Suits: Teeth, Nose, Teeth (6x13)

I was talking to a friend recently about this show, and he said he was losing patience with it. During the course of our conversation, we realized that our frustrations came from the fact that this is starting to feel less and less like a show about a law firm and the people who work there. Instead, this whole season has felt very disjointed, particularly as Harvey and Mike's lives take them in differing directions. Let's take a closer look.

Cons:

Both of the subplots in this episode failed pretty badly. In one, we see Louis and Tara continue their relationship, as Tara is ready to have her first ultrasound. Louis is at first upset that Tara's ex is coming to the hospital, but later is upset that the guy cancels, because he thinks it means he'll be a bad father. Tara confusingly decides that Louis' understandably tumultuous reaction to all of this means she "doesn't know him at all," but they make up by the time the episode ends. Louis and Tara make no sense to me, and their relationship drama is pointless and uninteresting. The end of this critique.

Donna discovers that Benjamin the IT guy has created an AI machine called "The Donna" that is full of all of her most witty phrases. Benjamin wants to pursue a business opportunity with Donna, but Donna later says no, because she's more than just her witticisms. What makes her great is her open heart, her intuition, and her loyalty to her friends. Benjamin says he wants to try and make "The Donna" more like the real Donna, and asks for her help. Okay... what? I know I said I wanted a story-line focused on Donna, but this was just weird. Benjamin never explained what "The Donna" was supposed to do. Is it a computerized legal secretary? We never see it do anything like schedule appointments or make reservations or do anything that a secretary is supposed to do. And it's way too smart, flawlessly talking to Donna as if it had a mind of its own. Is this actually a plot thread that's going to continue? It was so bad I was embarrassed by it.

The main plots delved together quite nicely, but I still have my issues. Mike is frustrated by being unable to represent his clients at the clinic. Meanwhile Rachel is told that she won't be getting an ethics committee meeting. Turns out, one of the guys on the ethics committee wants Harvey and Louis to drum up a lawsuit against one of his competitors, to drive the stock prices down. If they do this, then he'll make sure Rachel passes the ethics portion of the bar. Harvey has an idea - maybe he can get this unscrupulous guy to get Mike to pass the bar as well. Mike turns Harvey down, since drumming up this lawsuit is pretty illegal, but he later says yes, because he wants to be able to actually represent his clients.

This is the part where my opinion is split... at the start of this review, I was complaining about how the plot lines are too separated from each other. But this way of pushing Harvey and Mike back together seems a bit uninspired. You're telling me that after everything, Mike's willing to break the law again to be a lawyer? And you're telling me that Harvey, after spending all season focusing on Mike instead of focusing on the firm, is going to continue to bend over backwards to help Mike, despite breaking more rules to do so? There might be a lesson in here, somewhere. There might be something about how people never change, and how Harvey and Mike are actually just... bad, selfish people. But I think we're meant to root for these guys, and they're making it a little hard to do that just now.

Pros:

I know I just harped on this episode in a big way, but there were actually a lot of things I enjoyed about it. Donna's plot thread was stupid, but Benjamin is a delightful character and it's always nice to see him. Louis and Tara's plot was stupid, but I do admit to enjoying the continuing trend of Louis noticing his mistakes and remedying them appropriately. It feels like real character growth.

Speaking of character growth, my favorite plot thread of the night was the one involving Rachel getting screwed over by the bar examiners. She rushes to Louis, who then rushes to Harvey. Harvey notices that Louis didn't just run off and make things worse, and Louis replies that he's committed to running this firm as partners. He needs to acknowledge that Harvey is better at some things than Louis is. Harvey uses the opportunity to joke around with Louis about being better at everything, and it felt like a genuine, fun moment between friends. Harvey later returns the compliment by telling Louis he's better at financial transactions, asking him to find out why this corrupt ethics committee member wants to mess with his competitor's stock. If one of the outcomes of this season can be Harvey and Louis finally being on the same page and working together effectively, then I'm all for it. (Still haven't forgiven Louis for attacking Mike that one time, though. In case anybody was wondering, I hold grudges).

Mike's story at the legal clinic, while somewhat disconnected from the rest of the episode, is actually pretty compelling. The woman from last week who Mike tried to save actually ends up evicted anyway. It's a tragic story, one that's supposed to be pushing Mike into taking up Harvey's offer of getting him through the bar. I'm not quite convinced about that aspect, but whatever. I like these characters - you have Oliver, the lawyer who gets flustered in court and ends up costing his client her home, and you've got Marissa, the third year law student who's a bit cocky but undeniably brilliant. I like Mike's boss, and I like the dynamic of having Mike be in charge of people who are his superiors in legal title, if not in experience. There's a lot of good material to explore here.

Let us end with the beginning of the episode, which saw Mike going to Harvey's place to apologize for yelling at him a few weeks back. He then tells Harvey that he and Rachel are going ahead with their wedding. Harvey, as best man, offers to have the wedding at his apartment, which it turns out is what Mike was hinting at in the first place. This scene is inter-cut with Rachel asking Donna to be her maid of honor. You know me - I love some Mike/Harvey bromance. I was really glad to see Mike apologizing, because he was seriously out of line for yelling at Harvey. Also, how cute was their banter? I just love their back-and-forth. I laughed out loud when Harvey says something about making sure Mike doesn't bail on this wedding, and Mike responds "yeah, and we need to make sure you don't *cough* Donna at the wedding." That was priceless.

That's where I'll stop. I had a lot of problems with this episode of Suits, but I haven't given up on the possibility of a comeback. There's still a lot of good story potential here.

6.5/10