Summary
Suits LA seems to tie up its first major arc in Episode 6, with a resolution to Lester’s trial and some important strides made in several relationships.
I was surprised to learn that Suits LA still has another four episodes to go, since it really felt like it ended in Episode 6. “Dester” has all the elements of a finale. Lester’s trial comes to an overdue conclusion, Ted gets his big win, several relationships are – partially, at least – repaired, and there’s a big climactic feeling to it all. But it hasn’t ended. So, where do things go from here?
I have no clue, truthfully, but at the very least, I can recount what happened here and what worked and didn’t work in the culmination of this six-week-long arc. It was a bumpy ride, with ample unnecessary flashbacks, but also the odd fist-pump moment that felt like Ted stepping out from Harvey Specter’s shadow a little bit, arguably for the first time.
Lester Is Guilty
As we learned in the cliffhanger ending of the previous episode, Lester did indeed kill his partner. This makes it all the funnier that Ted begins “Dester” telling the jury how confident he is in his client’s innocence. But the fact that most of Ted’s associates let almost this entire episode go by while deliberately keeping him in the dark says a lot about how capable he really is.
Lester tells Kevin the truth of the matter, which is that he killed Simon in self-defence. After confronting him about stealing from the studio, Simon threatened his life, and Lester had no choice but to defend himself. Kevin, who has doubted Lester’s innocence from the very beginning, believes him.
Not that this helps in the trial. Ted is getting hammered left and right, with Simon having apparently told his therapist that he was sure Lester would kill him if he found out about the affair, and studio executive Bill still smarting from the fact that the target Lester was shooting that night was a picture of his head. Ted is on the back foot constantly, and Elizabeth is pulling rabbits out of hats to make him look more and more stupid (and Lester more and more guilty).
Amanda to the Rescue
Ted’s bright idea is to get Amanda to testify on his behalf in an attempt to discredit Elizabeth, since if you can’t win an argument, your best bet is to attack the credibility of the person making it. And this does go fairly well, but again,it has little bearing on Lester’s trial.
But there’s catharsis here nonetheless, though more for Amanda than Ted. Amanda hates Elizabeth so much because she had deliberately concealed evidence exonerating Amanda’s 19-year-old client in order to secure what was clearly an unjust conviction, and then, when it looked like he’d get out on an appeal she pulled the same stunt as in this trial, pushing a journalist into publishing a salacious story.
Exposing this works to make Elizabeth look bad, but it doesn’t solve the problem that Lester is guilty and Ted has no idea. He’s quite happy for Lester to unknowingly perjure himself by continuing to claim his innocence, but Elizabeth has a trump card that spills the beans to Ted – a witness who was at a house party nearby and overheard the oddly Shakespearean threat, “I’ll kill you, dead, sir.” Hilarious.
Bryan Greenberg and Lex Scott Davis in Suits LA | Image via NBC
Ted and Stuart Reconcile
Stinging about not realizing Lester was guilty and his closest confidantes not telling him the truth about it, Ted turns to Stuart, of all people. Now, this makes a degree of sense since previous episodes have gone to significant lengths to imply that there’s still a connection here, but to be fair, Stuart had approached Erica earlier in the episode, trying to hire her because the trial was inevitably going to blow up in Ted’s face. So he isn’t entirely onside.
Nevertheless, Stuart has remaining loyalty to Lester and, less so, to Ted, so they stay up all night quoting A Few Good Men and brainstorming solutions to the problem of not being able to change Lester’s plea to self-defence mid-trial. However, there is a loophole to this, which Stuart eventually figures out. During the divorce proceedings, Lester’s ex-wife said that Simon wanted to kill Lester. And since Elizabeth made a big song and dance of using those transcripts to her own advantage, there’s a bit of poetic justice to it all.
So, Lester takes the stand again and reveals that Simon’s threat was actually “I’ll kill you, Dester,” which was his partner’s little nickname for him. And luckily, Kevin filmed Lester’s confession at the start of the episode, proving he had already admitted to killing Simon in self-defence several days prior. He’s found not guilty.
Will Ted and Samantha Reconcile?
As ever, Suits LA Episode 6 is full of flashbacks to Ted’s days in New York – perhaps more than usual, actually. The focus this time is on Ted and Samantha’s relationship, since that was the price he paid for his bullishness getting at least two innocent people killed.
Samantha can see that Ted’s recklessness is doing more harm than good and is understandably annoyed that he can’t seem to see it for himself, but the straw that broke the camel’s back is Ted not attending the funeral of the man whose death he was responsible for to instead watch the mobster he had been crusading against get arrested. Samantha leaves for L.A., leaving Ted behind.
After his present-day win in court, though, Ted decides to march right into Samantha’s office and finally apologize for that moment, a decade in the past. And she seems to take this as some kind of romantic gesture and rushes across the office to fall into his arms, which is frankly ridiculous. But I suppose Ted did have a win coming. I suspect it’ll all go wrong next week.
