Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | 17 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Tournament of Weasels
By M. Giant | Season 3 | Episode 12 | Aired on 03.13.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Louis is onto Mike after seeing that his fake Harvard transcript includes an A+ from a professor who never gives any. So he decides to flush Mike out by inviting that same professor to give a guest lecture at the firm. For some reason, he also warns Mike that he's done so, which gives him several days to figure out what to do. Naturally Mike's first move is to go to Harvey, who tells him to sit tight. That's not good enough for Rachel, however, and she insists Mike get a little more proactive. Mike knows that Louis won't let it go until he confesses, so that's what he does -- only he just confesses that he changed his own grade, not that he never went to Harvard. Louis buys it, but still isn't impressed. He does forgive Mike when Rachel asks him to the next day, but he's still planning to make Mike face Professor Girard. So Harvey flies up to Boston to try and blackmail the professor, and he may or may not be bluffing, but either way it doesn't work. Ultimately, Harvey's final desperate move is to make a personal appeal to Louis based on their friendship. Which I guess suddenly exists now that Harvey needs it.
You may be wondering, where's Jessica in all this? Well, Harvey was going to tell her, but first she told him that her ex-husband Quentin has died. She's pretty broken up about it, and when Jessica learns that Quentin's second wife Lisa is planning to sell the drug company Quentin started -- the company that was trying to develop a cure for the disease that killed Quentin -- she suspects Lisa's motives. Harvey manages to talk her down, which is when Jessica learns that Lisa's reason for selling Quentin's company is so that the buyer can continue work on the drug with its superior resources. But Jessica flushes out the fact that the buyer only wants to bury Quentin's drug so it can keep selling its own inferior version. This pisses off Lisa's corporate lawyer, who tries to challenge Jessica's status as Quentin's executive so he can go ahead with the deal. But Jessica makes an impassioned case for the spirit of the law and justice and Quentin's legacy and all that, so that justice is served. She and Lisa even hug at the end.
And speaking of the spirit of the law, Louis ultimately decides to let Mike off the hook, letting him get away with an apology to Professor Girard that satisfies Louis's own love for the letter of the law. So Mike's safe again, for now. We'll just have to see how long it lasts this time.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Mike and Rachel walk to work, talking almost giddily about moving in together. Mike goes in for a kiss, but Rachel ducks it when she sees Louis coming out of the building. Mike's on the side of not keeping it a secret any more, unlike Rachel, but the debate is tabled for now so they can go back to talking about the bubble-wrap slippers Mike made that morning. Could he make me some?
Donna finds Harvey leaving a bottle of scotch for Scottie in her office as a welcome gift for when she gets back, and warns Harvey that it's pretty impersonal. Harvey protests that it's a twelve thousand dollar bottle of scotch, which is just stupid no matter how rich you are or how much anyone likes scotch. So Donna says the message is, "You're one of three very expensive things I recently purchased." Harvey rather dickishly accuses Donna of objecting to Scottie's presence at all, but then backs down when Donna reminds him that she was instrumental in getting Scottie in the door in the first place. Donna insists that she's just trying to postpone Harvey screwing it up with Scottie, and says that gifts like that bottle are the reason she buys her own gifts for Secretary's Day. Harvey's surprised that such a thing even exists. "And you're very generous," Donna assures him.
Louis encounters Mike in the bathroom to tell him that he invited Henry Gerard to give a lecture at the firm on Friday. That's the Harvard professor of legal ethics who supposedly gave Mike the only A+ of his career. Louis thinks he's busted Mike already, but Mike has had the foresight (not to mention the mutant ability) to have memorized not only his fake transcript, but also the academic records of all his fake professors. Still, Mike quietly freaks when Louis -- his voice suddenly all echoey -- says that nobody ever gets an A+ from Gerard. Mike recovers quickly, though, and says he earned it by reciting a chapter of Gerard's book from memory. Louis doesn't buy it, and accuses Mike of never having gone to Harvard at all. After having turned briefly away from Louis to dry his hands Mike turns back around and acts like Donna did last week, telling Louis that's insane. Louis gets up in Mike's face, saying he doesn't believe him. And he doesn't want to ask Gerard, because he doesn't want the firm to become a laughingstock. "But if he doesn't walk up to you on Friday and say, 'Mike Ross, my beloved student, who I remember because he's the only one I ever gave an A+ to,' then I'm gonna know you're lying." Louis further threatens to launch a formal investigation if Mike doesn't confess. "I'd rather risk looking crazy to root out an impostor than to risk letting that impostor poison everything that I stand for." Louis tells Mike it's over and vows to expose him. "Don't forget to rinse your mouth out after you're done throwing up," he says. Come on, Louis… even people who don't have mutant memories remember that.