What happened to Suits’ Dr. Agard?
How did she go from an intelligent professional woman, to a not so bright love interest with no integrity?
“It’s just a TV show,” say the ones who don’t know how socially impactful television has taken over productions in the last few years. Television is being used as a vehicle to impact positive social change and as a way to open dialog. For a series like Suits, who takes pride on writing strong female characters, this has been part of the attractive and their most prominent characteristic, besides the fashion and the talent of the cast, of course.
The show introduced us to women who despite being side characters, were all fully fleshed and strong. Very few times we’ve been able to see women on screen who can be strong and broken, intelligent and beautiful, romantic but true to themselves, and the most important part, capable to stand up for what they believe.
Jessica Pearson (Gina Torres), a black female character was put above the two good-looking white leading males of the show. Her word was the law. Donna Paulsen (Sarah Rafferty) proved that you can go far in life if you have the balls, or shall I say, the ovaries to go for it. Rachel Zane faced her deepest fears to achieve her goals. Now, of course, these characters aren’t perfect, you could question why Donna took so long to put herself first instead of Harvey (sometimes being selfish is necessary, girls. Not everything has to be about him.) Or the amount of times Rachel Zane had to show some skin because the scenes demanded it. But these details didn’t assassinate the characters for the sake of a plot.
So you can imagine my disconcert when I saw Dr. Agard returning to the show as Harvey’s new love interest. With the exception of Jessica, she was the only woman close to Harvey whom he hadn’t slept with, but of course, the show had to knock down a strong female character at some point, right?
We’re talking about a woman in her late 30s- early 40s, an experienced professional with a degree in Psychiatry, who despite knowing how unethical this is (and let’s face it, uncomfortable to some, and revolting* to others) confessed to having fantasies to a patient. The fact that the show calls Harvey an “ex- patient” or tries to justify its legal, is ludicrous. Mental health conditions aren’t like having the flu, it’s something a person can’t recover from with 50-something hours of therapy (around 2 days) as the show claims, and this is something some fans, especially the ones whose lives are impacted daily by mental health conditions, aren’t ignoring. It’s important to notice how Suits is portraying mental and emotional disorders in a global context where mental health awareness campaigns are being developed. The perception of these illnesses has never been more significant (sure, the show depicts Louis Litt like the unbalanced guy who never recovers, but the sexy, handsome white male lead is perfectly fine after 2 days of therapy. Ouch, Suits.)
*Let’s go back to the female character assassination subject, why is this hard to swallow?
It’s simple: the asymmetry of the relationship and Harvey’s vulnerability. Invert the gender roles, what if Dr. Agard was a man and Harvey the emotionally damaged woman who went to his therapy…it would look like the doctor is taking advantage of a patient in need. Which is exactly what she show is portraying, although apparently, in Paula’s case, she is not aware of what she’s doing. But does this make her look less guilty? Definitely not, it makes her look unintelligent. Did you really get your degree from Harvard, Paula?
Of course, you could argue: it’s just a plot. It’s not that serious, there are other shows that portray similar relationships and even, the psychiatrists are psychos. Well, that fits the context of those shows, not the context of Suits. For example: marrying minors as young as 14 years old, is legal in several States. It’s legal, but it’s unethical. If Suits portrays this kind of relationship next season, would you be comfortable with it? It’s all about context and the way a very delicate subject is being developed on screen. Nobody, among the main characters, has pointed out how questionable this relationship is, which is perplexing.
Being Dr. Agard an expert of the mind and soul, puts her in a position of power over Harvey. As expected, she’s acting more like Harvey’s therapist than his girlfriend: she explains his feelings and motivations to him (mostly about his issues with Donna), and the delicate part is that because she’s his girlfriend, Dr. Agard can’t be impartial anymore, meaning her advice isn’t trustworthy (especially her advice about matters of the heart.) Her integrity as a professional is gone when it comes to Harvey. She has been reduced to a therapist with no ethics in order to play a love interest, and this is disappointing.
Her screen time is now focused on buying Harvey presents, celebrating a 2 month anniversary of dating (really? Who celebrates 2 months of dating?), trying to explain Harvey that he has feelings for Donna and Donna has feelings for him but they should move on (this is completely logical coming from a psychiatrist, correct?) All this leads me to the most disconcerting thing I heard her saying:
“I trusted him, and he cheated on me, and I was afraid of how you'd see me (…) some people think that a woman who can be cheated on can't be loveable.”
Really, Suits? Is this a strong female character speaking? (That line of dialogue must have been written by a man.) And let me emphasize that every time this character tries to speak her mind, she’s cut off by Harvey. Every time she makes a choice, Harvey contradicts her and she nods. (He decided what lawyer she should hire, when she had already made a decision.) So this woman isn’t capable of being a proper psychiatrist, of being consistent, or of standing up for what she believes.
Is Dr. Agard not as bright as I thought she was, or is she extremely manipulative and malicious?
Maybe she is as emotionally damaged as Harvey due to her ex-fiance cheating on her, but what the show has told me so far, is that she’s an unintelligent woman who is throwing away her career and her integrity because she had fantasies about the leading guy (who no woman can resist.)
And this is very disappointing.
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