Suits Finale: What Just Happened?! (And What’s Ahead for Next Season)

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen the Suits season finale, stop now and come back once you have!

Caught your breath yet? Suits fourth season just wrapped up and we are not OK with what went down. Not only did the era of Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) and his girl Friday, Donna (the amazing Sarah Rafferty), come to a crashing halt amid his inability to return her feelings for him, her choice to work for the wickedly needy Louis Litt (Rick Hoffman) allowed Litt to actually best his long-running foelleague—that would be foe and colleague. Thankfully Mike (Patrick J. Adams) popped the question to Rachel (Meghan Markle), because we needed something to celebrate. “When we came up with the idea of Donna and Harvey metaphorically breaking up, we thought it would be really nice if, at the same time, we had another couple coming together,” says series creator Aaron Korsh, who was kind enough to talk us off the ledge with his plans for Season 5.

Timing Is Everything

Despite seasons of sexual tension, raunchy fan fiction and vague mentions of a previous liaison, it seemed we’d never see the high-powered lawyer and his even more powerful executive assistant openly discuss their flirty dynamic. So why now? Actually, Donna facing prison for fraud wasn’t meant to open this particular can of squirms. “It wasn’t that we wanted to explore Harvey-Donna, we wanted to explore Donna,” says Korsh. “But the natural consequence was ‘Well, what is Harvey’s reaction to Donna being put on the hot seat?’ “

You Get Emotional Fallout! And You Get Emotional Fallout!

Admitting that Donna going to work for Louis is “going to cause a rift” within Pearson Specter Litt, Korsh feels it’ll be Harvey who’s hit hardest by the redhead’s decision. “We’ve set up a lot over the years. Harvey has issues with people leaving and abandoning him…and Donna is well aware of that. And now she has emotionally abandoned him, in his mind, so he’s obviously going to have to deal with some stuff with that.” As for Donna, Korsh hints that “she’s done what she felt she had to do, but may not have thought it through enough.” Especially once she realizes that her loyalties now must lie with her new boss, even when he and Harvey are going head-to-head. And Louis? “Look, he’s finally gotten the girl from Harvey. But Louis being Louis, the second he gets what he wants, he usually takes out a gun and starts shooting himself in the foot,” Korsh says with a laugh. “This is all going to be explored in Season 5.”

The New Abnormal

Don’t expect this split to be short-lived. “She will be working with Louis for a bit,” Korsh warns. “When we end a season on something, we try not to undo it quickly because I feel that is a bit of a cheat. And we want to make this [situation] last as long as we can.”

Hold Our Calls and Hide the Can Opener!

Given the deep connection Harvey and Donna shared—and how much fans adored their friendship—it will be hard to see anyone else answering Specter’s phones. And Korsh knows that. “We wrote her first scene on Monday,” he says of the still-unfilled role, promising that whoever takes the empty cube outside Harvey’s office is “not just another Donna.” Please, don’t let her be another Norma, either.

It Almost Happened One Night

Fun Fact: Donna and Harvey were supposed to do it in last week’s episode. “The idea was going to be, it was the night before her trial’s verdict, they’d been through this long legal battle, she’s petrified, lets down her walls, and it happens,” says Korsh. “Then the next day Harvey realizes that he doesn’t necessarily want to be in a relationship with her.” Feeling the D.A.’s case against Donna didn’t play out as long as they had planned, the writers instead came up with Harvey’s emotional confession that the thought of losing Donna makes him drop to his knees. “We just didn’t earn them sleeping together, but wanted to explore whether he was interested in a relationship with Donna or not, so it turned into that moment where they had the opportunity to do something and Harvey decides not to do it…that allowed for them to still have that conversation.”

Ex Sex

Now that Harvey and Donna are no longer working together—which was the case when they hooked up years ago, off-screen—could this be the time for them to try the romance thing once and for all? “That’s interesting,” concedes Korsh. “We’re not that deep into Season 5 yet. Before they can worry about that ever happening, they have some issues to work through first.”

Nups and Jolts

We say “I do” to Korsh’s plan to balance out all of this drama with the happy occasion of Mike and Rachel’s surprise engagement, as well as his guarantee that Ms. Zane won’t be a bridezilla when the show returns later this year. “I didn’t want to make Season 5 the season of every Mike-Rachel scene being them planning the wedding,” he offers. “I want it to be like it is in life, where it’s there and exists, but it’s not everything. We’ve had two of the writers get married in the last few years and we were aware of their weddings and they were planning them and had stuff going on, but in the work place, 90 percent of our conversations were not about that.” If the happy couple make it to the altar in Season 5, may we suggest they hire Donna—who can pretty much get anything done—as their wedding planner? “In the first episode [back], there is a very interesting scene between Rachel and Donna regarding the wedding,” previews Korsh. “It’s really a sweet, sweet scene.” We can’t even deal with who might be her plus-one!

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Harvey Specter .