The Urge to Merge

Suits

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M. Giant: B | Grade It Now!

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The Urge to Merge

By M. Giant | Season 2 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.14.2013

In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description!

Harvey and Mike are still fighting those gender discrimination suits against Folsom Foods, and their current challenge is to find proof that CEO Hanley Folsom is the sexist pig they know he is. And they have to do it on the cheap, because the firm is out of money and credit. Luckily, in swoops a white knight in the form of Harvey's ex-girlfriend Dana Scott, representing the incredibly rich London-based law firm she works for. After some maneuvering so she can let Harvey think he's outsmarting her, the two of them are soon working together (and doing some other stuff together that you can't show on USA), bankrolled from across the pond. Hardman's still one step ahead of them, though, showing up at a Flyoverland deposition in which Harvey accuses a female manager of only getting promoted after being rendered infertile. Jerk move, but he's hoping it'll pay off.

Back at the firm, Mike is butting heads with Katrina Bennett, who is throwing her fifth-year weight around and generally being a control freak. The timing couldn't be worse, because Rachel is distracted and spacey after getting a dreaded rejection letter from Harvard Law School. As a result, she gets Mike in trouble with Jessica for handing in work late, a problem that's compounded when they discover that Katrina is taking credit for what little work they do manage to complete. It gets pretty nasty between Mike and Katrina and they don't even battle to a truce the way she did with Louis.

As for that rejection from Harvard, Louis thinks it's his fault for having pissed off Sheila Zass from Admissions. He promises Rachel he'll make it right and goes to confront Sheila, who is impressed with Louis's noble move and ends up back in bed with him. This doesn't change the bitter truth: there are stronger candidates than Rachel and her rejection had nothing to do with him. Still, he goes back to Rachel and takes the blame anyway. Which is even nobler, kind of.

Both Harvey and Dana's bosses quickly become impatient with their lack of results, but Dana's boss comes off some more money anyway just to beat Hardman. And Mike and Rachel find the smoking gun that'll both turn the whole case around and get the better of Katrina. But all is not well. Jessica and Dana's boss are talking merger, which pisses off Harvey because he realizes this was Dana's plan all along. But one benefit of the merger is that Jessica has to show her future partner the firm's books -- which means he learns about Hardman's embezzlement without Jessica having to tell him and thus violate the confidentiality agreement she signed. And after all, there's nothing preventing him from telling anyone, including Hardman's client. So Hardman seems beaten, finally. But Harvey's still pissed about the merger. And Rachel's still not going to Harvard.

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Want more? The full recap starts right below!

Mike and Harvey sit in the conference room watching a new PSA featuring Hanley Folsom of Folsom Foods, who pays a lot of lip service to supporting women at his company. Not fooled, Harvey pauses it and says they need something that proves it's bullshit -- hot mic footage, an interview from the crew, or whatever. Mike says he tried to hire an investigator but got shut down. Harvey practically Vaders, "Leave that to me."

So he goes right to Jessica's office to complain about resources. She complains right back about clients not getting called back. Harvey says he'll cover it in a mass meeting to all the clients in the library. That satisfies Jessica, but Harvey demands more contract lawyers, paralegals, and Mike's damn investigator already so he can fight these cases properly. He insists that they need to invest, but Jessica says that after the Monica Eaton settlement and the revocation of their line of credit, they're pretty much broke. "So what are you proposing I do?" Harvey snots, as though it wasn't his idea to pay off Monica Eaton.

In the library, Rachel's got her head in the clouds, scouting neighborhoods for when she's at Harvard rather than Googling private eyes like Mike wants her to. She's still waiting for the answer from the one law school in the world, but Mike assures her she's good, probably so he can get her back to work already. Harvey summons Mike from the doorway to a pedeconference, in which he informs him that they'll be concentrating their limited resources on one case. "Do you know how we won World War II?" "Yeah, of course," Mike answers readily. "Spock didn't let Kirk save Joan Collins from getting hit by that car." Okay, first of all, Mike, the character's name was Edith Keeler, and secondly, it was Kirk who stopped Bones. Good thing Mike isn't trying to pass as an MIT grad. In actual history, Harvey explains that Eisenhower didn't have enough men to hit eight invasion points, so he sank them all into Normandy. Harvey wonders aloud what their Normandy against Folsom Foods is going to be, but Mike's already got it: Bakersfield, with the lowest percentage of female promotions, highest percentage of female applicants, and Hanley Folsom's brother in charge of the plant. "Hey, am I Spock or Kirk?" Mike foolishly asks. "Uhura," Harvey answers, which Mike knows he walked into. I would have gone with Wesley.

Harvey's actual Spock, Donna (who gets hot for him every seven years), shows up in his office with an unasked-for espresso and unusual solicitousness about his appearance, plus the news that the meeting's been moved to the conference room. Which is where Harvey runs into his Scotty. His actual Scotty, that is, meaning his ex-squeeze and Harvard classmate Dana Scott, last seen going off to London to get married. Except it never happened, she tells him. Anyway, the business reason she's here is that she's planning to poach the Bakersfield clients. Harvey is not about to let that happen either.

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