Photo: Ian Watson/USA Network
This week on SUITS, following Louis Litt’s demotion at the end of “Special Master,” Faye Richardson switched her focus to Harvey Specter, who was hell-bent on getting revenge for his friend’s ill treatment. Whenever she wasn’t antagonizing Harvey, Faye continued to make the atmosphere at Whose Firm Is It Anyway awful, including by deciding that Donna Paulsen needed to be punched in the guts for the crime of having been good in her former position. Between Faye’s particularly terrible way of managing the firm and the always-compelling interpersonal dynamics, “Windmills” took viewers on an emotional ride.
The insecurity. Following his demotion, Louis Litt had some big decisions to make. His first sounding board was Sheila, who once told him she had fallen in love with him because he was a lion. And now, Louis felt like a neutered house cat. “I’m a ball-less cat. Which reminds me: When are we getting another cat?” Priorites, Louis. Priorities.
As he had to swallow his title getting scratched off his office window and countless other insults added to his injury, Louis met with an old friend who offered him a way out: a judgeship. While the offer turned out to be something that Sheila had orchestrated, it was still a legitimate position; but Louis was torn.
A crack dream about a massive number of Judge Louis Litts overseeing Louis Litt’s case against “pirate” Faye, decided by a jury of his “peers” in the form of a Harvey mob, caused Louis to go see Dr. Lipschitz. It was Lipschitz who helped Louis to realize that, even in his fantasy world, he was always surrounded by the family at Whose Firm Is It Anyway. “They’re everything to me. I don’t want to go anywhere.”
Louis nearly changed his mind about not going anywhere, thanks to his newly-found third-wheel status with Donna and Harvey. Luckily, though, they were able to smooth things over; and SUITS won’t add yet another firm name change so early in the series’ final season.
The rage. There’s nothing like an “ethics” expert that deliberately pushes buttons in order to make the people she’s supposedly investigating for doing shady things…do shady things. But, that’s exactly the kind of snake that the New York Bar sent to the firm. Apparently not being satisfied with demoting and humiliating Louis Litt, Faye spent “Windmills” taunting Harvey Specter and demeaning Donna Paulsen.
If someone doesn’t shank this woman by the time SUITS ends, I’m going to have to somehow reach through the television and do it myself.
The easiest ways to get Harvey doing something morally gray or outright illegal are to make an inappropriate comment about Donna harm the people he cares about and/or challenge his ability to be the Best Closer In The City™. In “Windmills,” Faye gave Harvey the double slap in the face of doing both.
Repeatedly.
As soon as Harvey found out about what happened to Louis, he went after Faye, all Alpha!Harvey-like to confront her; but all she did was throw a bunch of threatened “consequences” back in his face. So, of course, Harvey’s answer was to take on a new client—without obeying the newly-established Approved By Faye™ rule—that would hit her where it hurt.
Harvey I’m-Not-Answering-To-You Specter was, as usual, really fun to watch; but his decision-making was dominated by his emotions and the worst possible version of himself, not the much more mature guy that seems to only show up when one Donna Paulsen is around.
Harvey’s chosen client, Dan Foley, was facing a hostile takeover of his business—just like Specter & Friends. As a bonus, the folks on the other side of the table were represented by Faye’s old firm.
Got a bad feeling about this? Same.
When Harvey landed Dan as a client, he came back to the firm, presenting a recusal form for Faye’s signature and sporting that shit-eating Specter Gotcha Grin™ that Macht always plays so well…and that is always a sign the character has a really bad idea. Faye signed the form but wanted to know whether Harvey was going to follow his own system, where he made up his own rules as he went along. Havey promised her that he’d do whatever he f-ing had to; and she warned him that, should he cross a single line, he’d be out.
Harvey was confident (just like water is wet) that he could win without any such actions because, when it came to her old firm, Faye “deballed these guys so much, all [he] had to do was threaten a lawsuit, and they’re shaking in their boots.” But Harvey did go too far, even if it was in a perfectly legal way, so he wound up nearly being sued by his own client. Later, after Harvey spent several hours away from work banging Donna, he realized that the only way his client could have been fired in the middle of litigation was if Faye had somehow sabotaged him.
When Harvey confronted Faye about her 15-minute phone call with her former firm, which occurred less than two hours after Harvey secured Dan as a client, she revealed that it was actually Johnson & Powell calling her to say what an asshole Harvey was. (That probably checks out.)
Regardless, Faye, the supposedly neutral party, revealed that she was rooting for Harvey to lose.
So much for being “better” than anyone at Whose Firm Is It Anyway.
But it gets worse: Harvey found a perfectly legal way to make everything work out; but stupid, short-sighted fool that he is, he bragged about getting help from his buddy, Kevin Miller. Yes. That Kevin Miller: Mike Ross’ prison boyfriend cellmate.
So, now, Faye can dig into Kevin. While she’s there, she can find out that both Kevin’s and Mike’s releases were a little bit sketchy; and—oh, yeah—she can also learn about why Mike Ross went to prison in the first place.
Great job, Specter.
