Suits season 7, episode 14 recap: Pulling The Goalie and other moves

Suits sets the stage for next week’s game-changing finale by changing the way the game is played. Here’s what happened in Suits season 7, episode 14.

This week’s penultimate episode of USA‘s Suits is called “Pulling The Goalie,” which sports fans know is when a team leaves their goal undefended in order to have more offense. It can be kind of a desperation play, which is how it comes off for Specter Litt.

Wednesday’s episode begins as Louis Litt (Rick Hoffman) is having another therapy session, this time to explain that he’s still having an affair but he’s now freaking out having seen his woman’s fiancee. His therapist believes this is a wake-up call and tells him to end the affair; Louis seems to agree, but we’ve seen that before.

Wait, why is Sheila’s fiancee Zander in Louis’s office? And why is he gloating like a total jerk? The man’s boasting immediately throws Louis’s temper into overdrive, and now it’s on. This will only end badly.

Elsewhere, Suits has Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) run into Judge Ralls, his former trial judge. Now she wants his help, because she’s being accused of judicial misconduct. He’s her eighth choice, and she pressures him to live up to his past words by taking her case.

So Mike brings the case to Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht), with the suggestion that it could be some “fun” to get his mind off his recent breakup. That argument actually works, while Donna Paulsen’s (Sarah Rafferty) coffee run goes bad when the firm’s landlord wants to take advantage of the recent turmoil to squeeze them on their lease.

"Donna: I’m not letting you get away with this."

Louis enlists Katrina Bennett (recurring guest star and future series regular Amanda Schull) to help him fight Sheila’s fiancee in court. Turns out, she was expecting his summons and our other dream team is back together again, before it’s Louis’s turn to walk into his new nemesis’s office and sling some more barbed words around.

Sheila (guest star Rachael Harris) then accuses Louis of starting a fight, and begs him to drop the suit in order to keep from ruining her relationship and her life. Um, maybe you should have thought about that before you started cheating on your fiancee.

"Louis: It’s about my honor. I don’t get the girl. I don’t get to be happy. But at least I get to beat this a–hole to the ground."

While Harvey takes batting practice, Mike explains that Judge Ralls overturned a jury verdict and is now on the hot seat for it. He wonders if she’s being accused simply to get her off the bench and out of the way for one of the accuser’s other cases. They tell Ralls she needs to recuse herself from any cases tried by the same firm, but as she points out, that’s the equivalent of allowing someone to get away with blackmail. It’s not happening.

Donna takes the landlord drama to Rachel Zane (Meghan Markle), because she doesn’t want to cause more grief for Harvey by bringing him into that. It’s a good idea, because Suits then cuts to Mike asking about Paula, and finding out about the kiss with Donna. He has to admit to Harvey that he may have convinced Donna to kiss him.

It’s an awkward moment, but Mike’s lack of foresight makes Harvey think they can make their opponents think Judge Ralls recused herself, because the other side won’t know she didn’t. It’s shady, but no more shady than Louis and Zander continuing to argue like teenagers. Seriously, insulting Louis’s face? What is this guy, twelve?

That leaves Katrina to try and rein Louis in, and she has to take the bullet for him by pretending she screwed up so they can get a postponement. It’s no wonder why Louis is back in therapy and even his therapist is threatening to cut him off.

Suits then segues to Donna smirking as she files a counter-suit against the landlord, but he gets back at her by claiming that since he didn’t actually file his first lawsuit, he can now terminate the lease since she sued him without arbitration. Likewise, Harvey and Mike run into trouble when they take their fake recusal to their opponents, only for the opposing counsel to claim that Judge Ralls has a history of misconduct.

Our duo goes right back into the judge’s chambers and asks her about the Sullivan case. Twelve years ago, the judge interceded when she had a defendant with terrible representation, and to keep him from getting into trouble she reached out to the boy directly — morally right but also legally wrong.

"Ralls: I’m saying I made one mistake 12 years ago and our system relies on having people like me up on that bench so that when people like you get in front of us, you don’t go straight to prison."

This is the part of the episode where somebody needs a break, and “Pulling The Goalie” has Katrina uncover a piece of evidence that could help Louis beat Zander. He thanks her for it but tells her he has to do the rest on his own. Meanwhile, an even more desperate Donna tells Rachel she just made things worse, and Rachel says now she has no choice but to involve Harvey.

But Harvey’s upstairs calling Mike a “sucker” for sticking by Judge Ralls, which starts a fight with plenty of expletives between the two. Harvey orders Mike to drop the case; Mike points out that he went to prison for Harvey, and the only reason why was because Ralls allowed him to fall on that sword.

Suits then has Louis unload Katrina’s smoking gun on Zander. He demands a $30 million settlement and written confirmation that he’s the better lawyer — the latter, of course, just for his own ego. Zander agrees, but not before reminding him that he’s got Sheila and Louis doesn’t. This just makes Louis take another $20 million. It’s a vicious cycle with these two.

Unsurprisingly, this prompts Sheila to make another appearance and beg for another favor. She wants Zander to be able to save face. Does she really have to fight her fiancee’s battles for him? But she is.

