(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

I kept meaning to do Three Things About Suits, and then I just...forget. Maybe Suits was meant for Three Things En Masse.

Anyway, the season is over and apparently we don't get any more until next summer, and my face is leaking too much to do much else, so it's time for Nine Things About the Last Three Episodes, because 3a never counts.

1.10: The Shelf Life

1. I was so, so sure that the whole Louis And The Hot Chick thing was going to end with her being some kind of corporate spy. I still think it's weird it didn't, especially since Mike DID get implicated in corporate espionage...

2. I really hate to dislike a major character, but Jenny makes me cringe every time she comes on the screen. Not immediately, but she always does something and I just want to make them write her out and give all her screen time to Donna. (Also, where does she work that Daisy Dukes and fuck-me heels are de rigeur? I'm not judging here, I honestly am curious what the show intends as her career, whether she's like a stripper or she changes into something else when she gets to work or maybe works at Hooters, what is it? Do they have Hooters in Manhattan?)

3. As useless as Harvey saying "You won't get fired" to Mike is, he kind of has a point. The accountant Mike's overidentifying with wasn't fired because he lied on his resume; the firm knew for five years that he hadn't been to B-school. He was fired because he knew something hinkey and they wanted him out. Mike...is a very smart boy, but not really a big-picture guy yet.

3a. Mike has a photographic memory. He, of anyone, should be inclined to make his password a random string of numbers and letters....

1.11: Rules Of The Game

4. Harvey and Cameron have the most ex-boyfriend vibe ever. Especially when Cameron's all "Oh, so you're his Harvey?" to Mike, with a little leer.

5. Between what Donna thinks of Cameron and her remarks about the treatments of underlings I think there was something more going on than just Cameron screwing Harvey -- like Donna went through something with him totally independent of what Harvey did. I'm kind of hoping we get that story someday.

6. In general I enjoy the writing on this show, but the dialogue sometimes leaves something to be desired. Donna's line about judging people on how they treat the underlings is great in theory, but the line itself is a bit hackneyed. And seeing Harvey lose his shit at Louis is awesome, and Macht did a great job in the moment, but the lines, again...leave something to be desired.

3a. I love that the evidence Donna turned over was never explained. It didn't need to be, and it was nice that they just showed how serious it was in reactions.

1.12: Dog Fight

7. GOD JENNY. She and Trevor are like the League Of Bad Decisions. They deserve each other. When you are banging your ex-boyfriend's best friend and your ex-boyfriend comes back into town, YOU TELL HIM. Immediately! Because no good comes of waiting around for your ex-boyfriend's best friend's ex-crush to do it!

8. I do like the things that go unexplained in this show, like the ritual with the can opener. Don't ask! It's so much better when we don't know. Preserve the mystery, Donna. Preserve it.

9. OH HARVEY. The things you do to get Mike to meet you in a bar. It's okay to have fantasies! I know you're under a lot of stress what with your ex suppressing evidence and your boytoy's ex back in town. But you really should just tell Mike you want to play "meet me at the gay bar". I'm sure he'd be into it.

3a. How great are Donna and Rachel? Suits could be about them drinking and being awesome together and I wouldn't mind. On that note, I don't normally get other peoples' meta in my meta, but misspamela has some excellent thoughts to share with you about how "this is the Ladies of Pearson Hardman show, with two geeky dudes running around in suits being in love."

Also I would just like to say that White Collar, as much as I love it, has a fandom that does not know how to write drunken sex, which is pretty much my only serious kink (in terms of being a straight-to-the-libido, non-intellectual, non-psychological automatic switch, unlike say service kink, which is all brain and very little hormone, really). Suits, meanwhile, seems to write nothing but drunken sex. For this, my fellow fen, I thank you. Please continue, you're kind of on a roll now.

Comments

[dramaturgca.livejournal.com]

Please write more drunken sex. Peter/Neal/El, Jack/Ianto, Simon/Schuster, I don't care.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

That's the thing, I've WRITTEN drunksex, I'd like for once to have someone ELSE write the shit I want to read instead of having to write it myself :D

[pippinsalanna.livejournal.com]

I haven't gotten into Suits yet (mainly because I am without a TV or any time to watch TV in), but I always love your Three Things. One of the exciting things about catching up when I've missed a few episodes of White Collar is finally getting to read what your and the Cafe's takes are on them.

On a related note, have you been watching the new Doctor Who eps?

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I've been downloading Who, haven't been able to drag myself into watching it yet. I was pretty unhappy with the finale.

[pippinsalanna.livejournal.com]

It's tough. This half of the season is SO dark, it makes me miss the old days of David Tennant/Catherine Tate banter. A friend watched an episode with me and I had to convince her, no, Doctor Who isn't normally this scary a show.

But I keep watching. Because it's the Doctor.

[maeritrae.livejournal.com]

...

NEW DOCTOR WHO EPS????

