Suits recap: Season 6, Episode 3

Last week’s episode definitely dialed back the humor from the season 6 premiere. Thankfully, the funny is back in tonight’s installment, courtesy of Louis. Because this is Suits, there was a hefty bit of drama mixed in as well, and by the end of the hour, one of Mike’s newly formed prison friendships seems like it might be in jeopardy already.

“Back on the Map” opens with Jessica and Louis interviewing a prospective new tenant for the empty offices. But Louis ruins the meeting, as he is wont to do, with his ridiculous demands. It turns out this is the fifth potential tenant Louis has scared away, and Jessica is fed up — so she tells him he has until tomorrow to find a new tenant or the rent is coming out of his pocket.

Louis doesn’t want anyone touching his money and immediately springs into action to find a tenant. He’s been blowing the meetings because he doesn’t want anyone occupying his beloved bull pen. However, Donna, who is eager to help him, convinces him to look for companies that won’t need to really use the space, like financial planners — or Lesser Suits, as we’ll call them in this recap.

Louis isn’t the only one who receives a task from Jessica. She forces Harvey to meet with a potential client named William Sutter (Alan Rosenberg). Harvey turns him down the minute he gets there, though, because William is currently fighting the SEC for some shady business dealings and Harvey is tired of getting involved with people like him. (Aww, it’s nice to see Harvey has learned something.)

Naturally, Jessica is pissed when she finds out what Harvey did, and gives him 48 hours to find a whale of a client to save the firm or else they’re going to sign William. So Harvey turns to Nathan Burns, a bully businessman who has wanted to work with Harvey for years even though Harvey’s made it clear he doesn’t like him. Nathan relishes having Harvey at his mercy and forces him to jump through hoops to get his business, including making their dinner reservations and showing up on time.

Unfortunately, Harvey won’t be able to make that dinner meeting. Sean Cahill informs him that Frank can’t be transferred because he’s a federal informant, so Harvey decides it’s more important to race up to the prison to tell Mike. He tells Donna to call Nathan and let him know what’s up. Nathan cancels the meeting anyway, as William bought a piece of Nathan’s company and ordered him to do so.

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Things weren’t going well for Mike in prison even before Harvey told him about Frank’s deal. While Mike was working in the kitchen, Frank had his men attack Mike’s roommate Kevin. Mike finds a bloodied Kevin on the bathroom floor, but can’t do much to help him because taking Kevin to the infirmary would lead to a formal complaint about Frank — and prison isn’t kind to snitches. The one upside is that the threat of Frank helps Mike further bond with his bunkmate.

NEXT: Louis vs. the new tenant

On the lighter side of tonight’s episode, Louis signs a deal with some Lesser Suits without consulting Donna first. She’s pissed because she wanted to work on this together, and she warns him not to come to her when it blows up in his face. Oh, and it does.

It turns out the Lesser Suits that Louis leased the space to are kind of douchebags and have no respect for his beloved office. Louis is especially offended when he discovers that the Lesser Suits, led by Stu Buzzini (Ian Reed Kesler), threw out his prune juice to make room in the fridge for their Red Bulls. Louis was prepared for this, though, and included a provision in the contract that made this a violation of their lease. He then presents Stu with an eviction notice. “Don’t ever mess with a Harvard goddamn lawyer,” says Louis triumphantly.

Needing to find a way to salvage his deal with Nathan, Harvey turns to Stu for help and asks him to use his Wall Street banker skills to help him make a sizable investment in Nathan’s company to oppose William. Stu agrees, but only on the condition that Harvey helps him handle Louis. Now that Harvey has a hefty share of Nathan’s company, he’s able to convince Nathan to join forces against William. Yes, Harvey may have succeeded in netting a huge client, but he also created “an enemy for life” in William.

Meanwhile, Mike tries to play nice with Frank by telling him his lawyer screwed up and that he’s actually up for parole in six months. Frank assumes Harvey came up with this little plan, but Mike tells him Harvey suggested that Mike tell the entire prison about Frank’s deal — which we know wouldn’t go over well, because snitches get stitches in prison.

Later that night, Sean Cahill shows up at the PSL offices with a plan to get Mike out early. The Feds will let Mike go if he informs on Kevin, who is the “smoking gun” on another case. Harvey knows that’s not going to happen. We know that’s not going to happen. It’ll be interesting to see how Harvey manages to convince Mike to turn on his new friend, who he just found out also shares a love of Denzel Washington.

The Rachel of it All

For the first time in what feels forever, Rachel receives her own non-romance subplot. News of Mike’s arrest is obviously the hot gossip at Columbia Law School, and one of Rachel’s fellow classmates brings up Rachel’s relationship with Mike during a class debate to call her integrity into question and win the argument.

Obviously, Rachel is pissed. Her professor knows things won’t get any better for her, and offers her a job working for The Innocence Project instead of staying in that class. That’s like Rachel’s dream job, but she’s worried taking it would tell said classmate that she’s scared of her. She turns to Queen Jessica for advice, who tells Rachel she needs to do something that will make her classmates fearful of her.

So Rachel digs up some dirt on her classroom foe and threatens to use it — unless the classmate reads an embarrassing apology (penned by Rachel, ahem) and forfeits the debate. After that’s handled, Rachel tells the professor she’s actually accepting his offer, since her classmates now know not to mess with her. I loved seeing Rachel’s ruthless side, and I love the idea of Jessica grooming Rachel into a mini-version of her.

Best Suit of the Night: Louis Litt’s Brioni suit, because he needs the pick me up after Stu called it a “Bris—ty

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