Four years after Suits ended its television run, it became the most-streamed show of 2023. Racking up 57.7 billion minutes of viewing long after your show is cancelled is no easy feat, but somehow the series centering on lawyers, their clients, and the never-ending drama of their lives ended up coming back for a 2025 sequel series, Suits LA. But the original is still the best.
From the gibberish-packed theme song to the trash-talking cast, each episode of Suits was designed to be binged. Once you start learning about these characters, you’ll have to make sure you make it to the end to see how the story ends. The legal drama, which debuted all the way back in 2011, stars Gabriel Macht as Harvey Spector, the pompous but profound senior partner at Pearson Hardman. At the show’s start, Mike Ross, played by Patrick J. Adams, is a drug dealer with a photographic memory who passed the Bar exam on a dare. Though Ross never went to law school and isn’t technically a lawyer, Spector gives him a shot at his firm.
Photo by USA Networks/Courtesy Everett Collection
Plot Twist
Suits evolves a whole lot over the next nine seasons, raising the bar with storylines you will never see coming. There’s romance, legal battles, corporate espionage, and enough pop-culture references to make even the most diehard cinephile giddy. Before, every television show was a walk down nostalgia lane, Spector and Ross went back and forth with Top Gun and Rocky quotes.
Though the dynamic between the main bros is undeniable, it’s the other lawyers or legal associates that keep the story from getting dull. There’s Spector’s legal secretary and confidante Donna Paulsen (Sarah Rafferty), the firm’s leader Jessica Pearson (Gina Torres), and Ross’ love interest and colleague Rachel Zane (the Duchess of Sussex, a.k.a. Meghan Markle).
Louis Litt, played by Rick Hoffman, is my favorite lawyer on TV. He starts as a neurotic chauvinist who can’t stand when anyone gets in his way, sabotaging his friends and colleagues for just a little bit of clout. His cluelessness makes him the funniest character by far. But as the show progresses, he falls in love and starts a family, becoming far more than just a shrill, beaver-faced man.
Photo by USA Networks/Courtesy Everett Collection
A Compelling Evolution
It’s the character growth across the ensemble that makes Suits so bingeable. Many procedurals start and end with characters left unchanged—maybe someone got a new haircut or arm candy. But nobody on Suits remains untouched by the end. All the backstabbing and betrayal alone would scar a normal person, and these characters really get put through the ringer.
Though some of Suits’ popularity explosion had to do with the entire series coming to Netflix, there’s no way it would have gotten this popular if it wasn’t so compelling. I finished the entire series in a matter of months, faster than I’ve binged any show that wasn’t a cartoon or anime. I highly recommend you give it a shot.
