In which welcome flashes of self-mocking humour replace last week’s angsty mother issues; the Mike and Harvey story lines intersect, as well they should; and our anti-heroes contemplate, for the nth time, taking ethically questionable actions to further their own semi-virtuous ends.
Harvey is relaxing at home with a drink when Mike drops over to admit that his hissy fit of a few weeks ago was drummed-up conflict for the sake of TV drama, so let’s be friends and banter again, and hey, wanna be best man at the wedding? Harvey accepts and offers his fabulous $12 million+ Toronto condo as a wedding venue, and Mike makes a joke that Harvey had better not fuck (cough) Donna, the maid of honour. Bros making dirty jokes – they must be best buds!
The next day at the office, Rachel goes to Louis, who goes to Harvey, for help with an alarming letter she received that indicates she will not have a character and fitness interview/hearing with regard to her admission to the bar. They all fear Rachel is being punished for Mike’s criminal past, but Harvey and Louis quickly determine that the bar committee guy in charge, who might be a lawyer (it wasn’t clear), used this letter to lure the known-to-be-ethically-loose Harvey into his office so he can ask him to do something shady in exchange for reinstating Rachel’s interview slot and maybe ensuring she is admitted to the bar. The something shady: sue this guy’s competitor for some serious reason that will drive down the competitor’s stock price.
The best part of this scene: when Mr. Shady admits he is to blame for his competitor’s success because he stupidly disclosed company secrets to his mistress who leaked them to the competitor, and Harvey makes an exasperated, what’s-with-everyone-and-the-infidelity? face.
Harvey gets Rachel’s interview back on the schedule, and considers whether to launch a fake lawsuit (which would be a criminal offence) or to find a solid reason to launch a real one. He also asks Mike if he’d like to help out because Harvey might be able to get Mike admitted to the bar too in the process. But born again do-gooder Mike wants no part of any funny business that might land him back in jail.
The team at the legal clinic are still fighting the eviction case of Sophia, the single mother tenant. Turns out she didn’t hand over the rent cheque Mike gave her the night before because she had to take her asthmatic son to the hospital. Mike rushes over to see the hard ass lawyer of the landlord but no, she won’t accept the rent cheque 20 minutes past the deadline, and she looks forward to obliterating Tall Oliver in court again. Mike negotiates a $25K settlement and thinks that’s a good deal, but a naive and emotional/overacting Sophia wants $500K and to go to court.
Tall Oliver would like to argue the case again to make up for choking last time. Mike wants Marissa to do it instead, because she is the smarter lawyer on the team, and come on, look at that hair – it probably has magical legal powers. She has a sick dad to look after though, so Mike asks Tall Nathan for help. However, Nathan will not argue the case himself and he forbids Mike from petitioning to sit with Tall Oliver and coach him. If Mike does that, Nathan will fire his ass.
Mike spends a whole night rehearsing and prepping Tall Oliver, but on court day, Tall Oliver chokes AGAIN – poor guy can’t pivot – and the case is lost. Mike realizes that the best way to do good is to do bad first. He tells Harvey he’s in for some shady shit if it means he can become a licensed lawyer.
In other minor subplots:
- Donna sexually harasses Benjamin the IT guy by uttering tired double entendres when he comes to update the operating system on her computer. His response to her ‘jokes’ is to tell her he has been recording her various smug slogans and asides all these months and has created a little computer box thing called The Donna, which talks back in Donna’s voice when you address it. He hopes to market this marvel (as if). Despite her extensive black ops past, Donna has no qualms about her computer having been bugged, and falls in love with the device until Rachel points out it lacks Donna’s intuition, empathy and heart. Unfortunately, Benjamin intends to retool it, so this is not the end of that.
- Somewhere in there, Donna gets in a good joke line to Rachel that Mike needs to pick a hairstyle and stick to it.
- Louis is all set to go to Tara’s sonogram appointment and be a supportive dad until he finds out the bio-dad Josh is coming too. Josh doesn’t show up – he’s this season’s Norma – but Tara does not take kindly to Louis’s jealous fit and suggests they take a step back and get to know each other better before making big commitments like marriage and co-parenting of her baby. Louis takes her up on her suggestion and brings her a box of his childhood memorabilia to explain how he came to be the way he is.
- Louis gets anxious about his appearance after seeing a picture (that we don’t see) of the apparently good-looking Josh, and goes to Harvey for advice on how to compete with that. Harvey demurs that he can’t speak for all handsome men (heh). And when Louis asks Harvey to say honestly what the first things are that he notices when he looks at Louis, we get the not bad line that is the episode title: Teeth, Nose, Teeth.
Next week: Watch out, Harvey and Mike, with your subverting of the law – I think Anita Gibbs might be lying in wait to trap you somewhere down that path.
Kim Moritsugu is a Toronto novelist and sometime TV show recapper whose latest novel is a suburban comedy of manners called The Oakdale Dinner Club.
The Hungry Novelist 