Last week, Suits LA had a rocky start with an episode that didn’t quite match what viewers expected from a Suits spinoff. Luckily, the second episode, “Old Man Hanrahan,” makes great strides as it builds on the drama and characters introduced in Episode 1. The episode doesn’t have any celebrity cameos, but it does dig deeper into the stories of the two fictional actors introduced so far.
Ted and Kevin Dig Deeper Into Lester’s Story
In Episode 1, Ted Black (Stephen Amell) went against his morals by agreeing to take a criminal law case. Actor Lester Thompson (Kevin Weisman) was accused of murdering his partner the night their new film opened. Lester gave some bad energy in Episode 1, but Ted is one of the only people who trusts Lester’s story and gives him a chance. He recruits his old New York partner, Kevin (Troy Winbush), to help with the case.
Kevin and Ted listen to Lester’s full recount, and the actor says after their opening night, Lester and his partner Simon went home to celebrate. They did ecstasy together, then Simon put a gun to his head, and Lester tried to stop him, but Simon killed himself. Lester says Simon was his best friend of 20 years. Ted goes to meet the prosecutor in Lester’s case. He thought it was going to be “Old Man Hanrahan,” which would make the case easy for him, but it’s actually Elizabeth Smith (Sofia Pernas), who will stop at nothing. Despite being in the episode title, Hanrahan never actually appears.
Ted and Kevin find out Lester was stealing money from Simon and ask Lester about it. The actor says that Simon had been stealing money from their production, and Lester was returning it to the studio. Then, Elizabeth shows up at the office and delivers the bad news that Lester’s wife was sleeping with Simon. As she leaves, she has an exchange with pro bono lawyer Amanda Stevens (Maggie Grace), revealing some sort of conflict between the two and convincing Amanda to help Ted.
Rick and Erica Battle Over a Client
When Rick Dodsen (Bryan Greenberg) joined Stuart Lane’s (Josh McDermitt) firm, he thought he would automatically get the coveted Head of Entertainment position. However, Stuart’s partner, Samantha (Rachelle Goulding), rejects the promotion, saying Rick was originally supposed to stay at Ted’s law firm and spy for six months before getting the position. Stuart breaks the news to Rick but says if Rick can land a big client, Samantha might be impressed enough to give him the position early.
Before leaving Ted’s firm, Rick signed an action-star client named Dylan Pryor (Victoria Justice). Dylan is supposed to be in Warner Bros’ next big action movie, but she’s stuck in a contract for an indie movie made by her friend. With Dylan’s new popularity, the indie film’s producer wants to increase her number of scenes and hold her for six months, so the studio will pay out her contract, allowing her to act in the action movie. Pryor called Rick for help, but Rick didn’t want to poach Ted’s client.
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Stephen Amell is good and leads a confident cast in a spinoff that mostly fails them.
Erica Rollins (Lex Scott Davis), who’s now Head of Entertainment at Ted’s office, negotiates with the producer and brings junior lawyer Leah Power (Alice Lee) with her. Leah reveals too much information, messing up the deal, when Rick shows up and challenges Erica to see who can do a better job with Dylan.
Rick starts by blackmailing the producer with a lawsuit that will make him appear as a “bad-faith producer,” but the producer doesn’t give in. Erica gets the idea to meet with the producer as if Warner Bros. has agreed to a payout, but she actually introduces a loophole where Dylan would promote the new action movie during her indie movie shoot.
However, Rick overshadows Erica by finding an agreement for Dylan to shoot both films, which is what the actor wanted. When Rick tells Erica this, the two lawyers reveal that they’ve slept together. Erica then talks to Leah, who says that she originally wanted to suggest Rick’s plan, but Erica wouldn’t listen. In a surprising conclusion to a thrilling subplot, Erica tells Leah that she actually doesn’t like movies and TV and wants to learn more about them from Leah.
Ted’s Past Shows Just How Far He’ll Go
In the first episode, viewers were introduced to the case that Ted took in 2010 that made him leave criminal law and New York. As Ted was talking to one of his witnesses, an explosion went off, killing the witness. In “Old Man Hanrahan,” a flashback shows that after the explosion, Ted went with Samantha (who was his girlfriend and already an entertainment lawyer) to one of her client’s comedy clubs.
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Back at Samantha’s apartment, Ted doesn’t seem too impressed by the client’s impressions and even dismisses what Samantha does for not being real law. Then, he gets an idea and calls Kevin, and the two arrest the man they think planted the explosion. In the interrogation room, the man doesn’t want to talk, and figures he doesn’t need to because Ted’s key witness is dead. However, Ted has hired Samantha’s client to do an impersonation of Ted’s witness, scaring the arrested man into giving Ted what he wants.
It’s a section of the episode that reminds viewers just how over-the-top law shows can get. None of this would fly in real life, and Ted’s lucky he’s still practicing law. However, Ted and Kevin are becoming the best characters on the show, and they even reminisce about Harvey Specter in Episode 2. The next episode of Suits LA, titled “He Knew,” will air on Sunday, March 9, at 9 p.m. Episodes of Suits LA stream on Peacock the next day.