Oh Suits, you teased us so with the possibility of an adversary worthy of Jessica and Harvey, someone with a justifiable motive and the cunning to actually pull it off. You built up to it, Hardman lurked in the shadows with just a hint of menace to the words he spoke. Then in the season finale you copped-out. For 15 brilliant minutes we glimpsed at a new world order inside Pearson Hardman, with Jessica’s back to the wall and Harvey knocked down a few notches. Those 15 minutes will be one of the highlights of the season. Sad though that the writers didn’t trust themselves or their characters to survive the NWO for longer and come out stronger in the back half of the season. No, we got a glimpse of an idea which would’ve been great before order was restored far too easily for it to be easy to root for the protagonist.
This season did however try to soften Harvey up a bit, we got some back story; Mr Specter was a sappy musician and Mrs Specter was a adulteress who broke Mr. Specter’s sappy heart. Guess that explains Harvey’s damage, he has major trust issues when it comes to women, which explains how he reacted when he discovers Donna’s betrayal of him and gives plausibility to Hardman’s assessment that he will eventually come after Jessica too. And though Harvey is loyal he is also very self-serving, and he values his own survival over his loyalty to others. However, at this moment I find it very difficult to see what would make Harvey turn on Jessica, I fear it may not be very organic if it happens too soon; and with an adversary who was capable of hurting them from the inside gone, and the threat of Travis Tanner neutralized I feel the writers may have written off Hardman too soon.
But maybe I’m looking at it all wrong, maybe the back half of the episodes will bring Mike to the forefront again. The second season shifted the focus from the troubled waters of Mike’s personal relationships/romantic entanglements at home to the troubled waters of his romantic entanglements at work. The writers may want us to “ship” Mike and Rachel, but for a show that’s still in its infancy it’s hard to really get behind the supposed destiny of these characters. So for an episode the shippers got to see Mike and Rachel be together, before Harvey took that away from Mike too. But when the writers moved the focus away from romance and on to the in-house drama of the firm, Mike’s talents and chemistry with the great cast were showcased better.
More than Mike, I do believe it was Rachel who benefited more from shifting the focus away from her and Mike. While she started off as a someone who was smarter than the associates, slowly all that was left of her was either Mike’s romantic interest or comedic relief with Harold. Rachel’s strongest showcase this season was her episode with Louis, where she got to work with him as an associate and helps give her the push to want the law degree that much more, but the finale once again slid into old patterns, where Mike in an emotionally vulnerable state reaches out to her, but by the time she comes around the plot device has already done her job and this interlude was about as pointless as anything can be in a finale.
And finally we come to the people who owned season 2: Donna and Louis. The two of them have managed to steal every scene they’ve been in, given the show the emotional depth it required. They both helped flesh out Harvey as a character beyond the veneer of assholery and arrogance, allowed the writers to flesh out other facets of his personality. But beyond that, they’ve managed to create a place for themselves here. Their humour, their indignation, their loyalties have been the real highlights of this season.
- So the parallels of Harvey and Mike’s lives have become far more literal as the season went along than was really necessary. Mike was already an orphan, did they really have to take away his grandmother as well?
- I am neither Team Jenny nor Team Rachel, I’m more of a Team Let’s Let Mike be Celibate for Now. I hate shippers.
- Anytime writers have this unspoken, secret that is only alluded to and suddenly they come close to revealing it, it makes me so anxious. Please NEVER tell us what the can opener and the thumb tacs are for. It’s better not knowing.
- Favorite part of the season that was alluded to but never shown: Harvey tying Mike’s bow-tie for the Atlanta episode.
- I’ve already “Ugh”-ed about the handling of Jessica and her old classmate, please writers don’t let that be how we work in Harvey’s need to push her out of her own firm.
Fairly un-even the season, but it came close to achieving its potential, consistency seems to be the bigger issue overall. But hey beautiful gifs to last us till January when the show returns.
 
Shazia is part bionic, part crazy (parts not mutually exclusive), and would be happy conversing solely in TV quotes, forever hopeful she’ll be one-upped in her obscure TV references. She blogs here and microblogs here.
