"Was John Boehner there?"

Donna is the best.  Case closed. 

Suits is back!  Finally!  Seriously, USA Network, this is not Game of Thrones.  Logistically and financially speaking, I think I think you could stand to make more than 12 episodes a year and air them with fewer than 9 months between seasons.  Just sayin'.  That said, if the interminable wait is the key to the show's quality, then, as with Justified, I will happily relent.

The basic premise for the show has always tied the writers hands in a certain way.  The feasibility of Mike and Harvey keeping this kind of secret in this day and age stretches believability and hamstrings certain storylines from time to time.  Fifty years ago, this would have been more than doable, but in the computer age, it's a reach (especially when he has been under direct suspicion on more than one occasion).  Indeed, prior to the episode early last season with the hacker girl (who magicked a Harvard Law degree for Mike), it was getting hard to suspend disbelief.  That said, this show started off as a fun little USA Network dramedy in the vein of all their other "blue skies" programming.  What I like best about the show is that it didn't stay there for long and tweaked the base concept in order to accommodate more sophisticated storytelling. 

Throughout the first season, Mike's secret was an albatross that was at the center of most of the ongoing conflict of the show.  The writers worked around it with surprising aplomb, however, taking what could have been a wacky, madcap show and giving it more layers and depth than I expected.  It'll never be Breaking Bad or The Wire, but it's not trying to be, and that is absolutely okay.  Delightful, even.  I do think the show is trying to bring more to the table than its network cohorts though, and I'm beyond pleased at how wildly successful they've been in this pursuit.  Not only are the characters explored more deeply, but the show is comfortable with ongoing arcs than just about any other show on the network.  They rely on cases-of-the-week the way any legal show would, but they do a much better job than most.  In general, A-plots like that aren't my cup of tea, but Suits does a lovely job marrying solid, interesting A-plots with captivating, ongoing, and meaningful B, C, and D plots.  I wouldn't say they succeed on the same level that The Good Wife does, but that's an exceptionally high bar.

As season 1 ended, and the albatross of "Mike's secret" was presumably exposed by Trevor to Jessica, I had to wonder just where the show would go with this.  Most USA shows would have taken this cliffhanger, resolved it quickly in the first episode back (no matter how much magic and stupidity was required to make it work), and basically hit the reset button on the series.  Hell, such resets have been Burn Notice's bread and butter for years.  And they've been fairly irksome for years.  As the episode progressed, the show kept presenting opportunities to take the easy way out and keep the increasingly untenable premise alive and kicking as it has always been.  When Jessica first confronted Harvey and said that she checked his credentials and everything was squeaky clean, they could have just gone with that and been done with it.  That would have make Jessica an idiot and would have given the albatross a big, shiny diamond-encrusted tiara to wear, but that's an easy out that many shows would have taken.  Character development and overall narrative be damned.  But Suits didn't do that.  They opted for better.  One of the best aspects of this choice was the agency it gives to Jessica.  She was a more minor player in season 1 than I would have liked and now that she is in the know, it gives her character a lot more options.  I love, love, loved the way she laid into Harvey, calm as can be, and terrifyingly just in her assertions.  She is tough and smart and calculating and the show didn't need to tell me these things, in that brief scene, coupled with past awesomeness, I know these things.  I love it when a show does that.

Yet another of many opportunities to take the easy way out looks to be the most promising new aspect of the season to come.  With heretofore unseen senior partner Hardman coming into the picture (following the death of his wife), things are going to be very, very different.  But they didn't have to be.  I honestly though Harvey's plot to implement another blackmail scheme to keep Hardman out of the picture was going to succeed, at least in the short run.  I assumed Hardman (played brilliantly by David Costabile, most recently known as Gale Boetticher from Breaking Bad) would likely crop up to make trouble somewhere down the road, giving Mike and Harvey the temporary win, but then resurfacing.  Not so.  In a bold and surprising move, Harvey's plan backfires spectacularly at the end of the premiere, opting not to hit the reset button and instead alter the game.  The "Mike's secret" of it all is still in place to a degree (Hardman could find out at any time and use that to railroad Jessica and Harvey), but it makes "Mike's secret" a more secondary problem.  In the simplest sense, Jessica has bigger fish to fry.  Jessica in no way condones or approves of this deception, but her and Mike's fates are now intertwined.

