'Suits' postmortem: Patrick J. Adams and Meghan Markle dish

Spoiler alert! If you haven’t watched the Suits season premiere, stop reading now. Stars Patrick J. Adams (Mike) and Meghan Markle (Rachel) stopped by EW separately today to chat about what went down in the hour and where we go from here.

• By the end of the hour, Harvey (Gabriel Macht) still wanted nothing to do with Mike, but Rachel did. The first time Mike went to her apartment and stared at her large bed, she told him she’d never expose him to the firm, but if he wanted to be with her, he had to quit. And he was going to, until Jessica (Gina Torres) gave him a large office in which to hang his fake Harvard diploma — which set Rachel off again, for obvious reasons — and Louis (Rick Hoffman) gave him the idea to prove to Harvey that Batman needs his Robin. After Harvey reamed Mike out for not telling him everything about Jessica — which is what loyalty is — Mike returned to Rachel’s apartment. He told her he was going to tell her everything and “when we’re done, either we’re gonna be finished, or we’re gonna go back there and we’re gonna do exactly what we should have done the other night.” They did it again.

Meghan Markle: It was so funny, because we didn’t see each other at all over the hiatus. When you’re working on a season, you get this momentum and it’s obviously so much easier to fall into this shorthand together. So really, one of our first scenes back together was the one in Rachel’s bed. [Laughs] They have these underwear rigged on me so it seems like I don’t have anything on — but I did. We obviously talked a lot about it, and we’re really good friends. Once you develop a comfort level with someone, that translates on camera.

Patrick J. Adams: We just dove in. Especially that scene in the bed. We were both just like, “Great. Let’s hit it. What do you need to be comfortable? What can I do? What’s the best way to shoot it?” We talked to the DP. We talked to the director. We just got really hands-on with it. We tried to make it work however we could so that the nervousness and that timidness wasn’t there anymore. I think that you’re gonna see that throughout the whole relationship this season. Now that they’re past that first stage — which is “What is it?” — they’re two people who are really trying to make it work. There’s just been a ton of really beautiful, sweet moments that have come out of it that don’t feel rushed in the same way that maybe some stuff felt in the first two seasons. We’ve been both fighting for the writers and the directors to just take their time with this relationship because I think people think it’s an important one, and we just want to do it justice.

Markle: We’ll meet Rachel’s mom this season [played by The Larry Sanders Show‘s Megan Gallagher]. Mike comes to the Zane household for dinner. That’s pretty fun, the meeting of the parents. They have those moments where they’re really trying to build the relationship. And then, of course, there’s the fact that Rachel’s still trying to get into a great law school and do all of these things that Mike has done deceptively — or rather hasn’t done at all. That’s always going to be a thorn in their relationship. She’s trying to figure out how she can love him and not be resentful of the fact that he has everything that she wants.

• Mike ultimately gave back the office, so it won’t be a symbol to himself, Harvey, or Rachel of his betrayal and what he didn’t earn. He got Jessica to accept it by informing her that he now has a copy of the letter she’d penned to the DA when she threatened to expose him. It was never sent, but it was printed from her hard drive, which has her computer’s digital signature. Now if she ever exposes him, he has proof that she knew about him being a fraud and hid it.

Adams: Mike and Jessica don’t get a lot of time together, so I really appreciated those few moments, and I love the end of that scene. I think it just really hammers home how far Mike has come. It also puts into context the threat not only to his future at the firm, but also to the firm itself should anything happen to him. That’s him really being clear and establishing that anybody who messes with him is gonna have to deal with some pretty serious consequences themselves. It’s less of an outright threat, and him saying, “You better have my back, because if you don’t, I can take all of this down and ruin this for everybody.” That changes the dynamic. Now if anybody wants to put him under threat and use that against him, he knows that he has a really important card to play.

• Jessica and Harvey are basically at war: Darby (Conleth Hill) wants Harvey to represent oil tycoon Ava Hessington (Game of Thrones‘ Michelle Fairley), who’s accused of bribing a foreign government to get a pipeline (and who has a dirty environmental history she doesn’t need exposed). The case means so much to Darby (for reasons we’ve yet to learn) that Harvey was able to make a move behind Jessica’s back. At first, Harvey demanded that if he wins the case, Darby tear up his non-compete and fire him. But then, once Cameron Dennis (Gary Cole) became the special prosecutor on it, Harvey went back to Darby and asked that if he wins, Darby doesn’t fire him. Instead, he wants Darby to back him as managing partner. We’ve seen Mike pass Harvey information for this case already, even though Harvey doesn’t want his help.

Adams: That will go on for a little bit. In this next episode, there’s some great stuff between Mike and Louis, because nature abhors a vacuum and Louis has no associate and Mike Ross has no fearless leader. So we get to see Louis step in and try to court Mike. But I think obviously the show is about Mike and Harvey and them finding their way back to each other and figuring out how they’re gonna work best together. That’s gonna change this season, just because Mike has matured quite a bit from who he was in the first two seasons, and so has Harvey in a lot of ways. (Read what Macht and Adams have to say about when Harvey and Mike might reunite.)

Bonus scoop on Rachel’s apartment, which made its debut in this episode:

Markle: I was thrilled for my character, but as an actor, that’s where you go, “Oh, I’ve got job security! They’re putting money into building my apartment! I’m not goin’ anywhere for a while!” In terms of the actual aesthetics of it, I really had a clear idea of where I feel Rachel comes from. She probably would love to live in the West Village, but I’m sure her parents said, “Yes, but we own this beautiful property in the Upper West Side. We know the doorman. It’s safe.” It has that sensibility where you know the money she came from, but it still has a really young, playful, obviously very stylish but cool feeling. And each of the pictures that are framed in that apartment are pictures of me and my friends in real life. So it really feels like home now.