When Suits first premiered last year, it quickly became one of my favorite TV shows, and I thought that the show had a phenomenal first season. If the season premiere is any indication of what the second season is going to be like, it looks like viewers are in for another fantastic season.
One of the greatest strengths of the season premiere is that it did a really good job of following up on the end of the season one finale when Trevor went to visit Jessica with the intention of exposing the truth about Mike not having gone to law school. We didn’t get to see how the rest of that conversation played out, which initially bothered me, but the more that I thought about the season two premiere, the more I liked how they handled it. Jessica asked Mike to have dinner with her in order to get to know him better and see if there might be any truth to Trevor’s allegations. Jessica apparently did a background check on Mike and found the fake information that was entered into Harvard Law School’s records, which led her believe that Trevor had been lying. However, she was still suspicious of Mike since she couldn’t find any record of Mike earning an undergraduate degree, which led her to demand that Harvey fire him.
The other major strength of the season premiere was that I feel like it did a really good job of showing how Harvey and Mike have both influenced each other in a positive way. The fact that Harvey couldn’t bring himself to fire Mike and the way that he fought with Jessica to convince her to let Mike keep his job is proof that he has come to care about Mike beyond how Mike’s actions reflect on him at the firm. I loved that since Mike was frequently insisting throughout season one that Harvey cares more about winning cases than he cares about the people involved with the cases he’s working on. It was also great to see Harvey tell Jessica that if he had to fire Mike, then he would leave the firm too, which would leave her vulnerable too since the former head the firm, Daniel Hardman, might be coming back to the firm now that his wife had died. Plus, the fact that Harvey was quoting/imitating Highlander at the funeral for Daniel’s wife is yet another example of the impact that Mike has had on Harvey since Mike is constantly quoting movies.
As for Mike, he proved that he could be a lot more independent when he’s working on cases instead of constantly needing Harvey or Rachel to come to his rescue and that he could be more of a legal shark when he needs to be instead of always allowing his strong sense of compassion towards people get in the way. That was really good to see, if you ask me, because one of things that I found myself thinking about a lot as I watched the show last season was how could Mike possibly be able to keep his secret for very long if he’s almost always losing each of the cases that he worked on unless he had Harvey or Rachel come to his rescue and was constantly being too soft with people. Hopefully, Mike will continue to be more independent and more of shark when he’s working on cases this season.
I’m really glad that they showed Mike’s grandma again since the main reason Mike took the job as Harvey’s associate was so that he could make enough money to pay the bills for her to stay at the nursing home she lives in instead of being forced to send her to a state run nursing home in the first place. As the first season continued, I was really starting to think that the writers had forgotten about her, so I’m glad that’s not the case. I also love how it was Mike’s conversation with his grandmother that gave him inspiration for how to deal with the plagiarism case that he was working on.
Speaking of how Mike has learned how to be more of a legal shark when he needs to be, one of my favorite scenes from the episode was towards the end of the episode when Mike was in the meeting with the woman who was suing the publishing company that she used to work at for her former boss apparently stealing an idea for a book she had and he convinced her to take the deal that the publishers were offering her. It turns out that several of the ideas that she had for potential books were very similar to books that had already been published, so her best option was to sign the contract which would give her thirty thousand dollars and credit for her idea for the book as well, but she wouldn’t be given public credit for her idea. It was so great seeing Mike tell that woman that if she ever threatened him or the firm again, then he would come after her. I’m thrilled that Mike was also quite the shark when he was talking to Trevor at the end of the episode, telling him that they weren’t friends anymore. He also told Trevor that he had found out his social security number when he saw it on some forms years ago, and he still remembered it due to his photographic memory, which he said he wasn’t afraid to use it to ruin his life if he ever tried to mess with him again. I’m so glad that Mike finally kicked Trevor to the curb. Trevor is a total douche bag.
I recently read an interview that Matt Bomer (He plays Neal Caffrey on White Collar) did for TVLine (Eye on Emmy 2012: White Collar and Glee's Matt Bomer - TVLine) and in it he talked about how he thought the reason why shows on the USA network are often overlooked by the Emmy voters is that while the network’s shows may be dramas, they can also be very lighthearted and comedic at times. That’s definitely the case with Suits as well as White Collar, which make shows like those hard to categorize. This episode is definitely a great example of how Suits can be very dramatic and yet the show has a lot of comedic moments as well.
