Chicago Redshirt

Re oral sex: Pilar might be guessing or lying. She might be referring to Stahma blowing Rafe back in the day, in which case she could have observed it, been told about it, or even participated in it. Re: Yewll, a) she is a pathological liar who lies b) lying in this way gets her Pottinger's gratitude, which as she said, she expects him to repay and c) "the Votanis collective made me do it" is much more palatable for Amanda to swallow than "Creepy McCreeperson came up with the idea and made me do it."

Absorbing Man's well known. But it seems to me that he's way, way too powerful for our heroes. I mean, he regularly fought Thor to a standstill.

I would say she's both ill and hot.

I take Bill at face value that he wanted Sookie to use her fairy fireball to kill him because then he thought that once all the fairy was out of her, she would no longer be drawn to vamps, or them to her. She could have a normal life that wouldn't be inhibited by the fact that she gets to read the not-so-pretty thoughts that any potential human partner might have from time to time. In other words, he could have chosen to meet the sun, stake himself, or just die of the "rapidly spreading" Hep V. (In quotes because despite the commentary from the other characters about how Bill looked, he didn't actually look that bad, and he never once showed any signs of the behavior of the H-Vamps in terms of being blood-crazed or anything like that.) But doing so would still mean that Sookie would go for a life with Eric or whatever vamp came sniffing around next. He was trying to make his last act save her as well. Which, OK. But I don't see why he, or Sookie, or we should think that belief is true that she will always be drawn to vampires and they to her. Prior to the show beginning, no vamps were attracted to Sookie, or vice versa, that we know of. Sookie has enough agency to decide not to sleep with vamps, and not all vamps are attracted to the magical fairy vagina she's got.

That last 10 minutes was riveting to watch, for sure. Overall, the episode had a lot of the stuff that I think had been missing from much of the season -- the repartee in the restaurant, Big Daddy Zane, bad-ass Louis, for example. Still, there's a lot of stuff to nitpick: 1. I thought that all partners or senior partners had a non-complete clause that prevents them from working in the NY area. It was an issue with both Hardman and Harvey. It was sort of ret-conned and weakened so that we have this drama with Louis potentially going to Big Daddy Zane. 2. I'm surprised BDZ didn't read Mike the riot act. In the time since we've last seen him, Mike quit the law to become an investment banker, apparently failed at that, let Rachel overwork herself to the point of exhaustion and hospitalization, broke up with Rachel, had the SEC crawl up his ass and made up with her and then comes asking for a favor. Granted, BDZ may not know the details about all this, or may have dealt with Mike about this in Offscreenville, but still. 3. Sheila. I know that as long as the show goes on, Louis is not going to get a happily-ever-after in Boston. But is it me, or was she pretty much a total bitch? I suppose that they might be paving the way for Louis/Donna. ("Lounna"? "Donis"?) But of course that came with a big setback with the reveal... 4. The Secret. Such a tragic flaw for this show. I wish there were some way to put it in the past. Since we're stuck with it, though, I kind of wish that we had more lead up to Louis knowing. The Mike cheering Louis up scenes didn't really convey that Louis was putting the pieces together. I kind of would have liked to see him do more detective work, and be fully sure that Mike was a fraud, and the extent of his fraud. It shouldn't be ambiguous about whether he has just guessed that Mike hasn't gone to Harvard versus hasn't gone to any law school (or even finished college). 5. The notion of down-and-out Louis is more laughable than down-and-out Mike. I know the show put a fig leaf on that by talking about the economy or what not. But the notion that Louis hypothetically could get walked into the general counsel spot at Proctor & Gamble, that he's delivered all the billables that he did, etc., suggests he should be able to get some position in New York if he really wanted. 6. I wouldn't have minded a scene where Louis was talking to his parents about the roller coaster stuff that was happening to him.

