‘Suits: L.A.' Review: NBC Spinoff Is a Bad Fit for Fans and Newcomers
To be clear, Ted is not poor. He's very well-off, if not outright wealthy, considering he's a formidable attorney operating out of L.A.'s 'luxe Culver City neighborhood. At the very least, he's got enough money to feel comfortable, and that comfort should be indulged from time to time. Tell a few jokes. Go out for a couple of beers. Catch a Lakers game. Perhaps Ted isn't enjoying what he can out of life because, when we're first introduced, he's thrust into crisis management mode. But even after the overcooked pilot finishes burning bridges, Ted can't be bothered to build them back up.
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This angry lone wolf routine stands in stark contrast to the original 'Suits,' a product of USA Network's 'blue sky' era, where shows like 'White Collar' and 'Burn Notice' kept the mood light and the good times rolling. Problems would arise, sure, but they tended to be nuisances more often than nightmares, and the melodrama, while rooted in characters and their relationships, was also exactly that: mellow.
'Suits' fit the mold. Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) and Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) are paired up in the pilot, via a platonic meet-cute where the former accidentally lands a job at the latter's elite law firm, despite lacking a law degree. The two strangers become tied at the hip by their shared secret — Mike needs a job to support his grandmother's medical bills, and Harvey needs Mike because he's impressed with his moxie or something. It doesn't really matter, because 'Suits' isn't meant to be realistic or serious or even all that dramatic; it's meant to be fun.
'Suits L.A.' is not fun. It's not realistic either, but that doesn't stop it from being superfluously dramatic and super-duper serious. For reasons I'm prohibited from disclosing at this time, its central dynamic — and the only one with clear potential moving forward — turns 'Suits L.A.' into a bizarro version of 'Suits,' which is kind of intriguing from the outside looking in. (Why would NBC commission this spinoff of 'Suits'?) But in practice, 'Suits L.A.' proves as alienating as the original series was inviting.
Mainly, I blame Ted. Yes, the dialogue is stilted and almost exclusively exposition. Sure, the supporting cast is as bland as a Dodger Dog and the stages as prosaic as Dodger Stadium. But a solid central character can get you to look past all that, and Ted is too one-note, too unpleasant, and too damn angry to encourage our investment.
'Suits L.A.' tries to balance Ted's anger by occasionally casting him as a sad boi — evoking our pity by adding to his adversities. After getting blindsided and nearly losing all his clients, Ted is forced to become what must feel unthinkable to a former federal prosecutor: a defense attorney. Tack that onto a painful break-up and more spoiler-y misfortunes, and it makes sense why Ted might not be the sunniest guy in the city.
(The clearest sign of just how messed up Ted is arrives by accident. Midway through the second episode, it's revealed the born-and-bred New York Knicks fan has convinced himself to root for the Lakers. And no, he's not doing it for business reasons. He's not sitting courtside to woo clients. He claims Kobe Bryant converted him and, with all due respect to Black Mamba, that's the stupidest reason I've ever heard. Tell me: Do New Yorkers tend to switch sides when their team is routinely bested by an archrival's elite talent? They do? Oh, great. In that case, I can't wait to see Madison Square Garden filled with Jayson Tatum jerseys.)
Clearly, this man is unwell, but he's not unwell in a way that sparks curiosity. Ted is unwell in a way that can't be fixed by a steady stream of flashbacks. His past isn't all that interesting, even if it portrays the life he prefers, and even if that life eventually becomes the one he bothers to build in his new city. That would be a different show, with a different Ted, on a different network, at a different time. It might be the one you want, and it might even be the one you felt like you were promised in the title, but despite L.A.'s perpetually sunny skies, 'Suits L.A.' can't escape Ted's pitch-black clouds.
'Suits: L.A.' premieres Sunday, February 23 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC. Episodes will be available the next day on Peacock.
