“I get along with me just fine.” – Harvey
Rick Hoffman’s character, Louis Litt, is a textbook creeper.
He’s awkward, but smarmy. He wants so badly to be one of the cool kids, but at the same time, he has little more than disdain for them, they who exclude him so gleefully. He is constantly the runner up to Harvey. He gets his kicks where he can, namely by tormenting Mike and the other associates, but then whatever joy he gleans is immediately dashed when he wanders down the hall to hit on Donna and is ultimately shot down.
Everything that we have seen about Louis so far is so cartoonishly pathetic. He’s a difficult character to take seriously at times. With that in mind, I was pleased to see Louis rising to the challenge this week when he and Harvey are forced to work together to bring an embezzling executive to justice before a friend of Jessica’s loses her charitable organization to bankruptcy.
However, I’m starting to form the opinion that Pearson-Hardman is nauseatingly altruistic for a pricy corporate law firm. This is Harvey’s second pro-bono case in a mere eight episodes. I feel like that’s a lot of volunteer time for a guy who openly professes his hatred of charity cases.
Yes, Jessica is the one forcing him into these cases, but it still feels like Pearson-Hardman does a lot of pro bono work. What about those cases where you have to struggle with whether or not you’re comfortable on the side you’ve been chosen to represent? Where’s the conflict? I’m already rooting for Mike and Harvey. I get it. Deep down inside, they’re good boys. With four episodes left to the season, I’m still waiting for my monkey wrench to screw things up and I’m not good with the patience thing.
Maybe that’s what made this week’s rather Louis-centric episode a refreshing change.
Louis has been presented as Harvey’s big rival, but we’ve never seen any real evidence of his superiority or even equality. Harvey’s grasp on the case very quickly goes to hell and he finds himself with no choice but to ask Louis for help. Louis, of course, relishes the opportunity.
Meanwhile, Mike has been tasked with tailing Lola, the daughter of one of Pearson-Hardman’s clients. Lola’s daddy found a fake-id with his daughter’s picture on it and he wants Pearson-Hardman to investigate. Again, I’m curious as to what kind of law firm Pearson-Hardman is where something like this is apparently their problem.
Mike discovers that Lola is a skilled computer hacker and has been stealing money from daddy’s company in an attempt to make amends for the environmental damage her father’s company has inflicted… or you know, because she’s a brat who wants her dad to pay attention to her. Whatever. Lola utilizes her hacker skills quite well and discovers that Mike didn’t really attend Harvard. She attempts to blackmail Mike into backing off, but Mike plays family counselor rather well and Lola and daddy see the error of their ways.
Lola rewards Mike for his inherent awesomeness by hacking back into Harvard’s records and creating an alumni profile for him, complete with class rank, GPA, contact information and all that fun stuff. Oh, and she forges him a degree. Good for Mike.
Harvey and Louis manage to cobble the pieces of their embezzlement case together and save the day, but before the end-credits roll, Louis accuses Harvey of stealing the credit for their shared win and Harvey counters with a smart aleck response, just to ensure that the status quo isn’t broken by Louis’ brief time as a hero.
Hey, it’s a tough job, but someone has to be the office douchebag.
Some stats and info about Suits, “Identity Crisis”
TV SHOW – Suits
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 8
AIRED ON – August 11th, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – USA/Netflix
GENRE – Drama, Legal Dramas, Office Culture
CREATED BY – Aaron Korsh
CAST – Gabriel Macht, Rick Hoffman, Sarah Rafferty, Patrick J. Adams, Meghan Markle, Gina Torres
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.