What I meant is that malicious prosecution is not something you can sue a prosecutor for in the real world, as opposed to the show's "malicious prosecution." Prosecutors have absolute immunity. It's a point I've brought up in a couple of posts for other episodes. I apologize for not going into detail here. As the Wikipedia summary you've linked to says, "Criminal prosecuting attorneys and judges are protected from tort liability for malicious prosecution by doctrines of prosecutorial immunity and judicial immunity." Eric Woodall and Sean Cahill are prosecutors and thus would have nothing to fear from such a lawsuit. undermining the constant refrain of "We're suing for malicious prosecution." Another point that is confirmed by the summary: you can't sue for malicious prosecution in the real world until the prosecution is over and the defendant has emerged as the victor. So even if Our Heroes could threaten Eric and Sean with a malicious prosecution lawsuit, it would have to wait until they were acquitted.

It's a huge retcon that Eric "I'm a straight arrow who hates crooked lawyers so I'm going after Harvey" Woodall has in fact been a crooked lawyer who apparently took big-time money from a crooked businessman to protect the crooked businessman's business. It's also Deus ex Machina of the highest order for our heroes to have been able to figure this out and prove it, along with Sean Cahill deciding that he a) is willing to prosecute his buddy and b) is unwilling to prosecute Louis (the two are not mutually exclusive.) I suppose in a world where "malicious prosecution" exists, showing that Eric Woodall was tainted by Forstman would make such a prosecution malicious and thus not worth pursuing. But the show should have established that. They could have easily done so by cutting some of the various fat from the episode. It's sad that these supposedly brilliant lawyers and lawyers-to-be can't seem to handle basic questioning. Rachel going to pieces over the mock dep. Woodall going to pieces in his deposition, admitting that he did have a vendetta against what's-his-face. Another bit about real-world law vs. the show: in most cases, you are specifically prohibited from using a single prior incident as evidence that it shows a person has a propensity to behave in a certain way, so the jury should think that the person behaved in the same way in this incident. On Louis's value: Because he's so often played as a punchline and because the show isn't about him, it's easy to forget his high billables, his financial expertise, etc. etc. With regard to the danger Louis allegedly poses to the firm: at this point, the firm has had one former name partner conduct embezzlement from its client in Hardman, another name partner and his second-in-command go down for conspiracy to commit murder, and current named partner in Harvey be guilty enough of wrongdoing that they agreed to a multimillion dollar settlement. It would be nice to have some perspective, then, and realize that Louis going down isn't very likely to kill the firm. Was it me, or did the Louis voiceover not sound like Louis? (I mean the sound of the voice, not the content).

The thing is, anything having to do with the private auction is piss-poor evidence of colluding. Presumably, either PS/Logan or Mike/Steadman/Forstman could make whatever arrangement they want to buy stock in Gillis Industries from the guy who had it. There would be no need to collude if either PS/Logan or MSF were not truly interested in buying the stock. They could just buy it at the "lowball" price. (And I may be wrong, but it seemed to me that both of them expressing interest in the stock resulted in the stock price actually going up. So again, piss-poor collusion if it ends up in the alleged colluders paying more than they otherwise had to. Moreover, it seems like this alleged collusion would have to be looked at in the context of all the stuff that had gone before. The fact that Mike got a TRO stopping PS/Logan from buying stock is public record, as are the efforts that Harvey went through to try to maneuver around them. The actual cause of the rift between Mike and Gillis may not be public record, but much of everything else about it would presumably be, or at least would be something that basically stalking Mike and Harvey should be able to determine -- the notion that Gillis didn't want to sign with Mike but Mike promised that he would try to protect Gillis's people, the fact that Mike and Gillis had a split, the fact that Mike went to various people, including Tony Gianapolous to get them to back him and that he ended up with Forstman, noted hater of Harvey Specter. I mean, I suppose we could suspect that the collusion started as of the date of the private auction, but that seems a little crazy. With there being months of the two sides bitterly fighting over this company in public and private, it just doesn't strike me as a reasonable allegation that they woke up and decided to collude.

