Ratings:
Despite hoping Suits would buck its pattern of down-turning in the winter runs due to the exit of two series regulars, the show premiered last week with only 1.18 million viewers overall.
This marks as the second lowest rated episode of the series to date behind the season six finale, which only brought in 1.13 million viewers overall a year ago.
It’s possible the show could uptick as we get closer to the finale as people binge their DVR recordings, but it’s too hard to determine right now.
Review:
Every few episodes, Suits removes its focus from the life and times of Harvey Specter to dive deep into its ensemble. Tonight was a perfect example of that.
“Bad Man” can be broken out into two major arcs: Mike becoming a master and Louis becoming confident.
On the Mike side, there is a lot to love about watching him lay the smack down on Oliver the way he did. It cements yet another reason why his exit won’t hurt too much when it comes at the end of the season.
We are reaching a state where Mike’s presence in the show will become redundant. He is about to become just another Harvey – a hotshot lawyer with a mushy center. But, Suits already has a Harvey.
If Mike were to stay, he would have to find ways to keep being Mike, which would negate the progression of his character from delinquent to respected. He has to go and Suits is setting the stage for that very well.
With regard to Louis, tonight may have been the best Rick Hoffman has ever played him. From the mud opening to the flashbacks, we learned a lot about him tonight that is going to lead to a lot of interesting stories in the weeks to come.
We always knew Louis was capable of becoming the biggest swinging you know what in the room, but tonight was different. Tonight was a stand-up and cheer moment for the character. Tonight was an episode that cemented his long-term future for as long as the show stays on the air.
Overall, there was very little to discuss from the Harvey side of things this week. He told Paula everything and is dealing with some daddy issues. But, that doesn’t mean “Bad Man” left anything on the table. It was a hell of an episode and particularly noteworthy for how late we are in the show’s run at this point.
Suits airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on USA
