'Suits' Postmortem: Gabriel Macht on Those Darvey Scenes, Harvey's Next Step

“That was a dream?!” Gabriel Macht jokes.

You know the scene he’s talking about if you’ve watched episode 611 of USA’s Suits, “She’s Gone.” Did you think, for a second, that Harvey (Macht) and Donna (Sarah Rafferty) really did spend the night together following their mid-season finale hand-holding when the hour began with Donna bringing Harvey coffee in bed and them sharing a kiss? It surprised Macht, too. “I was like, ‘Okay, here [creator Aaron Korsh] goes, this is it. They’re together,’ when I first read it, and then, halfway through, I was like ‘Okay, this is a dream. This has got to be a dream.’ I think I got it before he wakes up and goes [gasps]. It’s a total tease, but it does give fans exactly what they think they want.”

Here, Macht talks about the meaning of that dream and what lies ahead for Harvey.

The dream does play into what Donna told Harvey, for real, at the end of the hour: He needs to reconcile with his family so his colleagues aren’t his only family and he doesn’t lose himself whenever they choose to leave the firm. Why is now the right time for the show to revisit Harvey’s history with his mother and really delve into it?
Gabriel Macht: I think because he’s so dislocated from the firm and from himself, really embracing his past is what he needs for his future, to be present and to be strong and to really step up and become the managing partner — if that’s what he’s going to become. I think he needs to grow up.

Most of all, I think he’s been so heavily planted in his work and he’s very much a workaholic, and I think that because of this disruption of Jessica leaving and Mike not wanting to come back to the firm, Donna is the voice of reason and she’s saying, “Look, I think you need to go deal with some stuff.” That’s what a great partner or a great better half does — challenges you when you might be at your most vulnerable to build you back up. And so, I think this journey for Harvey is going to have great success, if he can really be present and listen.

We will see his mother, Lily, now played by Brynn Thayer (Ray Donovan, How to Get Away with Murder), in the next episode. Had you met Brynn before?
No, we saw a flashback when Harvey was a kid with his mother, and we saw Harvey with that same mother, in that same episode, when he was an adult. The actress was a little young, so to play this next version of her, they hired Brynn Thayer, and she was just terrific. Basically all I can say is he attempts to make what was wrong, right. He connects with his mother and his brother, and we’re going to learn a lot more about where Harvey has been coming from in the last 10 years.

And will that bring Harvey and Donna closer?
Maybe. Yes. Yes. I would say it’s one more notch in the “All right, I got your back.”

Harvey and Mike do not end this episode in a good place. Mike screams at Harvey after Harvey’s good intentions backfire and AUSA Anita Gibbs tells Mike she’ll make sure he never works at a legal clinic. What’s their dynamic moving forward?
I think they’re both feeling really alone right now. Even though Mike has Rachel, I think he’s sensing that he’s starting all over and he’s got to build his career back, and he doesn’t even know what career it’s going to be or how he’s going to manage to do that. His emotions are real raw, and so are Harvey’s. Harvey’s trying to figure out how he’s going to manage keeping this firm alive, and to do it without Mike, who he really trusts. So often I suggest that Donna is Harvey’s right-hand man, but so is Mike in a way. So both of them are feeling extremely raw, but I think they’re pretty forgiving with each other when they go off on each other. Honestly, I think most characters in television shows that are regulars are very forgiving. [Laughs] If you last at least six or seven seasons, people are getting pissed off with each other and they’re making up, and they’re pissed off and they’re making up. That’s the rational way of looking at it. “Of course, yeah, they’re hot right now. But hey, next week I think they forgive each other.”

Are we going to see them have scenes together as they figure things out, or are they really on their separate paths at the moment?
I think for the next episode or two, they’re on their own paths, and they’re really trying to figure out what their journey is separate from each other. Then, I think, little by little, they accept each other’s rightful journey and, little by little, things start happening where they end up needing each other. [The series] really started out as Mike and Harvey were the heart of the show, but it’s become a great ensemble. I think as we get closer to the end of this season, 6B, you’re going to see them make every effort to try and work together.

Moving on to Harvey and Louis, they obviously get into it at the end of this episode, too, with Harvey unleashing on Louis just as Louis is ready to admit that he isn’t ready to be managing partner. We’ve seen them literally come to blows before, but I assume they’ll work this out. What’s next for them?
Again, they figure it out. They accept their limitations. They understand how they can best help each other, and actually, in the next four of five episodes, they come to realize that they do need each other and they work their best to become friends. Louis is going through a lot of stuff with his fiancée, and she’s having a baby, and he leans on Harvey and asks for some advice on how to deal with that, and so there’s some actually pretty funny scenes that are coming, and some sensitive scenes with the two of them. Then Louis gets some information from Donna regarding Harvey’s journey and allows some of the explosion that Harvey has on him in this episode, 611, to sort of fall by the wayside. There are good ways of forgiving and figuring out how to move forward with the two of them.

Louis did manage to hire back Katrina, who’s bringing associates with her from Robert Zane’s firm. Will they play a large role in the rest of Season 6, or is there too much going on elsewhere?
Yeah, we’re not going to explore those characters just yet. We will see some characters that we’ve seen in previous seasons, as we always do. But I think [the new hires] need to be explored in Season 7.

Will Robert Zane be a factor moving forward?
That offer to have Rachel work in his law firm will always exist, and I think the idea to keep Zane and Specter Litt in contention with each other has some good story lines. All the adversaries become likeable friends on this show, so who knows. Maybe they’ll join forces at some point.

Last question: Will Harvey move into Jessica’s office, or is that like sacred ground and he’ll stay in his?
Oh gosh, that’s a good question. I don’t know the answer to that. I would prefer Harvey not to take that office. Jessica’s office is very hard to shoot in. Unless they renovate that office completely, I would suggest and make every effort to figure out how to make that some sort of special space for other people to work in… I think the idea is whoever becomes managing partner would take over that office, and if that’s what’s to be done, then hey, I’ll support it.

Suits airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on USA.