Needs a sprinkle of dick-measuring too. :) It's hard to get behind the show when it doesn't make much sense. The whole "Mike and Harvey were colluding" thing doesn't make sense, with Mike arranging a restraining order to stop Harvey from buying Gillis shares, with Harvey going to Gillis and telling him about Mike's drug-dealing past, with the two setting up a private auction where they are the only bidders (and thus would drive the price up higher than if one or the other just straight up making an offer). GIven that the Mike and Harvey were colluding doesn't make sense, I'm not sure what we're supposed to make of a world where a) Harvey and co. don't bother to point this out b) Sean is able to convince a judge to sign off on a search warrant in an effort to prove his nonsensical theory c) the SEC is continuing to invest the resources they are into pursuing this investigation. The threat of going after Sean for malicious prosecution wouldn't make any sense at all in the real world. Prosecutors are essentially immune for most of their actions. Otherwise, every prosecutor's office would be tied up in lawsuits defending every decision they'd make.

It's been a while, but I do think there was a flirtation Janet felt for Jack. It was just too loose of a show to have anybody "pine" for anyone. Similarly, Carla I'm fairly sure did have some interest in Sam, and there was a joke about it. Troi didn't have romantic feelings for Picard, but she did for Riker that culminated in them getting married in Nemesis. And there certainly were hints of Uhura having a thing for Spock in TOS, and Kirk explicitly wanted to hook up with Yeoman Rand but let his devotion to duty keep him from acting on it. (Although there was some person it was hinted that he hooked up with after the ship's Christmas party.) I think it's common in both real life and fiction for their to be romantic crushes and relationships amongst people who spend tons of time in the workplace or wherever.

Iris could end up doing research into many of the Rogues, the effect of whatever they're calling the STAR Lab explosion on people, or various other things. Hopefully she will get to be defined as more than love interest/daughter of cop/Damsel in Distress.

A purported genius with a photographic memory and (admittedly fake) credentials plus two or more years' experience at Pearson Specter has more options than either taking a job offer with Forstman or returning to Pearson Specter. At the very worst, he could open up his own shingle and take the fighting-for-the-little-guy cases he claims to love so much. Assuming PS operates on anything close to the real world, Mike conservatively made $300k or more for his first couple years. He certainly spent a good portion of that on Grammy's place and just Manhattan living, but he is presumably not in such dire shape that he immediately needed to latch on to the first skeezy job offer that came along or going back to being a fraud.

People's mileage may vary, but to me a hypocrite is someone who advocates one set of standards for himself and another for other people. Mike kissed Rachel while he was in a relationship with Jenny and slept with his married high school girlfriend. He is a cheater. The fact that Mike's romantic cheating was all prior to his getting serious with Rachel does not IMO make him any less of a hypocrite for getting as angry as he did about Rachel's cheating and the related issues (her not coming clean initially, her still having feelings for Logan and whatnot). I wish that they didn't write Rachel as much as a wet noodle as they did. I wish they gave her the fire to say, "Listen up. Yeah, I was confused for a few seconds about my feelings for Logan. Yeah, I should have told you. But if I wanted him, I could have him. I could be with him in a heartbeat. I don't want him. I want you. I cut him off. I'm not going to have a personal relationship with him. I'm not going to have a professional relationship with him. He's out of my life. If you're not going to forgive me for my 15 seconds of weakness, then that's on you. I'm sorry I hurt you. I hope you forgive me, because we've been good together and I love you." On another point, I do like the fact that the show brought up that Harvey has issues over cheating because his mom was a cheater. But I'm fairly sure that he knows that Mike got his ass kicked for cheating with a married woman and he never criticized Mike about it. Am I remembering that wrong? I suppose it's more in character that Harvey would give Mike a pass, but from a broader perspective, it's somewhat disappointing.

In fairness, one of the things that led to Briggs being as broken as he is was that Jangles essentially did something similar -- get him addicted to extract information. For all his various facades, Briggs is an addict in recovery who attends NA meetings regularly. So I could see that playing off another addict's weaknesses and torturing him would have a personal effect on him in a way that killing people, lying to people etc. would not.

