Breathe, Suits fans, breathe. Yes, the exclusive photo above is of Donna (Sarah Rafferty) lounging in Harvey Specter’s bed, but this isn’t The Other Time, Take Two. It’s from a dream sequence that begins Wednesday’s episode, “Toe to Toe,” which centers around Harvey (Gabriel Macht) and his therapist (Christina Cole) analyzing the events that led up to it.





The hour features the return of Harvey’s rival Travis Tanner (Eric Close), who claims to be a changed man when he shows up as opposing counsel on a case, as well as Louis (Rick Hoffman) — with the help of Donna and Rachel (Meghan Markle) — scheming against Jack Soloff (John Pyper-Ferguson) to reverse that change in compensation.

Yahoo TV spoke with Rafferty about the joys of spray tanning, that amazing moment in last week’s episode when Harvey thanked Donna “for 12 years,” and what’s next.

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Let’s start with the photo: How did you learn about this scene?

That was actually really funny. I was on set shooting a different episode, and our producing director, Anton [Cropper], came over and said, “Has Bray called you?” Bray being Kevin Bray, who was directing [”Toe to Toe”] and who we’re all very close to because he directed our pilot and was our producing director for the first couple of seasons. I was like, “No. Why?” Anton was trying to stay very, very professional. “So in the next episode, you’re going to be naked in Harvey’s bed.” I was like, “Wait, what?” The first thing that came out of my mouth was, “Can I have a spray tan?” From then on, I think he relaxed a lot because he realized he wasn’t going to get a whole lot of push-back. Working with Kevin Bray, I knew there was nothing to worry about, that it wouldn’t be overly revealing, it would be tastefully shot, it would be beautiful… And I got that spray tan.

That was my next question.

I don’t think I’m gonna get any endorsements from the spray tan company. I don’t know about spray tans. [Laughs.] It was a pretty funny process, being kind of, like, hosed down. There’s a tent that they erect in your living room, and then you basically get gently hosed down by this tanning solution, and you need to not touch anything. And of course, I couldn’t not do that, and then my palms ended up being a funny color. It was like setting a toddler free with mommy’s makeup; I should not have been invited to do that.

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Did filming the scene go according to plan?

It did. There’s a lot of downtime when you’re filming, but since I was just wearing a pair of boxers underneath that sheet, I couldn’t keep getting up and chatting and stuff like that. So I was a little bit like the Queen of Siam, just shouting at people like, “Gabriel, can you come over here and talk to me?” There was a funny moment when he kept standing at the exact worse position for me. I was like, “If you keep standing over there, I’m gonna have to roll over and someone’s gonna see a heck of a lot of side boob. So can you please come over and stand over here?” [Laughs.] It was nice: I just stayed there and people brought me water, and coffee, and I could say magazines, but it wasn’t that exciting. By this point, we all know each other so well, and we’ve worked together for so long, and as you know, I’ve been friends with Gabriel for 20 years, so everything’s really comfortable.

We’ll keep things spoiler-free, but story-wise, what do you like about the scene?

I think it’s actually a really interesting moment in the season for this to be happening. It’s really well-placed, because we’ve spent a lot of time with Harvey and Donna being at odds, and this is a moment where we could be reminded of the fact that, whether or not this is actually in reality, they’re close. They have a deep connection, and obviously, since it is a dream sequence, they factor heavily in each other’s subconscious. I’ve been saying that for a while: People frequently ask me, “Does Donna want to be with Harvey?” And I say, “Donna tells herself that she doesn’t want to be with Harvey, but I think her subconscious may be operating on a different wavelength than her conscious.” So this is an interesting little peek into Harvey’s subconscious, and we’ll see him deal with this dream throughout the episode and kind of reconcile with what it was actually about. Because dreams are often very interesting and about something else than what they seem to be on the surface.