I’ve spared you a pic of the rather unsightly opening image of this week’s episode, which is of Patrick J. Adam’s patchily hairy chest and nipples, half-covered by bed sheets. Suffice to say he wakes up alone in the hotel room he repaired to after telling Rachel he needed space the night before at their apartment. And he is sad/pissed.
Rachel is also sad when she wakes up, her chest covered by a cute T-shirt, on Donna’s couch, which means no one slept at the apartment she and Mike share. That was a waste of some pricey real estate, but this way Rachel gets to hear Donna give her advice in the form of admitting that she slept with Harvey once and never again because now they work together and everything is as it should be. I had trouble following Donna’s logic here but the bottom line is that Donna thinks Rachel should give Mike the space he has requested. And she can borrow anything she wants from Donna’s closet to wear to work!
Jessica and Harvey meet at the office early in the morning. Jessica is wearing a black jacket and high-waisted white skirt that make her look like a chic penguin but she totally pulls it off. Her hair, makeup and necklace are also looking damn good for 7 am or whatever time this is supposed to be. Jessica reminds us she’s not happy about Mike coming back to the firm, and Harvey smiles like he is happy until they run into Cahill who hands them a search warrant for the Gillis takeover files. Jessica refers to herself and Harvey as Bonnie and Clyde and they’re going to fight this, damn it! They rush downtown and convince the judge to revoke the warrant on a technicality then walk down the center island of University Avenue in Toronto past the landmark Beaux Arts Canada Life building that is across the street from the provincial courthouse in real life so that worked out neatly. Harvey suggests they hand over the files anyway seeing as he and Mike did not actually collude when working on opposite sides of the takeover but Jessica says no.
Donna greets Mike with “Hello Sailor” though she’s the one who looks nautical in her high-waisted white skirt (white garments being de rigueur this episode) and blue wrap top. She shows Mike his new office and takes credit for arranging it for him. Harvey also takes credit and points out that the new office used to be his, so there – he loves Mike more than Donna does.
Mike and Katrina exchange some silly “Shi-i-t” hellos. She gives him a funny awkward hug because she has become Louis and also because her dress is neither white nor high-waisted. She recaps that last week, to get Mike hired back, Louis gave up asking for a rearrangement of his work schedule that would have helped him to reconcile with Sheila, so Mike should be grateful. Katrina’s hair looks awesome as usual though not as awesome as Blake Lively’s hair in the L’Oreal Preference commercial that ran during the episode, which was timely because I was thinking about good old Serena the night before when I watched the movie Safe House starring Ryan Reynolds while I was ironing (don’t ask). I hate to sound naïve, but can Blake Lively’s hair in that commercial possibly be all real/her own?
Louis freaks out when Mike tells him Cahill is after the Gillis takeover files because of the incriminating Forstman-spawned document I’m calling the Letter from now on. Louis has already buried the Letter deep in the bowels of the file room but he conscripts Katrina to further cover his tracks, and goes to see Forstman (still on the show!) to try to get the Letter reversed or eradicated. Forstman unhelpfully suggests that the only way to do that would be to have Louis redo the Letter to frame Harvey for the felony that Louis has committed in signing it.
Much ado about the files – which are basically the Wexler shares of this episode, and possibly the next – follows, including a bit where Jessica, in bridal-style white ruffles, gives Harvey shit for letting go of Logan as a client. We watch in some boredom as the characters debate whether some of the files should be handed over to Cahill, no, all of them, no, some of them, should we, shouldn’t we, will Louis be exposed, and was it really necessary to have Harvey debase himself by making creepy sexist jokes to Mike about Kate Upton and how all women want a daddy? The short answer: by the end of the episode Cahill uses an off-screen Logan to gain access to all of the files.
Rachel totally ignores Donna’s advice and gets all up in Mike’s grill in the library. She tries being friendly, she tries saying Harvey told her to help him with the case, but Mike won’t talk to her. Donna finds out about this and chews Rachel out in a wrap (top) battle, which is even funnier than the pun I just made because both wrap tops are presumably Donna’s. Rachel later approaches Mike again because she’s stubborn (and annoying) that way. She apologizes repeatedly, but he still needs space and time so he can get the horrible image of Logan grabbing Rachel’s ass out of his head. She reminds him of the time she had a horrible image in her head of him with Tess (his pot-smoking ex who he smoked and slept with though she was married).
Rachel drops in on Mike at his hotel room (because dropping in on her love interests at home has worked so well for her until now) and makes a get-off-your-high-umbrage-horse-and-come-home-already proposition: she demands that Mike decide, and soon, if he loves her more than he hates what she did. So at the end of a long day spent fighting Cahill and figuring out that Louis is grappling with a moral dilemma, Mike appears in Rachel’s office doorway and makes this cute face to indicate they can forget about listing their apartment on airbnb and go home to it together.
Louis’s emotions get a real workout this ep – he’s safe! he’s out! he’s funny! (LOL funny, more than once) he’s tragic! – including in this scene where he attempts to give Katrina an awkward hug. I kinda love these two now, who would have thought, especially when Katrina forges a document (to replace the Letter) that would save Louis’s ass but could ruin her career. He refuses to accept her sacrificial gesture and goes to Jessica to confess that he made a huge mistake. Cue Jessica shooting death-rays of fire and ice out of her eyes starting in 5-4-3-2-1-
