We open with Donna, showing cleavage and doing her best tight-dress-and-heels sexy walk through the Sidwell offices. She struts right into Mike’s glass box before his Wannabe Donna assistant – whose name is Amy, it pains me to have learned, because I want her, with her unearned sassy attitude, to go away – can stop her.
Donna tells Mike she’s pissed he used the personal info she told him about Harvey’s father’s recordings as a weapon against Harvey. Mike apologizes, asks if she has received the guilt gift he sent over (an expensive handbag, I believe) and while she acknowledges that the bag was a good idea – of Amy’s! – she warns Mike never to betray her again. Mike looks amused rather than alarmed by this warning, because he is NOT GETTING the message of this episode: betrayal is bad.
Harvey drops by Eric Woodall’s house (that’s supposed to be in Montclair, New Jersey, but I’m thinking Oakville) wearing a full suit and tie at 7 am (as one does), so he can catch Eric opening his door to pick up a newspaper in his pajamas and bathrobe. Harvey threatens to have Woodall fired again, and Woodall laughs evilly and says the issuance of the Seven Subpoenas to Pearson Specter’s clients by the SEC is not his doing but the work of his old buddy from the Justice department who also works at the SEC and whose name I thought at first was Keogh or Keyhole but turns out to be Cahill. I prefer to call him Keyhole.
Sidwell, in asshole mode, fake-admonishes Mike for using Sidwell’s money to buy more shares of Gillis Industries without asking, flip-flops and compliments him for acting brashly in classic investment banker style when he did buy them, then says Mike had better de-leverage Sidwell from the holding within a week, or he’ll be fired. That’s two threats of termination in as many scenes. Mike asks Amy to help him approach Giannopoulos, Sidwell’s former boss, and noted rich jerk.
Jeff has an I-can-benchpress-more-than-you-can conversation with Harvey about who is in charge of the SEC case which Jessica settles when she walks in wearing an elegant gold-trimmed jacket and long skirt that look more appropriate for evening than daytime and tells Harvey to let Jeff do the job she hired him to do. Later, Jeff tells Jessica he doesn’t need her to babysit him, and Jessica says he should think of her as a bazooka. Hard to imagine saying that line without laughing. They work together for the rest of the episode and bring about an apparent defeat of Keyhole and the withdrawal of the dreaded Seven Subpoenas, only to discover that Keyhole had manipulated them into this move. Ruh-roh.
Logan pops by Rachel’s office to ask her to evaluate five companies as possible targets for his next takeover, since the Gillis deal might tank, partly because Rachel made him promise he’d lay off Mike. She bristles at first, then agrees to do the work because she is his lawyer. And because things are a little tense at home what with Mike being an asshole and all. She later brings Logan five other companies to consider that have underperforming assets rather than disposable ones, and after a lot of disagreement, some eye-fucking on Logan’s part (Brendan Hines is quite good at doing the sexy eyes, as previously noted), and an attempted kiss that Rachel rebuffs, he decides to present her more constructive takeover ideas to his board of directors.
Harvey asks Louis to help him take Mike down with regard to the takeover bid, causing Louis to reference The Karate Kid and strike this pose as if, once again, he will be all about the comedy this episode. He goes to court pumped-up and ready to slay Mike, but Mike hoodwinks him into thinking that his former fiancée Sheila (the Harvard admissions director) has become engaged to some studly guy (later revealed to be a photo-shopped-in Lorenzo Lamas, circa 1995, which is a pretty funny idea). Louis takes this pretty hard as he is still devastated by his breakup with Sheila, and he fails to win the court battle, which leads to Harvey yelling at him for shitting the bed.
After interfering Amy (who claims to be doing a Ph.d in psychology on the side – yeah right) counsels Mike to solve a problem for Giannopoulos to get him to invest rather than approach him with a proposal, Mike presents G with a legal workaround for a problem he is having with some Southampton beachfront property. G likes this but he will not consider investing in anything Mike suggests. In the building lobby, Louis is waiting to explain to Mike that actions have consequences and business people hold grudges. Louis told G that Mike gave Sidwell a way out of G’s company, so G will never forgive Mike for besting him and neither will Louis ever forgive Mike for the low blow of the Sheila engagement prank.
Mike seeks out an overly tanned but fit-looking Eric Roberts, AKA another rich jerk, name of Forstman. Forstman has a grudge against Harvey with regard to some past business dealings. Forstman agrees to invest in Gillis Industries solely to irritate Harvey, but only if Sidwell gets no cut of the deal, because Forstman is mean that way.
In a nicely written scene made quite moving by Rick Hoffman’s delivery, Harvey reluctantly, on Donna’s advice, comes to Louis to thank him for thwarting Mike’s pitch to Giannopoulos. Louis confesses he has blown it again, because his gloating over Mike is what gave Mike the idea to contact Forstman. When Harvey says Louis shouldn’t let his emotions lead to stupid mistakes, Louis says, “It’s not fair. I’m emotional, you’re cold. You’re loved, I’m hated.” Harvey claims he’s not as cold as advertised, but I was too busy feeling genuinely sorry for Louis to pay him much attention. And to think that gazing at Gabriel Macht in all his suited, pompadoured glory used to be the reason I watched this show!
Harvey thanks Mike for returning his father’s recordings and warns Mike not to get into business with the evil Forstman. Mike says he has no choice, Harvey says there is always a choice. A closing montage shows Rachel looking very rattled by Logan’s advances, Mike apparently doing the deal with Forstman and Sidwell, and that Jessica’s choice is to show up at Jeff’s house at night with some DVDs (All About Eve!) and rekindle their romantic relationship. And I must at this juncture state that D.B. Woodside, despite my earlier stated predictions to the contrary, has done an admirable job of keeping his shirt on so far this season, while still appearing to be straining the fabric of said shirts with his manly chest.
