'Suits' Creator Talks Show-Changing Season Finale Twists

Spoiler alert! If you haven’t seen the Season 4 finale of Suits, “Not Just a Pretty Face,” stop reading now. The promo for the episode promised that the firm would be forever changed, and it was right: Donna decided it’s time to work for Louis instead of Harvey; Mike and Rachel got engaged; and Norma is dead.

Creator Aaron Korsh broke down the twists and teased where Pearson Spector Litt goes from here in Season 5.

Where did the idea to kill off Norma, Louis’s unseen secretary, come from?
It popped into one of our heads. We had wanted Donna to leave Harvey for Louis, and Norma dying and it breaking Louis into pieces seemed like a good way to make that happen. It just all seemed to work together to further cement Donna and Louis’s relationship in the wake of Donna being so upset about Harvey. And you see at that funeral, when Louis was like, ‘He doesn’t even know how lucky he is to have you,’ and she turns, and Harvey’s not even there, she realizes she’s got to finish with this thing.

Related: 'Suits' Creator Talks Harvey's 'You Know I Love You,' Teases Season Finale

How do you see Donna’s move impacting the show?
Obviously, Harvey is deeply affected by this. We’ve seen Harvey get upset in the past over a client leaving him — “People don’t leave me” — and this is Donna. So it’s clear that this is going to have a big impact on Harvey.

The thing about Donna leaving to go to Louis is, it’s going to inevitably put her in a position of sometimes having to choose between Louis and Harvey. She’s shown Louis she’s a loyal person — that’s going to mean she’s going to want to stick with Louis — but, you know, Louis does not always make excellent decisions. So sometimes, when Louis is kind of being a douche, she’s going to have to choose between Louis and Harvey. So that’s going to be interesting.

Then the interesting thing for Louis is, you think, “Here he is, he finally got what he always wanted.” But then the character of Louis is such that the second he gets what he wants, he either wants something much more or he is worried about losing what he has. That’s just Louis. So he’s going to have to go through that also.

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In your mind, did Donna make the decision because she knows she should move on, or is part of her hoping that leaving will show Harvey how lucky he was to have her?
In my head, she thinks she’s doing it to move on, but there are probably layers underneath it that she’s doing it in the hopes that he will miss her and want to have a relationship. In her head, she’s not punishing him, and she’s not trying to make him go to the next level — she’s thinking it’s time to move on. But I feel like if it really were time to move on, she would leave the firm and not go to Louis.

Harvey’s speech to Donna at the end was interrupted. He was telling her that he doesn’t pity her. He thinks she’s one of the most amazing women he’s ever met. Just because he doesn’t — and then she cut him off. Did you know how that speech was going to end?
That’s a good question. Many, many times when we have someone cut someone off, it sounds good to us while we’re writing, and then, we’re like, “Wait a minute. We better know what they were going to say because actors are probably going to want to know, and legitimately so.” I think it’s just because he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with her doesn’t mean he doesn’t think that [she’s one of the most amazing women he’s ever met].

Related: 'Suits' Star Patrick J. Adams on That Headlock, Casting Tricia Helfer as the Female Harvey

Donna says, “I love you, Harvey” before she walks out of his office. How should we interpret that?
There was a lot of discussion about what all of the “I love you”s meant between me and the writers and Gabriel [Macht] and Sarah [Rafferty]. The interesting thing about it is, you show that script or that scene to 10 different people, and you’re going to get 10 different responses to what it means. So even if I say what it means to me, I’m aware that people can see what they’re going to see.

So when we’d originally written it, there was discussion of, “Is it a little bit of a f—k you to Harvey?” But we ended up moving away from that. I think in her mind, she’s saying, “I love you. We love each other. But it’s not meant to be right now.” Like in the same sense that he said, “You know that I love you” [last episode] to try to make her feel better, she said it like, “This doesn’t mean I don’t care for you. It means I need to take care of myself right now.”

Does this mean we’ll see Harvey get a new secretary? And what might she be like?
It sounds like we will be getting Harvey a new secretary, and we just landed on our first notion of who she was on Friday night. I tend to change my mind about these things, so I won’t say.

Moving on to Mike and Rachel: Now they’re engaged. What’s next for them?
The thing with Harvey and Donna is, when the original pilot came out, I never envisioned them as a romantic couple. It seemed fun to find these moments of Donna seeming to somewhat long for Harvey, and to have this chemistry, and that’s kind of evolved over time. But Rachel was always meant to be Mike’s love interest. So it’s just interesting that they stick together while Harvey and Donna are splitting apart.

What can I tease? You know, sometimes you get engaged, and it takes a year to plan a wedding and then you have a wedding. So I don’t think every episode is going to be about their nuptials, but it does exist. We don’t ignore it.

Robert Zane is going to make an appearance in Season 5 and kind of get involved with them in a legal way, and that’s going to have some ramifications on their relationships with each other and with him.

Related: 'Suits' Postmortem: Creator Talks Jessica and Louis' Chess Match

And now to Jessica… She admitted to Harvey that her head isn’t in the right place now. Where does she go from here?
We are still working through the ramifications for next season, so it is still a little up in the air for her. But she’s a very strong person, and she is going to persevere and move on. And still, the most important thing in her life, at this time, is her firm. She lost Jeff, and it doesn’t seem like she’s getting him back at the end of the season, so she’s not going to just let her firm fall apart in the face of Donna leaving Harvey for Louis.

Last question, as Forstman was being arrested, he told Harvey this isn’t over. Will we see that character again? Eric Roberts was so great in this episode.
He was great. I had not met him until the finale, and he’s such a nice guy. As a side note, I cast him because he was on Justified. I told him I just steal all their cast. I can’t believe they got Garret Dillahunt. I’m behind. Don’t spoil anything for me. But it remains to be seen [if we’ll see Forstman again]. He says that because obviously nothing is ever over with him. It’s like all Suits characters, you know: They’re always able to return because they haven’t died. Right now, there are no plans to bring him back, but we’re early in [breaking] Season 5, so it could absolutely happen.