9 Couples From ‘Suits,’ Ranked
Now that nearly the entire developed world has fallen in love with Suits, thanks to its domination of Netflix last year — and with the series turning 13 on June 23 — it’s only fitting to take a moment to celebrate some of the reasons why we’re all so smitten. Of course, there is the top-notch ensemble. Led by Patrick J. Adams as Mike Ross, the genius dropout who never attended law school, and Gabriel Macht‘s Harvey Specter, the high-powered corporate lawyer who hired him and kept his secret, the USA series bristled with their banter and dynamic duo vibe that would carry the show through 99 percent of its nine-season run (2011-2019). Even after Adams left before the final season, fans still considered him part of the family and warmly embraced his return for the final episodes.
At the same time, we had a whole bastion of beloved characters to keep us occupied, including Sarah Rafferty‘s unsinkable Donna Paulsen, Gina Torres‘ graceful badass Jessica Pearson, Rick Hoffman‘s Louis Litt (easily the Most Improved Character Ever) and, in the last seasons, the new regime played by Katherine Heigl, Dule Hill and Amanda Schull. There were also wildly absorbing cases, some that wound up factoring into future seasons, as well as a great respect for the history of the show’s events. Something that happened in Season 2 might matter down the road, or a character we thought was off the canvas would return in a surprising new capacity.
The show was also slick as hell in both production design and styling (the costumes, my god!), and it broke the mold when it came to legal dramas, in that these folks rarely entered a courtroom. When they did, it was usually one of their own on trial. And don’t even get us started on the drinking game that could have been created around the ever-changing names on the wall of the show’s law firm. Pearson Hardman. Just Pearson. Then Pearson Darby. Pearson Darby Specter. Pearson Specter. Pearson Specter Litt. Specter Litt. The place had more partners than the guy on Sister Wives.
But for real, it was the relationships that hooked us. Be it the Mike-Harvey bromance, the fractured family ties that caused the characters’ internal issues, or any one of the many actual couples that popped up along the way — including the one that inspired its own hashtag — Suits had no shortage of romances worth making a case for.
Do you agree with our ranking? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
9. Harvey Specter & Paula Agard
A shrink dating her client? Straight to jail.
8. Harvey Spector & Dana Scott
Like the law school version of high-school sweethearts, these two started dating at Harvard, where “Scottie” (Abigail Spencer) was actually a better student than our boy. Reuniting years later, Scottie was still so into him that she betrayed her own law firm boss to help Harvey win a case against him. This may have cost her a job (and a fiancée), but it did free Scottie up to join Pearson in Season 3’s “British Invasion” season, during which she also moved in with Harvey. It soon became clear that while they were right on paper, they were wrong for each other…especially after he admitted that Mike wasn’t a real lawyer, and she realized she would never be Donna. They crossed paths several times throughout the rest of the show, and even though Scottie frequently offered to reconcile, Harvey never seemed to trust her. And for real, we’re still not so sure she didn’t have a hand in exposing Mike’s fraud.
7. Donna Paulsen & Thomas Kessler
Obviously, they were doomed since he wasn’t Harvey, and well, duh. But we still had fun seeing Donna get a little action of her own with the tall, dark, and handsome furniture designer (Sasha Roiz) who hired Louis to help him with a contractual issue. Of course, he got caught in the crosshairs of Darvey’s codependency and wound up having to lie on the stand, which led to Robert Zane’s wrongful disbarment and a night of passion between Donna and Harvey. By the time his arc was over, the guy had been manipulated by his own legal team and cheated on, so hopefully, he takes some comfort in knowing that he was the one who basically primed the pump for the show’s long-awaited central coupling.
6. Louis Litt & Tara Messer
Even though Louis’ short-lived Season 6 relationship with the interior designer (played by the underrated and awesome Carly Pope) was messy as hell—he hired her to redo a Hamptons home he didn’t even own and she wound up pregnant with someone else’s kid—we still celebrate it. After all, if Tara didn’t dump ass for treating her like crap after learning that he’d blackmailed Jessica, the ensuing heartbreak may have never led him to look at his anger issues and evolve into a man worthy of the woman he wound up with.
5. Mike Ross & Harvey Specter
Yeah, we’ve seen the fanfic. Y’all are wild.
