Gina Torres' Spin-Off Is Much Darker Than Suits

Suits' Jessica Pearson (Gina Torres) is back in the courtroom, but unlike we've ever seen her before.

The Season 7 finale of Suits also served as the launch pad for the new spin-off centered on the next chapter of Jessica's career in Chicago. While The former managing partner of Pearson Spector Litt was basically an oracle of law on the flagship show, her new surroundings and legal enemies are already pushing Jessica to the brink.

Suits is about opulence, and Jessica's tenure on the show was mostly about her ability to maintain the kingdom that was her law firm. It was all corner offices and floor to ceiling glass window conference rooms. The first look at the spin-off was city streets and midnight meetings in abandoned construction grounds. The spin-off won't be about cutting deals or playing word tango with billionaires across steak dinners, it's about Jessica getting her hands dirty.

It was revealed in the Suits finale that Jessica went to Chicago to reconnect with her family that her father turned his back on when he became a famous surgeon. In trying to help her less wealthy aunt and cousins, Jessica picked a big fight with the mayor, the city attorney who isn't afraid to play dirty and a crooked building developer who would do anything to bend the law to his will.

By the end of the hour, Jessica had forsaken her noble cause of taking the dirty politicians down and decided to join their side. At the very least, it would stop the mayor's enforcer from cornering her outside of office buildings late at night, but on the other hand it could end up with her dead if she doesn't sell her soul when they want her to. A key witness in her last case was already found in a body bag to prove that the people she's gotten in bed with aren't messing around.

Harvey Spector (Gabriel Macht) was willing to bend the rules every now and again when the firm was backed into a corner, but the Jessica centered spin-off will see the former moral compass having to grapple with her own morality and figuring out what lines she will and will not cross to get the job done. The spin-off seems to be taking a darker approach to the law and upping the stakes by centering on people who either make the rules or don't think they apply to them. Jessica has already proven she's a master chess player, but can she handle it when someone keeps changing the board?

The problems on Suits rarely challenged Jessica. She was almost always the one to come up with the winning play to save Harvey, Mike (Patrick J. Adams) and Louis (Rick Hoffman). Now settling into Chicago, it seems that Jessica has finally found herself in a city and situation that are over her head. It's going to be an interesting ride to see a Jessica Pearson backed into the corner, as the one making mistakes and having to figure out quickly how to correct them.

The stakes aren't just billable hours or the reputation of a firm anymore. Jessica's spin-off is life or death.