Suits - Recap: Rope-a-Dope
Suits continued tonight with an episode that gifted Harvey a case against an old Harvard rival and pitted his new girlfriend, Scottie, against the firm’s biggest and baddest partner… Louis Litt.
There are times when watching Suits where I try my hardest to think like a Harvard Law grad, only to then feel my brain begin to fizzle as I realize we’re probably not supposed to outsmart the smartest lawyers around. After all, this is a TV show based on a top tier law firm and the writing is among some of the most criminally underrated on television at the moment. In at attempt to show Harvey some gratitude after his mentor convinced Louis to back off regarding Mike’s transcript fudge, Mike, under some advisement from Donna (Sarah Rafferty), orchestrated the one true gift there was for Harvey Specter. Back in his Harvard heyday as an arrogant young prospective lawyer with an affinity for pissing people off and boasting beyond belief, Harvey had one true thorn in his side. A. Elliot Stemple defeated Harvey three times in moot court, extracurricular simulated court proceedings for law students. Ever since defeating Harvey, this mediocre Stemple fellow had allegedly been dodging the super successful Harvey Specter in the real world of law.
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Meanwhile, Scottie read over Louis’ impeccable by-laws with a fine tooth comb in order to set a trap for Litt using his own words against him. Basically, Louis was ten minutes late to a meeting of the senior partners, leaving Scottie the perfect opportunity to swoop in and take a case for one of Louis’ clients right out from under his nose. Louis, not one to be publicly duped, originally sought out Scottie for punishment, though he changed his tune upon speaking to Jessica (Gina Torres). Considering Louis’ track record and awful habit of alienating other partners in order to climb the ladder to the top, perhaps it was indeed time for Louis Little to let a slight slide in favor of building a friendship with Scottie. After the peace offering of the perfect pashmina, Louis assumed Scottie would simply hand back over the files to the transaction as his newfound friend. Unfortunately for Louis, Scottie was out to make a name for herself beyond the shadow of Harvey Specter.
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The issue with Stemple during the conflict of Episode 13 was that this guy seemed to be the ultimate schemer. If he could dodge Harvey forever, he had to have a few tricks up his sleeve. He never saw Mike coming, though, and upon accepting a court appearance against this unknown new lawyer, he unknowingly took a case against Harvey. Still, the scheming didn’t stop there. This man had a history of lying, even getting caught in a phony excuse to skip out on this particular court session by pegging a non-existent niece with a terrible illness that needed tending to. As usual, Mike and Harvey seemed to have the man on the ropes from the start, using everything from old cases to his actual family tree to apparently keep a step ahead; however, by the time they arrived at their first deposition, things changed. After Stemple brought up the past allegations against Harvey regarding his personal life vendettas getting in the way of his cases (Remember the first half of Season 3?), Harvey’s client wasn’t looking too enthusiastic regarding his representation. The case specifically regarded competing technology chips. Apparently, Stemple’s client had bullied competitors in the market for some while, and Harvey’s client was one of those affected by this opponent's need to domineer this specific corner of the market on chips.
A clear example of how Stemple worked popped up here. Upon exiting the room, and with the recording still taping, Stemple slyly hinted to Mike and Harvey about how his outside analyst was always keen to do whatever it was Stemple wanted. Basically, it seemed like Stemple had some crooked deal with an analyst to fudge information to benefit him in court, and Mike came up with the brilliant plan to analyze the footage to amplify this recorded comment that was seemingly off the cuff. Luckily, this gave us time with Mike’s bacon-lovin’ tech whiz buddy, Benjamin, who sadly failed to pull the audio that was way too low to be recorded. Mike, however, decided that a bluff was all they needed. In speaking with the judge who’d previously dealt with Stemple’s messy lies in court, it didn’t seem that they needed actual footage of this remark about a hired analyst. Stemple, instead, offered them the opportunity to access this information for themselves.
Stemple had two outside encounters, one each with Mike and Harvey, in which he attempted to convince his foes to see things his way and take a settlement. First, he targeted Mike alone in the elevator bank of Pearson Specter, a pity speech in which he attempted to get Mike to drop the case out from under Harvey’s nose to let him keep the one ray of glory he had from his Harvard days. Mike called him out on his lies and phoniness, yet again, leading Stemple into a future more aggressive one-on-one conversation with Harvey. If he attempted to cry to Mike about the past, he wanted Harvey to suffer for the same crap. Meaning, he played the college bully card against Harvey, admitting to paying off the mock jury in order to see the arrogant "Reginald" Specter fail in front of his peers. Stemple even took out ads in the local paper advertising Harvey’s defeat, choosing to put his own face on the body of Harvey’s idol, Muhammad Ali. Stemple couldn’t pay off an actual jury, of course, and Harvey continued to refuse to budge.
