Standard Of Review: Can 'Suits' Pass Character And Fitness?
There is no way on earth that Mike Ross should be allowed to practice law.
Passing the character and fitness portion of the bar is a mere nuisance for the vast majority of attorneys, as it mostly tests one’s ability to track down old speeding tickets and convince friends to find a notary. It is rarely the focus of a dramatic television show. But on the USA legal drama Suits, which aired its midseason premiere last week, it appears that character and fitness is going to be the central plotline for not one but two different characters (this column discusses only last week’s premiere and does not address last night’s episode).
When we left off at the end of the first half of the sixth season, Mike Ross had just been released from prison – having been incarcerated for practicing law without a license – after embarking on a scheme with Harvey Specter to eviscerate the attorney-client privilege in order to help the SEC prosecute Harvey’s client. Harvey makes newly free Mike an offer to rejoin Pearson Specter Litt as a consultant. Mike resists Harvey’s offer because he wants to help people by working at a legal clinic instead of working at a corporate law firm. But unsurprisingly, no clinics will hire him because he is a convicted felon.
Unsure of what to do, Mike’s priest gives him a job teaching a class of unruly high school students. These scenes are unintentionally funny for two reasons. First, the actors playing Mike’s “students” look like they are well into their twenties. Second, Mike’s students transform from outright rebellious to extremely respectful within a span of a day. Haven’t the writers seen any movie about a high school teacher? These things take time, usually about the length of a montage!
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At the same time, Harvey is trying to make it easier for Mike to become an actual attorney. He confronts AUSA Anita Gibbs – the federal prosecutor who put Mike in prison in the first place – and attempts to convince her to support Mike’s application to the New York Committee on Character and Fitness. It is puzzling why Harvey believes that this is a good plan, particularly why Gibbs would ever agree to help them. Unsurprisingly, the plan backfires spectacularly, as Gibbs rejects Harvey and instead states that she will do everything in her power to prevent Mike from being admitted to the bar.
This storyline underscores one of the central issues Suits is going to have in the future. Mike is a main character in a show about a law firm, but there is no way on earth that Mike should be allowed to practice law by the state of New York. He practiced law without a license for years without his clients’ knowledge! So either Suits is going to come up with some far-fetched plot twist allowing him to practice law again, or he is going to have to work in a non-legal job like being the world’s most effective teacher. Neither is satisfactory. My guess is that Mike is going to eventually accept Harvey’s offer to be a consultant, which makes me wonder why the writers bothered with the whole prison storyline in the first place.
Meanwhile, Rachel Zane has her own character and fitness problems. Because she is engaged to a convicted felon, and still works at the law firm that employs him, Rachel is worried that she will not be able to pass the character and fitness portion of the bar when she graduates from Columbia. Her father, Robert Zane, thinks that if she leaves Pearson Specter Litt and joins his firm, she will have a better chance of being admitted. Rachel is torn up about this decision, to the point that she mistakenly leaves her offer letter from Robert’s firm in a random file, where it is found by Louis Litt’s assistant (for someone who is supposed to be an extremely organized paralegal and associate, this is pretty careless). Rachel’s plotline is stronger than Mike’s because she actually faces a legitimate dilemma: will the New York bar punish Rachel for acts of her fiancé under the theory that she must have known about his fraud? But I don’t know if the show can sustain Rachel’s drama over character and fitness for more than an episode or two.
Notably missing from the midseason premiere is Jessica Pearson, as actress Gina Torres left Suits to join ABC’s The Catch (seriously, can’t we as a society agree that Gina Torres needs to be in better shows? Maybe the next season of Fargo?). This leads to a power struggle between Harvey and Louis that is seemingly resolved in one episode after Louis makes the terrible decision to try and steal Robert Zane’s biggest client. I have said it before, but making Louis bumbling and semi-competent is a poor use of the character.
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Finally, the episode lacks a quality villain. In recent years, Suits has always been at its strongest when Harvey, Mike, and Louis match wits with a worthy adversary, such as Gibbs or power-hungry partner Jack Soloff. Let’s just say I don’t think that Gus Fring or Stringer Bell has to worry that the Committee on Character and Fitness is going to challenge them on the list of the top television villains any time soon.
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 [email protected]. Be sure to follow Harry Graff on Twitter at @harrygraff19.
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