Suits: Prisoner's Dilemma (9x08)

I guess I'm just feeling antsy for this show to end, so I can spend some more time with Mike in the final two episodes. This episode should have been great, what with returning villains and allies from the past, and a connection to Mike's prison story-line, but something about it didn't totally click into place for me. It was good, not great.

Cons:

This episode is called "Prisoner's Dilemma," and that references the way that Malik pits Cahill and Harvey against each other. Harvey stays loyal, but Cahill flips. But then Harvey finds a piece of information, with Donna's help, and the two men are able to leverage Malik and both get away free. There are a few things that annoy me here - the first is that Cahill has every right to save his own ass in this situation. Harvey is all about loyalty or whatever, but Cahill isn't one of his people. He has manipulated and pressured Cahill over and over again. Sure, he was doing it for Mike, and so as a viewer of this show, I'm on Harvey's side. But Cahill feeling guilty, Cahill trying to help Harvey however he can... none of that really makes a lot of sense to me in the context of their characters. I guess the idea is that they've been through a lot together, but even that doesn't really justify the pseudo-friendship they're trying to show here.

I did not at all hate the subplot with Esther. There were many good things about it. I'm always a fan of TV shows shedding light on the real issues that women face when it comes to sexual assault and coming forward about their experiences. I will say, though, it felt a little shoe-horned in, especially at this late stage - this entire subplot could have been lifted and put anywhere in the season, and it could have remained the same. With just two episodes left after this one, why was this how Louis, Katrina, and Samantha all spent the episode? On a more specific note, I found it odd that Louis was motivated by this experience to want to marry Sheila before the baby comes. How are these two stories connected, other than by "family is important"? I feel like this is just an excuse to have a wedding in the finale.

Pros:

As I said, I enjoyed the subplot with Esther. Stories like this are always going to have the veneer of "very special episodes" in the sense that they're clearly making a clear-cut moral stand and are there to teach a lesson and make a point. And honestly? Good. I'm not going to complain about the black and white nature of a story about a man who has sexually assaulted multiple women throughout his career and has gotten away with it by paying them off and gas-lighting. It's good to see a character like that portrayed as uniformly the bad guy. It's good that the episode points out how common this sort of thing is, and explains the reasons why women often don't want to come forward. And it's good that Esther gets that cathartic moment of confrontation, and the bad guy loses. Unfortunately, no matter how much times are changing, things don't often go well for accusers. I'm really okay with seeing an uncomplicated moral and practical victory for a woman who really deserves it.

In terms of the story's impact on our core cast of characters, I like that this was an example of Louis getting fired up and making a mistake, as he often does, but then recognizing that he was wrong, listening to women (not only his sister, but Samantha and Katrina too) and then working to put it right. It was nice that Esther thanked Louis for helping her at the end, but I like that the victory belonged to Esther alone. She's the one who got to put the smack-down on her former boss and attacker. And Samantha and Katrina got to assist.

In the main plot, it was nice to see some of Harvey's old decisions nearly come back to bite him. We got to see Charles Forstman behind bars, which was satisfying, we got to see Harvey take down Malik one final time. We got to see how the things that Harvey did to save Mike had their own consequences. It was almost a cleaning of the slate as we get ready to go in for these final two episodes, with Faye as our last big bad. Part of my frustration here is that it seemed kind of pointless, since we see Harvey get arrested, but he immediately figures out a way to beat Malik so it doesn't go anywhere. That said, I would probably have been more frustrated if the final two episodes were suddenly Harvey vs. Malik, when all season we've been building up Faye. So ultimately I think this episode was a good chance to bring back some familiar faces just before we step in to the final two.

The Mike stuff here was pretty great - Harvey insists again and again that everything he did with regards to the prison plot, he'd do again. It doesn't matter to him what the outcome was, he did what he did to get Mike out of danger, and that's the bottom line. I like that he describes Mike as someone who's never hurt anybody. The point is clear. In comparison with Frank Gallo, Mike is a harmless person. But it just goes to show Harvey's blind spot. Mike is far from innocent, and whether they want to admit it or not, their years of fraud did hurt a lot of people.

As the episode ends, we see Donna giving Harvey some bad news - his mother died. What are the odds that Donna is the one to break the news about both of Harvey's parents dying over the years? Poor thing. Poor both of them. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet. It came in at the final moment of the episode, so I'll have to see how this is integrated as the show ends. As it is, I certainly feel very bad for Harvey.

And that's that! We've got just two weeks left before we say goodbye for good, and I do believe we've also just had our last Mike Ross-less episode of Suits! That's something to celebrate indeed!

7/10