We open on Harvey's fancy apartment in the morning. Paula is there, making a big deal about Harvey's coffee, and he admits that he puts vanilla in it. They agree that the last few days have been rough, understatement, and make plans for dinner that.
At Louis' apartment... where he apparently lives in a completely different time zone because Harvey's drinking coffee in the sunlight and he's sleeping in pitch black? - Louis is awakened with a crash from the living room. He pulls out a gun to protect himself and we get a taste of what Louis would look like as an action hero. Spoiler alert: It's ridiculous. Turns out the noise was created by Sheila, who has snuck in to role play as a burglar. In this very gross exchange we learn that they wrote a "Bill of Badness," which outlined Louis' rights and the rules of their relationship. One of these rules, number 29, was no L-word.
Harvey's still in the timezone where it's broad daylight, so he heads into the office, where he finds his old friend Teddy waiting for him. Teddy is worked up because his old company - which he built from the ground and then sold off - has decided to dump all his old employees and ship jobs oversees. Teddy wants Harvey's help to get his guys their jobs back.
Harvey grabs Mike in the hallway to ask if he can help with Teddy Doyle's case. Mike is apparently familiar with the new owner Kurt Baxter and his desire to make money above everything. So his pitch is that they find a way for Baxter to make more money by keeping the jobs in the U.S. than he would oversees. This idea devolves into a collection of comic book hero puns.
Over in Louis' office, his secretary Gretchen doesn't want Louis to see the newspaper because it has Sheila's wedding announcement in it. When he calmly accepts this, Gretchen immediately figures out that, "You're still tapping that, aren't you." Bingo!
Gretchen goes on to list about 15 minutes worth of euphemisms that I could have lived the rest of my life without ever hearing, then ends with a great line. "It's a mistake, but since you're already making it, we might as well skip the part where I tell you you're crazy, and we get to the part where disaster ensues." She's right, and Louis doesn't like that.
So, since he has the most reactive personality of any character on TV, Louis picks up the phone and calls Sheila at work. She initially isn't cool with that and doesn't like his suggestions for an upcoming rendezvous - this relationship is on her timetable, after all - but the longer Louis talks, the more he starts role playing over the phone and she gets into it. So they make a... I hesitate to call it a date, per say, for that evening.
Rachel visits Mike's office to remind him of their wedding appointment this evening with Father Walker, whom I assume is the priest who is going to marry them? Or they're doing pre-marriage counseling? Or both. Either way, Mike has to fill out a survey before that night's meeting, and he promises to have it done by then. I bet you anything that he doesn't.
Also, do you think royals go through pre-marriage counseling? I imagine their very public marriages would benefit from something like that. Just hypothetically wondering, of course.
The duo go to visit Kurt Baxter who makes it pretty clear immediately that he's a man who gets what he wants. They suggest cutting a deal with Teddy's suppliers to lower his cost and increase his cash flow by 80%. He doesn't want the cash flow, he wants to sell the company to China, and they're not going to take it unless the jobs come with it. "Paying me what I want is the only way those jobs are staying here," he says. Well, he's a jerk.
OH MY GOSH. DID Y'ALL JUST SEE THAT? DID EVERYONE JUST SEE THAT? THEY JUST RAN A GOOGLE AD WITH KEVIN DURANT TALKING ABOUT THE ROYAL WEDDING. WOW.
At a certain point, Suits has to make a royal wedding joke, right? She technically didn't announce her engagement until after filming ended, but... Come on.
In the filing room, Rachel jumps on Gretchen, asking about Louis' relationship status so she can accurately address the wedding invite. She doesn't want to make him feel "badly" by giving him a plus one if he's single. Rachel, as someone who's received her fair share of wedding invites, trust me: not giving someone a plus one option makes them feel worse than getting one in the first place, because it kind of implies that you're pretty sure they'll still be single in 6 months, when the wedding actually happens.
Anyway, Gretchen uses this opportunity to tell Rachel absolutely exactly what's going on.
