‘Suits’: Mike Returns to Help the Firm Fight Back Against Faye (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 9, Episode 9 of Suits, “Thunder Away.”]
Harvey’s (Gabriel Macht) families are falling apart as Suits nears the end.
But Donna’s (Sarah Rafferty) determined to save at least one of them by putting an end to Faye’s (Denise Crosby) reign of terror at the firm. Fortunately, Mike (Patrick J. Adams) is back to help his old friend professionally and personally. It’s just too bad that they run into a snag with the plan they come up with when Faye comes forward and proposes a deal. Can Harvey and Mike’s friendship survive what’s to come?
And before the penultimate episode of the series is over, Faye manages to take another shot at the firm, firing another lawyer.
The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men
Harvey delivers a beautiful eulogy at his mother’s funeral, with Donna, his friends and family, and even Mike in attendance. Though he’d gotten his love for baseball from his father, his mother was the one there for every practice and cheering him on at games. “She was always there, even when I thought she wasn’t,” Harvey says. “She used to tell me that none of us were perfect, that we all made mistakes, but she always owned hers. She taught us about right and wrong and forgiveness.”
When Mike joins Harvey at the wake, they leave the past in the past. “You being here says everything,” Harvey says. But once Mike and Donna are alone, she recruits him to bring down Faye. Once he and Samantha (Katherine Heigl) bury the hatchet, it’s time to put the plan in motion. Besides, as Donna tells Harvey, “What could be better than watching the woman who’s been making our lives miserable finally get what’s coming to her?”
(Shane Mahood/USA Network)
Mike takes Samantha on as a client — and she’s suing Faye for wrongful termination. She had no proof that Samantha fabricated evidence, and instead, she’s been playing “judge, jury, and executioner.” The only problem? Faye turns to Harvey and Louis (Rick Hoffman) to represent her and offers them a deal: win, and she’ll leave. But they can’t tell the other side.
Harvey refuses to keep it from Donna, who in turn fills in Alex (Dulé Hill) and tells him to find out if Faye can really take them down. And Donna doesn’t keep her feelings about Faye to herself, calling the other woman “the real cancer” at the firm. “And if you hurt Harvey more than he’s been hurt, mark my words, I’ll be the one coming for you next,” she warns the special prosecutor.
Taking the Stand
Understandably, Mike and Samantha are upset to see their friends representing the woman they’re trying to get rid of, especially once they learn it’s not a move to help them. Louis offers Samantha a settlement, one that Mike later suggests she at least consider enough to propose a counter-deal and hopefully get information about what’s really going on.
Faye’s not happy to learn about the settlement offer and orders the men to stop trying to get out of it and start trying to win. So, they insist on holding a mock trial in the firm, to give her an idea of what to expect in court. Alex even finds relevant information just in time: Faye has dismantled a firm before, after she fired one of its attorneys. She was sued for wrongful termination.
Harvey questions her about it during the mock trial, but she claims it’s not relevant. He thinks it was for the same reason she fired Samantha: she hated her. “From the second you got here, you hated what everyone here stood for,” he tells her. “You are a bitter, vindictive human being, and every single person in this firm hates you.” Faye refuses to sit through any more of it and leaves.
(Shane Mahood/USA Network)
After, Harvey tells her he was just preparing her. And if he took shots at her? Well, she’s been taking shots at him since she arrived. And he’s none too pleased about how she’s been treating Louis, either. “When you stripped him of his title, you almost cost this firm the best lawyer it’s ever had,” he says. “You come after someone I love, you’re going to get it back like you’ve never seen before.”
That’s the kind of fire Faye wants to see in court — and she does, but from Louis, who goes after Samantha to make the jury hate her and see why they’d fire her, too. Katrina (Amanda Schull) tries to find out what she’s missing after hearing what Louis did, but all he can say is that sometimes doing the job means doing something he hates.
Sam, of course, is angry, and Mike wants her to use it in court the next day. And when someone comes knocking, he suspects it’ll be someone with answers. (He’s right.) In court, Mike and Samantha use the past lawsuit for wrongful termination against Faye when she takes the stand. She didn’t list a reason for firing Samantha because she knew she’d have to be able to back it up — and she couldn’t. Samantha also quote’s Harvey’s line from the mock trial about everyone hating her. So, Mike wonders, who deserves to be fired? The lawyer who wins cases and has friends, or the one who lied about why she let his client go?
From Bad to Worse
Later, Faye lashes out in her anger and orders Harvey and Louis to prove Samantha fabricated evidence so they win. She also thinks they slipped the other side the information about her past and the quote from the mock trial. They didn’t, but because someone did, they need to do what they can to appease Faye and protect Samantha by proving what Samantha did without proving it. Mike is smart enough to let them ask the questions Faye wants, give them the answers they need, and not say anything to ruin his client.
(Shane Mahood/USA Network)
But they still don’t know who went to the other side. They suspect Alex until Katrina comes forward. She wanted to help them give Samantha a win while having plausible deniability. But Harvey’s upset because she ruined their deal, and since he hasn’t been able to properly deal with his grief or speak to the one person who understand what he’s going through, Katrina takes the brunt of his anger.
Katrina then admits what she did to Faye and reminds her that she respected her for giving Susan a second chance. But there’s no second chance for Katrina, as Faye fires her for colluding against her own firm.
Meanwhile, Donna goes to see Mike, but she’s not there to fill him in on what he’s missing. Instead, she needs him to take a break and be there for Harvey as his friend, as someone who’s lost both his parents. He does, and things are going great. They reminisce about the early days. They talk about Rachel wishing she could see Harvey and Donna together. They joke about Harvey going to work for Mike as his associate or junior partner. But then Harvey takes out a subpoena and reveals he’s calling Mike to the stand. “When did you stop trusting me?” Mike asks before leaving.
In somewhat happier news, Harvey finds a letter his mother never got the chance to send to him. She was so excited about meeting Donna, but she couldn’t wait to visit to give him his grandmother’s ring.
And with that, we’re heading into the final episode of Suits.
Suits, Series Finale, Wednesday, September 25, 9/8c, USA
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