Without a doubt, Faye’s going to jump on this. She’s going to dig, and she’s going to do it just out of spite. Kind of like how she rubbed it in Harvey’s face that he hadn’t “crossed one single line,” despite telling her he’d do whatever it took to win. As in, she outright dared Harvey to do the very thing that she was supposed to be making him stop doing.
Another piece of Faye’s bold-faced provocation was that Harvey wanted her to give Gretchen back to Louis, and she wasn’t about having a client leveraged for that purpose. But see, giving Gretchen back to Louis was about a whole slew of other awful things that Faye Bitchardson did in the latest SUITS episode. The whole reason she even had Gretchen working as her temporary secretary/property/yet another thing she’d taken away from Louis was because her first choice, Donna, had asked Gretchen to cover for her.
Read that again. First choice. Secretary. Donna. Faye.
That woman can absolutely choke.
Donna Paulsen was never just someone’s secretary to be passed around; and after everything she did, all of her 12 (ish????) years’ worth of work to become the firm’s COO, how dare Fake Snitchardson come into this firm to demand that The Donna Paulsen, COO, just drop all of her real work to do some filing.
Donna pointed out that becoming Faye’s secretary would send a very bad message about her being more valuable as a lackey than in her actual position; but Faye was more concerned about the “go to hell” message she, personally, had been receiving from everyone else.
Gee, I wonder why. Also: She can, in fact, go to hell..among other things that she can do to herself and places where she can shove her need for either Donna or Gretchen to be her secretary.
Donna went so far as to ask if she would be demoted if she refused, and Bitchardson gave the (valid) reason why Louis had lost his position as managing partner. But then she…got petty and unprofessional, just as she had with Donna’s dumber half (Harvey, if you’re not keeping track). The woman—who, again, is supposed to be here from the Bar to set Whose Firm Is It Anyway on a more ethical path—told Donna that she could demote her if she refused and then had the audacity to ask if it really needed to come to that. As if Bitchardson herself wasn’t the only one causing Donna’s particular brand of problems.
There’s nothing quite as ethical as threatening a position that someone has earned when they…want to continue doing that job instead of bending over and just accepting that they’ve been demoted to your personal slave.
For all the times Harvey has punched someone in the face for hurting Donna, I truly believe Faye would have been dead when he found out about this particular situation, had Donna not stopped him from storming off.
Instead, there were far more important things (and people) for Harvey to do…which brings us to…
The love. Darvey went on a date, y’all.
Let that sink in.
They went on a real date! But let’s back up and get ourselves some context.
Harvey started his work day by stopping by his favorite redhead’s office to let her know that he couldn’t help but notice the lack of sex that she hadn’t come over the previous night. Rather than awkwardly trying to smooth things over or holding back in any way whatsoever, Donna admitted she “didn’t know how to make sense” of Harvey blindly supporting her when they argued with Louis, even though it turned out that he didn’t agree with her. Harvey, proving that he’s kind of a big, dumb male, told Donna that he thought she would like that. Which, of course, was not the case.
Several thousand heart-eyes later, Donna realized that Harvey was afraid of losing her over something work-related, so in the most heart-meltingly sincere moment ever, Donna reassured her uncharacteristically vulnerable man that he had nothing to worry about: “Oh, my God. Of course. Harvey, I’m not going to leave you. And I’m certainly not going to leave you over something that happens here.”
Harvey wanted to make sure that work wasn’t a reason to stop having sex not spend the night together, so he proposed a plan: at least one date night per week. (Date! Night!) During those dates, work would be an off-limits topic. Donna thought this was a fabulous idea, and Harvey was never more proud of himself than in that moment.
Donna was so taken aback by Harvey’s great relationship advice that she had to ask who he even was; and I was screaming, “he’s the man he was always destined to grow up to be! Character development, sis!!!” at my television.
When Harvey was upset about potentially being sued by a client, and Donna was swallowing Faye’s forced-secretarial-work pettiness, it was time to put a pause on real life and go to the land of Darvey fanfiction. Harvey needed to clear his head by going a few rounds with Donna before he could do his job, after all.
Darvey’s dinner date on archiveofourown.org from author Korsh Fears Toasters And Canon Darvey started out pretty badly: Harvey wouldn’t shut up about work, while Donna looked annoyed at her crappy wine; and when she finally got her boyfriend to stop with the business-speak, nobody had anything better to discuss than books and/or water. It was everything a first date might have been 12! (that’s a factorial, kids) years ago, and Harvey worried that he and Donna had already run out of things to say to each other (besides “yes, Donna, yes” and “you’re the best closer in the city, baby”).
But just as the romance seemed dead before it ever had a chance to start, Harvey realized that Donna reminded him of an old friend’s redheaded mom, on whom he’d had a crush when he was younger. At this point, everything became starry-eyed and heart-eyed gushiness, as Harvey became the proud puppy who fixed dinner and Donna realized she still had plenty of new things she’d get to learn about the love of her life while actually with him.
Let’s all take a moment to feel all the feelings here.
Moving on.
