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It's all over your Netflix account. It's filling up your TikTok For You page and your Instagram reels. It's all your friends seem to want to talk about. And no, we're not talking about Barbie or Succession or whatever the latest, freshest hit may be. We're talking, bizarrely enough, about Suits. That's right. Suits, the USA Network legal procedural that ran from 2011 to 2019. Or rather, Suits, that show that most of us are only vaguely aware of as that show that Meghan Markle was in before Prince Harry came along.
Believe it or not, Suits, which we had all thought had died a gentle, quiet death after its finale in 2019, has come roaring back into the public eye four years later. In fact, Suits has become so popular, it's begun breaking streaming records. Since landing on Netflix in June, the show swiftly broke the record for the most streamed show acquired by the platform. In the second week of July, the show racked up a staggering 3.7 billion viewing minutes. By early August, the show was the 13th most streamed show in one week in Netflix history.
Interest in the show is also off the charts. According to Google Trends, the search term “suits” has sky rocketed in the past week here in the UK.
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Articles (from Rolling Stone, Vulture, BBC to name but a few) have also flooded the internet about the strange, unexpected resurrection of Suits. We are officially living through a Suits renaissance.
So, why the sudden interest in this show — you know, the show that ended four years ago? The show that, one would have thought, we all would have watched back in 2017 when Meghan Markle first appeared on the scene and our interest in the princess-to-be was at its peak?
What we are looking at is, perhaps, the perfect formula for posthumous television success.
For a start, there is the show itself — both comfortably predictable in structure and just surprising enough in content to keep us on our toes. Like many popular procedurals of the 2010s — think Bones, CSI, House, Grey's Anatomy — Suits follows a pretty standard formula. Throughout each (now seemingly) long season, things plod on in a familiar episodic structure — new cases (and colleagues) come and go, relationships form and dissolve, and plenty of drama ensues at the office. But overall, things stay pretty much the same — in other words, you can tune out for a few episodes without missing too many beats.
A spokesperson called it “a relentless pursuit.”
Funnily enough, this format is one that has largely been traded for shorter seasons and more impressive story arcs. In recent TV hits, such as Stranger Things, Succession, Yellowjackets, and so on, each episode is, in many ways, its own epic film. But funnily enough, slightly older shows like Suits, and also NCIS, Criminal Minds and Grey's Anatomy, have all proven to be big hits for streamers. They are, somehow, warm and comforting in their predictability and stability. In other words, they are seriously bingeable.
However, Suits does have one trick up its sleeve in the form of Michael (Patrick J. Adams), the handsome, fake lawyer, who schemes his way into a top law firm. For those of you who have seen Mad Men, it's a similar office con that adds some suspense to the formulaic proceedings. There's also the obligatory will-they-won't-they relationship, this time in the form of Michael and Rachel (Markle) to keep viewers hooked.
But the content alone is hardly enough to spur a mass return to this procedural. In addition to its extreme watchability, there are a few other factors at play.
First and foremost, there is the simple fact that Netflix dropped the series this June and promoted it — a lot. “Every time I open Netflix it's being aggressively shown and playing,” one person wrote on Reddit.
And then there is the Meg of it all. From marrying a prince, to becoming a constant figure in the British tabloids, to exposing her side of the story in first an interview then a Netflix documentary, Meghan's story is one we all know. And so, when Netflix began promoting Suits with clips of Meg strutting around in her suit, many of us were curious. If we didn't make the effort to tune in when she was first making headlines, perhaps now, realising that this was the Meghan Markle show was enough to seal the deal for undecided Netflix viewers.
There might not be much newness in your Netflix most watched bar for a while.
And, of course, there are two ongoing strikes in Hollywood, which see the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) and SAG-AFTRA, the actor's union, both on the picket lines. In other words, few TV shows are actually being made on released right now. So, it's only natural that Netflix is over-promoting old material — especially material that has the extra selling point of an ex-princess.
Now, there is even talk of the show returning for a reboot. As the show's executive producer Gene Klein told TV Line, “In this era of reboots and reunions and all this other stuff, that I’m expecting a call at some point. But I’m not aware of any serious conversations. It’s just one of those things where, in this day and age, you wouldn’t be surprised if somebody called you someday.” But, he added, he couldn't imagine that Markle would be able to return to the show — but then again, who knows.
It just goes to show — we should never underestimate the power of a procedural and a princess to get people bingeing.
