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Suits Review 6x10

I wasn’t expecting much of this Suits mid-season finale. This season has been lackluster for the most part so I wasn’t sure how much emotion they could evoke in me in the last episode but happily I was wrong because this was the emotional punch that has been missing all season. This episode was back to what Suits does best and although bittersweet, it was the best hour of the season in a lot of ways. In one way, really. In the way that this episode was a love song to Jessica Pearson and Gina Torres and an effective one at that.

I’m not going to say anything more above the cut in case you haven’t seen this episode because you have been warned, major spoilers ahead. My thoughts on Suits Episode 6x10 - P.S.L. below the cut.

Still with me? Okay, good. I’m going to devote most of this review as it should be, to Jessica Pearson and Gina Torres. As upset as I am to see her go I’m happy this episode was a beautiful tribute to her character and to the actress.

But before that, let me touch on the major things that happened that need discussing.

Louis/Tara - I still loathe this storyline and roll my eyes every single time they appear on screen so I’m going to say one thing about this and then be done. Do they really expect me to believe that Tara just found out that the man she was with for years and wasn’t sure she even wanted to leave an episode ago and her are having a baby together and she isn’t going back to him or torn on whether she should go back to him and give his marriage proposal a second thought because her feelings for Louis are so strong after one date that she would rather marry him? Really? I miss Sheila.

Harvey/Mike - I always dislike when we don’t have a lot of Harvey and Mike scenes, I won’t lie but they did get the rest of the season so I suppose it’s fair this episode was light in that department. The scene we did get was adorable. Who else would Harvey order all the different Scotches for because he wasn’t sure which one Mike would want? And Harvey didn’t waste anytime telling Mike he wants him back by his side. It was huge of Harvey to tell Mike right out that he missed working with him. Harvey being open about his feelings with Mike shows how far they have come and how much Harvey has grown in that relationship. Mike’s confession that he missed working with Harvey too but not wanting to jeopardize the firm by coming back set up for a nice conflict for season 6b having Harvey woo Mike back and keep us rooting for them to reunite. One more thing I loved about that scene is what a stark contrast it was from the last time Harvey and Mike weren’t working together where Harvey didn’t take Mike out for the dinner he promised for months. This time Harvey and Mike already went for drinks and Harvey was clearly planning to see Mike again in a few days. Their relationship is no longer dependant on work to keep them close. Harvey wants Mike in his life whatever way he can get him, although I don’t believe he’ll drop it if Mike says no, he wants to work with him AND socialize with him. They are probably in the strongest place they have ever been with each other emotionally and it’s nice to see.

Harvey/Louis - Those two are going to kill each other now that there is no Pearson between them. They need a buffer. It’ll be interesting to see them try to pull it together. Here’s hoping they have matured enough to do it. They did do a nice job working together and bringing in Stu for one last favor and it was a nice way to write Stu out. I’ll be honest, I won’t miss him at all. I never cared for the character but I’m sure for those who did like him he’ll join the ranks of Travis Tanner, Cameron Dennis and the likes and make an appearance sometime in the future again. And Harvey and Louis working together to keep their first client showed us they can work together but I’m not sure without the firm on the line if they can check their egos enough to do it.

Rachel/Mike - I was so happy that Rachel wasn’t pushed to the back now that Mike got out of prison. It was nice to see Mike support her for a change and I liked that even though he helped with her trial it was still Rachel who figured out the key piece of the puzzle to winning, that the father had sent Maria Gomez to rehab and tampered with Bailey’s alibi witness. Even in going with her to confront the father he let her take the lead and acted as backup. She got a nice first chance at playing lawyer and showed she’s going to be a really good one in the future because she cares and she fights hard and is passionate about it. She doesn’t give up and she didn’t give in even when she was worried and unhappy with how things were going.

I thought that Mike was good at being supportive and not trying to take over the case. He clearly would make an excellent consultant because it’s basically what he did with the Bailey case. They showed us that he’s made for the job Harvey is offering and something Jessica said about Mike once long ago popped into my mind. She said that Mike might be the best of both her and Harvey. He referenced in his scene with her, which I loved him challenging her on being afraid and giving her a tool to use to win the case, that he had learned from her via Harvey and it made me think he would actually be the perfect buffer in the firm between Harvey and Louis. I don’t know the rules of law firms (although most of the time neither does this show) but it would be interesting to see Mike not only consult but take on some of the running of the firm in Jessica’s wake if the show decides to go there not as a partner but as a manager of sorts.