Donna goes to see Stu and flirts her way into the pitch: short the stock so Stu can make a fortune and save jobs. She shrugs off the risks and basically double dog dares him to do it.
Rachel stops by Louis' office to smile her way through a generous offer. "I just wanted you to know that, no matter who it is, if they make you happy, then they are more than happy to come to our wedding." The jig is up, she clearly knows. So Rachel is here to enforce that his decision hasn't changed the way she feels about him. Louis is glad, but he also stands by his decision - he has confidence and "feels like a king." Do we think the Suits cast will be at the real wedding?
Harvey calls up Paula to tell him about his mom joining the party that night. Paula's not cool with it, since it's not great timing. But too bad, because it's happening. Mike strolls in to say Baxter's on the line. He wants to know why the stock is tanking, which Mike essentially says is a taste of his own medicine. Harvey says he has two deals: take the previously offered supplier deal, or take the $200 million their client is offering.
Some funny banter about how they're now grown ups with grown up relationships ensues, and the pair go their separate ways.
Mike and Rachel are waiting for Father Walker to show up and - surprise! - Mike didn't fill out his questionnaire. He said he can't answer questions about the future because he doesn't know what he wants. Which infuriates Rachel, since she does know what she wants. Father Walker shows up in the middle of this spat, and his ENTIRE counseling session consists of him saying that he's glad they're honest with each other. He suggests they figure out ways to talk to each other about the future.
(Through all of his arguments about not wanting to be "locked in" to the future, Rachel makes the very valid comment that he's locked in to her. He shrugs that off with, yeah, let's just see where it goes. Okay, dude.)
At dinner, Harvey's mom is telling embarrassing childhood stories about her son. She leaves with a generous thanks to Paula for helping him mend their mother/son relationship, and Paula quickly points out that she wasn't the special woman who did that. Somewhere, Donna smiles.
Back at home, Rachel and Mike are still trying to figure out what just happened. Rachel reveals that her parents had the same problem they experienced earlier that evening - a reluctance to commit to anything in the future. Mike points out that he loves that they fight, because all of their fights are important and show how much they love one another. Okay, fine, Mike. You turned it around.
Time to check back in on the unhappy couple, where Harvey is trying to reason with Paula that she's the special woman in his life now. She's still not cool with it, because the former man in her life cheated on her with a woman from his office. She doesn't think that she can handle him working with Donna all the time.
I usually hate it when women on TV ban their significant others from seeing their female best friends, because that seems so petty. Even though it always turns out they were right to be suspicious - helllloooo, Ross and Rachel. But for some reason, in these scenarios the women always come off as controlling and manipulative. I have to hand it to Suits and to the actress playing Paula for creating this a relatable, reasonable response. She's confused, she doesn't know what she's asking Harvey, she doesn't want to make him do anything, she just knows that this scenario won't work for her.
Cut to Harvey in the back of his town car, looking like he's starting to tear up. Oh my gosh, is he actually going to fire Donna? He calls up Stu to tell him to get out of the stocks, it's about to all come crashing down, and Stu is stoked with how well this has worked out for him. He starts singing Donna's praises. "Promoting her was a brilliant move... she's loyal and she knows the big picture about keeping people happy. If I were you, I'd hold onto her tight."
Mike jumps into the car and they speed off to see Baxter, who is passing on Teddy's offer. He doesn't like how Harvey has treated him, so he's taking the financial hit just so he can prove a point. He says the only way the company stays in America at this point is if Teddy beats the Chinese offer by 25%.
Harvey's mom calls him up to apologize for sticking her foot in her mouth. She compliments Paula and says "she's a keeper." That's two "she's a keeper" about two women in a row. After they hang up, Harvey calls up someone, saying he needs a favor, ASAP.
Later that night, Stu shows up at the office to offer Donna a job, in regards to "The Donna." Oh, gosh, are we going back down that route again? (The Donna is basically Alexa if it worked.) Stu is pushing HARD for her to join him, and this must be the favor Harvey called in. Oh, man. He essentially pitches that he be the new Harvey to her Donna, and she says she'll consider it.
