Summary
Suits LA is less chaotic in Episode 2 but also slightly less engaging, settling into a familiar vibe but still a bit hamstrung by a ping-ponging dual-timeline structure.
I think we can all agree that the Suits LA premiere was a little too chaotic for its own good. The good news is that things settle down a little bit in Episode 2, “Old Man Hanrahan”. The bad news is that I’m not sure the show’s all that good without the ghost brother and the new car smell of a spin-off determined to carve out its own lane. Heck, I’m not sure there even is a different lane for a conventional legal drama to be in post-Suits, let alone one with Suits in the title.
But whatever. It’s early days yet and there’s enough – too much, arguably – going on here that it’s going to go somewhere, even if that might end up being headlong into a wall. And if nothing else the subplots and characters introduced by the premiere continue to be developed here, albeit in the same ping-ponging timeline-hopping structure. Don’t expect a breather.
Putting the flashbacks aside for a minute, the present-day narrative is proceeding on two main fronts: Ted’s case defending Lester, who might still be guilty, and Erica and Rick’s conflicting efforts to retain Dylan Pryor as a client.
Winning Over Morals
Now that Ted has officially agreed to represent Lester, having shelved the pesky moral issue of him potentially being a guilty murderer, he and Kevin are forced to dig deeper into the case so that they can face down ruthless prosecutor Elizabeth Smith, who clearly fancies her chances at trial.
What’s most compelling about this subplot, morality issues aside, is that Ted is out of his depth. That’s an interesting avenue to take with the Harvey Specter-style protagonist of a Suits spin-off. He overlooks how high-profile the case is and expects a run-of-the-mill District Attorney to be prosecuting, is completely blindsided by Elizabeth, and in his arrogance forgets entirely that he should probably show his client the plea deal before rejecting it outright.
It doesn’t help that Kevin thinks Lester is guilty and almost immediately uncovers evidence to support that. His financial records prove that he and his now-dead partner were stealing from one another. And it later turns out – courtesy of Elizabeth – that Lester’s partner was also sleeping with Lester’s wife. There’s motive on top of motive, and the new discoveries contradict Lester’s original version of events.
Ted’s only lifeline in Suits LA Episode 2 comes in the form of Amanda. If you were wondering how someone who works out of Ted’s office but doesn’t actually work for him was going to be roped into the plot, now we know. Amanda hates Elizabeth and is determined to do everything in her power to ensure that Ted takes her down. That means helping him defend Lester.
Client Fight and Personal History
Rick and Erica are competing over a client in “Old Man Hanrahan”. Dylan Pryor is very in-demand. Rick needs her because he can’t secure his spot as Head of Entertainment in Stuart’s firm without a high-profile client, and Erica needs her because Ted has been haemorrhaging clients since the split and he can’t afford to lose any more. Underpinning all this is the fact that Rick and Erica are competing not only over who’s the better lawyer – which is the exact state they were in when we met them – but also as ex-lovers, though the exact circumstances of their relationship and subsequent split remain a bit nebulous.
Stephen Amell in Suits LA | Image via NBC
One of the character beats that emerges here is that Erica doesn’t like film and TV, despite being an entertainment lawyer. I never really buy this as a character quirk because it’s a bit improbable that anyone in 2025 simply doesn’t like any film or TV – there’s so much different stuff coming out! – but I can live with it since it’s a functional quirk. It shows some weakness in Erica – her not reading an indie script that Dylan would have wanted to do before strongarming her out of it leads Dylan to go with Rick, who had originally secured her for Ted’s firm – and also gives some new utility to Leah, who does like film and TV.
Despite Erica technically “losing” here, recognising the value of Leah and of acknowledging her own limitations will definitely make her a more formidable lawyer going forward. She and Rick haven’t seen the last of each other, I’m sure.
A Bit More of Ted’s Past Is Revealed
As in the premiere, Suits LA Episode 2 frequently revisits Ted’s past in New York, which I’m not entirely keen on. There’s enough going on in the present day that I’m not sure we need to devote so much time to exploring how Ted transitioned to entertainment law, even if it does shine a light on his relationship with Samantha.
Interestingly enough, Ted is kind of dangerously arrogant here, too. I’m starting to think he might not be that good of a lawyer in general. Manipulating innocents into testifying against dangerous mob bosses is quite obviously a bad, unethical idea, and it’s weird that Ted needed to be reprimanded for it for him to realize that. It’s also weird how he doesn’t seem to have “grown out of” that tendency to put right and wrong aside in pursuit of a supposed greater good that is so intimately tied to his ego. It seems pretty obvious that whatever happened in New York torpedoed his relationship with Samantha and disillusioned him about certain facets of the law, so him not having learned anything from that experience is a bit worrying from a character-development perspective.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Maybe there’s a lot more to come in this story than we’re expecting.