Personally, I think a lot of shows on the USA network deserve to win an Emmy and it’s a real shame that the Emmy voters are constantly overlooking Suits, as well as White Collar. Since there are some many shows on TV these days that could be considered a “dramedy”, I really think that the Emmys should start having an Outstanding Dramedy TV series for shows like Suits and White Collar.
The editing for this episode was absolutely fantastic, especially at the beginning of the episode when they kept intercutting between the scenes with Mike and Jessica having dinner together, then it would cut to the scenes at the firm where Mike was talking to Harvey about how Jessica had asked him to have dinner with her and he was worried she asked him to dinner because she had found out the truth about him and was planning to confront him about it. However, Harvey told them about how she invited all of the people that later became partners at the firm during their first year working at the firm, which led Mike to believe that it might be a good thing. The way they intercut between the two conversations initially made it seem like she was indeed confronting him about not having a law degree, but she was actually talking to him about the plagiarism case that he was working on throughout the episode and he told her how his parents being killed by a drunk driver when he was a kid is what made him want to become a lawyer.
Plus, I really liked how they only showed the conversation between Harvey and Mike where Harvey was planning to fire him from outside Harvey’s office, but viewers couldn’t hear the conversation. When Mike comes out of Harvey’s office looking really shocked by what Harvey told him it made it seem like Harvey had just fired him, only it turned out that Mike was shocked because Harvey had told him that he was proud of him. I thought it was hilarious that Donna told Harvey that he needed to give Mike more encouragement.
One of my favorite comedic moments from this episode was when Mike was dancing to music that was playing on his iPod in the elevator because he thought that his dinner with Jessica had gone well and Rachel ended up seeing him dancing as he walked out of the elevator. The banter about audiobooks that ensued between them was very clever. I also love how Mike made a joke suggesting that he was attracted to Jessica and older women in general when he was talking to Rachel, and then he quickly told her not to tell anyone what he said. I happen to think Gina Torres is hot, and I also have a thing for older women in general. Gina looked really good in the episodes of Gossip Girl that she guest-starred in as Vanessa Abrams mother, but then again, I also think that Patrick J. Adams is hot too, but I digress.
Still on his emotional high from his dinner with Jessica going well, Mike continued to act extremely giddy and oblivious to the fact that Harvey was planning to fire him as he walked into Harvey’s office, greeting Harvey and Donna with what is my favorite line from the episode: “What’s up, Mother Fleckers?” I thought that was a very clever and very funny way to allude to the F-Word without Mike actually saying it. The writers for Suits sure do have a knack for coming up with extremely clever dialogue, and this episode definitely had a lot of very clever exchanges between the characters.
Maybe other people didn’t think this was funny, but I thought it was funny how Jessica kept referring to Mike as “That God Damn Kid” throughout the episode when she was talking to Harvey. It’s like she thought that was Mike’s actual name.
One thing that I didn’t really notice about the show until I watched the “previously on Suits” segment at the beginning of the episode as well as the actual episode was how Harvey has the tendency to use his hands to emphasize how he prioritizes what’s important to him versus what’s important to Mike. I love how Mike mocked Harvey’s habit of doing that by putting his hand below where Harvey’s hand had been when Harvey said “Your panic attack” when he responded by saying “Your compassion”. That was pretty funny.
This episode also had quite a bit of drama too. In addition to Jessica finding out about Harvey hiring Mike despite the fact that he knew Mike hadn’t gone to law school, Harvey and Jessica were also dealing with the possibility of Jessica’s former boss coming back to work for the firm now that his wife had died of cancer. Apparently, he had treated Jessica as well as everybody else at the firm horribly when he worked there before, but they were able to force him out of the firm after they found out that he had been having an affair and they threatened to tell his wife about it. Now that his wife is dead they don’t have any leverage to use against Daniel, which was why they were afraid that he was going to come back.
