Suits season 8 promo: First look at Katherine Heigl; Robert Zane’s future

There is a lot of big story worth discussing right now when it comes to Suits season 8, but let’s kick things off with the just-released preview courtesy of USA! This is the first official footage that we’ve had of Katherine Heigl as Samantha Wheeler, a newcomer to the firm that could very well be undergoing yet another name change. Remember when it was called Pearson Hardman, Pearson Specter Litt, or now Specter Litt? It could be Zane Specter Litt at the start of season 8 and, if Wheeler gets her way, her name could be on there soon enough as a name partner.

The promo below highlights two things when it comes to Samantha: She hates being called Sam, and she’s intent to become a name partner within her first year on the job. USA is promoting Heigl hard already, and we imagine that is going to continue moving into the summer as a familiar face. We also don’t think it is a coincidence that they are also putting Dule Hill front and center here, given that season 8 will both put him as a series regular (alongside Heigl and Amanda Schull, who plays Katrina Bennett) while also giving him so much more to do in terms of a story.

So what about Wendell Pierce? It makes a certain degree of sense to promote that actor to series regular based on everything that transpired in the finale. Yet, it doesn’t appear as though that’s going to happen given some of his work elsewhere. Speaking per Deadline, here is what creator Aaron Korsh had to say on that subject:

First of all we have had the good fortune to be able to have Wendell Pierce. I think viewers, when they’re watching television, are not necessarily aware of whether someone’s deal is as a series regular or not, they just know whether they are a regular character in our world. And we’ve been lucky enough to have Wendell as a regular character in our world while at the same time he’s been a series regular on another show for much of the life of our show, be it The Odd Couple or now Jack Ryan.

So we decided to take a chance and have Robert Zane come and join our firm and see what happens, see what that does to our firm. We do not have him as a series regular and they’ve been very generous to let us use him as much as they are. We’re exploring where it goes as we speak in season eight, but absolutely in the beginning of season eight Robert Zane is merged with our firm and it’s going to cause its own challenges to integrate those two firms and cultures and personalities within the season.

We would certainly argue that keeping Zane around as much as humanly possible is integral to the success of season 8, given the fact that he is Rachel’s father and he’s very well-known by longtime fans already. While we are losing Patrick J. Adams and Meghan Markle it does make a certain degree of sense to surround the next chapter with familiar faces. For the most part, Korsh has done that — Heigl is the only new faces, and while Dule is relatively new after debuting last summer, we’ve at least had an introduction to him and his relationship with Harvey.

Related – Read our take on the final episode

If you missed it, last night we went through some of what happened in the Suits finale in video form — check that out below and be sure to subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube for more coverage.

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