‘S Office Space

New ‘Suits’ season: Legal eagles need to refeather their nest

uits” left its fans with two stark images in its March 2 season finale: Faux lawyer Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) entering prison after taking a two-year plea deal — and Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) returning to his law firm’s spacious-yet-eerily empty Manhattan office.

“Season 6 takes place directly following the end of Season 5 — Harvey has just dropped Mike off in prison and the whole house of cards has collapsed,” says Macht, 44. Mike’s admission of guilt in the Season 5 finale — that he never graduated from Harvard Law School and never passed the bar — sent the firm of Pearson Specter Litt spiraling into the abyss, since all of the cases on which Mike worked are now tainted.

“Everyone in the firm has left because the house is on fire,” says Macht. “Harvey, Donna (Sarah Rafferty), Rachel (Meghan Markle), Jessica (Gina Torres) and Louis (Rick Hoffman) are walking around this completely empty office trying to figure out how to build from the ground up.

“We see Mike’s first night in prison and see the trouble that starts there — and how it circles back to Harvey,” says Macht. “Harvey acts on his instincts; sometimes he’s thought it through and sometimes he goes about things in an alternative manner and it comes back to bite him in the ass. You’ll see that in Season 6: The consequences Harvey pays for his actions.”

Macht says series creator Aaron Korsh considered fast-forwarding the season premiere two years into the future.

“I can tell you there was an idea we would jump forward two years, but I think what Aaron did was great,” Macht says. “He challenged himself by putting himself in this corner, by puttingg Mike in jail and seeing ... how Mike and Harveyy can fight their way too survival.”

Harvey’s men- tor/apprentice relationship with Mike has, over the course of the show, evolved and survived several blowups — including Mike ke leaving the firm, at one point, and comoming to physical blows lows with Harvey.

“I think the fansns had an issue with that,” Machtt says. “At the heart of their relationship is that Harvey loves this kid — he admires him, he understands him and feels like Mike comes from a similar place. They’re two sides of a coin ... and the show works best when they’re united. “When Harvey sees his ‘younger brother’ going to jail, and he feels 50 percent or more responsible for that, I think Harvey feels that if he could trade places with Mike, he would.” On the romantic front, there were intimations last season that Harvey and Donna — the secretary/office guru who’s back at Har- vey’s side after a stint with the combustible Louis — would rekindle a romance alluded to in seasons past. Macht is asked if he thinks this would “ruin” the relationship between the characters.

“I think it would ruin it,” he says. “If the idea is that people want to see these two together because they see them as being great partners, that’s great ... but, to be frank, when Ross and Rachel got together [on ‘Friends’] I wasn’t as interested. In TV shows I really like to see the complexity of, are they right for each other? Maybe they’re not. I’ve always felt that Donna was Harvey’s right-hand gal.

“I think their push and pull is way more interesting,” he says. “If anything, I’d like to see them get together at the very end [of the series].”

“I think harvey feels that if could trade place with Mike, he would.” — “Suits” star Gabriel Macht on his character feeling responsible for Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams, right) going to jail