Looking back at 7.5 seasons of Suits.
Okay so I realize I was kind of late to jump the Suits bandwagon, as I didn’t start binging on seasons 1 to 7 until straight after that whole royal wedding circus. Here is my take on what I think is happening here.
It wasn’t until late season 4 I think that I fully started rooting for Harvey and Donna, but the Darvey scenes had been favorites of mine since early on. I was a bit worried about where the show would go after Jessica left, changing the dynamic of the firm (plus Gina Torres did a great job portraying her), but I was happy how the storyline played out in the episodes to come.
Despite Donna being my favorite character by far, I was a bit put out by the sudden move for her to be COO. Being a career driven women myself I felt happy for her success, but I also found this career jump extremely unrealistic at the same time. While I’ve come to terms with it by now - though still missing the incomparable old Darvey team dynamic - especially since Donna now often takes on the role Jessica used to have, thus in my eyes merging “Donna the awesome secretary” and “Jessica the powerful managing partner” into one and the same character I am deeply disturbed by Donna’s complete lack of storyline. She only ever seems to be everyone’s fix upper, and if Sarah Rafferty wasn’t so great at stealing every single scene she is in I’d be extremely disappointed. Also what’s the thing with her still lurking about Harvey’s office and listening to conversations in the conference rooms? Doesn’t she have other things to do? Is she still also everyone’s secretary? Seems to be, because the cubicle in front of Harvey’s office remains empty. How can it be that a man like Harvey, who in 5 seasons was a man utterly and unhealthily dependent on his assistant now does not need a secretary even after making managing partner? There was so much potential for a cute little story without even introducing a new character. Like, they could have gone the Norma route and only mention the new assistant in conversations. Or the writers could have gone the Emily Gilmore route and have Harvey hire and fire new assistants every other episode and make a running gag of how no one (but Donna) can recall what the assistant of the week’s name is. They had hundreds of options and chose not to deal with it at all - I don’t like that.
Now since I already knew Meghan Markle just became the new Duchess of Sussex I was aware Rachel was going to be written off after s7. I had also heard that PJA would leave at the same time. I was less worried about the hole Rachel would leave than for the one left wide open with Mike’s disappearance. The show hugely relied on the Harvey/Mike dynamic in the past. So it made sense to introduce fresh meat. I liked Amanda Schull just fine and Wendell Pierce is a scene stealer in his own right. I was a bit apprehensive about Katherine Heigl, but if really started to enjoy her scenes and the place she found in the group dynamic, especially her forming a friendship with Donna without becoming a Rachel substitute. With Alex Williams it’s a whole different matter. I somehow can’t connect to him and while I’m sure it’s not Dulé Hill’s fault, I keep finding his character redundant because he can’t fill the void Mike left.
I love Louis. I really do. I enjoy how Donna and Harvey are his work family. I used to be happy for him when he and Sheila got back together. However, can anyone explain to me how Sheila did a 180 on the having kids issue and has become complete toxic/abusive towards Louis? Not cool. Also, why does this story arc take up so much screen time? Talk about imbalance.
So far season 8 has been a bit disappointing because of this imbalance. There seems to be little to none Harvey and Donna (and even Louis) interaction when I personally believe as the three main characters they should have more scenes together. While I am a Darvey-shipper at heart I understand a showmaker’s reluctance to make things happen when the relationship has lived of this push/pull dynamic for so long. However, by now I think this has already been dragged at least one full season too long (The whole Paula thing was so out of character for Harvey it hurt). I’m not sure how people are feeling about new Darvey drama. I think the best way to go would be the viewers finding out that Darvey have been “Darvey” since Mike and Rachel’s wedding and thus showing that them being an item does not necessarily change the ZSL firm dynamic. There have been other shows where it worked well to have the main characters have an endgame relationship (Bones) and there have been shows where the never-ending push and pull ultimately destroys the show (House MD). Just saying. But I’l keep watching and hoping for things to take a different turn in the last two episodes of 8A and in 8B.
