Stephen Amell’s Suits L.A. Update Reveals The Spinoff Is Bringing Back What Made Suits Great

Stephen Amell, who will star in Suits L.A. as Ted Black, has shared an exciting update on the upcoming Suits spinoff that suggests it will bring back what made the original show so good. Following Suits’ record-breaking streaming success in 2023, it was easy to predict that the franchise was going to return in some form. While a Suits revival is not happening as of now, the Suits universe will expand with a brand new spinoff, Suits L.A. The Suits L.A. pilot has yet to be filmed, but some details on the cast and the characters have already been revealed.

Amell’s Ted Black is described as a powerful lawyer who used to be a federal prosecutor on the East Coast before building his own law firm in Los Angeles. Unlike Suits, which focuses on corporate law, Suits L.A. will explore the world of entertainment law. Joining Amell in the cast of Suits L.A. are names such as Josh McDermitt, Lex Scott Davis, and Bryan Greenberg. Whether any Suits actors will be in Suits L.A. remains to be seen, but at least one major aspect of the original series seems to be returning.

Stephen Amell Revealed Suits L.A.’s Pilots Has A Lot Of Words

Suits L.A. is expected to have great dialogue like Suits

During an interview with Deadline, actor Stephen Amell revealed that the Suits L.A. pilot has “more words per page” than he has ever said in his entire career “by a factor of five.” While Amell did not get into detail about the plot or the characters from Suits L.A., his comments on the pilot’s script suggest that the spinoff series will have plenty of dialogue. The length of any script depends on the style of the writer, but given how Suits L.A. will be a legal drama, it is safe to say much of the script will consist of dialogue.

I went into it without a ton of expectations because you never know what they’re going to be looking for. But the script is great. The cast, most of which has been announced on your website, is really excellent. Both Lex [Scott Davis] and Josh [McDermitt], who I got a chance to do chemistry reads with, are sensational. The pilot has more words per page than I have said in my entire career, by a factor of five. I’m just going to be a bit of a nervous wreck until we actually get on set and start shooting, which is in just about 27 days. Whatever, who’s counting? No, I’m really excited, and I’ve also really been enjoying the show. I hadn’t seen the original, and I’m familiarizing myself because I think certain shows, they’ll have a syntax to them.

Interestingly, Suits’ pilot was 72 minutes long, with the Netflix version being even longer at 81 minutes. Suits’ feature-length pilot, which essentially consisted of two episodes combined into one, was a great way of kickstarting the series and setting it apart from other procedurals that were airing at the time. It is unclear whether Suits L.A.’s pilot will be as long as that of the original show, or if it will have the standard 44-minute runtime of a regular TV episode. Regardless, Suits was defined by solid scripts with great dialogue, which Suits L.A. will surely try to accomplish too.

Suits’ Clever Dialogue Was The Best Thing About The Legal Drama

Suits’ dialogue was witty and fun

There are a lot of reasons why Suits has become so popular recently, arguably even more so than when it originally aired. While the streaming era can help boost an old show’s popularity, there has to be something special about the series in question for it to compete with newer releases. Suits’ clever dialogue, which never limited itself to generic legal vocabulary and prioritized the dynamics between the characters, is perhaps the biggest reason why the series worked so well. There have been plenty of legal dramas before and after Suits, but not many of them could be as compelling.

Suits’ dialogue was witty, and fun, and kept viewers engaged during every episode’s case of the week. Even the best TV procedurals can become extremely boring when the formula and the tropes of the genre take over the characters, a mistake that Suits rarely make. Suits’ courtroom scenes and settlement meetings often had great dialogue, but so did the scenes where characters were just talking to each other. The performances given by the Suits cast, from the leads to the supporting characters, made those lines even better and made sure the series would always feel fresh.

Suits L.A. Must Have Great Dialogue If It Wants To Be As Good As Suits

Suits L.A. needs to capture the essence of the original show

Aaron Korsh, who created Suits, is also behind Suits L.A., which itself is promising news for the new series. That said, it can be difficult for spinoff series to match the quality or the success of their parental shows, as seen with Suits’ failed Pearson spinoff. Even though Suits L.A. will be set in Los Angeles rather than New York and will follow a brand new set of characters, the show is bound to be compared to Suits. Therefore, Suits L.A. will deal with a level of anticipation that Suits’ first couple of seasons did not.

In other words, the bar will be higher for Suits L.A. than it was for Suits when the latter premiered in 2011. For Suits L.A. to be as good as its predecessor, it needs to have equally great dialogue and characters with whom viewers can connect. Suits’ legal cases could be very entertaining even if not always very accurate, but the heart of the show was its characters and the way they were written. Hopefully, Suits L.A. will recapture the magic of Suits while also bringing something new to the franchise.

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Sources: Deadline

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  Suits L.A.

  Drama

  Suits L.A. is a legal drama series spun off from the original franchise and will see Aaron Korsh return as the creator. Stephen Amell will take the role of Ted Black, a lawyer who must guide his legal firm out of a period of impending collapse.

  Network

  NBC

  Creator(s)

  Aaron Korsh

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  Suits

  Comedy

  Drama

  Suits follows Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams), who, despite never attending law school, is able to use his photographic memory to become a lawyer. The legal drama ran from 2011 to 2019 for a total of nine seasons and also starred Gabriel Macht, Meghan Markle, Sarah Rafferty, and Rick Hoffman.

  Network

  USA

  Creator(s)

  Aaron Korsh