Standard Of Review: The Times They Are A-Changin'; Will 'Suits' Adapt?

The midseason premiere certainly feels like Suits playing its last hand to attempt to stay relevant, writes culture columnist Harry Graff.

Suits TV showA funny thing happened on the way to last week’s midseason premiere of USA Network’s legal drama Suits: USA Network decided that its flagship show is Mr. Robot.

USA was long known for its light, breezy dramas that rarely attempted to push the envelope, instead aiming for sixty minutes of disposable entertainment. Suits falls squarely into that paradigm, a light, soapy show with drama but lacking real stakes. Enter Mr. Robot. The first season of Mr. Robot – which aired last summer – was everything that typical USA shows were not. It was incredibly dark, depicting a socially awkward protagonist with psychological issues joining with a group of hackers to take down a shadowy evil corporation. It was also cinematic with gorgeous cinematography, frequently utilizing long tracking or POV shots. It also expertly used its New York setting; unlike shows like Suits which are ostensibly set in New York but are filmed in Toronto, Mr. Robot actually filmed on location in locales like Coney Island, giving the show a gritty, lived-in feel. Even though Mr. Robot did not attract many viewers (Mr. Robot has fewer average viewers than Suits), it was a critical darling and one of the most talked-about shows of last summer.

Clearly someone at USA noticed. The midseason premiere of Suits contained countless promotions for Mr. Robot, despite the fact that its second season will not air for several months. One commercial for upcoming USA drama Queen of the South even began “from the network that brought you Mr. Robot” (this type of advertisement always cracks me up, as if you are likely to watch The Mysteries of Laura because it airs on the same network that brought you Cheers). Mr. Robot is the future of USA. Suits, on the other hand, is a relic, a dinosaur, a product of a bygone era.

Due to USA’s advertising strategy, I therefore had Mr. Robot at the forefront of my mind while watching the Suits midseason premiere. The Suits writers probably blocked out the entire season before they knew that Mr. Robot actually existed. But accidental or not, the midseason premiere certainly felt like Suits is playing its last hand to attempt to stay relevant (this review will contain spoilers up through last week’s midseason premiere; as I have explained before, due to the fact that Suits airs on Wednesday, I have to write about it a week later).

Suits is very much a premise show – Mike Ross works as an associate at prominent New York City law firm Pearson Specter Litt despite the fact that he never went to law school. Slowly but surely, more and more attorneys at the firm find out about this secret until basically every single main character is in the loop and is essentially a co-conspirator. While it was inevitable that someone beyond this circle would discover Mike’s background, part of me thought that it would never actually happen, as it would undermine the whole premise of the show.

Well, Suits is now playing this hand. The final moments of the last episode of the first half of the season depicted Mike’s surprise arrest. The midseason premiere deals with the immediate fallout as Harvey and Jessica work to keep Mike out of prison (and also work to prevent Mike’s arrest from undermining their own positions at the firm).

For a Suits episode, I actually quite enjoyed the midseason premiere. The fact that Suits is actually tackling Mike’s secret has given the show some momentum that it clearly lacked as it has spun its wheels in recent seasons. I really enjoyed the fact that defending Mike is a juggling act for Harvey and Jessica. Harvey has to somehow defend Mike while at the same time pretend that he no longer works at Pearson Specter Litt (in a subplot too complicated to explain). Jessica has to prevent her untrustworthy partner Jack Soloff from finding out the truth, or else he may attempt to garner enough support to vote her out as firm chairman. I also enjoyed Harvey’s scenes with the ruthless AUSA Anita Gibbs (Leslie Hope, best known for playing Jack Bauer’s wife Teri on 24, which blew my mind once I figured out who the actress was), who seems hell-bent on convicting Mike, and maybe Harvey and Jessica as well. It is an excellent set-up for a season, and I hope the show continues its momentum, instead of taking detours for cases of the week.

Sponsored

Suits is not usually known for its acting – except for when it brings in Wendell Pierce to guest star as the high-powered attorney Robert Zane, Mike’s future father-in-law. I’ve written before that Pierce is too good of an actor for Suits, but I am nevertheless consistently impressed with his acting ability every time he shows up. In the best scene in the episode, Mike defends himself to Robert by arguing that Robert also has skeletons in his closet. Robert, eyes blazing, intensely responds that no matter Robert’s past transgressions, he is not a fraud like Mike. Pierce’s acting in this scene is top-notch, portraying that even though Mike has hit a nerve, Robert’s disappointment in Mike runs deep.

Of course, because this is Suits, each episode has to have its requisite dose of melodrama that brings the show to a screeching halt. In this episode, Mike and Rachel have a fight after Rachel considers the possibility that Mike should take a plea deal. The fight is pointless and comes out of nowhere, completely manufactured to create artificial conflict. Moreover, Suits continues to obsess over whether Donna is working for Harvey or Louis. The midseason premiere contains an entire subplot devoted to Louis realizing that Donna is better off working for Harvey again. I excoriated the Donna subplots in my reviews of Suits last summer, so I won’t reiterate those criticisms here. Now that the status quo has returned, hopefully we will be spared any more secretary drama.

Suits clearly will never be nearly as good or dynamic as the first season of Mr. Robot. But if this was Suits’s final salvo to stay relevant in a Mr. Robot world, it was not a bad start. And by the next episode, I fully expect a USA promotion to begin “from the catering company that brought you Mr. Robot…”


Harry Graff is a litigation associate at a firm, but he spends days wishing that he was writing about film, television, literature, and pop culture instead of writing briefs. If there is a law-related movie, television show, book, or any other form of media that you would like Harry Graff to discuss, he can be reached at harrygraff19@gmail.com. Be sure to follow Harry Graff on Twitter at @harrygraff19.

Sponsored