Summary
Suitsintended to bring back former leading character Jessica Pearson for a series finale scene with Harvey Specter but couldn’t due to unavoidable conflicts with Gina Torres' new show. Torres played Pearson, the charismatic partner of the major NYC law firm on which the series is based, through season 6, when she became the firstmain cast member to leaveSuitsearly. As did her character,Torres left theSuitsseriesbehind for personal and professional reasons. In-universe, Pearson leaves her partner position in NYC for Chicago, where she feels she can pursue a more impactful type of law.
Behind the scenes,Torres struggled to maintain the constant commute between her Los Angeles home andSuits’set in Toronto. Since her contract expired after season 6 anyway, she took the opportunity to exit the series. It wasn’t the last theSuitsfranchise saw of Torres, though, as she received the chance to reprise her character as the lead intheSuitsspinoff seriesPearson, which was Illinois-based and somewhat closer to her place of residence. Thefranchise even aimed to take her reprisal opportunities further, going so far as to write her into aSuitsseries finalescene.
What Happens To Jessica In Suits – When She Leaves, Why & Her Spinoff Story Explained
Gina Torres' Jessica Pearson unexpectedly leaves Pearson, Hardman because of personal reasons, but her story is supposed to continue beyond Suits.
Gina Torres' Suits Finale Cameo Was Cut Due To Conflicts With Pearson
Suits' Sinking Spinoff Hindered Torres' Cameo
Unfortunately, the franchise shot itself in the foot before realizingit couldn’t effortlessly reintroduce Torres' character back intoSuitswhile thePearsonspinoff existed. In a 2019 interview withEntertainment Weekly,Suits’creator Aaron Korsh spoke about his revelations of the doomed circumstance - admitting that ifPearsonhadn’t been a part of the picture, Torres could’ve easily appeared ina greatSuits’cameo.PearsonandSuitsaired back-to-back on USA, and Korsh’s biggest reservation occurred when thinking about how far-fetched Torres' cameo would’ve been from the viewer’s perspective. Per Korsh:
…I felt like if I was a viewer watching TV, and one minute I’m seeing Jessica up to her eyeballs in intrigue and back dealings and fighting for the life of the city onPearson, and then in the very next show acting like none of that is happening and she’s just in here waltzing in and saving the day and yucking it up at a wedding, it would lose the credibility thatPearsonhad.
Pearson’sreception was especially critical because it’d been flirting with cancellation concerns since its release. None ofPearson’sepisodes attracted more than 570,000 viewers (viaMovieWeb), and it needed to make production decisions with its best interests in mind. While keeping Torres fromSuitswas intuitive thinking, it was also in vain, asPearsonwas canceled after its first season for low viewership. By the time theSuitsteam wrote Torres' prospective cameo, all thePearsonsets for her to shoot on were gone, and flying her back to Toronto for a cameo was too excessive an option.
Suits’franchise looks to start anew with the upcoming spinoff seriesSuits L.A.but no original cast members have been confirmed.
What Jessica Pearson’s Suits Finale Scene Would Have Been
Pearson Would Have Advised Harvey One Last Time
Torres' cameo wouldn’t have hugely changedSuits’finale, but the plansKorsh had for her would’ve complemented the flagship series with full-circle sentiment. Amid the last case on the TV show, which finds Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) coerced into defending attorney Faye Richardson (Denise Crosby) after Samantha Wheeler (Katherine Heigl) sues her for wrongful termination, Specter would have sought Pearson out for advice. Korsh imagined a scene where Harvey calls Pearson the morning of the finale’s big conference scene, asking for her opinion on the matter while she simultaneously is preparing to deal with some heavy happenings in Chicago.
Pearson’s advice to Harvey would not have changed Faye’s fate in the series, but it would have been a great moment to witness. Pearson was Harvey’s trusted mentor throughout her entire six-season run, andhaving Harvey lean on her one last time beforeSuitsended for good would have been an incredibly heartwarming way to close out their character arcs. Because conflicts with thePearsonspinoff impeded Torres' physical cameo appearance, Korsh instead incorporated her voice inSuits’season finale, which viewers can hear in the episode’s culminating memory sequence.
Suits
Cast
Suits is a legal drama series that premiered in 2011, centering on Mike Ross, a college dropout with a photographic memory who lands a job at a top New York law firm despite lacking a law degree. Partnering with one of the city’s best legal closers, Harvey Specter, they navigate the challenges of high-stakes cases and firm dynamics.
