Suits: LA just premiered, but is this revival of the hit USA Network series worth watching?
Caution: This article contains SPOILERS for the pilot of Suits: LA
From the start, this show is a lot different than the Suits fans have known and loved. We see a flashback of Ted Black (Stephen Amell), a federal prosecutor in New York trying to push a witness to testify on a mob boss, only for the guy's house to be bombed.
Ted wakes up in the present day in his LA home with his Down's Syndrome-affected sibling, Eddie. Ted runs a powerful LA firm with longtime friend Stuart Lane (Josh McDemritt). Ted runs the entertainment part of the firm while Lane deals with the criminal side as Ted "is hard-wired not to help people escape jail." That includes Lester, a movie producer accused of shooting someone, which he claims he's innocent of.
Ted is working with fellow attorney Rick Dodsen (Bryan Greenberg) as he and Stuart prepare to merge their firm with one run by Ted's ex-girlfriend Samantha (Rachelle Goulding). Ted also has to deal with his dying father, who walked out on the family when Ted was young and then tried to push back into his life when he was a prosecutor.
Ted is set up for betrayal in Suits: LA
So it looks like an obvious setup of Ted and Stuart and their offbeat friendship. At this point, the show pulls the rug out from everyone as Ted returns to the office to discover Stuart has stolen practically every lawyer they had. It turns out Ted missed the fine print in the merger, which gave Stuart and Rachel the power to walk away with whoever they wanted.
Ted confronts Stuart, who reveals he's long hated how Ted looked down on him as a criminal attorney and even bad-mouthed Stuart a year earlier when the merger was first planned. Just like that, fifteen years of friendship is out the window and Ted faces ruin.
Besides Rick, the only other attorneys to stay with Ted are sharp shark Erica (Lex Scott Davis) and Amanda Stevens (Maggie Grace), a pro bono lawyer who dresses down "so they won't see me coming" and technically doesn't work for Ted. That makes her the one person who's willing to call him out to his face so it's only a matter of time before they sleep together.
Stuart offered Erica a job for him if she agreed to be his spy inside Ted's firm for six months. Erica used that to convince Ted to make her and Rick co-directors of entertainment. Only for Rick to jump over to Stuart's firm, feeling betrayed by Ted now pulling shady moves to keep himself from going under.
In the end, Ted agreed to defend that producer in court on the murder charges while doing his best to keep the firm going. The final scene revealed the truth that Eddie had died long ago and Ted was imagining him around as he got ready to handle this new life.
Does Suits LA work or not?
As a legal drama, the show isn't too bad, yet it doesn't quite seem worthy of the Suits name. The key issue is Ted. He seems hard-wired to think that if you're accused of a crime, you're guilty, which isn't the best attitude. That's supposed to make it a big deal when he defends Lester, as he thinks the guy is innocent yet doesn't have that impact.
The big problem is that there's way too much about Ted we don't know. We don't know exactly what caused him to leave New York, how he and Stuart founded the firm or what happened to Eddie. Amell is a good actor, and it's fun to see him without a costume in Arrow or Heels. He can be captivating and showcases Ted's flaws of arrogance getting the better of him. Even if the performance is aping Gabriel Macht's Harvey too much, Amell makes it a good part.
Yet without that full background, we just can't connect to Ted yet. We're told he and Stuart are best friends but Stuart betraying him in the first act undermines that. Likewise, we can't feel that connection to Rick or why Samantha is upset with Ted. Maybe we'll get flashbacks to deepen it but right now, that lack of knowledge keeps viewers too much at bay. Waiting until the very end of the pilot for Stuart to pull his coup, after we've seen him and Ted get along, would have been better to make Stuart's betrayal mean something.
Erica and Rick are flat caricatures, even if Davis is a good highlight. They're meant to be the Mike and Rachel stand-ins, but nowhere near the instant charisma those actors had. Amanda likewise comes off too cliche with her sharp tongue and attitude while clearly set up as Ted's "will they/won't they" love interest. The constant flashbacks to 2010 New York are distracting and that final twist of Eddie being a ghost strains credulity.
There are some fun bits here and there, like Leah (Alice Lee), Erica's assistant who's out for herself. An unintentionally moving addition is the late John Amos in his final role, playing himself trying to get one more part. Knowing the veteran actor was near his end filming this gives his scenes more pathos.
But for fans of the original Suits, this pilot is a letdown. There's none of the sharp and witty banter of the original, not the spark between the actors that made Suits so instantly appealing, and so far, not enough of the whole entertainment legal firm drama we were promised. Stuff on handling a starlet wanting a better contract or producer fights would be more original than Ted defending a murder suspect. More importantly, while the Suits pilot thrusts you into the world naturally, this feels like episode 3 or 4, not the pilot, and there is way too much untold backstory holding it back.
Maybe the show can improve on the pilot as we get more insight into Ted and his connections to the others. Also, a promised appearance from Gabriel Macht can be a big boost, too. Yet going from the pilot, this is Suits in name only and not the grand revival of the show fans hoped for.
Suits: LA airs Sundays at 9/8c on NBC.