Previously on Suits... Mike gets out of jail after a brief time behind bars, it doesn't look like prison time really changed him, and Jessica decides her time as the managing partner of Pearson Specter Litt is up. Louis proposes to Tara and Harvey and Donna held hands.
She's gone starts with a establishing shot while the background music sings "I've love you for too long" the camera movement that has been a constant pan stops with Harvey looking expectantly on his bed as Donna appears wearing only his shirt and bringing him coffee. "It's the best coffee I've ever had" he says and we all know he's talking in code, while Donna replies "it was worth the wait". And they kiss, I can hear screams as I write this, until the dialogue becomes a bit out of character, and you're thinking, oh no, you didn't, but yes. They did, Suits starts the second half of season 6 with a dream sequence, and this episode mirrors quite a bit season 5 episode "Toe to Toe" (Specially about Harvey's growth)
This episode was directed by Patrick J Adams, and it breaks the aesthetic we were used to in season 6A, the blue filters are gone, giving back Suits' pilot and earlier seasons colors and brightness. It's more hopeful and if this is the trend the rest of the season follows it seems it will give some closure and development for most of the characters. One thing I really want to mention, and I'm in awe of finding the actor's print when he's behind the camera, as much as he mingles with the style the show itself has, and directors as Silver Tree make its distinct; he uses a few shots that aren't the usual in this procedural. This episode showcases a few 2-shots with deep focus, or the use of blurred background and change of focal points, like the one in the last scene, instead of the classic shot-reverse shot. It gives the scene more dramatic momentum and the subtext that as the characters discover something else in their counterpart, we do too. And it makes our attention drift to where he wants it, almost being afraid of blinking not to miss anything.
While the general aesthetic points to a future where some plots might get closure, the episode's conflict is in the eye of the storm after Jessica's departure. Louis thinks he should be managing partner, and after finding out the firm isn't as bad, economically wise, as they thought, and Zane showing up to offer a merger to him and Harvey; he starts a plan to steal associates and clients from him. Of course without Donna and Katrina pointing out that what he's doing is wrong he wouldn't have realized the size of the mistake he was committing and the fact that he's not ready to fill Jessica's shoes.
In the meantime, after Mike refuses to work as a consultant, Harvey spends the day trying to help him, first with Professor Gerard and then with Gibbs, his intention backtracks and Mike shows up to yell at him and cut him from meddling in his life. Rachel also is trying to find where her loyalties and future lays, being at a cross roads. She goes to work for her father and probably her exams and the ethic committee will work, or she stands with her work family with an uncertain future. This plot is resolved by the end of the episode when Louis offers her a third year associate position when she graduates.
The episode, as most season or mid season premieres, have multiple plots, and this episode was dialogue heavy, making the action move further with words rather than actions. However what the characters say are windows on to how they're feeling and how they might react for the rest of season 6. Everyone is showing some level of character growth and I'm sincerely expecting this evolution keeps on and they doesn't go back to his old ways. Mike understands what he did, or it seems like it, and he's trying to find his place away from law practices. Louis understands he's not cut to lead, but is Harvey able to do so? because of how he reacts to Donna he might be in the road to be. Without Donna and the women in the firm, the men are completely lost. They work as their conscience, as Donna does in his dream and that last scene, where she touches a subject she never has before and asks him to go make things right with his mother. Something he needs to do, to stop putting hopes and responsibilities in his work family's shoulders. And he doesn't bite back or sees her as an enemy, but listens to her and you can see his walls crumbling down.
Between that last scene, the ones through the episode where Donna helps him see another point of view and his dream the will they, won't they dynamic has changed. It's not just a relationship that most of its development lays in the subtext but is one of the conflicts that continue coming up since season 4 finale. It's time to stop cutting around the bush, Executive Producer A. Korsh has said that plans for them have been formulated, and after this episode I sincerely hope that by the end of season 6, viewers have an answer or their platonic or romantic relationship. Though if you dream about your friend and co worker of 12 years, being intimate and happy in bed, I'm pretty sure it revolves around the latter than the former.
How do you think the season will develop and what did you think of the episode, you can fill the poll below and hit us on the comments.