The season five finale of the legal drama "Suits" is filled with several flashbacks and tough decisions to make for both Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) and Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams). Both men have to right the wrongs of their past, but that does not mean that it will be easy.
The show's executive producer Aaron Korsh talked about the compelling season finale with TV Line saying, "The focus of the episode is very much on the backstories of both Harvey and Mike influencing their decisions and what they're going to do moving forward."
For Pearson Specter Litt's newest junior partner, that meant visiting an old priest who played a significant role in his childhood, and as for Specter, that meant conquering the demons wrought by his mother in the past.
Korsh said that it was a challenge for them to deliver something new this season, and when executive producer Dan Arkin suggested that Harvey go to therapy, he was initially against it.
"My initial reaction was, 'No way! There's no way he would ever go to therapy. And what would those scenes be?' I remember coming up with the idea of the scene where the therapist turns into Donna, and I was like, 'Oh, that's a 'Suits' way of doing therapy. I like that!' Then the only way Harvey's going to therapy is if he absolutely has to. That led to the panic attack idea," he shared.
They decided to feature flashbacks in the season finale to help Mike and Harvey grapple with huge decisions they have to make in life - whether they should stay in their respective careers or just go.
"We had been wanting to explore Harvey and his mom stuff from the beginning of the year, once he was in therapy, and this just presented itself as a way to dovetail those two. With Mike, I don't 100 percent remember how the idea of the priest came out, but it was a way to give him someone that he knew his whole life, who's still alive, who he can go and talk to them about the thing, but the person didn't know what he'd been doing. It sheds so much light on him," he said.
Plus, having Trevor tell Mike to quit his job was also a jolt for Mike, and it was actually Trevor's words that made the junior associate seek the counsel of his priest.
There are a lot of power struggles in "Suits," but nothing more exciting than the one presented by former named partner Daniel Hardman. In fact, having him come back to the picture was quite the surprise for Korsh as well.
"I will say this, we brought in Jack Soloff to shake things up in the beginning of the year and we had no notion that he was going to be in cahoots with Hardman," he said. "I think it was around Episode 5 or 6, we had two different rooms going one day and both rooms, literally in the same minute, came up with the idea that he was in cahoots with Hardman."
