Talking About Suits Season One, the Law, and Drama
Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations
As someone who has been fairly engrossed in anime in manga for a decade and some change, it might not be entirely surprising to find out my relationship with American media is a bit less developed. It is true, as far as popular movies and TV series stateside, my head is buried pretty deep in the sand. The most invested I got in a live-action series made by an American studio was The Walking Dead, and even then, I ended up dropping it by the seventh season or so, as did the rest of my immediate family.
However, a lot of great television has come out, even within just the last 20 years or so. Breaking Bad is often in the conversation as the single best show of all time, and relative newcomers like Smiling Friends are pushing adult animation into some really funny territory. Still, the one that the algorithm-farming TikTok accounts got me most interested in is Suits…and Shameless but haven’t gotten around to watching that yet, and even if I had, talking about both in the same post would probably be too much.
Suits focuses on test scammer and extremely hesitant drug dealer Mike Ross. After letting his friend Trevor convince him to run a good amount of product for enough money to pay his grandmother’s medical cost as well as subsequently getting found out by cops, he accidentally ends up at a recruitment fair for one of the most prestigious law firms, Pearson-Hardman. Using his encyclopedic knowledge, Mike convinces top lawyer Harvey Spector to hire him despite not having a law degree or going to Harvard Law School, the one place they hire from.
The show then follows Mike getting a lot of on-the-job training while making sure no one finds out about his double life as a total scammer. Despite being incredibly smart, actually being a lawyer, especially one that often does million-dollar work for some of New York’s most important people, turns out to be pretty hard.
The ethos of suits feels incredibly self-aware, not to the point of laugh-out-loud comedy, but definitely enough for a chuckle or two every episode. It plays into the idea that lawyers are very often rich assholes only working for themselves. Btw, did I mention Harvey Spector? The fact that they only hire from Harvard Law, a notoriously prestigious institution in the real world, only fuels that self-aware, elitist energy the show plays so well with.
Mike’s character is often made that much more convincing because of the environments he’s contrasted against. One of the first shots we get of him is lying on the floor smoking out of a bong telling himself that he’s going to quit. He goes from getting high way too often to an employee of Pearson-Hardman within the span of one episode. A quick turnaround, to be sure, but Trevor’s, as well as his ex-girlfriend Jenny’s, continued involvement in his life reminds him of his roots, for better and definitely for worse.
Even though initially the two seem to be opposites, Harvey Spector actually makes a great foil for Mike. His much more experienced position allows him to be a great mentor, especially since the two share an ego and thus understand a lot of Mike’s thinking. In addition, Harvey also has his own skeletons which show up towards the end, ones that involve his previous work before being a private lawyer.
Louis, another experienced lawyer at Pearson-Hardman and technically Mike’s director supervisor, is arguably one of the biggest mysteries of the series so far. Sure, Trevor’s wildcard decision in the season finale leaves a lot of questions on the table. Still, Louis represents both a comedic relief as well as someone who continuously holds a grudge against a lot of the cast. The foreshadowing is strong with this one.
Suits is a really strong series. It will be hard to say for sure where it will go from here, outside of Mike’s secrets probably getting exposed in some capacity. Otherwise, only my willingness to continue will tell.
I know this is a bit off-topic for this blog, but if you made it to the end, much appreciated.
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Originally published at http://animatedobservations.com on August 1, 2024.
