6. Source: © Paramount+
Carmen Moyo
Charmaine Bingwa is in the middle of the action as Season 6 kicks off. Source: Paramount +
Julius Cain and Ri’Chard Lane
Michael Boatman as Julius Cain. Source: CBS © Paramount+
The trailer shows him in a team-bonding session alongside new name partner Ri’Chard Lane – a very showy lawyer who has been forced upon the firm by its corporate owners.
Lane is played by the incredible Andre Braugher who first wowed audiences as Detective Pembleton in the criminally under-seen 90s cop drama Homicide: Life on The Street, but later became very well-known to SBS VICELAND audiences as Captain Ray Holt on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. To suggest we are stoked he is joining The Good Fight for its final season is an understatement.
Andrew Braugher as flamboyant lawyer Ri'chard Lane. Source: Paramount +
Eli Gold (!!!!!!!!!)
Eli is back and it looks like he's holding a grenade. Entirely possible. Source: Paramount +
Eli Gold stayed as a regular on The Good Wife through to the end, but it is only now that we are seeing him again. He will reunite with his daughter, the aforementioned Marissa Gold. The pair have great comedic chemistry and it’s going to be a delight to see them together once more.
Perhaps it is wishful thinking by fans, but there seems to be a general vibe that maybe The Good Fight won’t be the end of the GWEU… could this be an open doorway to a possible Eli Gold/Marissa Gold spin-off series? We’re probably dreaming.
Jay DiPersia
Played by Nyambi Nyambi, Jay DiPersia is the investigator who works for the law firm. One gets the sense that Jay is a difficult character to integrate into a lot of storylines, but every time he is given a moment in the spotlight, he steps up and delivers. Jay features in most of the best moments in The Good Fight – including perhaps the series’ most memorable in which he addressed the audience directly on why it is okay to punch a Nazi (seen in season 3).
Charles Lester
The biggest creep from the GWEU is Charles Lester, a mob lawyer who cannot be trusted. Played by everyone’s favourite actor, Wallace Shawn, Lester has made multiple appearances on The Good Fight, but he first joined back in season 4 of The Good Wife making everyone uncomfortable as the lawyer for dangerous drug kingpin Lemond Bishop.
Elsbeth Tascioni
Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tascioni in an earlier appearance. Source: CBS © Paramount+
Those that get to know Elsbeth understand that she is one of the canniest, most effective lawyers in Chicago and are more than willing to not just provide a venue for Elsbeth to take some time to process her thoughts (she is clearly on the autism spectrum, but the show never slows her down by dwelling on it), but also to aid and defend her at any time she needs it.
Kurt McVeigh
Sharing his name with a US domestic terrorist, McVeigh is a conservative Republican ballistics specialist who is very well-connected with the Republican wealthy and political elite. He also happens to be the very left-wing Democrat Diane Lockhart’s husband. He is played on the show by Gary Cole and has been a recurring character since the middle of the first season of The Good Wife, and it's good to see he'll be back.
David Lee
Zach Grenier as David Lee. Source: CBS © Paramount+
Lyle Bettencourt
John Slattery, best known for playing the hilarious Roger Sterling in Mad Men, will arrive this season as Lyle Bettencourt. Lyle is apparently “a brilliant, sophisticated and sensitive physician who helps Diane through a crazy time.” It seems The Good Fight’s creator-producers Robert and Michelle King have been trying to get Slattery onto the show for some time. It’s great to see they could make it happen.
Will the gang from The Good Fight be able to band together and save America from entering a new civil war? The stakes are high this season.
John Slattery dons a white coat for his 'Good Fight' debut. Source: Paramount +
Fast-tracked from the US, season 6 of The Good Fight premieres exclusively in Australia at 8.30pm, Saturday 10 September on SBS VICELAND, airing weekly. Stream episodes after they go to air.