The end scene between them where he gave Rachel the picture of her in court was sweet. This season was a really good one for Rachel and I’m happy she got her own storyline. I hope that she doesn’t disappear into the background and we get more of her with her own storyline and not just existing as part of Mike’s. I like exploring her becoming a lawyer and I think there is a lot of story there to tell. We’ve seen her win big now it would be interesting to see how she handles a loss.

As for Mike, we’re left with him indecisive about taking Harvey’s offer up but like I said above, despite what he said Harvey isn’t going to let this go so easily and Mike is probably going to struggle for awhile before coming around and accepting in 6b because at the end of the day Harvey and Mike’s relationship is the central one to the show and the past shows this show doesn’t do well having them separated for too long in a work environment. No one wants a repeat of the whole investment banker storyline.

Harvey/Donna - How do I put this delicately…I know a lot of Darvey fans are celebrating right now and I‘m not trying to rain on that but to me that last moment between Donna and Harvey wasn‘t a positive one. I know there is probably a lot of excitement over what this means for Darvey but I’m not so sure I think it means anything or if it does it’s anything good. Hear me out. I think there are three key elements to keep in mind in that scene.

One, Donna came to Harvey not the other way around and she initiated the hand holding.

Two, Harvey was in a bad place. Jessica, his mentor and his boss for most of his career, someone he has a long history with and plucked him out the mailroom and paid for his schooling was leaving him. Mike, someone he openly admitted to missing working with at the beginning of the episode hadn’t agreed to come back to work with him. Harvey, who has abandonment issues, wasn’t having the best day and he was emotionally shattered and on the verge of tears because of Jessica.

Which leads me to three, there is a big difference between saying “I don’t want to be alone” and “I want to be with you” and Harvey said the former not the latter in that last scene. There is a history there of Harvey leaning on Donna emotionally when he feels alone or upset and although he has gotten past that a lot these past two seasons that scene fed back into that habit.

Maybe I’m totally off base and this is the start of romantic Darvey. I would have thought though if this is the case that last scene would have been more driven by Harvey instead of the other way around. Donna’s feelings on Harvey are clear but Harvey’s feelings toward Donna are still not. There was nothing in that scene that indicated Harvey was choosing Donna because he was in love with Donna or wanted Donna. He was alone and didn’t want to be and she is the one that stayed and was there. Even if Harvey had said “I want you to stay” that would have spoke more to me toward the writers starting Darvey. It was written and shot so ambiguously that it will be easy to explain as just being a friend leaning on a friend and take us right back to status quo in 6b with Harvey not thinking anything of it and Donna still pining and hoping it meant more than it did to Harvey. If that is the case I can only really think of one reason for that scene and that is to hook the Darvey shippers with ship bait into coming back for 6b. I wouldn’t put it past the show to do this because they’ve done it before and they left it ambiguous enough that they can wave it away easily next season. So I don’t mean to put a damper on any happy Darvey shippers, like I said I could be wrong, it’s just to me the scene didn’t read as the start of a romance and instead spoke of Harvey seeking emotional support from Donna as an emotional crutch like he has multiple times before and Donna being there for him because she keeps hoping for more with a side of hand holding to make sure the shippers keep up buzz about the show without having to commit to anything.

