‘Suits’: Tough Days at Work End in Tragedy & Celebration (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 9, Episode 8 of Suits, “Prisoner’s Dilemma.”]
Sean Cahill (Neal McDonough) returns to Suits, which can only mean one thing: Harvey (Gabriel Macht) has a major problem.
With every character back in this episode, it becomes a question of who will turn on whom, not if someone will, and it becomes much worse when Faye (Denise Crosby) gets involved.
Elsewhere, Louis (Rick Hoffman) tries to help Esther (Amy Acker), but it’s not easy for him to not come to her defense as her big brother instead of as a lawyer.
And for both Harvey and Louis, tough days at the office end on personal notes — but for one, it’s with tragic news.
Attacks to the Head — and the Heart
Harvey finds his worst nightmare waiting as he arrives home: Sean. Andrew Malik (Usman Ally) had him arrested, claiming they conspired to swap Mike (Patrick J. Adams) for Sutter. Harvey takes him on as a client so they can talk and it’s not admissible, but can they trust Sean? (No, they can’t.)
Harvey refuses to budge and let Faye represent Sean. “I could have two hands tied behind my back and cinder blocks on my ankles and I’d be better than you,” he tells her. But Faye is good for something; she tells him Kevin Miller (Erik Palladino) signed an affidavit that Harvey and Sean conspired to get him and Mike out of prison.
(Pana Pantazidis/USA Network)
According to Kevin, Malik said if he convicted Sean and they didn’t cooperate, their deal would be voided and he and Jill would both go to prison. But because he owes Harvey, Kevin won’t tell Malik the recording of Sutter exists.
Why is this happening now? Sutter died eight months ago, but he made a deathbed confession to someone who went to Malik. That person’s name was redacted on the warrant to go after Kevin, but the name of the prison leads Harvey to Charles Forstman (Eric Roberts).
Charles barely hesitates before gleefully admitting he’s responsible. All he had to do was look for someone who hates Harvey as much as he does. Harvey even offers to have Sean help with his prison sentence if he backs down, but Charles refuses. They do have another card to play: Sean goes to his boss to go to Malik’s boss and read him the riot act. He’s clearly not going after Harvey himself because he’s holding a grudge.
But that backfires. Malik has Harvey arrested — and the officer with him breaks his phone so he can’t call his lawyer. What’s worse is Malik has Sean in another interrogation room and thinks he’ll turn on Harvey to save his career. Fortunately, Donna (Sarah Rafferty) realizes something’s wrong when she can’t reach Harvey, and he and Sean are MIA. Alex (Dulé Hill) shows up, but he’s too late: Sean switched representation, and he’s taking the deal Faye advised him to.
Harvey punches Sean for what he did, but Sean insists he cut the deal to save them both from serving prison time. After all, he adds, Harvey is guilty.
“My whole life, I have done what I think is right, but there is always someone somewhere who hates me for it because they think I’m breaking the rules,” Harvey says. “Rules aren’t right or wrong. Every line I’ve ever crossed, I’d do it again, because I am fine with what’s in my soul.”
(Pana Pantazidis/USA Network)
With Harvey about to be disbarred, Donna confronts Faye for the role she played, namely getting exactly what she wanted. As she points out, Harvey’s moral code is why he didn’t turn Faye in to the Bar.
Though Harvey’s feeling defeated, Alex finds a beacon of hope — the arrest warrant was for two hours before Sean’s boss went to Malik’s. Charles called Malik after Harvey’s visit. Furthermore, Sutter died of a heart attack on the spot, meaning there was no deathbed confession. It’s not admissible, and Malik knew it.
Therefore, Malik is the one arrested for fabricating evidence in a criminal case and facing consequences (going to prison) for conspiring with convicted felons. Harvey’s not getting disbarred, and Charles isn’t getting out of prison anytime soon.
But the high Harvey’s riding doesn’t last for long, because Donna’s waiting with bad news when he gets home. His mother had a heart attack, and she died.
Family Matters
Esther had Louis look over a merger with her former mentor Paul Richmond, but she’s disappointed when he tells her the deal is solid. She reveals that 15 years ago, Paul assaulted her. She refuses to come forward because women who speak out are put through the meat grinder. Even Louis’ first words were that he was her mentor. She just needs him to make the deal go away.
Though Louis tries to find a business reason to make that happen, once he’s in the same room as Paul, he yells at him for what he did. In turn, Esther confronts her brother because the board triggered her buy-out clause. She’s not only losing her company, but she also gave the man responsible for it the satisfaction of knowing what it’s done to her.
(Shane Mahood/USA Network)
Katrina (Amanda Schull) gets Louis to see that Esther is feeling powerless and ashamed. All he needs to do is what his sister wants: stop the merger. To do that, they need help from someone who will do whatever it takes to take down Paul: Samantha (Katherine Heigl).
Katrina, having seen a man everyone knew was guilty walk free after 12 jurors exonerated him for the same crime six years earlier, joins Samantha in her pursuit. Together, they find six other women Paul assaulted, and while they can’t violate their NDAs, the lawyers who took part in the cover-up can. Their client is the company, not Paul, and they took action that was against its interests.
The only problem is they still need a plaintiff. Louis apologizes to his sister and makes sure Esther knows she did nothing wrong. But it’s Katrina who convinces her to come forward. She tells Esther the woman she tried to help years earlier said she didn’t regret speaking out. Not only does Louis’ sister agree, she also confronts Paul when Louis calls him in and gets him to resign.
After that success, Louis heads home and tells Sheila (Rachael Harris) he wants to get married before she has the baby. She says yes.
It looks like there’s going to be another Suits wedding!
Suits, Wednesdays, 9/8c, USA
