Please Stop Saying "Uniball"

So. Have you missed your weekly dose of office intrigue since the sixth season of Mad Men ended? Folks, have I got a remedy for this particular type of summer malaise. It's called Suits and it's on the USA network, and if you haven't seen it, you need to get on board. And don't fall off said metaphorical boat. Like Pete's mom. Haha. Pete's mom. Who fell of an actual boat. Hahaha. Pete.

But I digress. Suits follows the exploits of young Mike Ross, who, while running from police a couple years ago, happened to fall -- or was, rather, pushed -- into the Harvard-grad-only-hiring law firm of Pearson Hardman. Mike, armed only with boyishly rakish good looks, charm and chutzpah, was hired by Harvey Specter, a ballsy, if somewhat dickish, attorney at the firm. 

No law degree? Criminal record? Young man, you've got yourself a job!

Long story short, one of these handsome devils is Don Draper. Not sure which. It changes every episode. 

Bestill my lady heart.

Harvey knows full well that Mike doesn't have a law degree of any kind, let alone one from Harvard, but he hires him anyway and allows Mike to practice law, allowing the firm to win case after case. Harvey lets his boss Jessica in on this fact, and Jessica also does not give a damn. If you can suspend your disbelief long enough to get into the show,  and you aren't expecting each and every one of these people to end up in federal prison, it's worth watching. If you can't, then, I mean...Come on...There's eye candy. Because I mean...

What's that you hear? Just me standing out your window and not being creepy in any way.

Oh and also:

He's so pretty, it makes me want to cry.

When we left our friends at Pearson last season, we saw no-nonsense lady attorney Jessica Pearson about to merge with British dandy Darby. There's all sorts of intrigue. At the end of last season, Jessica went behind Harvey's back, and Mike went behind Harvey's back, and Harvey went behind Jessica's back and Mike and Harvey stopped being friends and as this season opens, everyone is just pissed at each other. 

Okay, Zoe's on the show, too.

And yes, Firefly fans. That is Gina Torres as Jessica Pearson. She's traded in her spaceship pilot's license for a power suit and some bitch heels. Seriously, I love her. I love her characterization on this show. While it's obvious to anyone with eyes that Jessica is an unmarried minority female, no one mentions it or makes it into a big issue. Or an issue at all. It's almost as if...as if...as if she's equal to her white male counterparts. Like. OMG. Whouda thunk it? She's got these boys on a leash, and if one of them (*coughcoughHarveycoughcough*) plays her, tries to play or thinks about playing her, she will eventually turn the tables on them and get them right smack in the balls. RAWR. Grrr. And the whole time she stays sexy, but she has no interest in sleeping with ANY of these jerk-offs that she works with. Seriously, I love this bitch.

So, yes. Jessica's awesome.

But back to Mike.

Mike's having some personal issues during the season opener, because his erstwhile girlfriend, adorable paralegal Rachel, is mad at Mike because Mike revealed to Rachel that he's been practicing law without a degree. Then they banged in the file storage room. Up against some legal briefs. Cha-ching. You see, this is problematic for Rachel because Rachel wants desperately to get into Harvard Law, and we saw her be rejected at the end of last season. She tells Mike that if he ever wants to file her motion again, he needs to quit the firm. Mike is all ready to do that when Jessica hands him HIS OWN OFFICE as payment for siding with her against Harvey to push through the merger, and for his help with a lawsuit. Jessica, LIKE A BOSS, tells Mike that he's staying in the firm and he will be using this new office. Or. Else.

Rachel's angry with Mike for a while because he decides to hang onto his job, but then she decides what the hell and sleeps with him again. Can we blame Rachel? No. No we cannot.

We do have to give props to Rachel for feeling a modicum of anger toward Mike being total fraud. I mean, she is, after all, the only regular character on the show who displays anything resembling a realistic reaction to this information. But Mike's still getting tail out of it. So...a net win?

So, the merger with Darby goes through without too many glitches. Harvey starts to work behind Jessica's back because he felt Jessica betrayed him last season on the merger. Harvey's not happy with the merger, and makes an agreement with Darby that if Harvey wins the case that Darby assigned him to (with the help of Harvey's erstwhile lady friend, Scottie), Darby will allow Harvey to break his non-compete and end his contract. Meanwhile, Mike tries to get back into Harvey's good graces by clandestinely helping Harvey with his case. However, what Harvey REALLY wants is to take over Jessica's position as managing partner and oust Jessica in a coup. Oh, the game. She is afoot.

Suits airs at 10 p.m. Tuesdays on USA.