Indeed, in one of the most interesting and telling character developments of the premiere, Harvey makes it very clear that he and Mike are a package deal.  He also makes it clear to Jessica that he absolutely know about Mike's lack of credentials and has been lying to Jessica for months.  For all of Jessica's insistence that Mike be fired, she can't lose Harvey without losing the firm to Hardman entirely.  This fundamentally changes Harvey's and Jessica's relationship on a personal level, but it also changes the direction of the show and includes Jessica directly in the ruse.  Given how much I absolutely adore Gina Torres, this was a brilliant move.  More important than Harvey's changing dynamic with Jessica, a friend and mentor he betrayed, is Harvey's allegiance to Mike.  This wasn't surprising in terms of the set-up for the show (uh, without Mike and Harvey, ya got nothin'), but in terms of character, it was a bit surprising.  Before proceeding with this review, I actually went to see what other's thought about this situation and read a review of this episode on AV Club.  Many similar sentiments regarding the episode throughout.   The reviewer didn't feel that the Harvey's determination to save Mike was entirely earned and I can see what they mean.  Based solely on what we've seen of the two of them together, the witty banter and brotherly ribbing doesn't quite equate to "I'm going to screw over Jessica and risk my job for a guy I'm fairly fond of".  From where I'm sitting, however (and this may be the English major talking), I think Harvey was as surprised by this turn of events as we were.  When Mike walked into his office, I think Harvey actually did plan on firing him.  I think he had every intention of giving him the boot, just as Jessica had instructed.  I think it's when he couldn't bring himself to fire him that he realized just how much he cares about Mike.  The scene with Harvey and Donna just prior to this set the table beautifully for this to actually work without the necessary foundation.  The writers did an absolute brilliant job of making it plausible by tapping into what viewers appreciate most.  Not only did they get a delightful and illuminating scene with Donna (pretty much the best character ever), but they got backstory on Harvey that directly ties into his feelings for Mike.  Donna knows him better than anyone on the planet and can read him like an open book.  Based on what he's wearing, how he addressed her, and the look on his face, she assesses the situation in true Sherlock-ian style.  When challenged about Harvey's willingness to go out on this big of a limb for Mike, I refer back to this scene and proposes the Mike is family.  There's always been a brotherly vibe between the two, but for Donna to make a one-to-one comparison brings it home.  Not only that, but Mike's situation evokes a specifically protective impulse in Harvey with regards to his brother.  Did the show give me everything I'd ever need to believe Harvey would risk his career on some kid?  Probably not.  Did they give me enough though?  Yeah, I think they did.

The albatross of Mike's secret is still around the show's neck, but it's lot looser, I'd say.  The events of the premiere throw a lot of relationships off balance and refocus the characters' priorities in a way that means the secret can't be the main conflict anymore.  The situation is simply bigger than that now.  While the implausibility and near silliness of the base conceit is still there, I think this season is going to be the show's way of moving past it.  In my heart of hearts, I think they will find a way to make it a non-issue.  How they might do so, I'm not sure, but even if they just casually forget about it, I'd be fine with that.  Okay, not totally fine with that, I mean really, there's no way it couldn't be an issue at some point, but as with the were-panther disaster on True Blood, I think I'd be so okay with it magically disappearing that I'd overlook the obvious narrative problems inherent in dropping it without a word.  I have to wonder if the writers of the show were unsure of the potential for story and drama early on and built in "Mike's secret" as a McGuffin to keep things going only to realize later that they really didn't need it.  This show is plenty strong without it and I think moving away from it as the primary source of conflict is a brilliant move.  The show will be all the better for it and will have the option to really explore these characters in a way that doesn't need gimmicks.

All in all, this first episode back far surpassed my already high expectations for the show.  They could have taken any number of easy ways out, but opted for more complexity, more drama, and a shifted focus.  All the better, they did all that while retaining the charm, warmth, and wit of the series.  Hardman throws a major wrench into the show and should prove to alter the dynamics between all the characters, the hierarchy of the firm, and power relationships therein.  I've been super excited for this show to come back since it signed off last summer, but now that I have a taste for where the show is going in its sophomore outing, I simply ecstatic. 

Other Tidbits:

• Rachel is still a problem.  She's been the weakest character of the series since minute one and I'm still having a hard time liking her or caring about her.  I think the writers may have realized this themselves because they are promoting her friendship with Donna in a way I'm really enjoying.  Donna can make anyone more likable.  That said, I don't see much chemistry between her and Mike and she's basically dead weight right now.  Here's hoping that turns around.
• Louis could be a real wildcard this season.  With Jessica's position threatened, people are going to have to choose sides and Louis has a sizable axe to grind.  Were he to side with Hardman, things go quickly go from bad to worse.
• The fact that the show cast a little known, but incredibly talented actor like David Costabile for Hardman is a very good sign.  They could easily have gone for some sort of stunt casting or obvious big bad, but they opted for a quietly menacing Breaking Bad alum.  Can't argue with that.
• Jenny appears to be a goner.  I can't say I adored her or anything, but I certainly liked her better than Rachel.  
• In season 1, I often quibbled with the overtly secondary status of the female characters on the show, relegating them to cardboard cutouts of "boss", "love interest", "comic relief", so I'm overjoyed at the turn the show has taken.  Rachel can still go find work elsewhere as far as I'm concerned, but bigger roles for Jessica and Donna is a boon to the show and a delight to see.  They still technically embody the superficial roles of before, but they seem to be moving toward more depth.
• Gabriel Macht is absolutely beautiful.  Not my usual type at all, but I'll be damned if I don't find myself just staring at him from time to time.
• As if I weren't already bowled over by Jessica throughout the episode, that closing scene with her and Mike was awesome.  She is such a badass.  "I don't need the computer."  So good!