Episode 3 of Suits LA, titled “He Knew,” doesn’t make the show look like a typical law drama. The characters haven’t been in a courtroom since the first episode, and Episode 3 mostly focuses on creating emotional moments. It’s a strategy that feels wrong at first, but pays off by the end of the episode.
Rick Dodson (Bryan Greenberg) doesn’t play a big role in this week’s episode, mainly just receiving his office as the new Head of Entertainment. The episode also gives a bigger part to Ted’s secretary, Roslyn (Azita Ghanizada). Roslyn did appear in the first episode, but it was in such a small capacity that her presence in Episode 3 is jolting. The episode also has two celebrity cameos, Patton Oswalt and Brian Baumgartner.

Suits LA

2
/5

Release Date

February 23, 2025

Network

NBC

Writers

Aaron Korsh

Ted and Stuart Go Head-to-Head

Ted Black (Stephen Amell) and Kevin (Troy Winbush) continue to deal with Lester Thompson’s (Kevin Weisman) case by asking Lester if he knew his wife, Valerie (Kristen Hager), was cheating on him with his business partner, Simon. Lester says he did not, and Ted goes to Valerie’s house to confirm this. When Ted talks to Valerie, she says she was advised by her divorce attorney, Stuart Lane (Josh McDermitt), not to talk.
Ted is confused because he thought Valerie was under his firm, and Stuart doesn’t even handle divorce cases. He talks to Stuart, who says Valerie asked him to do it as a favor. Ted says Stuart and Valerie are being selfish for trying to handle the divorce while Ted tries to save an innocent man’s life.
In the divorce hearings, Stuart and Valerie ask for way more than Ted expected. Even though Valerie thinks Lester is innocent, Ted thinks she’s trying to take as much as she can because she knows they need her as a witness. Stuart says he’s just representing his client to the best of his ability, which is something he said to Ted in a flashback. Ted is extremely tense in this episode, but he calms down and asks Lester if there’s anything in the deal he values more than his life. Ted and Lester agree to the deal.
Problems arise again when a story from the Los Angeles Times shows Lester seeing Valerie and Simon together with the headline “HE KNEW.” However, Lester couldn’t have seen it because he was holding his glasses, and without them, he was too blind to see. Valerie still doesn’t want to stand by Lester at the trial until Lester makes an impassioned speech that makes Valerie change her mind.
Erica Deals with Brian Baumgartner’s Demands

Because Ted is so busy with Lester’s case, Roslyn tells Erica (Lex Scott Davis) that she needs to meet with Brian Baumgartner for his annual “ask for anything” meeting. Erica thinks Baumgartner will want something like Super Bowl tickets, but when she goes to meet with him, he says he wants to kill his character from The Office, Kevin Malone. What he really means is that he wants to reinvent himself as a dramatic actor, taking Oscar-worthy roles, and as part of his plan, he needs Erica to give him a meeting with Tom Hanks.
Erica can’t do that for Baumgartner, but with the help of Leah Power (Alice Lee) and Roslyn, she gets a meeting set up between comedian Patton Oswalt and Baumgartner. The reasoning for choosing Patton Oswalt is that he voiced the main character in Ratatouille, which won an Oscar for Best Animated Picture. However, when Baumgartner talks to Oswalt, the comedian laughs at the idea that Baumgartner could reinvent himself to win an Oscar.

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Baumgartner tells Erica she needs to do exactly as he says, or she’s fired. He storms off, and that night, Erica goes to his house, where Baumgartner is playing basketball. Baumgartner tells her that he took a lead dramatic role in an off-Broadway play. Erica then tells him that the meeting was purposeful, and that he needed someone to insist he couldn’t do it to motivate him, which is what people have been telling Erica all her life.
Leah works alongside Erica throughout this whole subplot, and her importance to the show wasn’t clear until now. At first, she just seemed like a character who needed to screw up, so Erica could fix the problems. However, in Episode 3, Leah is the funniest character on the show, while also being the polar opposite of Erica.
Maybe Ted’s Losing Sight of His True Family

A large portion of the episode is connected to Ted’s problem with family. In the episode’s flashbacks, Ted invites Stuart to New York, where Ted asks him to represent Jimmy, the man Ted thinks blew up his witness. Stuart hasn’t done criminal law before, and there’s a risk the mob would come after him, but he’s willing to do it because Ted is like a brother to him.
Stuart tries to give Jimmy full protection, which upsets Ted, but Stuart says he’s just representing his client to the best of his ability. However, Stuart also says that Jimmy knows the mob gave money to Ted’s father to offer Ted a new job, and Jimmy could use that against Ted. Stuart is willing to take the fall to not give Jimmy full protection, but Ted tells Jimmy that if he doesn’t take a basic protection deal, Ted will find a new witness and Jimmy will get nothing.

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Later, in Ted’s New York apartment, Stuart says the case made him want to be a criminal lawyer. He also says that he plans to get married to a woman named Helen, and he wants Ted to be the best man. Then, Samantha (Rachelle Goulding) brings Eddie (Carson A. Egan) over, and it’s his first time meeting Stuart. Samantha, Stuart, and Eddie are the closest people Ted has to his family, and it’s sad because he’s lost them all in different ways.
In present day, Stuart has been named the executor of Ted’s father’s will, which upsets Ted. Ted doesn’t want anything his father left, and he especially doesn’t want his father to be buried next to Eddie, though Stuart says his father bought the whole cemetery just to be buried there. At home, Stuart talks to Helen, now his wife and also a therapist, who says his decision to leave Ted was smart from a business perspective but not a personal perspective, as Stuart is the closest thing Ted has to family. Rick calls Erica as well, and shares that he just learned Ted’s father was dying, which makes him feel guilty for leaving the firm.
At the end of the episode, the ghost of Eddie overhears Ted telling Stuart that his father deserves to be buried alone. Eddie is confused and says that without their father, Eddie wouldn’t have Ted. Ted relents and goes to meet Stuart at the cemetery. The lawyers don’t talk, but Ted watches as Eddie holds Stuart’s hand. The next episode will premiere March 16 at 9 p.m. on NBC and will be available to stream on Peacock the next day.