On Wednesday night’s midseason finale of “Suits,” Jessica Pearson — the queen bee of Pearson Specter Litt, the beleaguered law firm at the heart of the series — saved the life of a death-row inmate. Then she saved her own sanity, by quitting.

The episode, which added another twist to the tumultuous sixth season of the USA Network legal drama, marks the end, for now, of a character that had been with “Suits” from the beginning. For Gina Torres, the actress who plays her, the departure kicks off a new career chapter. She has joined “The Catch,” the stylish ABC private-investigation series from Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers, returning for its second season early next year.

“My contract was up, so this wasn’t a power play that went terribly wrong,” Ms. Torres said about her decision to leave “Suits.” After years of traveling between the show’s Toronto set and Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband, the actor Laurence Fishburne, and their daughter, the actress was ready for a change. “My personal life needed to be tended to,” she said.

The daughter of Cuban immigrants, Ms. Torres was born in New York and reared in Washington Heights and the Bronx. (She graduated from the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.) Before “Suits,” the actress had roles in “Firefly,” “24” and “Alias,” among other series, and in movies including “I Think I Love My Wife,” as the title character opposite Chris Rock. (She has also appeared alongside Mr. Fishburne in the “Matrix” franchise, and as his wife in “Hannibal.”)