My Kind of Love Story

In honor of Valentine's Day this week, I'd like to introduce you all to my favorite new television power couple. Before you go too hearts-and-flowers over them though, know this: these two routinely cheat on each other, scheme, plot to overthrow the government and take cold-hearted revenge on anyone and everyone. So why is this a love story, then? Because irrespective of all the rest of it, the one thing they never do is lie to each other. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Frank and Claire Underwood, the main characters of House of Cards.

"What say we blow this charity event and bathe in the blood of our enemies tonight?"

House of Cards is a political thriller set in Washington, DC (yay local locations!) and directed by David Fincher, who brings the same murky, moody color palate he gave to the films The Social Network and Fight Club. The story centers on Frank Underwood (played by Kevin Spacey), the Democratic House Majority Whip from South Carolina. Frank has been promised by the newly-elected President that he will be made Secretary of State, however when the President reneges on his promise at the last minute, Frank bitterly begins to plan an elaborate plot to get even with the other Washington players who have stolen his chance for glory. Swept up in the intrigue is a Congressman from Pennsylvania with a secret substance abuse problem, a young political reporter eager for a Deep Throat to call her own and more high end prostitutes than you can shake a stick at.

While the intrigue is definitely the driving factor behind the show, the emotional core is Frank’s relationship with his wife, played ice-cool by Robin Wright. Wright’s Claire is the head of an environmental non-profit that stands to gain significantly if Frank gains more power and Claire is more than willing to stand with him in his machinations to get the job done.

I love how Spacey and Wright play their relationship. They’re vicious and ambitious and brilliantly power hungry. They manipulate everyone around them, from their own staff to a man dying of cancer (really) to the security guards hired to protect them. The only people they don’t manipulate is each other, because they understand each other and genuinely love each other so much. Franks says of Claire that he loves her “more than sharks love blood” and we understand exactly the nature of their relationship. Even when Frank begins an “illicit” affair with a reporter, the first thing he does is rush home to tell Claire what he’s done, not out of contrition or guilt but for what it could do for their plans. Claire, for her part, instantly recognizes the potential and encourages it. Ozzie and Harriet, they aren't.

There's also a drunk, naked Congressman. But who doesn't have one of those in their bathtub, really?

The fact that they are so much in each other’s camp makes the few times when their relationship is truly tested all the more fascinating to watch. In the first episode, as Frank is blindsided by the news that he’s been betrayed and won’t be nominated for the Secretary of State, he sullenly checks out for a day and doesn't talk to Claire until later that night. Claire, no intellectual slouch, has already figured out what has happened and demands to know why he didn't call her. When Frank says he’s sorry, she walks out of the room, calmly disgusted at him. “My husband doesn't apologize,” she says. “Not even to me.”

It’s tempting then to see Claire as the instigator for what happens next, but she’s no Lady MacBeth spurring her husband on to murder. They’re absolutely equal partners in their machinations. If anything, they’re far more like a more successful and angrier version of Les Miserables’ Thenardiers, paying false deference to people who have more power than them (for the moment), but knowing that it will all soon change.That said, the influence of Shakespeare is all over the show. Reductively, it’s a modern retelling of MacBeth with a bit of Richard III thrown in. Even Spacey’s many asides where he speaks directly through the camera to the audience to illustrate his internal monologue or bring the viewer into his confidence about how other characters will act echo Shakespearean characters’ long soliloquies. Fans of Shakespeare will also recognize the epic plotting and gigantic emotions that are also hallmarks of his work.

False piety, for example.

Given the pedigree, it's surprising that one of the only shortcomings is in the writing. The series is written by Beau Willimon who most recently wrote the play Farragut North which was turned into the movie Ides of March. Willimon really believes that his “Washington insider” status lends a kind of verisimilitude to his work, which frankly is not large and his only real successes have focused on behind the scenes Washingtonia. The problem? He’s not that accurate. Willimon writes a Washington that behaves the way Hollywood imagines it is, not like the way it actually does. He knows just enough to be inaccurate. He understands some of the more technical aspects of American politics correctly but misses by a mile when it comes to writing the way politicos, reporters, staffers and informants actually speak and act. For a series that is trying so hard to seem gritty and accurate to life, to have characters say things that actual insiders would never say feels particularly jarring. Still, the pacing of the show is excellent and when Willimon can tear himself away from congratulating himself in writing for his four month long internship on the Hill that he did five years ago, he can put together a bunch of really compelling characters and really solid drama.

The entire first season of House of Cards is available only on Netflix instant. Well worth losing your weekend over this one, folks.