Jessica Pearson was one of the most popular characters on Suits. For years, the senior partner captivated fans as arguably the show’s most confident and incredibly poised attorneys.
Portrayed by veteran performer Gina Torres, Pearson remained one of the core characters on the USA series for six seasons. However, during the show’s seventh season, Torres appeared as a recurring guest before leaving the show completely.
What was Gina Torres’ reason for leaving Suits?
After her exit, Torres told The New York Times in 2016, “My contract was up, so this wasn’t a power play that went terribly wrong.” The interview touched on the consistent travel between her home in Los Angeles and Toronto, where the series was filmed. “My personal life needed to be tended to,” the actress said, eventually adding, “I think the public doesn’t understand the rigors of shooting a show for an actor, much less when you’re on location and away from home. At one point I approached Aaron [Korsh, the showrunner,] and said: ‘It’s not that I don’t love the show and love Jessica, who is my alter ego. But my life is my life, and I need to take care of it.’ And everyone was completely supportive.”
A year after the interview, Torres and her then-husband of 14 years, Laurence Fishburne, announced their split.
In the series, the character leaves her profession entirely after she is disbarred in New York. This was a result of her defending Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams). Yeah, that whole pretending to be an actual lawyer thing actually had consequences. Wild. She leaves for Chicago and settles down with Jeff Malone (D. B. Woodside).
While Torres’ character was able to leave on her own terms (somewhat), there were some other ideas on how to handle Jessica’s final arc. In a 2016 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, showrunner Aaron Korsh admitted that the possibility of killing Pearson off was floated around. “In my mind, Jessica was going to make this decision to go off into the sunset with Jeff Malone, and that father Larry Marsden (Colin Glazer), who was a little bit crazy and accosted Rachel and got broken on the stand, was going to bring a gun and go nuts and kill her,” Korsh explained. However, after some urging from the network, it was decided that it was better to leave a door open and give the character a happier ending.
Gina Torres returned as the popular character for a short-lived spinoff
In 2019, USA brought Jessica Pearson back full-time in the aptly titled spinoff, Pearson. The 10-episode series followed Gina Torres’ character to Chicago, where she has entered the crazy back-stabbing world of politics.
Acting as a fixer for the mayor, Jessica finds herself at the heart of several prevalent issues plaguing the city. She is constantly at odds with herself, trying to balance that signature attorney drive of hers to achieve victory by any means, with the desire to do what’s right.
Sadly, the Suits spinoff could not make the same impact as its predecessor and was canceled after one season. However, with Suits killing it over on Netflix, NBCUniversal is reportedly interested in creating another series (via Deadline). This could mean fans possibly get to see Pearson back in action, along with some of their other favorite suits.