Draft:Mike Ross (Suits)

Micheal "Mike" Ross is a fictional character from the American USA series Suits. He served as the lead character of the show until the exit of actor Patrick J. Adams in the seventh season. The character was met with critical acclaim. He is a lawyer, with an eidetic memory and the ability to absorb large amounts of printed material very rapidly, who never attended law school.

Season 1
In season 1, Mike Ross aspires to be a lawyer and even passed the bar examination on a dare. However, he was expelled after his friend Trevor Evans convinced him to memorize a calculus test and sell it in order to pay off Trevor's debts to a drug dealer, and they unknowingly sold the answers to the Dean's daughter. This leads the dean to revoke Mike's scholarship and expel him. Since then, he began smoking marijuana and took the LSAT as a proxy for others to pay the nursing home bills of his grandmother, who raised him after his parents died when he was eleven. To keep his grandmother in the private nursing home, he agrees to deliver marijuana for Trevors. However, he discovers that the delivery is a sting operation, because he read a novel in elementary school that matched the situation. He escapes the police by accidentally slipping into the hotel room where Harvey Specter's interviews for prospective associate attorneys is taking place. He impresses Harvey with his encyclopedic knowledge of law (which is even better than Harvey's) and drive to become a better lawyer than any graduate of Harvard Law School, the only school from which the Pearson Hardman law firm hires.

Season 4
In season 4, Mike takes a job as an investment banker with the fictional Gillis Industries. This puts him and Harvey in conflict as he represtents a rival company. Mike boldly goes head to head with Harvey, holding his own until finally succumbing when Louis undoes a deal Mike was working with Charles Forstman for money. As a direct result of the deal with Forstman, which Mike agreed to cut his boss Jonathan Sidwell out of, and which Forstman himself notified Sidwell, Mike was promptly fired, but gets offered a job by Forstman. Before taking a job with Charles Forstman, Louis Litt, guilty over his own deal with Forstman, uses a favor with Jessica to rehire Mike to Pearson Specter. His relationship with Rachel is tumultuous during this period, finding out that she had a history with Logan and also that she had kissed him while they were together. At first Mike had broken off their relationship following this betrayal. Mike tells Rachel that he needs time to think about things, and starts living in a hotel. Mike then relented, realizing he cared greatly for her, enough to overlook the incident and he moved back in after she approached him and convinced him to do so. For the remainder of the season, Mike is in the background, doing side work, and helping solve issues as Louis Litt's deal with Forstman falls apart. Mike, through his own compassion in the final summer episode of Suits, "This is Rome..." returns Louis's possessions to his house. When there, and attempting to comfort Louis, he asks about a key he found in Louis's box of things. At first, Louis takes it as playful and dismisses him. However, after Mike asks about the key again when he failed to get Louis hired with Robert Zane, Louis is able to piece together that Mike truly isn't a Harvard graduate.

Season 5
In season 5, Mike's secret is discovered and he accepts time in prison for 2 years after a long trial against Anita Gibbs, an attorney who makes sending him to jail her life's mission.

Season 6
In season 6, Mike is able to cut down his prison time with the help of Harvey and works as a teacher at the church for a while before being reported by a student's parent. He then passes the bar with the help of Harvey and Jessica even though Anita Gibbs makes a full effort to stop him.

Season 7
In season 7, he returns to the firm. In the season finale Mike marries Rachel and they both leave the firm to run a legal clinic in Seattle.

Season 9
Mike returns from Seattle in season 9 with a case that intersects with one of the firm's clients. The case ultimately leads to Faye Richardson firing Samantha Wheeler. Mike wins the case and goes back to Seattle. In the series finale, Harvey asks Mikes help in devising a scheme to get Faye to leave.

Casting
On July 7, 2010, Patrick J. Adams was cast as Mike Ross. Adams, along with the rest of the cast, was contracted for seven seasons. At the end of his contract he chose not to renew. Following this decision, Mike was written out of the series at the end of season seven. He claimed that his choice was due to him feeling that the characters arc had been completed. Adams added that he wanted the exit to feel natural as opposed to a "out-of-place courtroom shootout or tragedy."

A child version played by Jacob Buster, appears thought the series. In the Japanesse adaptation of Suits, Mike is played by Yuto Nakajima. In the South Korean adaptation he is played by Park Hyung-sik.

Development
Mike Ross was partially based off of Aaron Korsh's own life. Mike was initially going to be a stockbroker and be a mathematical genius, but after creative feedback Korsh, retooled the character into a lawyer.

Reception
Mike Ross is often cited as one of the best aspects of Suits. In a ranking of the Suits cast for Collider, Vidhi Narula ranked Mike second behind only Harvey. Writing for Screen Rant, Ana Dumaraog attributed the decline in quality in the eighth season to the departure of the character. For his role as the character Patrick J. Adams was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series in the 18th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.