Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | 5 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT A Hardman is Bad to Find
By M. Giant | Season 2 | Episode 1 | Aired on 06.14.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.When Jessica invites Mike to a private dinner, he thinks it's because she's onto him, but Harvey assures him she does that with all future senior partners. Unfortunately, it turns out that Mike's right and Harvey's wrong. However, Harvey's the first to know, and Jessica orders him to fire Mike, giving Harvey the benefit of the doubt that he didn't know. However, Mike's excitement about his royal treatment and his plan to "Harvey Specter" a plaintiff holding up a big merger causes Harvey to relent. Rather than firing Mike, or even telling him what's up, he arranges for Louis to give Mike a big task so he can't leave abruptly without raising questions Jessica doesn't want asked. But surely this is only forestalling the inevitable, right?
Well, in a miracle of fortuitous timing, we learn that one Alicia Hardman has died. This is of course relevant in a firm that goes by the name Pearson Hardman, as we learn that Daniel Hardman is the evil partner who was forced out five years hence. But the way they did it was to blackmail him by threatening to expose an affair to his wife, and since she's gone, so is their leverage. At the funeral, Daniel puts on a big act for Harvey and Jessica about how the last five years with his dying wife have changed him and helped him reconnect with his daughter. But the last thing Jessica and Harvey want is for him to come back, whether that's true or not. So Harvey offers to keep Daniel away, if Jessica lets him keep Mike.
Mike, meanwhile, has gotten wind of his precarious work situation during the conversation in which Jenny dumped him for wanting to be with Rachel, but Harvey still has him busy trying to clear up that lawsuit so the merger can go through. Mike goes back and forth between the parties and eventually delivers a well-deserved spanking to both of them so the merger can go through. And Harvey re-blackmails Daniel, now threatening to tell his daughter all about his past indiscretions. It seems that all will be well, but Daniel shows up at the office anyway, announcing his intention to return -- and to come clean, about everything, to everyone, including his daughter. So much for Harvey's leverage. And so much for his deal with Jessica to keep Mike. But Harvey warns Jessica that she needs him to fight off Daniel, and he's not staying without Mike (who seems to be slowly figuring out the situation with Trevor and Rachel, but very slowly). And their departure will make her vulnerable to Daniel. Jessica seems to go for it, but she's not going to make it easy, challenging Mike to a battle of wits, legal-style. If that's supposed to be some kind of punishment for him, I don't think it's going to work.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Suits: The first season, in which pothead loser-slash-stealth genius Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) found himself about to walk into a drug bust with a briefcase full of pot. He escaped that situation by crashing a mass job interview for a high-powered law firm, which was being boringly conducted by high-powered smug prick Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht). Mike then used some Good Will and Testament Hunting shtick to beat Harvey at a battle of wits, legal-style and thus finagle himself an associate position at Harvey's firm, Pearson Hardman. The fact that Mike never even went to law school is a minor wrinkle to Harvey, whose assistant Donna (Sarah Rafferty) is in on the secret too. But if the firm's owner Jessica Pearson (Gina Torres) finds out, both Harvey and Mike are screwed. Mike's tendency to empathize with clients (and, in some cases, non-clients) has put him in some conflict with Harvey's more shark-like style, but it also earned him a convincingly fake Harvard Law record courtesy of a client's grateful daughter. And let's not even bring up the contentious rivalry with their co-worker, off-putting weasel Louis Litt (H!ITG Rick Hoffman). Alas, Mike's frenemy Trevor (Tom Lipinski) -- the one who sent Mike into that drug deal in the first place -- accidentally intercepted a voicemail message from Mike's flirty work-spouse, top paralegal Rachel (Meghan Markle), alluding to the fact that Mike is dating Trevor's ex-girlfriend Jenny (Vanessa Ray) and that Rachel kissed Mike. And since one ugly revelation deserves another, the first season ended on the cliffhanger that Trevor seemed about to expose both Mike and Harvey to Jessica. Got all that? Good, now you're up to speed. Let's do this.
Mike walks the streets of Manhattan at night to the on-the-nose strains of some testicle singing, "You're a fraud and you know it." He enters a restaurant to find Jessica waiting for him. She asks if he's nervous and he admits he'd be lying if he denied it. "Well, I wouldn't want you to lie," Jessica says pointedly. This is off to a great start.
Cut to Mike and Harvey pedeconferencing at the office earlier that day. Mike thinks Jessica's dinner invitation means she's onto him, but Harvey informs him that all of the firm's senior partners -- including himself back in the day -- were invited to dinner with Jessica during their first year. Now Mike's main concern is what to wear, but Harvey's more interested in hearing about some Swinton merger that Mike's supposed to be handling. Mike updates Harvey on a nuisance-suit he has to clean up first and then they banter about Mike's panic attack and make some oddly timely Goodfellas references. Mike wonders if he'll get an office out of this and when Harvey tweaks him for his rapid shift from worrying about getting whacked to getting made, Mike says he was just quickly adapting to changing circumstances. "Ah well, maybe you won't be the worst lawyer in the history of everything," Harvey quips while Mike continues quoting Goodfellas at the space that Harvey was occupying until very recently.