**This post contains spoilers for 4.05 of Suits, “Pound of Flesh.”**
Good news, everyone! Last week’s Suits was marginally better than it has been all season! I’ll give you a moment to celebrate, because believe me, we need it.
It didn’t start out great; for the ninety billionth week in a row, Rachel complains about her workload and how difficult her super-privileged life is as a law student and as Harvey Specter’s associate, in case you forgot. The sad part is that Mike comes off looking like the jerk here, as he turned off Rachel’s alarm, causing her to be late for work. Like he’s never met/worked for Harvey Specter before. C’mon Mike.
But Rachel is so exhausted you guys, even though she promised everyone who would listen that she could handle this workload. It’s her M.O.: Make a huge stand about being able to handle things as an adult, and then immediately buckle and beg for sympathy from the people around her. She winds up fainting from exhaustion at school, which is not only kind of lame (an ulcer would’ve packed a bigger punch) but it ends up being a plot device for Mike and Harvey to meet on some sort of middle ground. Hey, I never said this episode was perfect, I only said it was better.
Rachel wakes up from a horrible nightmare, which is actually just a flashback of Logan Sanders proposing to her before he suddenly turns into Mike, and then she goes back to sleep all wide-eyed and worried. An actual nervous breakdown would’ve been preferable to this.
Mike, Harvey, Jeff, and Jessica all talk about buying out a block of shares that somehow manages to mess with Mike’s plan and draw the bead from the SEC. Jeff figures out a “questionable” way to acquire the shares, which floats for the majority of the episode until Rachel lands her exhausted butt in the hospital. That’s when Harvey takes Mike out on a date — a literal date with mood lighting, expensive food, and suggestive talking — and manage to mend their fences. Things look good for our favorite duo until afterwards, when the SEC guy, Cahill, materializes out of nowhere and accuses them of colluding.
This results in Mike being mad at Harvey for not being honest with him about the whole shares thing, and Harvey basically begs Mike to trust him. He goes to bat for Mike against Jessica, but Jessica overrules him. Harvey ends up apologizing to Mike for not taking his takeover plan many months ago, which is nice and all, but it doesn’t help Mike. The scene ends with Harvey telling Mike, “Do what you have to do.”
But Mike finally grows a conscience and tries to pull out of his deal with Forstman, but it’s too late: Sidwell has taken the deal and has cut Mike out of it. Turnabout’s fair play.
The best part of the episode is the one-off story with Donna and Louis, where he finds her trying to memorize her lines for the part of Portia in Merchant of Venice and freaks out when she tells him that tonight is opening night and she’s still not off-book. He vows to spend the entire day helping her memorize her lines (because of course Louis knows all the words to all of Shakespeare’s plays) and during the course of the rehearsals, Donna confesses that she’s terrified of getting back onstage.
The next day, she begs Louis to fill in for one of the injured actors, but Louis has crippling stage fright and refuses. It’s his deep love for Donna that compels him to finally agree, but it’s not without its issues. As hokey as the storyline might’ve seemed to a first-time viewer, it’s this sort of lightheartedness and camaraderie that’s been sorely lacking from this show.
Also, I lied. The absolute best part of the episode was the very end, when Harvey dropped everything to be at the closing night of Donna’s big play. There weren’t even any indicators throughtout the episode that Harvey really cared or was aware of how important it was to her, so it’s a particularly touching scene.
Next week: more yelling, more stalk-talk, and more use of the word “bullshit” during every act.
We Watch for the Plot 