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Our first introduction to Harper? A sign on her bedroom that demands 'NO TRIGGERING.' How, I asked Ganatra, do you find the line between 'we're going to make fun of you too' but 'we also want you to to laugh'? 'It's always such a hard thing to explain it tonally, how do you ride that line between what's OK and what seems mean?,' she said. 'None of the humor can or should seem mean-spirited, especially in a movie like this. But for Gen Z, it was about acknowledging how smart they are and how they do really care. I do think Gen Z is gonna save us in many ways, because they truly care about trying to fix all the problems.' Ganatra applies that same sense of care to her work. Consider how tough it it is to actually make a body swap comedy work, the many perspectives that need to be considered, the points of view that need to be telegraphed, the insane performance that goes into playing somebody who is also playing somebody self. That's not easy. 'I think sometimes people are like, 'Oh, studio body swap comedy, blah, whatever,' but when you watch them, you realize it's pretty sophisticated what these actors are doing,' she said. 'They're not only playing their character, but they're also playing another character inside of their character. And if you don't believe that, the whole movie stops working instantly, right? That moment when they switch, if you don't buy that, your movie's done. It wasn't directing four actors, it was directing eight characters. So, how do I get that essence and this essence and make the most comedy joy from the experience of being in each other's lives?' For Ganatra, such considerations are part and parcel of being a good comedy director, something she does not take for granted (or for silly). 'I'm super-biased in that I think comedy people can do anything, I think comedy people can do drama, but I don't think drama people can necessarily do comedy,' the director said. 'At some point, it comes down to your taste and what you think is funny and what you don't. I think it's a matter of creating an environment where everyone feels free to pitch everything and you shoot everything. I've been wrong so many times, so you shoot everything as if you're right, and then you shoot everything as if you're wrong, and then you have the best to choose from.' Ganatra pointed specifically to another important woman in her life: her long-time editor Eleanor Infante. 'She doesn't hesitate to say, 'Hey, that doesn't work' or 'That's not funny' or 'No, we're not doing that.' When I was at NYU, I got the privilege of sitting in the editing room with Thelma Schoonmacher and Martin Scorsese, and I watched how he has to fight for every single shot that he gets. You're like, 'What's happening? Who is this woman telling Martin Scorsese that his shot his garbage?' And then you realize why the movie comes out the way it does. I'm really lucky I have an amazing editor who will tell me the truth.' Still, maybe making good comedy comes down to something deceptively simple: truly looking for what's funny. 'I think we had a lot of fun because we were all trying to make each other laugh,' Ganatra said. 'Every scene, everyone was trying to top each other with more and more fun and more and more joy. We just had a great environment, a really supportive environment where everyone let us do our most bananas ideas.' While the film is packed with both original ideas and callbacks to the original (a Pink Slip concert was a must-include for the film's producers from the start, while a final scene involving Chad Michael Murray's character was a product of the actor being available for an extra day and Ganatra really wanting to make the most of it), lots of on-the-fly ideas borne of affection for the original also make the cut. Comedy works best if you're trying something new, and you can really only do that if everyone is down to, well, clown. The filmmaker pointed to an uproarious scene in the film in which Curtis and Lohan show up at Murray's character's record store. As Lohan (as Harper as Anna) tries to rekindle the flame with Murray's Jake, Curtis (as Lily as Tess) attempts to offer advice while also hiding her face behind a slew of different records. 'I was like, 'OK, Jamie, I think you should get around the record store by covering yourself up in each place,' and she was like, 'OK, which records am I using?,'' she recalled. 'I was like, 'Well, here are the six I have cleared, and I think Sade should be when you're telling her to be quiet, and this person should be for this. And she's the one who was like, 'Oh, Britney [Spears] should be the one while I'm yelling at her and giving her advice,' which then inspired our editor to put in a Britney song, and then we just had so much fun with it. I can't believe I didn't think of that one. That was just a lucky Jamie moment on set.' She'd like more of them. As she readies for the release of the film, Ganatra was clearly still riding a wave of giddiness, one that she hopes to parlay into doing, well, more of this. 'It made me happy, so I just hope I get to keep doing it,' she said. 'A lot of women don't get to direct studio films and that is something I don't take for granted. So I'm just hopeful that this dream doesn't end and I get to keep making movies, because that's something I think we all want to do, express ourselves. I'm hopeful that this does well and we all get a chance to do it again.' A Walt Disney Pictures release, 'Freakier Friday' is in theaters on Friday, August 8. 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