'Suits' Season 1, Episode 7 'Sucker Punch' recap

Suits opens in the Pearson Hardman conference room. Harvey (Gabriel Macht) is being deposed by Tanner (Eric Close). There's banter, none of it friendly. He pushes and pushes at Harvey and Jessica (Gina Torres), implying all sorts of things about their relationship. When he starts in on Jessica, Harvey punches Tanner in the mouth. Tanner is happy to have gotten to Harvey.

Harvey thinks Jessica needs to do some trial prep since it's been years since she's been in a courtroom. Between the two, they decide that Louis (Rick Hoffman) should play Tanner. Mike (Patrick J. Adams) comes up to Harvey in the hall, and he wants to know how it felt to punch Tanner. He imagines it was awesome. Louis comes up to them and orders Mike to help him with the trial. Mike really doesn't want to, but Harvey tells him he has to, and also that he was right about punching Tanner.

Harvey calls on an ex-colleague. Zoe (Jacinda Barrett, Macht's real-life wife) is a jury consultant. She agrees to come in. Cameron (Jordan Hudyma) tries to give Harvey his messages, but all he cares about is whether Donna (Sarah Rafferty) has called.

Donna (yay!) finds Harvey waiting outside her building. He wants to know how long she was going to ignore his calls. She says he hasn't. She doesn't count his assistant calling especially since she programmed her number in his cell. He tells her he needs her to come for the trial prep. She tells him that she hired an attorney. She wonders why he didn't fight for her like he did for Mike. And she points out that when he thought he'd have to fire Mike, he dd it in person. He tells her that Jessica wouldn't let him, but she points out that he doesn't do what Jessica wants if he doesn't agree with it.

Mike tries to prepare. He tells Louis that in order to beat Harvey, he's going to have to really think about Harvey. "Know the man." Mike asks Rachel to Donna. Rachel declines to answer any of the questions. As the questioning continues, she realizes that this is all going to be awful.

Louis hooks Mike up to a lie detector and asks where he went to law school. He says, "I'm proud to say I have a diploma from Harvard Law." He then leaves, telling him he doesn't know anything about this case. He goes to Donna's. She tells him what she told Harvey, but he tells her that she owes Harvey and him, since he told her not to shred the memo and she did anyway.

Daniel (David Costabile) plays the judge, and he is ineffective, allowing Louis to run amuck. Louis questions Harvey and pushes him on integrity. As Zoe has pointed out, part of the problem is that the other partners don't know if Harvey is guilty. Zoe tells Harvey that he needs to be more open, that his lack of vulnerability is why she didn't call him way back when.

Louis calls Donna to the stand. Rachel stands up, but Donna walks in. She takes the stand and declines to answer, pleading the fifth. Louis crumples up the list of prepare questions and starts badgering her about her feelings for Harvey. Again, it cannot be said enough that Daniel is a really terrible judge. He does nothing. Louis hammers away at Donna, asking about her ex and whether she chose Harvey over him. He asks if she loves him over and over and over. Harvey jumps up and yells for him to stop. Donna runs out. Harvey follows her, but is too late to reach her before the elevator closes. He follows Louis into the bathroom to read him the riot act. Louis looks sick. He didn't enjoy that. He yells at Harvey that "[t]his whole thing is about saving you." He blames Harvey for what he did to Donna.

Mike goes to Donna's again. She wants nothing to do with him. He tells her that he didn't know Louis was going to do that, that he didn't follow the script. Donna can't believe he didn't know Louis would of course do that. Louis is Louis. Which gets Mike thinking. He goes back to the firm and starts going through all of Tanner's old files. How does he have this? Daniel finds him doing that and joins him in the search.

Zoe tells Harvey that the partners are starting to believe him because he defended Donna. He dismisses that. She tells Jessica that they need to show a different side of Harvey to the partners. Jessica calls him back to the stand and asks to treat him as a hostile witness. She asks him about the first time they met. He pretends not to remember. She talks about how he worked in the mailroom and came to her because an associate had backstamped a filing. He wanted her to stop it because an elderly woman's pension was at stake. Point being, he cares about his clients. She calls Louis to the stand and forces him to admit that he doesn't believe Harvey did this.

Harvey is working out at a boxing gym when Tanner shows up with a settlement offer that is much more reasonable and does not require that Harvey be disbarred. He thinks Harvey is behind Daniel coming to him with whatever blackmail he found in the files.

Harvey talks to Mike and tells him they're not taking the deal because they don't trust Daniel. Mike yells at him that he has to because if he loses, it will cost everyone so much. At the partner's meeting, the vote is split on the settlement. Harvey is the deciding vote, and he accepts the offer. As he and Jessica are walking out, Daniel pounces. He uses this case to question Jessica's leadership and wants the next meeting to be a vote of confidence. Suits is finally going there with Daniel.