Just as Darvey were flirting over Donna’s peppercorn poisoning parable and “really getting the hang of this whole dinner thing,” Louis came to spy on them (same, Louis, same). He even attempted to call Donna, who sent him to voicemail, because the night was just for Darvey and she was busy getting hot from all the open, honest conversation with the hot guy she’d pined for over the last eon. But since Louis was reading Korsh’s fanfiction watching the date from just out of Darvey’s sight line, he thought his friends were laughing at him.
Louis confronted Harvey in his office, saying he felt that Darvey weren’t in his “goddamn corner anymore.” But Harvey, yet again showing how much he had grown over the course of SUITS’ run, told Louis what had actually happened. Since Louis was hurt that Harvey hadn’t even come to physically be by his side and sit with him during this rough time, the future Mr. Paulsen also swore that he hadn’t come to see his friend because he’d been fighting for him. As if that weren’t enough of a punch in the feels, Harvey admitted that he “just didn’t know what to say because [he] couldn’t stand what [Faye] was doing to [his] friend.”
Harvey loves Louis too much to see him hurting, folks. It’s canon. Let Larvey rise.
Later, realizing that her new romantic relationship was stopping her from paying attention to one of her most important non-romantic ones, Donna also patched things up with Louis by surprising him with a girls’ night.
We love one dysfunctional family.
When your final season is fanfiction on-air, feelings like these happen.
- Watching these first few episodes of SUITS’ final season, one thing has been made crystal clear: Despite some rough patches along the way, it’s going to be very difficult to say goodbye to the folks at Whose Firm Is It Anyway.
- Um. Why are we just now finding out that Donna Paulsen has a “much older” sister? It would have been nice for the SUITS writers to actually tell us about her before the last possible second, especially when folks were begging for more Donna that wasn’t constantly only in relationship to the men in her life.
- “Your ship is sinking, and you shouldn’t go down with it.” Me at myself for shipping Darvey while SUITS trashed them in these past couple of seasons. Glad I didn’t abandon ship, no matter how close I came.
- “Windmills” gave us a master class on acting from the entire cast, particularly Gabriel Macht and Sarah Rafferty. Macht had the honor of seamlessly playing both the squishy, in love version of his character and Best Closer In The City™ Harvey in a single episode; it was the perfect blend of a new side of Harvey and an old favorite. In some parts of the episode, he even made the switch instantaneously. As a bonus, Harvey’s kicked puppy face was back after Faye rubbed his nose in his embarrassing shit. (It’s so hard to see Harvey that way, but the acting is always so good.)
- …and then there was Rafferty’s scene in which she had to play Donna’s reaction to being asked to be Faye Bitchardson’s secretary. All that beautiful shade and snarky attitude when she asked if she had to let Alex Williams know he was now an associate, right into that barely-concealed rage and deep pain when she found out she had to be someone’s secretary again. And not just anyone’s secretary: the monster’s.
- Harvey: “You want consequences? I’ll give you consequences.” Shana: Ok, that’s hot but such a bad, bad idea.
- “…because I know what it’s like to have the house you built get handed over to someone else, and it just so happens that the people doing it to you are related to the woman who’s doing it to me.” All I heard was “the woman who’s doing it to me” and I focused on Darvey/ignored this legal mumbo jumbo.
- “You pissed me off so much, I was rooting for you to lose.” Twitter reactions to SUITS’ seventh and eighth seasons.
- “I’m the guy it always works out for.” If SUITS ends in any way to the contrary, someone’s catching
this toasterthese hands. - “Dislike is one of the ways of describing my feelings for you, Faye. I doubt you want to hear the other.” Same! Get her, queen!!!
- Forever bitter about Faye forcing Donna to do her stupid filing. I’m Harvey here: Nobody hurts my Donna. That woman has got to go.
- Harvey Specter watches Oprah, who probably gives him better relationship advice than a certain former therapist ever did. Thank God someone’s looking out for his mental health.
- I need to know what “Albuquerque” is all about. Please and thanks. Nothing that involves that much giggly flirting should be beyond Darvey shippers’ grasp at this point. Nothing.
- “Harvey, I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.” True, but he’s always been so hot when he did it.
- “That’s what you say to me when I’m worried that we have nothing to say? What is wrong with you?!” An old married couple.
- Louis blurting out “Harvey and Donna did it” to Gretchen when she asked him what he wanted for lunch is so Louis and too relatable to discuss.
- Also relatable: Constantly feeling abandoned when your friends are in a new relationship that seems to take all of their focus, and you’re suddenly an outsider.
- “I knew it. You’re a black widow.” (How does he look so in love while he says this???) “Harvey, if I was a black widow, I’d be the one doing the poisoning.” “You seem to know too much about the subject. I’m breaking up with you.” (Ok, but let’s not joke about this.) “Good. Because I really think this whole thing has run its course.” (STOP.)
- “We’ve been through so much together. Please don’t let me tilting at wind chimes be the thing that pulls us apart.” SUITS’ final season is really delivering here. Season one Harvey would never. That particular brand of jackass couldn’t even admit that he had a friend in Louis.
- “It wasn’t terrible. It was family, and it was exactly what I needed.” SUITS: a summary, even on the worst days. Thankfully, this ninth season is giving us nothing but the best.
Don’t miss the next episode of SUITS’ final season on Wednesday, August 7, at 9/8c on USA.