Suits: 100 (7x08)

There are a few pretty big things going on in this episode, and some of them really did not work for me. However, there were lots of other elements that brought this episode closer to the Suits I used to love so much in the early seasons. Kind of difficult to decide what to think.

Cons:

Frank Gallow dies off-screen. And apparently he gets a redemption arc because he loves his daughter or whatever. I mean... okay, maybe it was unrealistic to hope for some big soap-opera-y drama where Frank actually tries to have Mike killed, but I was kind of hoping for that. Suits is a show about moral ambiguity in a lot of ways, but sometimes I feel like there's too much time spent on attempting to nuance characters we really don't need to be nuanced. It's okay for Frank to just be a bad dude. Mike telling Frank's daughter that he was a "decent man" felt particularly forced to me. Frank threatened Mike's life, made threats against Harvey and Rachel, and the scummy things he did to get into prison in the first place were pretty reprehensible. It's not that I'm celebrating the death of a man, but... to call him a decent man? Really, Mike?

For the most part I really loved Rachel getting to assert some power in this episode. On the other hand, though, after she makes a plan to screw over her father, she spends the remainder of the episode playing emotional support for Louis and Donna instead of getting her own stuff to do. She's really been pushed to the side this season, and it's bumming me out.

Donna and Louis have these parallel story-lines where lovers from their past come back and basically ask them to help them cheat on their partners because of lingering feelings. Parallels are all well and good, but I couldn't help but think these two plot threads were a little on the nose in how similar they were.

Oh, and one other thing that I actually just realized as I was typing this: if this is the end of the prison case, it feels very odd that the clinic was left entirely out of it. And what about the poor father of the young man who died in prison? Mike's whole thing about helping people is a little hard to buy into when those people he wants to help are not so much as mentioned in the entire episode. Maybe we'll see some sort of plot thread epilogue next week, but I feel like there could have been a place this week to include some of the class action plaintiffs, or at the very least, see what Oliver thinks of everything that went down.

Pros:

This was maybe the best episode for Robert Zane ever. He got to run the gamut from his usual slick and intimidating self to a decidedly frazzled and intimidating self, to a forgiving and benevolent man. Great acting from Wendell Pierce. The best moment is when Harvey is trying to get him to settle the case instead of push it to court, and Robert says that he's not doing this for money, or because he likes to win. He's doing this because but for the grace of God, he might have ended up in prison when he was younger, like so many of his peers did. He wants to get justice for the wrongfully sentenced, and even throws Harvey's white privilege in his face. It was completely amazing and I really did not expect the show to go there in such explicit terms. One of the problems with Mike's prison story-line is that it painted Mike has a victim of the system, when in reality his white privilege and powerful, rich friends were able to get him out in practically no time at all. Robert knows the other side of that coin, and he's willing to do what it takes to get justice.

Another highlight was Robert's showdown with Harvey in the bathroom. Basically, Harvey cuts Robert off from using Frank as a witness by telling the court that Robert was being threatened by Frank, and that Frank was using Rachel against Robert. My Harvey/Mike goggles were very happy when Mike came in and yelled at Robert, telling him that the plan was Rachel's idea in the first place, and not to take it out on Harvey. Robert really did look like he was about to punch Harvey, and in a way I can't blame him. That scene was tense and full of so many interesting dynamics. Harvey hated the plan because it impugned Robert's honor and integrity, something he never wanted to do. Mike wanted to respect Rachel's wishes that she be involved, and yet he still feels guilty for going through with a plan that hurt his future father-in-law. There were a lot of messy emotions flowing in that scene, and they all came through wonderfully. We also get to see a resolution between Mike and Robert, which I thought was nice but might have been better if Rachel had been there to speak to her father directly.

Louis and Sheila having one last wild night together... well, I've always thought Sheila was a total riot, and it was fun to see her again and to witness the deeply uncomfortable foreplay between Sheila and Louis, two of the most awkward and intense humans on the planet. I'm putting this whole thing under the "pros" section because even though it can be exhausting to watch Louis continually sabotage himself, at least this time he's not ruining everything for the firm again. I'll be interested to see if anything more comes of this little diversion with Sheila.

Then you have Donna and Mark. I'm really glad Donna didn't decide to sleep with a married man. That doesn't seem like something she'd be able to forgive herself for. Mark seems like a generic obstacle to the eventual Donna/Harvey pairing we're all so sure is coming. What's interesting, however, is that Paula does not seem like a generic obstacle. I really like her, and it seems like Harvey really likes her too. It's their two month anniversary, and although Harvey didn't know that, he still got Paula a pretty serious gift - the key to his apartment. This is a deeply symbolic gift, as just a few weeks back we saw Donna give Harvey back the key to his apartment, symbolizing an acknowledgment that this thing they've both danced around for so long isn't going to happen. Again, I'm amazed by how much this particular love triangle remains interesting to me.

I mentioned above that Rachel played mostly a supporting role in this episode, as she has all season. However, I did love the scene where she stood up for herself with Mike, and the fact that Mike followed through with that when he told Robert that the plan was Rachel's idea. He didn't try to take the blame, but allowed Rachel to maintain control over her own decision. It was a small moment, but one you just don't see very often when female characters assert power in this way. I liked it a lot.

So there you have it. 100 episodes down. I'm surprised Suits has lasted as long as it has, but I'm glad it has. There are so many things to love, even if there are a few that I have to roll my eyes at sometimes!

8/10