This week, Harvey and Mike’s renewed partnership continues as they dive headfirst into their latest ethically questionable gambit. Unfortunately, in their quest to get Mike into the bar, they end up letting down several of their colleagues. Thankfully, the one person who doesn’t suffer too much from their shenanigans is Rachel, who has her own fun and enlightening team-up in the episode.
The risk of this going sideways increases at the beginning of the episode when Harvey informs Mike that he’ll have to run this lawsuit through the legal clinic to make it look legitimate since they need an admission of guilt to actually make the stock drop. Mike is unsure about this, as he should be. But, alas, he agrees to do it anyway, marches into the office the next day, and gives Oliver the task of researching every case that Velocity Data Solutions has settled. Meanwhile, Harvey forces Craig, a.k.a. the crooked New York Bar guy, to schedule a hearing for Mike.
Although Oliver kind of sucks in court, he’s really good at doing research and ends up finding six mining suits. Apparently, Velocity works in mining, and some employees tried suing for health complications from said mining; however, they settled and signed NDAs. So Mike approaches one of the employees, who is dying from cancer, and convinces him to break his NDA, which would break 150 other NDAs.
Worried about the consequences of what Harvey and Mike have gotten themselves into, Rachel shows up at Harvey’s apartment to chat. She makes Harvey promise that he’ll pull the plug on this tomfoolery if the risk becomes too great. Harvey gives her his word, but then immediately breaks it. See, Mike meets with Velocity Solutions CEO James Palmer, who refuses to budge on the NDAs and threatens to crush his legal clinic. So, Mike, thinking on his feet, lies and says Pearson Specter Litt is his co-counsel. That increases the risk even more because Harvey was trying to stay away from this case so that it didn’t look too suspicious. Obviously, Harvey goes along with Mike’s audible, but he’s not happy about it. Now that they’re in this together, this means they have to find a way to try 150 cases. Luckily, Harvey has 10 eager new associates ready to help.
Unfortunately, Mike’s gambit also forces Harvey to break his word to another person: Louis. Before Mike dragged him further into this, Harvey had agreed to partner up with Louis to indulge a demanding CEO of a couture company with a meeting. But, alas, Harvey backs out of that, which actually disappoints Louis, who was looking forward to partnering up with Harvey on something. And you really feel for Louis thanks to Rick Hoffman’s empathetic performance. Without Harvey, Louis decides to recruit Rachel and Katrina to help him.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to hear that Nathan is not happy about what Mike’s doing, especially since Mike didn’t consult him about taking on this case or about partnering with Pearson Specter Litt. Nathan accuses Mike of trying to use this case to get his old job back at Pearson Specter Litt, but Mike says that’s not what he’s doing and reveals that he turned down a better-paying consultant offer to come work there. Yeah, that shuts Nathan up, but he still suspects Mike is up to something.
NEXT: Mike’s lies come out
Mike and Oliver take their boxes and head to Pearson Specter Litt to get to work on all of these cases. Oliver’s first meeting with Harvey is hilarious and ends with Harvey threatening to shove a record where the sun doesn’t shine since he found Oliver touching his things (at Mike’s urging, because Mike is a troll). You would think Oliver’s experience at the firm would improve, but instead he just finds himself getting intimidated by the associates, who are getting their work done faster than he is. Mike swoops in with a pep talk, and Oliver reveals that he knows Mike doesn’t have an ulterior motive for taking on this case because he cares more about winning.
That little chat with Oliver awakens Mike’s conscience even more because he hates having to lie to Nathan and, especially, to Oliver. But Harvey reminds him that he’s actually trying to do good for the miners — and Oliver, by having him work on the case. Mike reveals that watching Oliver fail in the court was the reason he decided to go through with this because he hated feeling powerless. For Mike, the desire to never feel that way again makes this risk totally worth it.
The next day, Harvey and Mike file all of their suits, which, naturally irritates multiple people. First, there’s Craig, who confronts Mike outside of the legal clinic and threatens to pull the plug on his hearing if this suit isn’t wrapped up soon enough. Then, Palmer pays Harvey a visit with a very generous settlement offer of $350 million, but Harvey refuses without an admission of guilt. Unfortunately, Harvey’s refusal confirms what Palmer suspected: Harvey and Mike are doing this for his competitor Craig, who has the power to make Mike a real lawyer. Even though the case is falling apart, Harvey threatens to go after Velocity for stealing Craig’s technology, but the CEO tells him the situation is a lot more nuanced than that.
Meanwhile, Katrina and Rachel come up with a fine dining-themed presentation for Louis’ client. Honestly, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed watching these two work together. There were two moments that stood out: First, Katrina thanks Rachel for setting up her gig at her father’s firm. Then, later on in the episode, Katrina shares what it was like to work for Robert. It was great, she says, adding that Robert was beaming the day he made Rachel her job offer, even though she rejected it. That revelation takes Rachel by surprise but ultimately makes her feel great because it calms her worries about turning her father down and helps her realize how much respect he has for her.
Alas, Katrina-Rachel bonding time is the only good thing to come out of their team-up with Louis. Even though they give a great presentation, the couture CEO is annoyed that Harvey didn’t show up and ends up firing Pearson Specter Litt as a client. Louis doesn’t handle rejection well, but this time it leaves him feeling more demoralized than anything else. He doesn’t lash out or get angry with Donna for suggesting he use Rachel and Katrina. Instead, he simply goes home and spends some time with Tara, who is more than willing to hear him talk about his bad day. There’s a tenderness to their interactions that really works.
Mike returns to his office at the legal clinic, where he finds Oliver waiting to confront him. Oliver demands to know what Mike has to gain from pursuing this case. Seeing no other option, Mike admits that he did so he can get into the bar. Disgusted, Oliver tells him he needs to come clean to Nathan. And just like that, Mike has lost Oliver’s trust, which probably stings quite a bit since it was clear he was enjoying their working relationship. Moreover, I don’t think Mike expected he’d be the one admitting his guilt in tonight’s episode.
Following up on Parker’s tip, Harvey digs into Craig’s past and discovers he lied. A mistress didn’t give his proprietary info to Velocity, Craig did. Craig was promised a job if he leaked the information, but Velocity Solutions pulled the deal at the last minute and deposited some money in an offshore account to implicate him. (So Harvey kind of got his admission of guilt, right?) That’s enough to convince Harvey that the deal is off, and he orders Craig to make sure Mike passes his ethics interview with the bar or else.
After tonight, there are two episodes left in the season, and I find myself very interested in seeing how things shake out. Will Mike actually become a lawyer, or will Craig find a way to screw Mike and Harvey over? Knowing this show, it’ll probably be the latter.
Sidebar:
- I can’t tell you what’s going on with the Donna, Benjamin, and The Donna storyline. At this point, I don’t know what purpose it serves; however, I will LOL if The Donna somehow ends up saving the day in the finale.
- Rachel found out that she passed the bar without having to do an interview. She’s going to be a lawyer!
- Do we think Katrina telling Rachel how great it was to work with Robert is setting up Rachel deciding to leave the firm?
