Previously on Suits: Mike passed off his pro bono prison case to Oliver since it was a conflict of interest for him to handle, Donna fired an associate Rachel couldn’t handle, and Harvey and Alex’s friendship was too much for Louis to handle. Also, a quick reminder that Harvey is Mike’s best man.
Here we go…
Rachel takes her dad to the great Harvey Specter’s apartment since he offered to host their wedding. Dad isn’t impressed with the idea of his little princess getting married in an overpriced bachelor pad designed to impress women, and asks Rachel why she hasn’t set a date for the wedding yet. It turns out, her fiancé just getting out of prison isn’t a good excuse.
At the office, Louis is on a rampage, asking where the recently-fired associate Stephanie is. Donna explains she was fired because she was insubordinate. Louis demands that they get her back, since Harvey is running the firm into the ground and they need all the smart associates they can get. All the associates overhear his forecast of doom and gloom, which isn’t excellent.
Harvey drops off a case for Mike to work on to make up for the pro bono prison case he made him drop the previous week, saying, “It’s no good to have Robin coming after Batman for break of contract.” This will be the first of about 15,000 superhero references this episode. They make nice and Mike assures him he's made peace with Alex.
This happiness doesn't last long, however, as Donna is waiting on Harvey's office for a quick chat. She's eager to remind him that, a) she’s COO, and b) people are mad at him. Oh, and also, Louis is going out of his mind (again) over his fear that Alex is going to replace him as Harvey's BFF.
Harvey (who just flies to Chicago every five minutes now, apparently) meets a beautifully- dressed Jessica for lunch to discuss what's going on. "It's a big pile of people hate Harvey," he explains. Jessica advises that Harvey should just give a big piece of business to the person with the biggest issue to district him. After all, it worked when she did it to Harvey.
Fired up by her talk with her dad, Rachel tells Mike that they’re getting married at The Plaza and she’s meeting with the planners there tonight. Mike has a meeting for his pro bono case, but he says he’ll be at all future wedding-related meetings.
I guess Harvey’s back from Chicago, because now he’s looking like he walked out of Vogue and is chatting up Rachel’s dad on the golf course. Mr. Zane is not on board with his mock merger suggestion to rally the troops, but he does offer Harvey a word of warning: Alex's old firm is coming after Pearson Specter Litt.
Elsewhere, Oliver is having issues with the prison case. He tells Mike the prison is hiding something, but he's gone as far as he can without Mike’s help, so Mike teaches his buddy Harvey Specter’s go-to move: if you don’t have anything, bluff until they give you what you want.
Time for a montage: Alex’s old firm, led by Thomas Bratton, is going after Harvey and Louis’ clients, one by one. They take down the threats, but Harvey decides this planned attack means Bratton has someone inside the firm telling him how to tear Pearson Specter Litt apart.
Ten bucks says it’s Stephanie, Donna’s fired associate.
Alex offers to help Louis with alleviate the attacks to his clients, but Louis immediately shoots him down and accuses him of being the mole. Alex proves his the most mature person on this show by not taking it personally, and instead shows up in court to help Louis despite his rejection.
Louis treats Alex to a part thank you / part apology dinner, and it ends up going well. The two cat lovers bond over the fact that they’ve both felt overlooked at their jobs in the past.
Back at the office, Donna tells Rachel that Bratton hired Stephanie and that she’s probably the one feeding them insider info. (Told you!) Donna, freaking out that her first act of COO has resulted in the company falling apart, charges Rachel to go over there and either stop Stephanie or re-hire her.
So Rachel runs over to Stephanie’s new office where she just waltzes in on an the unsuspecting former associate. (Do they not have a security desk at Bratton?) Stephanie, not surprisingly, says she has no interest in coming back to the company that just embarrassed and fired her, but surprisingly, swears up and down that she isn’t the mole. Well, darn. I guess I don’t make that $10 after all. But at least Rachel is able to make it to the second half of her two-hour meeting at The Plaza.
Back in the pro bono world, Oliver tells Mike the bluff worked and shows him the big ole’ whopping check the prison cut to Mr. Reyes. Mike curses, because a check that big is too good and means that there’s more to find – so Oliver should tell Reyes to turn down the settlement money and keep pressing on. Oliver says he did his job – he represented Oscar Reyes and got the man his money. If he wants to take the case any farther, Mike has to do it himself.
Harvey and Louis, back to being friends again, show up to Bratton’s office in person to drop some knowledge and a roughly 200-page document on his desk. It’s time for him to stop going after their clients, or they’ll go on the offensive. Bratton, unfazed, says he’s still going after them because he wants his clients back. He doesn’t care about Alex, he clarifies, just Alex’s clients. Then he proclaims that Harvey’s legacy is going to be running the firm into the ground, which makes Harvey turn so red you can almost see it through his spray tan.
While Harvey is blissfully unaware that the Robin to his Batman is out defying his orders, he is freaking out because he thinks everything’s falling apart. He tells Donna she’s in charge of finding the leak because this is her way to prove she’s worth the promotion. He asks Robert Zane again about that fake merger so they can for-real team up against Bratton, but to no avail.
Alex even suggests that they just let all of his clients go back to Bratton, or that Harvey just lets him go. But Louis isn’t about to let his new BFF go so quickly, and insists he’s part of the team now. Later, when it’s just the two of them, Alex tells Harvey he has something on Bratton that could get him to stop his vendetta against the firm… But he hasn’t mentioned it yet because Alex was also in on whatever the vague bad thing is. Harvey seems to instantly understand whatever shadiness Alex is dealing in, and lets him handle it.
Harvey, if you’re so worried about running this firm into the ground, maybe you should think a little more about who you hire. Because right now, your most trusted advisors are: an unhinged man with codependency and anger management issues who is always on the verge of a mental breakdown, a guy who was expelled from college and just got out of prison for fraud, a close friend of yours who won’t even tell you what dirty dealings he’s involved in, and your former secretary / woman you occasionally admit to being in love with.
Meanwhile, Alex is taking care of business – he shows up at Bratton’s office, tells his former boss that in the spirit of self-preservation he better not go after anymore Pearson Specter Litt clients and makes him sign something to prove it. Then Alex tells Harvey it’s done, dropping another bleeped F-bomb and I don’t know when I’m going to stop being surprised this is just a thing USA allows now.
Time to wrap this up. Rachel and Mike decide it’s time to actually make at least one plan for their wedding, starting with a date. Harvey tells Donna the Bratton issue is resolved and reassures the self-doubting COO that she hasn’t let him down in 12 years and she didn’t start now.
Harvey calls up Jessica – who is popping up in a lot of episodes, I really like that – to confront her about being the leak. Ooh, plot twist! She confesses and gets him to admit that it was the best way to unite the firm, “Nothing unites a divided house like an attack from the outside.”
We end with Mike calling Oliver and saying he’ll take the prison case, despite his promise to Harvey.
