TheGoodWife
"The Good Wife" is coming back for a hard-earned Season 6. Here's why we're pumped. CBS

Walter White had meth. Don Draper had affair-after-affair. Nurse Jackie led a double life and popped enough pills for both. Weed was Nancy Botwin’s gateway drug; she ended up selling guns, too. All of Jessica Lange’s characters on “American Horror Story” are weaponized Blanche Duboises. Even high-stakes litigator Patty Hewes ended up killing a dog, but only because her key witness wouldn’t take the stand.

Our golden era of prestige television is an unprecedented celebration of gilded lowliness. In this brave, new world peopled with antiheroes who -- to our sustained delight -- all wallow in the muddy glut of their failings, what room is there for “The Good Wife,” a network drama about a married woman who plays by all the rules?

None at all, it would seem, and that’s its most gracious accomplishment -- even as its complete lack of pretention seems to work against it. Smart people don’t take to “The Good Wife” the way they take to other, lesser prestige dramas. Maybe that’s because it airs on CBS on Sunday nights after something awful and before something terrible.

But “The Good Wife” is smart TV for everyone. And over the last five years of remarkable run, creators Robert and Michelle King have masterfully crafted a television series whose greatest trick is convincing audiences it’s a featherweight procedural – a step above the dependable pulp of “Law and Order” but entire staircases below anything on cable.

Its sophistication sneaks up on you. What may have started as a guilty pleasure transforms slowly and concertedly over five seasons into the reigning best series on television, without qualification.

And with “The Good Wife” returning for a much-deserved Season 6 this coming Sunday, we’ve compiled all the reasons why we’re stoked for the return of the trials of Saint Alicia Florrick, television’s only hero.

The State’s Attorney Race

There’s so much to be said about the cliffhanger that ended Season 5, in which the kinda corrupt Eli Gold asks Alicia Florrick – at this point in the series the first lady of Illinois – to run for state’s attorney. Alicia claims she’s “never saying yes,” especially with her business going as well as it’s going, but Eli has a way of getting his way, even where Alicia’s concerned.

Christine Baranski’s Diction

No one speaks as well as Christine Baranski speaks. No one. And when her character, Diane Lockhart, speaks, the whole legal world listens.

Taye Diggs Is Joining The Cast

I repeat, Taye Diggs is joining the cast.

Life Without Will

It’s possible that The Good Wife’s boldest risk – the shocking decision to kill off its male lead and, with his death, destroy all hope for a neat and happy ending to the series – could’ve harmed the show in the longer term more than it provided for some amazing storytelling in the short term. With Will Gardener gone, there’s no one left to be hurt on a deeply personal level over Alicia’s decision to betray her firm. With Alicia over her sadness over his death – or at least, enough to function – it will be fascinating to see how the show performs without Will’s presence, and Josh Charles’s magnetic performance.

Gloria Steinem Is Playing Herself

I repeat, Gloria Steinem is playing herself.

And, Of Course, The Fashion

The wigs! The dresses! The suits!