On the surface, it may appear that Meghan Markle’s departure from USA’s hit legal drama Suits will negatively affect the show going forward—she was one of its most popular stars even prior to her relationship with Prince Harry, after all. But now that she’s engaged to a handsome ginger prince with a royal wedding on the horizon, Suits’ showrunner is coming forward with some truly remarkable sentiments about Markle’s involvement with the show. Mostly, that her departure was actually written over a year ago, owing to an intuition that the duo would later be married.
“I knew from a year ago that this relationship was burgeoning,” Aaron Korsh explained on BBC Radio 4’s Today show, confirming seven season was creatively planned to be her last season. “And I had a decision to make because I didn’t want to intrude and ask her, ‘Hey, what’s going on and what are you going to do?’ So collectively with the writers, we decided to take a gamble that these two people were in love and it was going to work out.”
It turns out that optimism for Markle’s future, mostly, was the fuel for their self-proclaimed gamble. “What we decided to do [was to] say, ‘Look, I would rather have good things happen to Meghan in her life,’ which would likely mean her leaving the show,” Korsh continued. “So let’s plan on that and it’s much easier to undo that, if it came to it, than to just plan on her staying forever and then finding out she’s going to go.” Honestly, kudos on their part for anticipating a real-life fairy tale.
If you’re unfamiliar with Suits, Markle has been playing a headstrong paralegal-turned-lawyer since the show’s debut in 2011. Her final six episodes will begin airing in early 2018, as the network (astutely) decided to break the season up into two parts.