Suits: Toe to Toe (5x05)

Yikes, Harvey! That was intense. And once again, Jessica is the ultimate bad-ass. Let's dive right in.

Harvey, in an attempt to get back to his normal fighting self, decides to take on a case against Travis Tanner. He brings Mike in on the case, so it can be like old times. At first, everything goes to plan, but Mike starts to notice that Harvey is obsessed with beating Travis. The case takes some interesting turns, and they learn that Travis' client is claiming that Harvey's client sexually harrassed her. Harvey thinks this is a lie, that Travis is playing them. Mike goes to talk to Travis' client, and finds out it was actually her idea. As the case continues, Mike becomes more and more convinced that the right thing to do is take the settlement offer. Harvey, however, is determined to beat Tanner.

Things escalate even further when Harvey and Tanner get into it on the street. Tanner makes crass jokes about Donna, and about Harvey's mother, and Harvey punches him. Mike has to hold him back and tell Tanner to leave. Eventually, Tanner asks Mike to come meet with him, and Mike does. He convinces Tanner to take his name off the case and give it to somebody else. Once Mike shows Harvey that he can settle on the case without losing to Travis Tanner, Harvey capitulates, realizing that he'd let Tanner get in his head.

While all of this is going on, we're flashing to Harvey's therapy sessions with Dr. Agard. Harvey had a dream wherein Donna was lying in his bed, but then suddenly Tanner was there with her. Harvey keeps denying that the woman was Donna, even though Agard is sure that it was. After a game of poker, which Harvey wins, Harvey asks Agard to tell her about a time she failed as a therapist. She tells him that she once gave permission for a young man to be let out of a drug rehabilitation center, when she knew he wasn't ready. He overdosed and died. Eventually, this causes Harvey to open up. He tells Agard that it was Donna in his dream. But then Agard drops a bomb: she doesn't think it was really Donna. She thinks it was a manifestation of Harvey's mother. He has a lot of issues with his mother that he needs to unpack.

Meanwhile, Louis is trying to find a way to fix things with the compensation agreement. He needs to find a way to change it back to how it was before. He tries to deal with it by adding in a new clause to a subsection of the by-laws that make the new compensation arrangement against firm policy, but Jessica tells him he has to do this above board, and put it to a vote. Louis needs Jack's support. He and Rachel figure out that Jack will help Louis undo the vote if Louis is able to offer him a lot of money as they share credit for a new client. Louis stages a meeting with an important business man, and pretends he's closed him as a client. Jack agrees to go along with it, but at the board meeting, Jack flips on Louis, instead having the company vote to not make any changes to the compensation arrangement.

Jessica finds out that Louis has failed. Not only that, but Donna convinces Louis to come clean about leaving Harvey's salary in the copy machine. Louis tells Jessica, who decides to use this new piece of information to her advantage, and fix the compensation thing once and for all. She gets Jack to inadvertently admit that he knew about Louis' plan to sabotage Harvey, and therefore blackmails him into working on reversing the vote.

So. I really enjoyed this episode. However, I do have one kind of big thing I want to talk about.

This is sort of a random complaint, and it doesn't fit in just this episode. I've really admired the way this season has been looking at Harvey's emotional state, and how he's handling Donna leaving him. But it just hit me, as I was watching this episode that has very little Donna in it, that we've gone back to Donna's story arc being all about the other characters. How is she handling this split? She left Harvey, the person she's loved and been loyal to for twelve years. It's a little disturbing that we haven't seen much of how she's doing. Mostly we just see her trying to smooth things over between Louis and Harvey. It's sort of business as usual.

But that's more of a general concern. In terms of this episode as an individual product, I have nothing to complain about. And a lot to praise.

First of all, I loved the dynamic between Harvey and Mike here. It was a tad bit more complex than their typical bromantic banter. And the best thing is that the drama isn't between Harvey and Mike right now. They're a united front. We got to see some fun "just like old times" antics between them, and some more serious stuff as well. I love the fact that Mike didn't tell Rachel about Harvey's panic attack until he felt like he absolutely had to. He clearly has enormous respect for Harvey's privacy.

Then there's what Harvey is going through. I've talked about this before, but just to elaborate: I love what we're seeing this season about Harvey and his mental state. I think it's so fascinating to dig into the background and psyche of his character and learn more about what makes him tick. His frightening behavior towards Travis Tanner doesn't feel out of character or forced in any way. Harvey wanted desperately to return to a sense of normalcy, and he got that by attacking his nemesis. But he got too caught up, and that's where Mike comes in, to bring him out of it.

From his meetings with Dr. Agard, we now understand a little better that Harvey's feelings of abandonment, and his intense ideas about loyalty, all stem from his mother's betrayals. This isn't exactly rocket science, and I feel like anybody could have picked up this obvious trend. But it's so utterly fascinating to take a quality of Harvey's - his obsession with loyalty - and give it a more complex, nuanced background. Loyalty is undoubtedly a good quality, but Harvey's fierceness about it might not be such a good thing.

Travis Tanner is an interesting villain. Part of me really believes that he's changed. He did back off of the case when Mike asked him to, after all. On the other hand, what he said to Harvey about Donna and his mother was pretty terrible. But what if Travis Tanner feels the same way about Harvey as Harvey feels about him? What if Harvey Specter is the one guy to push Tanner's buttons and make him cross the line? If that's the case, then Travis isn't a total bad guy here. Harvey is just as guilty.

Jessica, once again, is a total bad-ass. I don't even care that she's basically played the same role all season. Somebody else screws up, she's above it all, and then she fixes it. The way she handled Jack was just so glorious. It was like she was squishing a bug beneath her shoe. I just love watching the all-powerful Jessica do her thing. (Although, I do admit, I want to see more of her softer side. Can we have more Jessica and Rachel bonding, please?)

Louis screwed up again, but at least Jessica was able to quickly repair the damage. I get sick of Louis always being the screw-up, especially if they're not going to make him a proper villain. But I did enjoy him in this episode, particularly the recurring joke about going mudding. He passes out when he learns that he'll be mudding with Rachel and Donna! I love that this isn't anything sexual. It's just about closeness and friendship for Louis. I love it.

I think that's where I'll end things. Next week, it looks like Dr. Agard gets brought into the story proper. That should be very interesting!

8/10