In fairness to Jeff, Louis said Jeff's work was good enough that 99 out of 100 lawyers would not have spotted the problem, and he just happened to be the 100th. So I don't think it's fair to make it out like his work flat-out sucked. That said, it would be good if they gave Jeff something else to do besides look good and flirt with Jessica. Like his job of getting the SEC off the firm's back. Would it have killed them to have him have scenes with Harvey or with Woodall or whoever the Woodall puppet is again. (I am getting old. I had to go to IMDB to remember DB Woodside's character name. While there, I noted that there have been two episodes of Suits without Jessica and two without Louis. Those must have been weak. Then again, IMDB claims that there was an episode without Mike, which I can't believe is the case.) With regard to Mike and Rachel, I don't meant to say that Mike should forgive Rachel. He's perfectly entitled to break up with her on any of a number of grounds -- the kiss itself, the hiding of the kiss, the fact that it was with Logan, it being the culmination of a crappy week, whatever. I personally would have preferred some forgiveness or truly letting them be done, because I would love to minimize the relationship drama and I think we all suspect that Mike and Rachel remain the one true pairing so the "let's spend a couple episodes with them sniping at each other" is extra annoying. Alternatively, as long as there are relationship issues, I wish they could really deal with the ones that are there and are going to remain there in an intelligent, adult way. Rachel worked herself into a hospitalization for exhaustion and Mike's level of concern for her (at least as shown) was no more than emotions-are-for-the-weak Harvey. Rachel still has the fraud issue to deal with (which reminds me....I want Big Daddy Zane back on our screen). They were on opposite sides of what was supposed to be an all-consuming case. I should add again how remarkable it was what Louis did for Mike. I don't really care if it's in character or not, or if it makes sense or not. (And I suppose it is mostly not). He had his chance to get whatever reward he wanted short of becoming a name partner. He was set to position himself for making a run at patching things up with the (perceived) love of his life. He put all that on the backburner, and all the other possibilities he could have asked for, in order to bring Mike back. Now consider: As far as Louis knows, there's no real reason why PS wouldn't want to take Mike back -- he was an excellent employee while there and personally worked under one of the two named partners. So to give up a valuable chit as he had to ensure Mike's return seems a little much. Also, what has Mike done for Louis lately? He made Louis look like a chump. He played on his feelings for Sheila. He caused a rift between Louis and Harvey. He basically is responsible for Louis being in a position where he had to make the Faustian bargain with Forstman. Prior to that, Mike agreed to be Louis's associate only to backstab Louis and go back to Harvey.

I was super scared that they were writing Louis out when he was talking about wanting to be with Sheila. I'm glad that they at least left open the possibility of him being a named partner. I hope that Louis figures a way to take Forstman down without going down with him. Sorry, but if someone is going to offer me a million dollar signing bonus, it'd be pretty hard to say no. Worst case scenario, you quit or get fired and you're still a millionaire. Mike not telling Rachel about his being a fraud is just the tip of his hypocrisy. Mike not only kissed Rachel when he was with Jenny, he slept with a married woman. Mike also helped numerous people cheat on their LSATs. For him to come back to the firm knowing that he's putting it at risk again is pretty awful. And for him to cost Louis his reward is also pretty messed up. Given that Rachel is not played by the strongest actor, it's probably a mistake to have an episode revolving around her being an emotional wreck.

One of the questions I would have is whether this is supposed to be a prequel to the next DC Movie Universe Batman, or its own universe like Smallville. I know there was a story recently saying Arrow and Flash are separate from the movie universe, but I don't know if it mentioned Gotham.

Since Season 1, Episode 1. And I say that as a general defender of Rachel.

I thought for 100 percent the mole was Jessica. She has seemed intent on getting Mike to shut down the operation and undermined him in various ways.

