Harvey’s Moments of Goodness: Suits “Blood in the Water” and “Blind-Sided” 

Here at TV Goodness, we make no secret of our mad, bad, dangerous love for Gabriel Macht and all things Harvey, and “Blood in the Water” last night, and “Blind-Sided” last week, gave us a spectrum of Harvey goodness. Honestly, y’all, my head spun a bit as he went from biting to sweet back to biting to funny to concerned to conciliatory. I hit rewind a few times because it really was genius the way Macht flitted back and forth–sometimes in the same scene– between Harvey’s emotions. Let’s break it down.

Harvey and Louis

Harvey is full on rage and hate and disdain when it comes to Louis but I don’t think we’ve completely gotten to the bottom of why. Louis’s heartbreaking confession to Mike that he really thought they were friends off the clock was insightful about a layer we’ve not had peeled back yet. Harvey pulls no punches with Louis–at one point in his rage last night, he cleared Louis’s desk. And then, in the last moments of the episode, just as powerfully, but this time with the lightest physical touch possible, he unclenched that knot in Louis’s chest by wordlessly tearing up his resignation letter.

Harvey and Donna

Donna gets to call Harvey on his bullsh-t and she’s the one who keeps him human. I love that she just immediately broke it down from his routine that he didn’t go out of town with Zoe, and she fairly quickly got him to tell her why. She was sympathetic for just the right beat and then she put him in his place that as much as it sucked, he shouldn’t take it out on Mike.

Harvey and Zoe

I love that the show found a way for Macht to bring Jacinda Barrett to work with him and that her character brought out a humanness in Harvey that we don’t often witness. When the scene after their sweet, flirty not-date/babysitting evening took a turn toward the tragic in a twist that I didn’t see coming, Harvey was a human being about it. And in the babysitting scene with Zoe’s niece, Macht played Harvey lighter and softer, as if for a moment, he really could leave the job and the persona of Harvey at the door.

Harvey and Jessica

Harvey is getting close to overstepping Jessica’s good will here and he was put in his place last night when Jessica told him she wouldn’t back his play to oust Louis and that he had to undo the damage he’d done. Then she added salt to the wound by telling him she wouldn’t be putting his name on the wall anytime soon. She’s the one who can make Harvey very, very small, and Macht plays that so beautifully.

Harvey and Mike

Harvey takes it out on Mike when he’s late, and dragging ass, and letting his emotions cloud his job, and then just as quickly falls backs into easy banter with him when it suits him. Then, when Mike saunters in bruised and beaten, Macht tinges Harvey’s voice ever so slightly with genuine concern as he asks “Who did this to you?” and then vehemently swears revenge until Mike says he deserved it and why he deserved it and a disappointed but relieved Harvey tells him he got off easy. If you still have this on DVR, go back and watch it a few times. It’s a tour de force in a minute and a half.

Macht is so, so good. And I’ve said before that Suits has FINALLY given him a role where he can show everyone what he can do, and how delicately or fiercely he can do it. LOVE him.