I THOUGHT IT WASN'T BACK UNTIL SEPTEMBER!!!!!

God this is just like when I walked into Waterstones and all my favourite series had new books in them THIS IS NOT FAIR

[calliope-jones.livejournal.com]

I started watching this from the start this week, and quickly got hooked mainly on the dialogue and because I love Donna. She is all the awesome with the facial expressions.

[rufus.livejournal.com]

yes, we have a hooters in Manhattan. It's on 56th and Broadway, so just north of Times Square. Prime corporate lawyer territory!

[chandri.livejournal.com]

On top of all of those fabulous things, Suits could actually just be the Gina Torres Is Awesome In Designer Clothes Show, and I would still watch it. This week, Gina Torres disapproves of Harvey's attitude, and Harvey is wrong. Again.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Her clothes are uniformly awesome, but once in a while I look at her and think, why did they do that to your hair?

[illian.livejournal.com]

She didn't threaten them enough maybe?

[justlikeyou.livejournal.com]

All I could think about when I heard that line in 1x11 about seeing how people treat underlings (as you referred to it as...can't remember the real quote from the ep) was that it was almost exactly the same as a line from Harry Potter. :)

[silentstep.livejournal.com]

Aha! I knew I'd heard that line before!

...sorry, late to the party; just now catching up on Suits and reading all the things that would have spoiled me. Thanks for pointing this one out, it was bugging me.

[eponymousanon.livejournal.com]

Re: #5-- one of the best versions of what Donna meant by that comment, that I've read so far at least, was at the kink meme in the awesome Donna-POV sidequel to the epically awesome Pizza and a Movie Pizza Boy Mike AU.

If you haven't read them yet, btw, you seriously need to-- I think I spent the last three weeks f5ing those pages for updates!

http://archiveofourown.org/series/10860

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I think pretty much everyone in fandom has hit at least the first version. :D I do like that take on what might have happened between Donna and Cameron.

[debitha.livejournal.com]

"White Collar, as much as I love it, has a fandom that does not know how to write drunken sex..."

Hmmm, this sounds like a challenge. Leave it with me. :oD

Oh man, I had forgotten how much it sucks to only have 15 icons. I should really do that whole account renewal thing.

[pegasuspup.livejournal.com]

I share your opinion of Jenny, but if it were a choice between Jenny or Rachel, I'd definitely err on the side of Jenny. Rachel may be a great researcher, but she is a shitty friend. (Of course, for Mike, that seems to be par for the course.)

She only seems to be interested in Mike when he's not interested in her. When he goes to her for help, she has a pattern of being mean to him and ignoring him, until he gives up. When he is at his wits end trying to figure something out, she swoops in to save the day, and then everyone thinks she is so wonderful. Screw that. The fact that she told him not to ask her for help with research for work kind of sealed it for me. Her job is to help the attorneys with research. How can she not do the work? I'm a librarian, and I'm pretty sure that if I decided to not to do research someone at work because he didn't want to date me, I'd get fired. That kind of sealed it for me - if I had to choose, I'd definitely be on Team Bimbo, I mean, Team Jenny.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

While I come down on Mike's side, generally, I think Rachel had a point about the research -- it isn't that she wouldn't do research for him, it's that he's been flirting her into doing work she shouldn't necessarily have done for him -- we see her bump him to the front of the line a couple of times, and in the pilot it was established that he doesn't actually have the right yet to ask for her services.

[pegasuspup.livejournal.com]

I suppose that is true, for things that Mike should know how to do as an attorney (filing subpoenas) or personal gossip research (finding info about Harvey before P&H), she is certainly in the right to tell him to go elsewhere for help. But that wasn't the case. Mike told her that this research was for Harvey, and her flip response, "It's always for Harvey." The fact that she caved so easily when she found out it was for Harvey personally tells me that she is withholding her expertise because she was mad at Mike, and not for any legit reason. Besides, whenever he asked for help, he was always there with her doing work too, and paying for fancy sushi dinners that she didn't want to have to pay for on her own. She's no Cinderella in this story.

Sorry to rant about this topic. I'll stop now.

Also, Happy Birthday! Live long and prosper

[surexit.livejournal.com]

OH SUITS.

Donna and Rachel are so great. AND SO IS JESSICA. :D:D:D

[maeritrae.livejournal.com]

Good God if you're going to give someone a huge-ass ring, try to keep its position consistent between shots. >_<

I think you're right about the dialogue not quite fulfilling its potential. There are moments that are so close, but just fall short. Needs follow-through. Like the can opener. I know you liked it; I felt like it was one more thing they didn't give detail on, like the evidence Donna had in episode 11, and it felt a bit lazy.

But this is a nice fandom, and an excellent way to recover from Friday evening's nightmare hour when every hint of anxiety I ever had came back to haunt me in The Revenge of the Imposter Syndrome.

I think when I'm finished with season 2 I might try tracking down Freaks and Geeks.