When SUITS debuted last year, it was premised on a young man given the chance of a lifetime: to pretend to be an attorney at one of the most preeminent law firms in New York City. For Mike Ross and his mentor, Harvey Spector, the game was on. Mike may not be a licensed attorney, but his photographic memory and innate fascination with the law made him the perfect tool in a high-stakes chess game. For Harvey, senior partner at the firm of Pearson & Hardman, there was no greater challenge than bringing Mike in to see how long they could get away with the carefully constructed illusion that Mike was a lawyer. But what started as a challenge and a game soon became something much more – it was a way for both to rediscover their passion for law. The legal realm may look and feel stuffy when approached through the normal channels, but when there is a game afoot, everyone becomes more vested in the outcome. Mike and Harvey are not simply playing a game, they are in it to win.
Unfortunately, in a bold checkmate move, one of Mike’s closest friends revealed his secret to the firm’s name partner Jessica Pearson at the end of the first season. The repercussions of that revelation could change the stakes of Mike and Harvey’s game forever. As a special treat, at a recent set visit, star Patrick J. Adams shared a few clues about how Mike’s life and relationships will change over the course of the second season of SUITS.
Trevor’s Betrayal
PATRICK: It’s going to come to a head obviously. I mean he really betrayed Mike’s trust and I think that if there’s one thing that I’m screamed at on the street about most often it’s to get rid of that Trevor guy. So we definitely deal with it coming up. There’s a good scene coming up with Mike and him, and obviously something’s coming to come out of that. Hopefully the fans will be pleased. I’m not sure. There’s some people who love him. I mean I love him. Tom Lipinksi and I have the best time in the world. So it’s hard because everybody hates him or loves him.
Mike’s Journey
PATRICK: This season, well, we’re just figuring it out. Right now Mike’s journey is picking up right where we left off. . . There’s a great story line with Harvey and Mike dealing with this past thing that’s coming up to haunt Harvey again. So we all kind of rallying around him and Mike’s spending a lot of time just being an associate for the first few episodes and doing what he can to help him out.
Mike & Rachel
PATRICK: The love-life heats up a little bit, but I won’t speak too much to the specifics. . . It obviously leaves some room for something else to potentially to be happening and heating up. But it’s nice because, obviously with any office romance, there’s going to be trouble. So it’s not like we can just jump right into a relationship with Rachel. There’s all sorts of conflicts of interest. . . I hope it’s on. They’re writing a ton of good stuff this season. I’m really happy with that particular storyline this season. I don’t want to go into too many specifics, but they’re not shying away from it. I know that from what they’ve seen of what we’ve shot. . . It’s like you’ve got to find that perfect timing in life when two people can come together and it actually works. It’s not rushed, but it’s not too late – and they’re doing it I think really pitch-perfectly. I think they’re building it in a high stakes environment, like this relationship’s a hard thing to make work and I think that these two characters are so interested in one another, but they don’t want to forfeit what they’ve worked so hard to attain. Especially for Mike. He’s in a difficult situation because he didn’t attain this in the typical way and he can’t share that with anybody. So that’s going to create a lot of conflict in him to be able to enter into a really loving true relationship with someone if he is kind of all based on a lie. But the writing for it has been terrific and I think they had an idea of where it is supposed to go this season.
The Mike-Harvey Friendship
PATRICK: It’s as if we’re fighting for constant transformation and evolution. I think that’s what keeps things interesting. There’s two things always going on: there’s a deepening of friendship — I think the mentor thing becomes more of a mutual respect. In the first season, Mike was falling all over himself a lot, dropping files and not figuring it out. I think in this season, Mike’s becoming a little bit more confident in what he can do and what he is capable of and he sees that. That gives me more to do on my own hopefully moving down the road. At the same time I think there’s going to be an evolution of conflict between Harvey’s way of winning and Mike’s way of winning. I’ve always thought of Mike as like a moral character in an immoral world. Like you’re sitting in like a corporate law firm and corporate law firms are not always participating in the most moral behavior. So I think eventually he’s gonna have to come up against that. Mike’s always struggling with how to remain moral and keep this compass that he has strong. It’s what makes him who he is and at the same time, it allows him to follow his dreams of becoming a lawyer and being successful and doing well in this firm. I think there’s always going to be a really interesting struggle there — to keep what is him, but at the same time try to impress Harvey and do well and come up in this world. So that is going to deepen our relationship and sometimes have to separate it because even in the first season we had a lot of moments where it put us on two sides of the fence. Like where Mike said, “I don’t want to be your kind of lawyer, I don’t want to be you all those moments.” I think that’s always going to be an element of the relationship.
Louis Litt
PATRICK: They are writing incredible stuff for Rick this season. I think he’s such a great actor and he makes such bold choices and I think the writer’s room and he have synced up in this amazing way where you’re just going to see they’re just going to run with the ball that is Louis now. I mean they’re making some hilarious choices about his character, who he is, and he’s just the kind of guy who can, but you believe anything about Louis if you told him. I mean he just goes so far to the ridiculous. So, as a result, we’re tied together a little bit more. We’re all kind of banding together to make this thing work this season because Hardman comes in and we have this presence that could be potentially threatening to everybody. But obviously Louis kind of walks the thin line between both of those worlds, right? Louis — like there’s a part of him where it’s he could maybe head off towards Hardman, I think. There’s a question of where’s he going to stand on either side? He’s been used and abused by Jessica and Harvey for so long and obviously Mike there kind of as Harvey’s protégé and in that he’s always going to treat Mike with that sort of disrespect. And I think it makes for a lot of really funny, funny scenes. And actually a couple of touching ones. We had a good episode recently where him and I are kind of paired together for the whole episode and I’m handed off to him — I think as a result of a bet from the first season Harvey never made good on — so that sort of happens coming up this season, too. And I get to sort of connect with him in a different way. So again, it’s not black-or-white. Like the poster says, it’s never going to be “we’re enemies.” It’s great because we can be enemies one episode then we can be friends the next.
To see what exactly happened when Jessica Pearson confronts Mike, be sure to tune in to this week’s 2nd season premiere of SUITS on Thursday, June 14th at 10:00 p.m. on USA Network. You’re not going to believe what happens!
Related:
“Fun photos from the set of SUITS – set 1”
“Fun candid photos of the cast from the SUITS set visit – set 2”
Where to find this article:
The TV Watchtower 
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