Sarah Rafferty Teases Suits Season 5, Harvey/Donna/Louis Work Triangle

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Sorry, Harvey. You're on your own.

Granted, those words were spoken by Donna in Harvey's dream last night... but there was much truth to them now that Donna has really moved from Harvey's desk to work with Louis at Pearson Specter Litt.

And, by the end of Suits Season 5 Episode 1, the beloved secretary was staying put, while Harvey was going to have to find a new underling.

As I talked to star Sarah Rafferty about Donna's journey through Suits Season 5, she offered up a window into the office dynamics, a little wedding planning with Rachel and how we may find out a little bit more about Donna this season.

Let's see what else the actress had to say about what we'll see in the upcoming episodes:

New Job - Suits Season 5 Episode 1

TV Fanatic: By the end of the season premiere, the Donna/Harvey/Louis thing is kind of in a decent place. I thought maybe it would be the driving point of the whole season, you know?  

Sarah Rafferty: Because Harvey was willing to take the next step, he asked for the list, right? And it’s sort of like he was taking responsibility and respecting her wishes in that way. So that gesture was great. But you know what? Moving forward things aren’t like totally copacetic between Louis and Harvey and so the fact that they’re not getting along and that there are some really complicated differences that come up, it just doesn’t bode well for Donna.

It’s a very, very complicated situation for her to be in professionally and personally and that’s new territory for her to navigate considering that she doesn’t just overnight lose her sense of personal loyalty toward Harvey, but now she has to have professional loyalty toward Louis. So it’s rough.

TVF: Will we see Louis and Harvey kind of use you a little bit just to kind of jab at the other, like a “I’ve got her, you don’t” kind of thing?

SR: I think that they do. I think that they’ll use anything as a power play and Donna is not going to be one to sit comfortable with being used as an object or a power play or anything. She would find that incredibly disrespectful and she’s certainly not one to be a door mat and sit around and be disrespected, that’s for sure.

TVF: Part of me just wants to slap the guys and say ‘stop being such boys!’ Stop being these stupid men.

SR: Exactly. I think she wants to do that too. I knew you had a lot in common with Donna.

TVF: Stop being boys. Boys are dumb.

SR: Boys are dumb. That should be a Donna T-shirt. [laughs]

TVF: Tell me about how it’s been to play these scenes with Gabriel, especially because the characters have such a history, you two have such a history but now the dynamic has definitely shifted. They’re kinda tough to watch!

SR: Oh, God. I know. I know. And I think that was really hard for Donna and I think any kind of uber-conflicted situation to be in is a really fun scene to play. So I was excited about that but part of my Suits-viewer brain came up at different moments of like, ‘wait, what? Huh?’ It took a little adjusting for me as well to kind of get my head around some of the scripts when I first read them and then it was easy to dive in and recognize her point of view and where she’s coming from especially in the aftermath of last year’s finale, especially with Harvey not being able to show up for the conversation that she needed to have in order to move forward. That was very telling.

TVF: Do we see Donna having a learning curve with working for Louis? She knows this guy so well but is there still difference for working for him that we see?

SR: Does she have a learning curve? I think it’s more of a challenge because of the conflict with Harvey. It’s not the typical ‘oh, just going to work for Louis’ situation. It’s managing very, very complicated dynamics and trying to be true to her [and] be very professional under very personal circumstances, I would say, things that she takes personally.

TVF: Going back to the Harvey/Donna conversation that he didn’t’ show up for, as you put it. Is Donna going to push for that or is she moving past it?

SR: I would say that she’s moving past. She’s moving past it. That’s what’s going on inside her. She’s getting on with her life. She’s drawing a clear boundary and recognizing that she’s not going to pound her head against a wall.

TVF: Good for her.

SR: I think what’s interesting is she expects [Harvey] to be able to recognize that she’s just doing something for her and he sees it as a betrayal, as an abandonment and that’s surprising to her that he can’t see it from her side at all. I think that’s terribly disappointing to her.

TVF: Does Donna get involved with any Rachel stuff like wedding planning?

SR: Well, the wedding. So she’s definitely excited about the wedding and will pour her heart and soul into helping out with that in any way that she can. So that’s fun. And yeah. Just being all up in everybody’s private business as she usually is, which is a really fun place to be.

TVF: If I needed a wedding planner I think Donna would be amazing. She’d have everything so thought out way before you even thought of it.

SR: Yeah, I think she’d be super, super on it and especially for two people that she loves as much as Mike and Rachel. So that’s definitely fun. And I’m excited, we hear a little bit about her life. Right now we’re only in the middle of shooting [episode] seven so I don’t know where things are going to go but we get a little hint about what’s going on outside of Pearson Specter’s doors. So it’ll be interesting for me to see if we see some of that because we talk about it.

TVF: With all the flashbacks over the years, there’s still so much we actually don’t know about Donna. Her family, we don’t really know a lot of that stuff.

SR: Well, maybe write about that so that then Aaron reads that and says, “You know what? Jim Halterman is right. We should dig into Donna’s personal life a little bit more.” I had said that I think she has brothers. Aaron and I talked about it, I want Tom Sadoski to come on and play my brother because we played brother and sister in a play like 20 years ago. Tom is obviously starring in his own television show now so he won’t be available but we talked about that.

Suits Season 5 airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on USA.

Jim Halterman is the West Coast Editor of TV Fanatic and the owner of JimHalterman.com. Follow him on Twitter.

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Suits Season 5 Episode 1 Quotes

Mike: What about the bubble? There's no Donna in the bubble.
Rachel: Come on, there's room for Donna in the bubble.
Mike: You realize I get to sleep with whoever's in the bubble, right?
Rachel: So long as you realize that my dad's in the bubble.
Mike: Donna it is.

Rachel, you just agreed to spend the rest of your life with me. Right now, I'm pretty okay with everything.

Mike