Harvey apologizes to Mike the next day, and the two agree to continue working on the case. Mike has uncovered that the public defender Ralls was speaking of now works for the firm that’s suing her, so there’s your motive. They realize the suit against her was only to overturn one of her past rulings, and Harvey thinks Louis can help them when he’s done moping.

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He’s right; it takes all of two seconds. But this scene allows for Suits to have Louis ask Harvey for help about his Zander problem. Harvey tells him “sometimes we have to sacrifice our business for people we care about,” like they’re doing with Ralls’ case. He and Mike then finish digging up the paper trail to prove conspiracy to alter judicial rulings, and well, that takes care of that.

“Pulling The Goalie” solves one issue and then makes one worse when Katrina confronts Louis about taking a punt. She’s easily able to deduce that Louis’s decision was influenced by Sheila, and tells him that someday he’ll find someone who appreciates that he’s a good man. We can only hope, because his love life sucks and now it’s ruining his work life.

That leaves just one case — and Donna brings Rachel into the landlord’s office to proverbially hit him. Specter Litt now controls the air rights across from several of his biggest properties, and the firm will destroy the views on all of them unless he amends their lease in their favor instead of his own.

Speaking of Donna, some Suits fans will be happy when Mike admits he was rooting for Donna to be with Harvey. Harvey does not want that, but he is proud of Donna for getting the firm a better lease, even though he’ll never know what she went through to do it. The two decide to celebrate with a few drinks, while Sheila pops up in front of Louis again to say she left Zander and wants to be with him. She’s even gotten rid of her birth control so she’s open to his desire to have kids, that ended their relationship the first time.

This is technically a happy ending, but will it remain that way? We’ll find out in next week’s season finale!

“Pulling The Goalie” is the episode before the last episodes of Suits as we know it, and especially since we know at least part of the two-hour season finale will be devoted to setting up the new spin-off show, that makes this episode even more significant in the grand scheme of things. It has to lay pipe for a satisfying conclusion to the season, because what would normally be the season finale is really more like a series finale (even though it isn’t).

After a few weeks of relatively quickly resolved cases, it’s good that this episode features Mike and Harvey doing some serious lawyering, and that it’s Mike and Harvey working together again since we know they won’t be for much longer. The return of Katrina Bennett is welcome too, with the added caveat of knowing that Amanda Schull will be a series regular when Suits returns next season. In those ways, this episode is like the appetizer before the main course that is the finale.

It’s not perfect, though. Louis’s already frustrating storyline reaches a fever pitch in this episode, which reveals Sheila’s fiancee — and has him be the most one-dimensional, egotistical blowhard possible. Suits normally develops most of its characters with some kind of nuance; even Travis Tanner, for all his arrogance, still felt like a person. Zander Epstein feels like a character designed to make us hate him as much as possible.

And “Pulling The Goalie” doesn’t do any favors to Sheila, either. She uses her relationship with Louis to try and influence him professionally, which is completely unfair to him and makes her look like a pawn in their game. Sheila is so much stronger than that, and here she’s just manipulating Louis and getting manipulated herself.

When she leaves Zander in the end? It’d be so much more satisfying if we saw why — if she somehow saw what a jerk she was, or stood up to him for putting her in the position of having to go to Louis all these times to protect him. Instead, while we’re happy she does, it feels more like Sheila’s just going back to Louis on an impulse rather than an earned moment.

It’s like his other relationship with Tara Messer all over again — except this time, Louis is the indecisive woman’s first choice and not her second. And besides, if she was willing to cheat with Louis, what’s to say that she really is committed to him? She was before, but she just had an affair on the man she agreed to marry. Again, context to her breakup would have made this choice a bit more understandable.

Donna gets a storyline where she’s on this self-imposed redemption journey by saving the firm from its smarmy landlord, who’s not as bad a caricature as Zander but not by much. He’s equally annoying, and Rachel is limited to just a few scenes in support.

(Based on her screen time in these back six, one wonders if Meghan Markle had limited availability when this was being filmed, as Rachel has had relatively little to do compared to the other main cast members. At least, there’s no good story-related reason for Suits to not have a Rachel story somewhere to go along with Mike’s clear exit arc.)

Much like how “Hard Truths” didn’t give a lot of clues about these back episodes, “Pulling The Goalie” doesn’t hint much about how Suits will conclude everything next week. Those clues may be in the first half of next week’s finale, since it’s two episodes airing together and not one two-hour movie-type event. We know there will be a wedding and some departures, but there’s not much to say as to the how or where we’ll leave any of these characters.

That’s not very characteristic of Suits, but maybe this time around it’s time to just roll with the punches. Suits season 7 has been a season of change and will be the season of the show’s most important changes yet. If we don’t know what’s in the future, maybe that’s because the heroes we know and love don’t know what will be in front of them either.

Next: Changes coming in Westworld season 2

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Suits recap: Pulling The Goalie and other desperate moves

By Brittany Frederick | Apr 19, 2018

Suits sets the stage for next week’s game-changing finale by changing the way the game is played. Here’s what happened in Suits season 7, episode 14.