This is where things got very interesting. Harvey and Mike thought that they were dealing with an untalented snake, but the truth is, a cheap bowtie couldn’t overshadow the fact that he inevitably played them. Every single action they took they were foolishly baited into doing. Stemple wanted them to question his analyst because it allowed the man to reveal that the chips were nearly identical in court. Meaning, he could countersue Harvey’s client for a very clear issue of patent infringement for stealing his own client’s product. In fact, he never even paid off a jury. All of this was to simply paint him as a weak opponent with nothing but tricks.
The battle between Louis and Scottie ended up becoming a fight of overriding and undermining. Just as Scottie had used Louis’ laws against him in the first place, Louis subsequently wrote in new amendments that granted him the right to accompany new partners on tasks regarding his client. When Scottie acted behind his back to send impeccable proposals to this client with the intention of taking all of the due credit, Louis enlisted the help of Katrina (Amanda Schull) in planting mistakes. For example, Scottie was humiliated during a lunch with Louis and their shared client when Louis pointed out that the contractor Scottie had included in the proposal had been just that morning accused of fraud… an accusation set up by Louis! Louis, of course, didn’t care whom he hurt in the quest to demolish Scottie, though Scottie might have eventually got the upper hand when she found just one more little law written by Louis that prohibited writing new rules with group approval. If Louis did so, he could be kicked out of his position, a threat Scottie was happy to hold over his head as he refused to back off.
Harvey recognized that he had been embarrassingly defeated yet again, leading him to Jessica in a desperate bid for help. Jessica, who got to relax this week following all of her drama in the courtroom during the previous episode, recalled a similar opponent in her life, an old tennis faux who had no business defeating Jessica as many times as she did. In order to win, she had to simply lie down. Meaning, if Harvey wanted to beat Stemple, he simply had to take the deal and walk away as opposed to giving him so much power. Mike, on the other hand, came up with a brilliant plan after doing some more digging. Stemple had been working on this case for years for a reason. Now, they offered him up the perfect opportunity to dig through their clients product parts in order to get his hands on the special glue that allowed these identical chips to be manufactured much more quickly than those of Stemple’s client. After adequately deducing A. Elliot Stemple’s entire scheme, Mike and Harvey managed to wrangle ten times the settlement out of him, earning Harvey his win.
Meanwhile, Louis turned to Harvey, desperate to put a stop to Scottie’s plan to usurp him as the biggest and baddest lawyer at Pearson Specter. In his desperation to not be nothing, he called in the favor Harvey apparently owed him after Louis saved Mike’s reputation; however, this tit for tat kind of behavior is not how friends operate, and Harvey was sure to point that out. Louis called in a chit. At home, Harvey explained to Scottie that Louis called in this favor and that it was nonnegotiable that she drop her case. Scottie, upon simply asking for the favor Louis did for Mike, was disappointed with Harvey, who refused to fill her in on all the details on Mike's secret. Just as Louis traded their friendship for this business favor, Harvey seemed to trade the trust in his relationship for an executive business order.
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While Mike and Donna were quick to take credit for everything during the post-win celebration in the hallways of the office, Jessica was not too excited to bring Mike some bad news. After convincing a Fortune 500 company to publicly confess to a wrongdoing, the press wanted to interview Harvey regarding his win, a win Mike essentially gift-wrapped. Mike understood, though he didn’t seem to grasp quite as quickly how he can never, ever have any spotlight. Jessica seemed truly upset to have to remind Mike of this. Even simply having his name on the case was a problem. Luckily for Mike, he still had a new lease on life with Rachel (Meghan Markle) waiting for him at home. Though, it would be nice to have a future where something like, say, a simple promotion was possible.
What did you think of Suits Season 3 Episode 13, “Moot Point”? Knowing that he probably cannot live and work like this forever, what are Mike’s options? Will Harvey and Scottie survive this?
Thanks for reading my Recap and Review of Suits Season 3 Episode 13, “Moot Point”!