Jessica Pearson is well and truly gone (for now), hence the episode title that shouts out Hall & Oates’ classic track without actually playing the song, one of several great tunes by them that I wish the rock choir I’m in would add one of to its repertoire. But there’s no accounting for other people’s musical taste, so my only singing of Hall & Oates hits will be in the privacy of my home office, which may be just as well.
Jessica’s departure triggers Harvey’s issues with abandonment, starting with a dream that’s he slept with Donna, who flirtatiously makes him morning-after coffee in his window-covering-less Museum House condo with a splendid and very bright view of the Toronto skyline. This scene is a fakeout intended to make Darvey shippers happy, and lead the rest of us to believe for a minute that the hand-holding that closed out the mid-season finale led to actual sex, after which Harvey put on a T-shirt to sleep in because of the no-skin-showing clause I’m convinced is in Gabriel Macht’s contract. But we know it’s a dream because Donna is wearing a man’s shirt that has been tailored for maximum sexiness on her (check out those back darts!), in classic old-timey TV trope style.
Still in dreamland, Donna says she can’t work for Harvey anymore now that they’ve had sex. Oh no, Harvey is being abandoned again! Time to wake up, put his dick away and go to work so he can be abandoned some more.
Remember when Mike was grateful to Harvey for helping him get out of jail? Mike doesn’t. He’s all about turning down Harvey’s offer to work as a consultant at PSL, quitting corporate law, and using his skills to help people and do good. He applies to legal aid clinics but hasn’t much hope of being hired, what with him being a convicted felon. In a plot turn that makes no sense whatsoever, Mike’s mentor/priest friend Father Walker offers him a two week supply teaching high school students, despite Mike being totally unqualified for the job, then fires him after two days because some parents found out he is a convicted felon. Did Father Walker not think anyone would find out?
When Harvey complains to Donna that Mike is not returning, at a time when he badly needs allies, she suggests he help Mike get his law licence back, so Mike can do good as a lawyer. Harvey asks his father Stephen Macht, AKA Harvard Ethics Professor with a gambling problem Prof. Girard, if he would speak on Mike’s behalf at a character and fitness hearing. These two are pals now, but Girard suggests a better reference would come from Harvey’s nemesis, U.S. Attorney Anita Gibbs.
Anita does not take kindly to Harvey’s request, and mutters darkly about Sean Cahill’s involvement in Mike’s release from prison. When some of the legal aid clinics call her to inquire about Mike’s felony conviction, she gets super pissed and pulls a classic Suits loiter outside someone’s house for hours move in order to tell Mike to get the hell out of law work, or else.
Mike doesn’t know what she’s even talking about, so he goes and yells at Harvey to stop messing with his life, even after Harvey explains he was trying to help. Mike’s anger seemed overblown, and the big conflict trumped-up for conflict’s sake, but the timing of the argument does lead Harvey to ream out Louis way aggressively right afterwards – as one does – about how ill-suited he is to be managing partner, something Louis had already figured out on his own.
After Harvey’s meltdown, Donna, secretary/therapist/know-it-all, tells him it’s time he resolved his abandonment issues by looking up and reconciling with his mother. To which suggestion Harvey makes this sad face.
Rick Hoffman definitely does NOT have a no-nudity clause in his contract, but Louis also wears a T-shirt to bed, now that he is engaged to pregnant Tara, who sleeps in complicated but tasteful lingerie.
Louis’s goals this week are to be managing partner and to get back at Robert Zane for having the gall to offer to merge his firm with PSL, as if they are in trouble and need charity. Never mind that Zane did that mainly because he thinks Rachel has a better chance of passing her character and fitness lawyer test one day if she is not working on a sinking ship that hires criminals.
Louis contemplates (= has a yelling match with Donna about) stealing Zane’s biggest client until his former mentee Katrina Bennett tells him that would be a huge mistake. PSL is, surprisingly, in okay financial shape, but it needs to staff up with associates. So Louis schemes instead to poach a group of Zane’s associates who work with Katrina, both as a swipe at Zane, and because it’s easier to hire people who’ve already been vetted and trained.
The poaching scheme results in some amusing Louis-Katrina talk about the ludicrous code names they have for each other, but they actually succeed in their mission after Zane gives the associates his blessing to go. Welcome back Katrina and your golden hair!
Robert Zane offers Rachel a job with his firm upon her graduation from law school because of the whole PSL sinking ship thing and her engagement to an ex-con. She can’t imagine leaving the firm but doesn’t want to jeopardize her law career. She asks a sympathetic Gretchen for advice. Gretchen is too smart to tell her what to do, but after Louis hires his new associates, she suggests he make an offer to one more.
He offers Rachel not only a job on graduation, but 2nd year associate ranking. She accepts and will stay at PSL for the foreseeable future, because this episode was written and shot before Meghan Markle’s relationship with Prince Harry became worldwide news.
Extras:
- I’ll miss seeing how great Gina Torres looked in Jessica’s crazy, stylish, powerwoman wardrobe. Come back soon, Jessica!
- I finally figured out where Father Walker’s ornate Italian Romanesque style church is located in Toronto – it’s St. Paul’s Basilica, in Corktown, built in 1887. I think Suits only uses its exterior, its real life interior looks quite grand.
- Hart House at the University of Toronto stands in for not one, but two educational institutions this episode – Harvard University, when Harvey goes to meet Prof. Girard, and St. Andrew’s, the fictional Catholic school in Queen’s where Michael teaches for those two days, and where this scene supposedly takes place.
Kim Moritsugu is a Toronto novelist and sometime TV show recapper whose latest novel is a suburban comedy of manners called The Oakdale Dinner Club.