I don't mind that Louis occasionally is a whiny baby, but at some point, he needs to stand up for himself. I would pay good money for Rick Hoffman to get the scene where he shoves Harvey's hypocrisy down his throat. Louis's judgment turns everything to shit? How about all the times he managed to save the day? How about his amazing billables? How about the fact that he's whipped the associates at that place into shape? And the last I checked, Louis did not try to undermine Jessica, did not have two investigations of him, one of which caused the firm to lose millions and one of which is now threatening Pearson Specter again. I wish he would have woken up and said, "I don't need this." I wish the writers could have refrained from kicking Louis when he was down. There was absolutely no need to have him be forced to do something illegal to compromise his victory. The whole Rachel/Logan/Mike triangle...It's awful for Rachel that she either a) was too stupid to realize that the last thing she needs to do is to be alone with Logan or b) she was secretly wanting Logan to make the moves he did. I hate, hate hate the whole "Your mouth says no but your body says yes" deal so much. I can't picture why Mike didn't say "Why would I want this to be a deal-breaking term." Nor can I understand the "Let Harvey choose whether he wants to keep Logan or go with Mike as a client" deal. I guess if it were played better, it would be an interesting development for Harvey as a character -- one where he lets emotion get the better of him and he makes the absolutely suboptimal decision from a business perspective. I mean, Mike is a nice guy and all, but Logan does a billion dollars worth of business. There's no question who he should go with. But instead of a revelation for Harvey it's absolutely no drama. And let's talk about the deal for a second. For most of this season, Mike was bitching and moaning about having given GIllis his word and about the welfare of the unnamed masses who would get shafted if a shark like Logan got his hands on the company and sold it for parts. So he's going to blow up a deal that would guarantee keeping his word to GIllis, saving these workers, etc., all because of his advice from Lady MacZane? Rachel referring to herself as Logan's lawyer when she hasn't even (if my understanding of the timeline is correct) finished her 1L year... Donna gave her awful advice. I am struggling to think of up points for this episode and coming up fairly dry.

Pretty much if LL's any role this side of G.W. Bridge, I'm down with it. Never watched Xena, but she's been good in everything I've seen her in, which is to say BSG, Spartacus and she even brought some life to the often sucky No Ordinary Family.

Lucy Lawless will be joining SHIELD in an unspecified role. http://time.com/3016047/lucy-lawless-agents-of-shield/ But I'm guessing it's as the Contessa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentina_Allegra_de_Fontaine.

The thing is that actual practice of law often has little to nothing with what is taught in law school. A lot of what law school teaches is abstract theory, where people are asked to see both sides of an issue. Students are exposed to a lot of different cases and concepts. A lot of what Rachel would have been doing as a paralegal would be various practical and concrete things. Moreover, the sort of law that Rachel has been involved with as a paralegal has been generally corporate law. The typical first year curriculum has little to do with that. There's usually a class about contracts that her PS experience would help with a fair deal, but then there's criminal law, civil procedure, constitutional law, torts and legal writing where it would not necessarily be as useful.

Slimy guy's deal was that the contract would be written so that Sidwell didn't get any money out of it. Why he is doing that other than the mwa-ha-haedness and forced ethical dilemma for Mike of it all, I don't know. So there would presumably not be money to give Sidwell later -- it would be almost all Slimy Guy's. Even if there were money, Sidwell might not take kindly to originally being cut out of the deal. What Mike is doing is called a breach of fiduciary duty, and presumably Sidwell would have a cause of action against him. As to Rachel's stress level, the first year of law school is always inherently stressful. Add to that the stress of PS, and her relationship drama, and I could see it getting to be too much. Different professors have different ways of grading. One of my first year professors had us do a midterm, one had us take home essays, while most were the more prevalent 3 hour in-class essay. So it doesn't strike me as inherently unrealistic that one might assign a paper. From the start of the show, Rachel has had a spacious office as "senior paralegal." No, this doesn't make any sense p. Presumably she has kept that office as senior paralegal and quasi-associate/intern to Harvey.or have any parallel to the real world.

The prosecutor guy has an odd definition of "collusion" when it involves one "colluding" party obtaining a temporary restraining order against another, and the two parties getting in a private bidding war against each other, among other things. It seems odd that brokedown recovering drunk attorney from last season could uncover enough Harvey-related shadiness to have Harvey shaking in his boots and be willing to cave to him, but someone using the full power of the federal government, including literally having someone tail Harvey if we're to believe prosecutor guy, can't uncover ample evidence of the shadiness that Harvey has been up to in just the 3 seasons we've been watching him, let alone before. I do want a happy ending for Louis, but I think I'd prefer he and Donna to be friends. They were the best thing about the episode.