4. Mike Ross & Rachel Zane
He was a liar from humble roots, she (Meghan Markle) was a paralegal with a wealthy family. They had no business making so much sense, and she even kept Mike at arm’s length at first. But his stoner puppy-dog cuteness got to her, and they tried dating secretly to no avail. It was only after she learned of his lies and lit into him that we saw the real sparks fly, resulting in Season 2’s unforgettable file-room romp. From there, it was an unending litany of romantic trials, from her being afraid to lose him after being accepted into Stanford Law and a secret kiss with one of her exes to his affair with a married childhood friend and, you know, incarceration for committing fraud.
Thankfully, Rachel had as much patience as Mike had devotion to making things right—the man was put away after proposing to her—because all this chaos (and their time on the series) came to a picture-perfect close with their Season 7 nuptials. “Theirs is an unfettered happy ending,” executive producer and series creator Aaron Korsh said at the time. “Although they’re not just leaving the show as actors, they are also leaving the lives of these characters. So there is some bitter-sweetness to that.”
3. Jessica Pearson & Jeff Malone
Honestly, Jessica should just be No. 1 because this woman found the perfect kind of love—for herself—and gave us the supreme level of Boss Bitch perfection before that horrible term ever existed. As one of the founding and name partners of the continually name-changing firm, La Pearson was regal, quick-witted, and not afraid to put her neck out to win a case or save her staff’s hide. So it takes a formidable man to meet her energy and Jeff Malone (D.B. Woodside) checked all of the boxes. Handsome as hell, pretty moral and surprisingly tolerant of her devotion to a team that was in crisis on a weekly basis, Jessica’s romance with the former prosecutor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ebbed and flowed over the course of the show, eventually firming up during their short-lived time together in the Chicago-set Pearson spinoff.
2. Louis Litt & Sheila Sazs
Meet cute, they did not! Before becoming the head of admissions at Columbia, Sheila (Rachael Harris) was the one at Harvard who clashed with Louis over severing the firm’s recruitment ties with the university. Smart, funny and not one to suffer the foolishness of Mr. Litt, Sheila nevertheless fell for him, leading to an engagement that ended over his desire for kids she didn’t want to have. The pair reignited their antagonistic energy in Season 5 when she anonymously tipped off the U.S. Attorney’s office about Mike’s fraudulent claims of being a Harvard grad.
After threatening to expose their earlier affair and ruin her credibility, Louis strong-armed her into fleeing to Argentina so she couldn’t be called to testify against Mike. Still, the duo couldn’t deny their oddball chemistry and eventually wound up not just marrying but having a daughter together. As one of the only people who could ever make Louis genuinely happy, Sheila belongs in the Suits Hall of Fame.
1. Harvey Specter & Donna Paulsen
Obviously, we’d be taken to litigation if these two didn’t top the list, but it’s an easy win. Even though Harvey may have thought he was the alpha when it came to slick legalese and perfectly tailored togs, Suits fans know that behind this best-dressed and emotionally messy man was an even greater woman. And it was Donna all along. Starting off as Harvey’s legal secretary and impressing her way to the top as COO of Specter Litt Wheeler Williams, the two eventually tied the knot in the series finale. The brainy powerhouse brought so much g.d. chemistry to the table from the get-go that fans were in a frenzy to see #Darvey pair up starting with the pilot.
“I have always felt that we should wait as long as possible to put them together,” Macht told us back in 2019 after they finally hooked up in the Season 8 finale. Totally worth it. Following years of near-misses, can-opener in-jokes, and other lovers, Harvey—shook by managing partner Robert Zane (Wendell Pierce) sacrificing his own career to keep them from going to prison for breaking client confidentiality—showed up at Donna’s door a different man.
Finally ready to face the reality of what he could have lost, Harvey was no longer able to deny that his former longtime executive assistant (whom he slept with once in 2003, during a brief interlude when they weren’t colleagues) was his forever person. In a silent, sexy move, she led him into her apartment and it was HOT. “We talked a lot about the moment when he came to the door,” Rafferty recalled with the same frank, Brené Brown–ish wisdom we’ve come to expect from her witty alter ego. “And we decided that it would be wordless. Harvey comes to the door, she sees in his face that he has changed—like he’s different than he has ever been—and that is why she [pulls] him in.”
Grabbed us too, and they still haven’t let us go.
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