PSL - That last scene between Jessica, Harvey and Louis was beautiful at the start. Louis reacting badly, as he always does. Harvey heartbroken and Jessica begging to be let go. It held so much emotion and was what I’ve been missing. Until it was ruined for me by Donna. I know, I’m tough on her character but she had no business being in that scene. It actively made me mad she was there. Was there a glass poured for her? Does the sign on the door say Pearson Specter Litt and Paulsen? Does Donna have any emotional connection with Jessica on the level of Harvey or Louis? Let me answer those questions for you. NO. This is the third time this season this show has crammed Donna into a scene she had no business being in and her character didn’t belong in nor earned the right to and sucked all the emotion out of the scene just so her character had something to do. Stop it show! Seriously, stop it. You are making me actively dislike Donna and I don’t want that but every single time she comes into a scene and disrupts an emotional moment by inserting herself into something that has NOTHING to do with her it just upsets me. Give the woman a storyline so she can stop infringing on everyone else’s! And at first I thought it was just me but I don’t watch Suits alone. I watch it with a friend who isn’t in fandom, doesn’t read up on anything, she just likes the show and on Wednesday nights we curl up in my family room and watch it for an hour and chat for a few minutes afterwards before doing something else together. Why am I telling you this? Because unprompted by me when Donna came into that scene my friend started ranting so badly that I had to pause the episode until she stopped. So either it isn’t just me or my friend and I are alone on an island of disliking Donna being in that scene but it made us very mad. It should have only been a scene between Jessica, Harvey and Louis. This is their firm. Donna’s name is not on the door. They have had seasons and seasons worth of emotional scenes between the three of them and have gone through hell together, backstabbed each other, forgave each other and they deserved that last scene to be only between the three of them. And let’s be real, the only reason Donna came into that scene is because they didn’t have anywhere else to put Donna to give her one last moment with Jessica before she left and that should tell the writers something. They should think about that while I sit over here and continue to be mad that Donna ruined what should have been about Jessica, Harvey and Louis only. The end of PSL deserved to only be between PSL. No Rachel, no Mike and NO DONNA!

And what was “Harvey and I have been working to get Mike out?” Barely. Barely did Donna work on Mike’s case. She was over in no man’s land with Louis all season and it just irked me more to see her take credit for what was all Harvey.

Okay. I’m calm again. I just needed to get that off my chest. I’m still so upset about them ruining PSL’s last scene together.

To end on a more positive note, I thought that it showed how much love and respect Harvey has for Jessica that he understood why she needed this and he let her go despite it breaking his heart. Harvey’s understanding and his blessing was the best thing he could have given her.

Leonard Bailey’s case - It was nice to see them get a win on this show. This case had so much emotion in this last episode and the writers did a good job with it while paying homage to A Few Good Men in a clever way. This is what this show does well and it was so good to see after all the struggles they had writing the prison storyline all season and how many times they missed the mark. All that emotion I was missing all season came back through Jessica and Rachel fighting to free Bailey in court. I didn’t see the twist coming about the father mentioning she was a junkie and like I said above, I was glad Rachel was the one who figured it out. This was Rachel’s case and she played a key part in seeing it home.

But rightfully so the most powerful moments belonged to Jessica in court. It was fun getting to see her play out the “did you order the code red?“ moment with the father on the stand but what I loved most was watching Jessica reflect back on her life during the fight for Bailey’s life. Jessica wasn’t just fighting for Bailey’s life by the end, she was fighting to regain her own and Gina Torres masterfully showed that. That last moment when she told Bailey he could pay her back by walking out those doors had me tearing up. Because that was what Jessica realized she needed to do too, walk out those door, only for her the prison had been PSL and her freedom was trying to get back to that young girl who wanted to be a lawyer for the right reasons and pursue the love she’d found with Jeff.

Jessica/Zane - Robert Zane is always a delight on screen and despite their disputes, he respects Jessica a great deal. Him trying to help her not just because of that but because of what she did for Rachel and Mike (and I was surprised he included Mike in that but then I guess he’s respecting that Rachel loves Mike and he doesn’t want to fight about it anymore now that Mike isn’t a fraud) and how personal that was to him showed how much he respects Jessica. He held out his hand to help her because he understands her and because he thinks despite it all that she is a damn good lawyer and one he wants to see succeed. Jessica’s reaction to that, the way she told him she couldn’t but appreciated it and then left with her parting shot of lawyers being greedy bottom feeders anyway was a nice note to end their relationship. They were always complicated but at the core there was a connection between them that came from a place of understanding.

Jessica/Jeff - I’m so happy. I’m SO happy. I actually may have squealed out “YES!” when Jessica showed up at Jeff’s door at the end. This was all I wanted for her. Not because she needed romance or needed Jeff to be a fulfilled character but because she wanted it and deprived herself of it for the firm and her career and in the end it didn’t make her happy and all I’ve ever wanted is for Jessica to be happy. Her reaching out and being terrified but having the guts to go for it with Jeff was exactly what I wanted to see. I can’t think of a more satisfying way for her to end her arc on this show. She saved a man’s life, she left her firm willingly behind, she’s going to go try to do good in the world as a lawyer instead of making the rich richer and she got her man. If there was a more satisfying way for Jessica to exit the show than that, I don’t know what it would be.

