Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | 33 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Oil Is Thicker than Blood
By M. Giant | Season 3 | Episode 3 | Aired on 07.30.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Not only have Mike and Harvey made up, but so have Donna and Mike, and Donna and Rachel, and Harvey and Jessica, as far as Jessica knows. Rachel and Mike even become officially boyfriend and girlfriend. Sure, Louis is still pissy over Mike shooting him down, but even he gets a bone thrown to him when Harvey gives him the job of fighting a corporate takeover move against Harvey's client, Ava Hessington. Whom Harvey got off the hook for her bribery charge, so it's all good, right? Not exactly, because now she's being prosecuted for conspiracy to commit murder. It seems that a number of activists opposing her foreign pipeline were killed, on her company's land, by the soldiers of the same colonel she bribed to get the pipeline built in the first place, and the bribery plea was just a trap. Harvey puts up a good fight, but when Cameron Dennis comes up with witnesses, Ava demands Harvey try to pay them off. And when he refuses, she fires him so she can look for a lawyer who will.
There are also some interlopers on the scene. Katrina Bennett, who's tired of being in fifth-year purgatory at the firm, tries to get in on the Hessington case on both Louis's side and Harvey's, only to get shot down by both Louis and Mike. She plays a childish and very public prank on Mike and takes a tongue-lashing for it from Harvey, but ends up being taken under Louis's wing. The other not-entirely-welcome presence is Steven Huntley, Harvey's opposite number from the London office. Although he immediately starts flirting with Donna, he claims to be there to help Harvey -- including the part where Harvey takes over from Jessica -- and nobody is more surprised than Harvey when he actually starts doing so, by saving Harvey's relationship with Ava.
But it's Mike who saves the case, as he comes up with a legal way to pay off the witnesses that isn't outright bribery. Through all this, both he and Harvey deflect Ava's increasingly insistent questions as to whether they think she's guilty. But it's not until late at night, over drinks, that Mike and Harvey admit to each other that they do. And then Harvey admits something else to Mike: he's going after Jessica. The episode ends before Mike responds, but after what happened the last time Mike picked Jessica over Harvey, he seems unlikely to make that mistake again.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Let's start with some male gaze, shall we? Mike sits in the break room ogling Rachel as she and her little skirt try to reach some energy bars on the top shelf. They do the your place or mine thing, but of course Rachel's Tess flashbacks mean it's going to be hers for the foreseeable future. Mike settles in to enjoy a bar of his own, until Louis comes in and snatches it out of his mouth. He declares bran bars are off-limits to first-years, per the quartermaster, as of two seconds ago. Not that he's speaking to Mike, as he asks Rachel to ask Mike to pass the creamer. Mike has apparently been trying to apologize to Louis for not tying the professional knot with him, but Louis is. Not. Having it.
Nor is Louis's mood improved when he returns to his office to find Harvey waiting there, and preemptively rejects what he thinks is going to be Harvey's apology for snatching Mike back. But Harvey says he's giving Louis a case, and looks over at the box of files from the Hessington Oil thing. With the bribery charge dispensed with, now it's about fighting the takeover attempt, which Harvey says Louis can do better than he can. "Leave the box," Louis snaps, somewhat mollified at what, from Harvey, is an abject display of humility. Harvey pauses at the door and suggests a "rebound associate." Which launches an extended riff about having a fling versus finding a long-term relationship. Harvey assures Louis he'll find the right one eventually. Not unless the case gets bigger.
Rachel finds Donna at the copier in the file room, and makes a peace overture in the form of tentatively kicking off a little banter. Donna plays along, and Rachel apologizes to Donna for her angry comment last week about Donna not having a life. Donna accepts this, so they're good. Rachel asks if Mike is also out of the doghouse with Donna, which he is, only she hasn't told him that and thus has a super-fancy coffee to enjoy today. Rachel suggests telling him anyway.
Harvey and his ex-client Ava Hessington are sitting down to lunch together, since she hasn't returned to London due to the takeover attempt. Harvey tells her he's reassigned it to another attorney, assuring her that the new attorney is excellent. Ava's not bothered at all by Harvey's departure from the case, because she's decided he's going to come and work for her. She appreciates the way Harvey likes a knife fight, but he politely declines, saying he prefers to have more than one client. And in comes Cameron Dennis, of all people, saying his temporary gig as special prosecutor isn't quite over. He and Harvey posture at each other until Cameron tells Ava that she's under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder. Well, I don't think anyone saw that coming.