Elsewhere, Louis is all ready for his designated role play time with Sheila, but it's cut short when she sees that Sheila is with her fiancée, Xander. Xander is absolutely beautiful and Louis is crushed as he leaves.
Donna storms into Harvey's office and wants to know why Harvey told Stu to make that job offer - called it! "Paula said she doesn't think we'd survive if you and I keep working together," he says, fully blaming Paula. Donna is confused - she thought Paula was over it. Harvey explains that she's not.
Through all of this, Harvey looks like a kicked puppy. He knew Donna would figure it out, and he knows she should be mad. He doesn't want this, he even says he could never fire Donna with such an obvious "come on, who are we kidding" tone.
Harvey knows that, too.
Donna sees a way out of this that Harvey didn't and she's off to stand up for herself, once again. She visits Paula at her office to apologize. "I'm sorry i did what I did. I made a terrible mistake, and I apologized to Harvey, but i didn't apologize to you. I'm sorry, Paula," she cries. "I'm so sorry."
I.... Okay, listen. These are grown adults. In their late 40s. And all of this drama - ALL of it - is because of a kiss that lasted under 3 seconds. It just feels like this is the plot for how a middle school relationship falls apart. I recognize that the kiss merely symbolizes a bunch of other problems - Harvey's dependence on Donna, everyone'd distrust of one another, etc. - but they keep talking specifically about the kiss as though that's the problem.
Paula, who is a freaking therapist and thus legitimately trained to figure out what causes people's actions, gets to the bottom of this. She looks at Donna and asks her if she can swear that nothing like that kiss will ever happen again. When Donna pauses (good, because I was about to call her a total liar,) Paula smiles sadly. That's why she needs Harvey to fire her.
Oh. Wait. Maybe she did ask Harvey to fire Donna. Huh.
Meanwhile, the man in question is visiting Teddy and apologizing for not fixing the situation. Teddy just feels bad that he's going to let down all those employees who have bled for him and been loyal to him for years. Harvey equates Donna to Teddy's workers and Teddy congratulates him for naming Donna partner.
This sparks something in Harvey's mind, which is apparently the 10-second fix to the entire legal problem. He goes back to the office and explains to Mike that Teddy is going to buy back the company with his employees as partners. So I guess they've solved it now and everyone's happy. Yay!
At their apartment, Mike is finally ready to have that hypothetical future discussion with Rachel. He wants to hypothetically live in San Diego and run a clinic like Oliver. She wants to hypothetically live in Iceland with him for a year, which she calls the "adventure of a lifetime." Welp. Guess we know how these two get written off.
Back at the office, Harvey walks into Donna's empty office to see her resignation letter sitting on the desk. The letter plays as voiceover as we see him freaking out and jump in the nearest cab. Her letter essentially apologizes that she wasn't a worthy friend and she put herself first, and I call total BS on that, because I'd say 99.9% of the time Harvey gets put first, so it's really only fair that she be allowed to do whatever she wants within their relationship, since that's what he's been doing for years.
Anyway.
He gets out of the car and he's wound up at... Paula's! Huh. Not chasing after Donna, then. He tells Paula that Donna resigned and his girlfriend is upset that it had to be this way, and apologizes for making him fire her. "You didn't make me do it, I chose to," Harvey clarifies. "And now I'm choosing to undo it."
Oh! Oh my gosh, he's doing it! He's dumping her for Donna! Harvey apologizes and they both start crying as they exchange their goodbyes. He is kind in the breakup, saying he wanted it more than she'll ever know, but he can't give her what she needs.
Cut to Harvey now knocking on Donna's door. When she answers, he rips up the resignation letter and hands it back to her. When he explains what just happened, she asks if he's okay.
"Will you come back?" He asks. When she says yes, he responds, "Then I'm okay."
