No, Patrick Adams: 'Suits' Did Not Pave the Way for 'Succession'

By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 7, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 7, 2024 |

There was a time, years before Patrick J. Adams and Gabriel Macht appeared during Super Bowl commercial breaks, when only a handful of us would admit to having watched all nine seasons of USA Network’s Suits. We watched it before it was cool, and let me tell you this: Suits was never cool, and it never will be—that’s a huge part of its appeal. It’s comfort television. It’s candy. It’s very good-looking people delivering nonsensical lines with absolute confidence and bluster. Suits is a destresser.

In that respect, it’s the exact opposite of Succession, a funny, marvelous, sharply written drama that’s both hilarious and tense as hell. Succession is a stressful television series in the best possible way. But hear me out, Patrick J. Adams: Succession owes no debt to Suits, as you asserted with the same bluster and confidence of a Suits character on the Suits podcast you host with Sarah Rafferty (as though the world needed another rewatch podcast).

“Suits is a predecessor to another very popular show. Suits walked so that Succession could run.”

No. Suits isn’t even a speck of mud on the running shoe of Succession. I daresay almost no one involved with Succession had even heard of Suits.

“They got to be the grown-up [to Suits’] PG version,” Adams added.

No, again. Honestly, The Good Wife was the grown-up version of Suits, and it preceded Suits, which came along and dumbed down the concept of essentially setting Game of Thrones inside a law firm. Before The Good Wife, legal dramas were about the cases. The Good Wife focused on the internal drama within the firm, which is what Suits creator Aaron Korsh borrowed from Robert and Michelle King. The Good Wife ran so that Suits could catwalk.

“The things that we have in common [include] Dagmara [Domińczyk]. She was in Succession, she was in Suits,” Adams added. “Rob Yang. Do you know who Rob Yang was in our show? He was the doctor in [the Suits pilot] giving Mike the drug test. You know where else you’ve seen Rob Yang? The pilot of Succession.”

OK, now you’re really reaching, Patrick. Two actors in nine seasons of Suits also appeared in the five seasons of Succession. Only two? And one had just a brief role in Suits, while the other—Dagmara Domińczyk—has appeared in a number of dramas, including … The Good Wife.

I’m all for the Suits love, and I’m glad the writers’ strike gave viewers a chance to turn off their brains for 134 episodes of empty pleasure. But don’t pretend to be what you’re not … you know what? I take that back. Suits masqueraded as a better show than it was for nine seasons. This is actually perfectly in line with the series’ ethos.