Suits: The Firm Will Have to Pay for Its Sins in the Final Season

Suits has a new kind of "villain" for its final season and its a threat that the firm has never faced before. The New York Bar Association has decided to step in to finally make sure the firm straightens up and stops committing ethical violations.

The Bar will be represented by Faye Richardson (Denise Crosby), a no-nonsense woman who took over the firm at the end of the episode. So there won't be any squabbles about who should or shouldn't be managing partner anymore because Faye will be deciding how the firm runs now.

She is going to be a thorn in the side of everyone at the firm all season long, but it won't threaten Harvey (Gabriel Macht) and Donna's (Sarah Rafferty) happiness. However, it will test the loyalties of everyone at the firm and force them to work together better than ever before. Will they be able to pull it off? TV Guide talked to executive producer Aaron Korsh about the new threat and how it will affect the team.

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We were introduced to Faye Richardson in the final scene. How afraid of her should we be?Korsh: The reason she's different is kind of two-fold...I feel like she treats these people as though they are children and she is their mother. The power dynamic, she's so much more in-power than they are that it's like they're all seven years old and complaining about their bed time, and she's like, "You're not going to stay up late. No matter what you do, this isn't going to happen." She just feels so much more in command than they do in a lot of the early episodes. I think the other thing is she's not trying to take over the firm -- she has taken over the firm. She's not trying to take power from them, she's already taken it. So, it's just a different dynamic. We're not trying to save our firm, we have to endure her. We have to live with her. She's there, almost like an evil stepmother or a substitute teacher, or something like that.

...Also, she's not about, actually, power or greed. This is the other difference that she doesn't have. She's not [a] villain in the sense of she's after personal gain, she wants these people to straighten up and fly right. It's the one thing they don't want to do. None of them want to do it. They all react differently to her, and at times it causes conflict within our family, but at other times it causes unity within our family.

What can you say about what the bar's ultimate intentions are for this firm? It feels like they're getting very involved to try and fix them.
Korsh: The idea behind it is that we were thinking about it and we were like, "What is going on with this place?"...The governing body of ethical behavior in law firms, [sees] a firm that...lost two managing partners to ethics scandals in as many years, and they also had another lawyer be exposed for being a fraud. So, their goal is to make sure this group of, for lack of a better word, gunslinging cowboys straighten up and fly right. I think they've installed her to make sure that this firm acts in an ethical manner, and stays there until she's confident that this firm can act in an ethical manner.

Over the years, we have crossed so many lines it's ridiculous. I'm a fan of these characters and I love them. So, when they're doing it, oftentimes I, as a viewer and writer, am on their side, but when I look at it from the perspective of what the New York Bar would be looking at, they're unethical. They do not follow the strict ethical code. The season is about examining that and forcing them to examine that.

Getting into the Darvey of it all, they're in a little bit of a honeymoon period right now, which is very sweet, but how long can that last considering the world is constantly falling apart around them?
Korsh:What we wanted to do was, once they were together and on good grounds, keep them together and on good grounds...Even though the world around them is shaky, they're on shaky ground collectively...I would call it a stressor on their relationship, but that stressor, the episode where it stresses them out a bit is one of my favorites. It's actually Episode 3, that Gabriel directed, and it leads to, in my opinion, some really, really fun Darvey scenes, for lack of a better word. Fun scenes, and that also deepens their relationship.

...Oftentimes their back is against the wall and they're fighting to keep the firm from being taken over from someone. Because [Faye] is already there, she might work them up and piss them off, but it doesn't feel so urgent. It still allows them to have a real fun relationship. They're not going to wonder if they're going to break up, in a meaningful or significant way, this season. Not to say that they don't have a little bit of conflict, and a little bit of growing pains...I can never predict how fans are going to react, in particular when it comes to those two but, in my opinion, I would imagine by the end of the season fans will have felt like they will be happy.

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Alex was offered managing partner by the bar in this episode, and he quickly turned it down, but in the season trailer we see Louis coming, saying, "You betrayed me". So I have to ask, is that offer going to come back and rear its head later on in the season?
Korsh: We had very much contemplated whether or not that was going to be the case, but -- there are some perceived betrayals coming this season, and Faye's presence will contribute to that in some measure, but I think most fans know that, ultimately, our people's loyalty is pretty strong with each other. That's what I would say.

Suits continues Wednesdays at 9/8c on USA.