Get ready for war with the new season of ‘The Good Fight’

With battles on multiple fronts, ‘The Good Fight’ finds strength in familiar faces – and exciting new ones too (hello Andre Braugher).

Source: Paramount +

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+

Unquestionably, Diane is the main character of The Good Fight. The show opened with her watching the crushing defeat of Hillary Clinton in November 2016. Since then, we have watched her grapple with the changing nature of politics, the law, feminism and how everyday people have struggled to find a voice in this new world.

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+

There is also plenty happening with Audra McDonald as Liz, a character who has been prominent since its second season. The Good Fight had a minor creative overhaul with the start of season 2, and the GWEU delivered Liz Reddick, previously seen in a single episode of The Good Wife. We don't know much yet about what Liz will go through this season, but we do know she’s pissed off about something. That’s generally her default position and she’s never wrong.

Carmen Moyo

Charmaine Bingwa is in the middle of the action as Season 6 kicks off. Source: Paramount +

Carmen Moyo (played by Aussie superstar-in-the-making Charmaine Bingwa) is a relatively new face to the GWEU. She joined the cast last season as a new lawyer at the firm. Tough and no-nonsense, we are yet to see Moyo really step out and have a big moment, but one suspects that this season there will be some great opportunities for her.

Julius Cain and Ri’Chard Lane

Michael Boatman as Julius Cain. Source: CBS © Paramount+

Michael Boatman as Julius Cain has been a fixture since a season 1 episode of The Good Wife. He was quickly brought in to join the cast of The Good Fight from its second episode.

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.

Andrew Braugher as flamboyant lawyer Ri'chard Lane. Source: Paramount +

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.

Eli Gold (!!!!!!!!!)

Eli is back and it looks like he's holding a grenade. Entirely possible. Source: Paramount +

This is the character that fans have been screaming for. Eli Gold (played by theatre great Alan Cumming, who also happens to be hilarious) first joined the GWEU midway through season 1 of The Good Wife as a political consultant. Now, if The Good Wife was real life, Eli Gold would have moved onto a new job by the end of that first season. But as it was a TV show and both the writers and audience loved the weaselly Eli so much, any excuse would do to bring him back.

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+

She’s the character that most hardcore GWEU fans love, but quite likely the most grating for the casual viewer. Elsbeth Tascioni (played by the always funny Carrie Preston) thrives on flights of fancy.

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+

The least trustworthy character on TV, David Lee (Zach Grenier) was a deliciously self-interested The Good Wife office villain imported into The Good Fight on a regular basis in season 4. A senior lawyer at the firm, David will do anything to generate income. Legalities and ethics are mere obstacles barely worth a second look. Is there a funnier, more slimy character on TV than this guy? Surely not.

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.

John Slattery dons a white coat for his 'Good Fight' debut. Source: Paramount +

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. 

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 at SBS On Demand after they go to air.