Suits Season 7 came to a bittersweet ending for the team at Specter Litt. Mike and Rachel got to get married and move on to dream jobs, but they had to leave New York and all their friends behind, and the odds are that Rachel at least will never be back. Meghan Markle will have kind of a lot on her plate after marrying Prince Harry, and one of her royal duties definitely won't be pretending to be Patrick J. Adams' wife on a USA series. Star Gabriel Macht, who plays Harvey on Suits, weighed in on how the show feels without Adams and Markle:
It's been a real transition not having them on set. There is a bit of a void -- not to say that we haven't gotten an incredible cast of actors who have come on board with us and the ensemble is so fresh and new. It's part of the old, but it's very new.
Patrick J. Adams as Mike and Meghan Markle as Rachel were both series regulars on Suits from the very beginning, and the entire premise of the show for a long time revolved around the big lie that Mike graduated from Harvard. The bromance between Mike and Harvey was arguably the driving dynamic of the series. According to Gabriel Machet in his chat with ET about the end of Season 7 and moving into Season 8, Mike and Rachel's absences have left a "void," and it's no surprise that he and the rest of the remaining cast members have had to deal with a sense of transition. Losing two regulars after seven years is a big deal.
The good news for fans who plan to stick around for Season 8 even without Mike and Rachel is that Suits has taken strides to fill the void with other characters. Grey's Anatomy alum and Suits superfan Katherine Heigl signed on the series as a regular. Heigl will play a character by the name of Samantha Wheeler. She's a talented and challenging lawyer who joins Specter Litt, which is probably good news for Specter Litt after all the shakeups to the status quo in the Season 8 finale. The firm will need some bright new legal minds in the mix, although only time will tell if she becomes a friend or foe to Harvey and the other original characters. She probably won't be a Mike 2.0 to Harvey, but she could help compensate for his and Rachel's absences.
Dulé Hill will be on board as a regular in Season 8 as well. He made his Suits debut in the first half of Season 7, so he'll be a familiar face when he presumably plays a larger role in Season 8. Suits also bumped Amanda Schull up to regular status for the eighth season. She's been around the series as Katrina Bennett since Season 2, although she's only been a recurring character lately. She'll have an increased presence moving forward. Check out the first look at Season 8:
Suits will return to USA for Season 8 in July. For what you can watch in the meantime, swing by our midseason TV premiere guide and summer TV premiere schedule.