Jessica Pearson - And now we come to the end of one of the best characters on this show. I said at the beginning that this episode was a love song to this character and the actress who plays her and it was a powerful one. We’ve always seen Jessica struggle between her career and having a social life but as the seasons went on we also saw Jessica struggle with why she was still fighting. That she called saving Bailey the most satisfying moment of her career spoke to that struggle. She didn’t want to keep fighting for the corporations. She didn’t want to be the one who was cold and unfeeling because she had to be so she could screw over people and keep ahead. In the end she wanted what she wanted when she entered law school, to be a lawyer to do good.

That’s not to say that Jessica’s accomplishments weren’t impressive because they were. Her career was an incredible one but it was one in the end that wasn’t fulfilling her anymore. Until the fight for Bailey’s life when she felt that spark. The one that had her defy her father and go to law school over medical school. The one that drove her to the top of her field and put her name on the door. Jessica found herself again through the Bailey case and had the courage to be true to who she found by leaving the firm that no longer satisfied her and doing what did. And having the courage to pursue love instead of let it slip away like her father did by burying himself into his work. She found a man she wanted to be partners with, a man who understood her and a man who loved her despite of and because of her choosing her career over him. When she came to the door Jeff even protested that she shouldn’t give PSL up for him and only accepted her coming with him when he realized she wasn’t giving anything up she didn’t want to in order to gain so much more. Jessica accomplished what she set out to at PSL. No one could deny what she built and she’s taking that fire that caused her to accomplish all that and putting it toward something new, something she finds more fulfilling now and with someone by her side she loves.

And I’m heartbroken to see Jessica Pearson go and Gina Torres leave the show. She was always one of my favorite characters. She was a fierce, unapologetic, independent, powerful woman played flawlessly by an incredible actress and television could use more Jessica Pearsons on our screens. This show didn’t always use this character the way they should have or enough but when they did they gave her some of the most impactful moments this show has ever had. Whether it was her sitting across from Mike after finding out he was a fraud with a smile and telling him she wouldn’t need a computer to beat him or her telling Harvey after he accused her of being afraid of him during the whole Darby merger mess “afraid of you? Boy, I just kicked your ass. And you didn’t just want it. You begged me for it. So now you’re going to stay here, be humble and learn you goddamn place.” or the time she told Louis “I don’t respond to threats” or her run in with her old racist, sexist partner who she eviscerated verbally and then ended it with “how do you like me now?” Jessica has had some epic scenes in this show. And she’s had her share of fun moments too from the delight of her being high in 6x01 to all the times she reminded Harvey she was taller than him or her leaning over during Mike’s mock trial and pointing out to Harvey ”I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not but he’s kicking your ass.” To any number of other great moments I’m not going to list right now. Jessica has always been able to shift between the heavy dramatic material and the more playful seamlessly because Gina Torres is a brilliant and accomplished actress who deftly crafted a fully realized character and brought her lovingly to life and in doing so made us fall in love with Jessica as well.

So as much as it pains me to see her go and as hard as it is to envision Suits without her right now, I hope that Gina Torres goes on to find another great, strong role worthy of her talent and one that allows her to take center stage because she deserves it. I first saw her in Firefly and loved her as Zoe Washburne, she was one of the main draws of Suits for me and I loved her as Jessica Pearson and I’m sure I’ll go on to love her in another role soon. But for right now I’m going to miss her as Jessica and while the show will certainly go on, it will never find someone to fill the hole left behind by Gina Torres’s departure.

And so we come to the end of the first half of season six. It was a rocky road and while this last episode doesn’t redeem the other nine, it did do what it set out to do, pay tribute to the character of Jessica Pearson and for that I can’t fault it.

Thank you to all of you who have waded through my pages of reviews this season and all my ramblings. I appreciate every one of you who have liked or added your own thoughts to my reviews and to those of you who just took the time to read them.

I’ll see you in January for 6b! And in the meantime if you want to talk about anything Suits, you know where to find me.

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