We pick up with Hardman and Jessica waiting outside a conference room while all the senior partners are inside deciding their fate. Louis, the sniveling kiss ass that he is, decides to vote for Hardman, which puts Hardman in control. Immediately after the meeting, Hardman tells Harvey that he wants to work with him, but quickly dispatches Louis on the mission of getting Harvey fired. "I'm a senior partner, I always pay my debts. I'm a Lannister." Cersei would be so proud.
While Harvey wants to jump ship, taking Jessica with him, and riding out their year of non-compete by traveling the world. Jessica wants to bide her time and fight Hardman from the inside. As she rightly points out, you shouldn't make big decisions while you are reeling from a loss.
Cue Mike, who is trying to distract himself from the death of his beloved grandmother with work, but he blows up at Harvey in the middle of the office and gets sent home. Where... he starts smoking pot again.
Rachel manages to rouse him for Grammy's funeral so he can go deliver a eulogy. But before he gets up to speak a young woman named Tess shows up. She's resembles a younger, blonder Donna (I blame the hairstylists for at least part of that) and she was his first love. After Mike's touching speech about how his grandmother took him in when his parents died and how she was his only family, Rachel leaves for work and Mike makes out with Tess... Who eventually remembers that she's married.
So Mike smokes more pot. And Harvey shows up on his doorstep, and doesn't dole out a big "Just Say No" lecture. Harvey lights up and knows immediately which dealer Mike got it from. Who knew Harvey was such a marijuana smoker? Does he take it for medicinal purposes? Still, even high, Harvey manages a lecture about hangers. And this scene is just so perfectly wonderful, with the two of them laughing about pretzels and sharing insight into their childhood and then coming up with a scheme to piss all over Hardman's office. Literally. Whip 'em out and pee all over the place. Apparently he's done it before to Louis. God, I'd love a flashback of that.
Anyway, the wasted duo go to the office (after consuming copious amounts of Gatorade, orange specifically) but decide to use "The Can Opener" instead. Before we get to see what this entails, they find Louis snooping in Harvey's office. ("If you were a narcissist with great hair, what would your password be?") They abandon their plan, but come to the sudden realization that the memo was really fraudulent and Hardman planted it in order to take control of the firm.
They (still stoned) tell Jessica, but she wants proof. So the next day, Harvey heads over to a boxing rink, where he decides to gentlemanly beat the information out of Tanner. It's not quite Starbuck and Apollo beating the hell out of each other, or even Apollo and Helo, but as far as eye-candy filled pugilistic TV battles go, this one's up there. I'll watch Close and Macht dance their way around a ring any day. Attractive guys like this might have made Lights Out more watchable. Anyway, he gets Tanner to admit that it was a fraud, and that's why they settled.
Mike is digging through endless files, and finds a copy of Hardman's calendar for that day which points to a meeting that makes Hardman really hella guilty. But he needs to get an affidavit signed in order to prove it. Oh, and he kisses Rachel in the middle of the office, but she says he shouldn't make rash decisions while he's grieving. He's been in love with her for ages, not exactly rash decision making there.
Anyway, Mike has to quickly get the file because Louis found a way to get Harvey to take a drug test. And Harvey refuses, gets fired and requests a quorum with the senior partners. After Harvey and Jessica lay Hardman's sins on the line, and how he wasted three million dollars in the partner's money in order to get this current position, Mike comes in with a flourish with the papers (they aren't real, but he learned from the best). The partners vote on firing Harvey, and only a handful of hands go up. Even Louis doesn't vote to oust his nemesis. And then he (and even Mike) vote to get rid of Hardman. Louis may pay his debts, but he's not particularly loyal. Maybe he actually isn't a Lannister, but he probably would have gotten along with Viserys. So all is right with the world...
Except for the fact that Hardman warns that it isn't over. And that maybe Harvey will turn on her one day. And that Mike decided to invite married Tess over for some sex, and then Rachel saw Tess wandering his apartment in a sheet. You know, those pesky little things.
What I'm most left wondering until this show returns is, what's going to happen to that amazing apartment? It's so pretty. It's a sin for it to sit empty.
And there wasn't a hell of a lot of Donna this week, as she was relegated to packing duties, but she did get in this one fantastic line, which should tide you over until January: "I'm sorry I don't have a photographic memory, but my brain is too busy being awesome." -- Angel Cohn
Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Jessica and Hardman are waiting outside the firm's library, where the senior partners are milling about and dropping slips (specially printed for the occasion!) into a locked ballot box. Hardman's feeling chatty, but Jessica so isn't. Harvey drops his ballot in, giving a hard look to Louis, who lingers over his like it's a trick question on the LSAT.
Rachel is shocked to find Mike hard at work in the file room, not believing that Harvey would make him come in the day after his grandmother's death. It turns out Mike hasn't told Harvey, or indeed anyone else, with the vote going on and all, and gets pretty pissy with Rachel for suggesting he go home and deal with it. But of course that's just misplaced guilt over not having seen Grammy for two months due to being too busy at work. So he's clearly come to the right place: work.
In the library, Jessica pulls out the last ballot and announces calmly, "The managing partner is Daniel Hardman. Effective immediately." There's a smattering of applause and dirty looks between Harvey and the presumed swing-vote Louis, and a short speech of gratitude from Hardman before he approaches Harvey to say he still wants them to work together. And that includes Jessica.
Harvey, however, goes to Jessica and advises bailing on the firm, taking at least twelve partners and all the associates with them. Jessica reminds him of the non-compete clause. Harvey suggests taking a year off, but Jessica insists they're staying until Hardman screws up again and they can take him back down. "You don't make major life decisions when you're reeling from a loss," she says. And ironically, she's saying this in VO while Mike walks up to a guy on the street and buys himself some weed. So at least he's still using his powers of observation, if only to ferret out the drug dealers in Midtown.
Harvey returns to his office to find it being cleaned out by workers, despite Donna's refusal not to let them touch Harvey's balls. His basketball collection is always good for a cheap laugh at least every third episode. Donna tells Harvey he's moving to the 46th floor -- switching with Paul Porter, of all freaking people. "Bow ties have no place here!" she all but wails at Harvey's retreating back. Harvey goes right to Hardman to call bullshit, and Hardman calmly explains that he's rewarding people who are loyal to him, like Paul, and invites Harvey to become one of those people. He tells Harvey to accept it with grace, so Harvey has the grace to say this to Hardman's face: "I'm coming for you."
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