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Since Harvey and Jessica are insisting on going to trial to defend Harvey against Travis Tanner's fraud suit aimed at disbarring him, Daniel Hardman wants to practice with a trial run. Louis is the natural choice to play Tanner, what with his hatred of Harvey and devious nature, and Rachel can play Donna since Harvey's ex-assistant is too pissed at him to come in and plans to plead the fifth anyway. Also, Harvey's brought in a jury consultant, a former Pearson Hardman employee whose pants he once tried to enter. Mike's job is to help Louis be as nasty as Tanner will be, but Louis goes above and beyond when Donna actually shows up for the trial run and Louis humiliates her on the stand. The good news is that Harvey's protectiveness toward Donna started to sway the "jury," and Harvey's defense attorney, Jessica, proceeds to complete a picture of Harvey as a man who wants to win, but fairly. She clinches the fake case by getting Louis himself to admit that he doesn't believe Harvey is guilty.
But Mike isn't convinced that will work at a real trial, since Tanner isn't about to do what Louis did. So he's hard at work digging through Tanner's old cases to find something to use against him. Hardman, who's been pushing for a settlement all along, volunteers to help. Sure enough, Tanner ends up bringing a settlement deal that lets Harvey off the hook, thanks to something Hardman found and "leveraged." Harvey and Jessica remain suspicious of Hardman's motives, especially now that he's essentially blackmailed the opposing counsel, but Mike argues that Harvey should take the deal. When it comes to a vote of the partners, it's split down the middle. Harvey, the swing vote, decides to settle. But no sooner is that decided than Hardman calls for another vote: one on whether the firm is going to be run by Jessica or himself. Well, look who turned out to be the bad guy after all. Jessica had better hope Harvey will be the swing vote on this one, too.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!With Jessica at his side, Harvey's being deposed on video by Travis Tanner in the Pearson Hardman conference room. You can tell Harvey's intimidated by how he's making fun of Tanner's tie. Tanner, in turn, isn't offended, pleasantly reminding the audience of how this is all about his fraud case against Harvey for allegedly burying a case-making document four years ago. You know, the one Donna misplaced, found again, shredded and got fired for? Harvey explains the discovery of the document from the old case files with a "whoops," which cracks Tanner up. You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, Tanner proposed settling for five million dollars and Harvey's disbarment, but in light of this development, now he wants a hundred mil... and Harvey's disbarment. Harvey dares Travis to take them to court, which Jessica backs him on given the figure Tanner just quoted. So Tanner says he's willing to take zero dollars, as long as Harvey's still disbarred. Attempting to divide and conquer, Tanner reminds Jessica that Harvey's hardly worth this additional trouble on top of what he already gives her, but Jessica insists he solves more problems than he creates. That must happen off-camera. Since that approach didn't work, Tanner starts questioning Harvey's manhood, trying to piss him off. Jessica tries to call a halt to this, but Tanner keeps going, first saying that Jessica's the man in her relationship with Harvey, then that she's Harvey's mommy and then that Harvey has a thing for mommy. He keeps pushing, "Now it all makes sense. Because I actually looked into your mommy, and it turns out the whole time you were home with Daddy, Mommy was out banging --" But we never find out who Mommy was banging, because Harvey jumps out of his chair and punches Tanner in the face. "I'll see you in court, Harv," Tanner says, a self-satisfied trickle of blood coming from his mouth.
Later, in Jessica's office with Hardman, Harvey is unrepentant over having physically assaulted the opposing counsel, but Hardman wants them to prepare with a trial run. A trial trial, if you will. When he leaves, Jessica says he's an asshole, but Harvey says he's right. They'll have to practice, but they'll need just the right person to play Tanner: someone nasty, someone who hates Harvey, somebody who Harvey will want to punch in the face. Do we even need to bother cutting to Louis?
Okay, I guess we do. Behind his desk, Louis is laughing and trying to make Harvey beg him to help out, but Harvey turns it around and goads Louis into wanting to beat Harvey more than ever. "Somebody wants to get Litt up!" Louis catchphrases. You're welcome, Louis.