Suits recap: 'Shake the Trees'

There's a song in tonight's episode with the lyrics "This night ain't for the faint of heart." It plays at a moment when Sean and Harvey's collusion leads to a victory for both Sean and Mike. However, those lyrics can pretty much apply to everything else going on in this episode, too. From Rachel and Jessica working Leonard Bailey's case to Louis' unexpectedly odd date, everyone needs to steel their hearts from what's coming down the pike.

Actually, let's start with Louis' date. I didn't expect it to take the turn it did and it was my favorite scene of the episode. After initially refusing to help Louis plan his first date with Tara, Donna comes through, as she always does, with the perfect restaurant. This date means a lot to Louis. "What if I'm not good enough?" he says. But Donna pushes that idea out of his head immediately.

It turns out Louis is more than good enough. During the date, Tara reveals she has a boyfriend who lives in Los Angeles half the year. They both love each other, but to help ease the strain caused by the distance, they have an arrangement and are allowed to date other people during the six months they're apart. She doesn't say how long they've had this deal, but she says this is the first time she's considered taking him up on it — she's that into Louis. It's a lot for Louis to take in, but ultimately, he decides to keep going with the date. This scene was definitely one of Rick Hoffman's strongest moments, as he sold Louis' shock and eventual consideration of the offer rather well with just his face.

Okay, now that we're through that weirdness, let's talk about the law shenanigans in tonight's episode, which at times struggled to hold my attention.

"Shake the Trees" doesn't waste any time in revealing Harvey gave Sean the trading program, because crossing lines never has any negative consequences. In light of this new evidence, the judge denies Harvey's motion for dismissal and sets the trial date for five days from now. That gives them very little time to build a case against Sutter and seal Mike's deal.

So, Harvey turns to Louis and asks him to reverse-engineer every trade Sutter has done to figure out where he's getting his inside information. Unfortunately, Louis needs a trading database to do so, requiring him to ask Stu for a favor. Enter Donna, who convinces Stu to lend a hand and makes him reconsider everything about himself. "I'm Donna and I'm awesome," she says as she walks off. The only way that moment could've been funnier would be if she had said, "I'm Donna — or Ms. Paulson, if you're nasty."

Stu comes through with the database and Louis discovers who's been feeding Sutter insider information. It's someone from some consulting bank and... Honestly, the details aren't important. Anyway, Harvey interrogates him and drives him to Sean. This is the lead Sean needed to finally put Sutter away. However, Sean assures Harvey that Mike will get all the credit for getting them the witness and that his deal is intact. "The good guys won," says Sean, because good is a relative term in this scenario.

NEXT: Things get complicated

You know who is uncomfortable with everything's that going on? Mike, whose conscience never knows when to shut up. Before Harvey finds the inside trader, he comes to Mike for any information he may have on Kevin, but Mike lies and says he knows nothing. He does meet with Kevin's wife, Jill, and asks her to convince Kevin to come forward with what he knows on the condition she gets immunity. She refuses and leaves the meeting pretty angry. Kevin confronts Mike about talking to Jill, basically saying their friendship is over because he crossed a line.

Harvey meets with Mike to tell him the good news, and that's when Mike comes clean about what he knows. He asks Harvey to convince Sean to make sure Jill gets immunity before using their star witness — if Sutter goes down, then Jill goes down, and he couldn't stand to hurt Kevin like that. Meanwhile, Frank has been monitoring the frequency of Mike's meetings with Harvey because he's anxious about getting out on parole. However, he quickly deduces Mike is informing on his roommate, and threatens to tell Kevin if Mike and Harvey don't make some moves on that parole they promised him.

Unfortunately, it looks like Mike might not be getting out of prison anytime soon. That night, Sean pays Harvey a visit and tells him that the SEC pulled Mike's deal. Harvey pleads with him to throw that witness to the side and use whatever Mike has for him, but Sean is more concerned with putting Sutter away than helping out Mike.

Jessica and Rachel

Rachel's case with the Innocence Project is starting to get interesting. At the beginning of the episode, Jessica and Rachel have a very intense meeting with Leonard Bailey to tell him his execution date has been set. He becomes very upset and demands they get to work on finding his alibi, rather than asking for his execution to be delayed. After the meeting, Jessica pursues an execution delay anyway. Rachel asks why — the show makes her ask questions with obvious answers for some reason — and Jessica explains it'll give them more time to find Maria Gomez.

Jessica and Rachel head to court to request the delay, and the original prosecutor on the case parades the victims' families before the judge to convince the judge to rule against their petition. However, the judge agrees to give Jessica and Rachel some more time to find the witness. Unfortunately for Rachel, Maria moved to New Jersey several years ago and changed her name; the only way to get that information is to ask her father for a favor. It's a big moment for her — she asks for the favor not as his daughter, but as a lawyer, which impresses him.

The father of one of the victims storms into the PSL office and demands to see Rachel. He's pissed she's helping the man he thinks killed his daughter. It's an emotional scene for Rachel, who feels for the father but also believes she's doing the right thing. Thankfully, Jessica and Gretchen have her back in this situation and Jessica comforts her after the traumatizing incident. At the end of the episode, Robert shows up with some bad news: Maria Gomez died three years earlier.

Sidebar:

• Donna reveals she was seeing someone for several months and just broke up with them. That leads to a very sweet moment between her and Louis where they say "I love you," because they're BFFLs.

• Tonight, Stu extends an olive branch to Louis and replaces the mugs he ruined. Apparently, his encounter with Donna forced him to take a look in the mirror and realize he's a dick.