Gabriel Macht's Harvey Specter is not just a great lawyer. He's the best closer in New York City, the guy who never breaks a sweat or loses a case, the guy who gets away with the impossible. The premise of Suits relies on Harvey having balls of steel: in the pilot episode he hires Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams—our very first #MCM!), a troubled prodigy who knows the law inside out but has never passed the bar. Harvey knows full well that his new associate is not a qualified lawyer, and that they could both end up in jail if they're found out. Though the show wrung dramatic tension out of Mike's secret from the beginning, the overall sense was that its quippy central duo would get away with everything, because Harvey is just that damn good.
Until he's not. Season 5 of the show began with Harvey suffering debilitating anxiety attacks and ended with Mike being arrested and jailed. The sixth season, which aired its finale last Wednesday (March 1), began in dark territory before making its way back towards a more feel-good conclusion: Harvey's seemingly-doomed fight to get the now-freed Mike back into the legal profession finally paid off, thanks to a last-minute deus ex machina from their former boss (Gina Torres). It was a very Suits ending to an uncharacteristically tough Suits season.
We spoke to Macht about how the show has gradually punctured its escapist premise, Harvey's romantic future with Donna (and/or Mike), and what Harvey would make of Donald Trump.
Having starred mostly in movies, the notion of slow-burn character development was an adjustment for Macht.
"Before I did Suits, I hadn't done a series in a decade, and I only did 13 episodes of that show before going off to do movies. With a series, it's slow turns and slow deepening of a character, and when I first approached it, I started to have Harvey change within the first season. I had to pull the brakes, because if you do it that quickly then you have nowhere to go after the first two seasons. It was a bit of a learning curve for me, the slow-burn, and then it became really exciting to play because it becomes a bit more challenging. You can deepen the character so much more than in a film."
Over the years, Suits has developed Harvey and Mike from "superhero lawyers" to more vulnerable flesh-and-blood men.
"The show bounces between aspirational and realistic, and at the beginning it was super-aspirational, I feel. These lawyers didn't really look like the average lawyer, they were always winning cases, and it was just too good to be true. It was so much escapism—these guys were like superhero lawyers. And then in Season 5, where we started to deal with Harvey's anxiety attacks, that's where we started to go towards more of a realistic tone. With Mike going to jail in Season 6, too, it's becoming more realistic as we've gone along. Now, I'm not gonna say the season in prison was as realistic as you can get, but I do think we've been trying to ground the show in more ways."
Season 7 could see a return to happier times—but the finale was bittersweet for Harvey. His protégé Mike came back to him, just as his secretary and maybe-soulmate Donna seemed poised to leave.
"They found a way to get Mike back in, because there's always openings in the law, right? So we'll see if we get back to the bromance and the light fodder of the show's early seasons. There was a bit of a tease of that in the deal Harvey makes with Mike at the end of Season 6. With Donna, I think there are a lot of questions—can she still work for him? Is she gonna take another break? Is she gonna move on? Is he gonna hire her in a different capacity? Are they gonna just completely break it off and get together?"
He's put a lot of thought into Harvey's unresolved, somewhat mysterious romantic tension with Donna.
"I think for Harvey, there's certain things he gets out of the relationship that he feels like if they were to be romantic, she wouldn't be able to fulfill for him. And I don't know if he's conscious enough to realize what's more important. He's really unconscious about the relationship, and she is too—she may not be as clear as she thinks she is when it comes to her heart. Because Donna's awesome, right? Donna's this, Donna's that, but there's something missing [for her], and that might be it. We all have our own insecurities and our own failures to communicate, things that keep us from realizing our truth, and maybe that's what keeps stringing along their relationship."
He's ambivalent about whether "Darvey" should ever finally get together.
"The fans think that they want to see them together. My feeling is I'd like to see it left untold, where you never quite know: do they get together, do they not? If they do, then it's gotta be one of the last moments of the series. I don't think you put them together and then have them break up and get back together, because then it just becomes any other TV relationship. I'd like to see them continue searching."
He's equally on board for "Marvey"—Mike/Harvey—which many fans would tell you is the true love story of Suits.
"There is unbelievable bromance [between Harvey and Mike]. I mean, it could go either way—it could continue to be bromantic, like it is, or one of them could finally come out of the closet and confess their true love."
Here's what Harvey Specter would say to Donald Trump if the pair were to cross paths in New York.
"I think Harvey would give it to him. I think he would say, look, there are great elements that you have as far as wanting to win at every cost, but you really gotta take a chill pill and start looking outside of yourself. The narcissism has gotten a little bit out of hand. Look in the mirror—let's make a change, together."
He has a very specific plan for the show's upcoming 100th episode.
"I'd love to see us all get drunk onscreen. That would be fun. That's what usually happens on celebratory episodes, right?"
But joking aside…
"We've been so fortunate to get to 100 episodes. It's so rare that a show lasts this long, and has the kind of fan base that we have all over the world. It's very humbling. I think all of us and the crew will all look around and try to just take this moment and really connect to being grateful for it. That's what I'm looking forward to."
You can catch up on Suits on Video on Demand and USANetwork.com. Season 7 will premiere this summer.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Emma Dibdin is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles who writes about culture, mental health, and true crime. She loves owls, hates cilantro, and can find the queer subtext in literally anything.