There was a lot of back and forth between Harvey and Jessica about Harvey not wanting to fire Mike. First she told him to fire him, which he refused to do, then he almost did fire him, but instead he told Mike that he was proud of him. After Daniel Hardman’s wife died, she agreed to let Mike continue to work at the firm if Harvey could convince Daniel to not return to the firm. Harvey thought that he had convinced Daniel to not come back, but Daniel later announced that he would be returning, which led Harvey to tell Mike to go home and not come back to the firm after they all heard Daniel’s speech and the confession he made about stealing money from the firm when he worked there before. I have to say that his words may have made it seem like he felt remorseful for how he had acted in the past, but I felt like there was a subtle sense of menace to his words as well and that he’s secretly planning to cause major trouble for everyone at the firm.
Harvey finally convinced Jessica once and for all to let Mike keep working at the firm by pointing out to her that with Daniel returning to the firm that he would definitely be going after her job. Jessica also threatened to fire Harvey, but he confessed to hiring Mike knowing that he didn’t have a law degree and that if he left the firm now, Daniel would figure out that something suspicious was going on and he would have leverage to fire her because she would look reckless due to the fact that Harvey hired Mike under her watch. Towards the end of the episode Harvey called Mike to tell him to come to the office right away, only when Mike got to the office Jessica was the only one there.
The episode ended with Jessica telling Mike that if she was going to accept the situation, then she needed to know everything, beginning with him telling her how he got Harvey to hire him in the first place. Mike was going to do the same thing he did with Harvey when they met where they talked about various laws and legal procedures without Mike needing to look them online and playing cards on a laptop computer as they did it. However, she told him that she wasn’t Harvey and that she didn’t need a computer to remember legal information, so it looks like Jessica is going to let Mike keep his job despite not having a law degree.
I’m really glad that the writers have expanded the circle of people who know that Mike doesn’t have a law degree beyond Harvey, Rachel, Trevor and Jenny, because it will definitely heighten the level of fallout that will occur when the truth eventually comes out, and it’s inevitable that people will learn the truth about Mike at some point. I’m also wondering if anyone else will be learning the truth about Mike this season. If I had to guess, I’m guessing that more people will definitely find out this season. If Daniel Hardman finds out this season, I’m sure that the fallout will be massive, because he definitely looks like trouble. I don’t by his “I’m a changed man” spiel one bit.
In addition to all the drama that I already mentioned, there was also a little bit of drama between Mike and Rachel. Rachel was wondering where things stood between them after their kiss and how she drunk dialed him telling that she couldn’t stop thinking about him at the end of last season since he hadn’t said anything to her about it. I’m thinking that Mike was thinking about their kiss, especially after he listened to her message on his answering machine toward the end of the episode, he was simply too preoccupied with everything else that was going on in his life to say anything to her about it in this episode. I really want Mike and Rachel to get together, because I always love their scenes together.
The writers really need to do something to make Lewis a more likable character because he continued to annoy the hell out of me in this episode. Harvey told Lewis to go easy on Mike now that Jessica was taking a special interest in him, but of course Lewis ignored Harvey’s wishes and still gave Mike a hard time, especially about the huge merger that the firm was working on throughout the episode. As much as I hate Lewis, I did think it was pretty funny how he was complaining to another coworker about how Daniel had treated him in the past and was treating his coworker the exact same way he was saying Daniel had treated him as they were talking at the funeral for Daniel’s wife. Of course Lewis was unable to realize how hypocritical he was being at the moment. That was one of the only moments that I’ve found Lewis particularly funny at this point in time.
My obsession with Rick Hoffman’s teeth continued as I watched this episode. I don’t know what the deal with Rick’s teeth is. They make him look like a chipmunk or a beaver, or some other kind of animal. Maybe I’m being too superficial about this, but his teeth look like an example of a botched veneer job.
One last thing that I’d like to comment on is that I thought it was really clever how they shot the scene where Mike exiting the elevator listening to very upbeat music on his iPod and was dancing to it as he was arriving at the office the morning after his dinner with Jessica in contrast to how they shot Mike’s entrance into the office later on in the episode after the scene where Jenny called Mike a fraud and they had very depressing music playing in the background. Plus, I loved the camera work in the scene where Harvey arrives at the office and sees that Daniel has returned the firm. This episode as whole definitely had some excellent camera work.
All in all, this episode really was a great way to start Suits’ second season, especially given how the first season ended. It had the perfect blend of drama and comedy, and it also had some great character and storyline development in terms of the show as a whole. As I mentioned earlier, this episode was also very cleverly edited, and it really did have some fantastic camera work as well.
That being said, I give this episode a rating of an A+.
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