#I've said most of this on twitter already in fewer words...this is the extended cut

[cassandraofold]

Ok, so I like to ramble and @loyalty2waystreet asked me what I thought about s7e01 of Suits and I wrote her an essay. Like still in school doing English Lit and overanalysing everything type essay (in length at least - I’m not sure it’s particularly coherent). And I did say I’d post some sort of reaction and I’m also lazy so I’m going to copy paste with some edits (read: add even more words).

Warnings for too many words, spoilers for suits season 7, yet more words, and ranting in places. I’ve only watched the whole thing once and seen certain clips again so this is very much initial(ish) reactions, which I’m going to stick it under a cut.

I did like the episode in general. I loved the return to the Marvey rhythm of earlier seasons. There was banter and drunk!Mike and super fucking *fond* Harvey letting him get away with everything and looking at him like he hung the moon. Even hungover!Mike is brilliant. It had the right amount of mush/humour/fondness/harsh words said for the right reasons by someone who knows you too well. Mike said exactly what Harvey needed to hear and I need more than one post to talk about Harvey being so damn vulnerable around Mike. I could write a book about his vulnerable little face and Mike saying exactly the right thing to bring Harvey back to himself and if anyone tells me they are not in love I’ll fight them. So…the Marvey in the episode was perfect 🙌🏽 barring progression to an actual relationship which Korsh will not give us. They are literally the reason I still watch! 😊

Onto everything else:

I think I expected Dr. Agard and Harvey to happen last season because I feel like this show often takes female characters and makes them just love interests and I was impressed last season that they didn’t go there with Dr Agard. I mean Harvey makes a pass at everyone that’s standard and he didn’t with her, unless I missed it? I felt like she and Harvey had a good (if bit unethical dynamic) there was mutual respect of a sort, Harvey accepts her help and it was great that they didn’t go there? So, it’s disappointing to me that it’s the first thing they did this season.

It didn’t feel to me like there was a legitimate build up to it, beyond the ‘I used to tell you about my anxiety, weird sex dreams and mummy issues, so this is easier than finding someone I want to share that stuff with and telling them all this stuff again’ angle. And isn’t that a sign of how much more help Harvey needs still? The ‘I had fantasies about you’ bit from Dr. Agard was just a bit odd because they didn’t read as having sexual tension before? At all?! The one person Harvey is willing to open up to like this time and again with minimal prompting is Mike… (There’s a whole other post that needs to be written about how Harvey tells Mike EVERYTHING).

In terms of Donna - I mean I think it’s been made clear that she has feelings for Harvey and isn’t over what happened.

I think her being senior partner is great but maybe a teensy bit unrealistic…ok I’m not going to lie I really couldn’t suspend the disbelief for this: like I get that Harvey’s been topping up her salary but would a legal who lives a relatively fancy lifestyle (designer clothes etc and has a nice flat in New York that she presumably pays for in some way) have half a mil just lying around? How would compensation work? Currently partners are paid for billables and closing cases not a ‘salary’. Has she provided appropriate value for senior partnership? Yes and no?

She’s done her job well but she’s also shown questionable judgement in the past like getting arrested with the railway company thing for trying to keep up with everyone else and feel useful. She’s not going to be bringing in clients but she will help keep the ship running so in general it’s still fantastic.

And it’s great for a woman to be in a high powered role. My issue isn’t with a woman being senior partner (Jessica for example is fantastic, it’s with how believable it is that a legal secretary could demand to be made senior partner cos she’d worked there ten years and done her job well? I think I’d feel better about it if it wasn’t just a quick fix to the darvey power issue. In general it’s great to see her fighting for recognition, but in some ways with isn’t about Donna having a sense of self and recognition it’s about paving the way for darvey because Harvey ‘wouldn’t date his secretary right?’. And Donna has turned from a character with some substance to a parody character with catch phrases like that’s a shame.

Harvey’s reaction to the partnership thing was a little lacklustre and unsupportive and he was basically harassed into giving her the partnership. The way it feels like he’s going to be browbeaten into darvey endgame. He’d never have considered it on his own. And once he’d been harassed about it enough, his literally words about it were “You win!”. And that feels a little sad. Like he’s not even being a great friend here but they want this to be the aspirational/endgame/true love? No thanks.

It’s becoming more horrible. I feel sorry for invested darvey shippers. I feel sorry for Donna. I feel sad for how some bad retconning has ruined a great dynamic and great friendship and turned it into whatever this is now. Maybe in some ways that makes it more ‘real’ because people can be dicks and people do still fall for dicks etc but it’s not the basis for a great love story so it’ll suck when they try and fix it. Who wants to have to convince someone to love them? Harvey doesn’t seem to love her or be interested in her like that. Harvey has shown obvious interest in basically everyone else, even with out of the blue Dr. Agard chasing - he’s quite forward about what he wants. But he isn’t with Donna; It’s canon now that they slept together and Harvey was like if I knew you could still work for me I wouldn’t have slept with you because I don’t want a relationship but I do want a Secretary? 🤦🏽‍♀️. How bad *was* the sex? Harvey feels his commitment issues are resolved and he chooses to pursue a relationship with someone else.

For me, it comes back to fact that it’s not so much that Harvey couldn’t have dated her when she was his secretary. It’s that HE DOESN’T view her as his equal and that given the choice he didn’t want to. And he chooses time and again to fight more for everyone else. And he chooses time and again to sleep with and pursue romantic relationships with anyone else. The parallel with when he wanted Scottie to be senior partner and stay with him: He fought for her, he paid her buy in (even though it was a bit of a creepy thing to do) just to remove barriers to their relationship. So Donna getting more recognition is great but in general it’s all a bit sad.

And poor Louis…he always gets sadness. Rick Hoffman is brilliant though and always great to watch even if Louis fills me with lots of love/hate feelings. Because he is so emotional and irrational and such a hurt, damaged childlike man. I want Louis to be happy. I want them all to be happy but then they’d probably have to end the show…and let Mike and Harvey be together.