Last week’s episode of Succession saw Kendall desperately trying to convince his siblings to join him in his bid to take down Logan. He failed miserably and now the battle lines are clearly drawn and both sides of the conflict are trying to get a leg up in the ongoing PR battle. This week’s episode of Succession has everything to do with perception and control. This might be one of the single funniest episodes of the show so far with some incredible lines but it might also be one of the most heartbreaking.
The episode starts off with Kendall talking to a reporter painting his father as a senile oldrelic that will fall apart at any moment. When asked about his siblings, he deflects and says that he hopes they are “in the right headspace.” It’s ironic that Kendall is talking about being in the right headspace because his mental health seems to be spiraling, which will culminate in a mini-breakdown by the end of the episode. I can see Kendall actually succeeding in his attempt to overthrow his father but I think that by the end of this he will be completely devastated.
I say this every week but Jeremy Strong’s performance on this show is absolutely breathtaking. He’s playing a character that alternates moods seemingly every scene. Strong portrays Kendall as a manic egotist that simultaneously believes his own hype and is also riddled with self-doubt and he does this masterfully. Even in scenes where he is completely in control that self-doubt and crippling insecurity shines through. For instance, when he walks back into Waystar, he has all the leverage in that situation. In that moment, Kendall has all the power, the optics are totally in his favour but he is still paranoid that they turned his air conditioning down a few degrees.
Logan is also dealing with a PR disaster as the Department of Justice is breathing down his neck, yet he refuses to cooperate with them. Gerri tries to explain that cooperation is their best course of action but Logan gives her his trademark (and at this point hilariously overused) response “fuck off.” This same response will be ineffective by the end of the episode as the F.B.I storms into Waystar with a search warrant and those are the guys you can’t say fuck off to. There is a hint in this scene that Gerri has become quite comfortable in her interim role as CEO and she might not be as easy to control as Logan initially thought. There is a sense that Gerri might make a play at some point this season that will have Roman caught in the middle and force him to choose between Gerri or his dad.
We get our weekly dose of Tom and Greg with Tom moving Greg to a new office that is basically a storage closet. I love it when Tom talks to Greg like a scorned lover. This dynamic is one of my favourites in the show and I really hope that they have more prolonged interaction later on, I just hate when they are apart. Tom has maybe the best line of the episode here when he’s talking about the DOJ coming into the company describing them as “a combine harvester in a wheat field full of dicks”. Matthew Macfadyen is the unsung hero of this show, he does so much to flesh out Tom as a complex character in every scene he’s in.
After consulting with his lawyer, Tom realizes that he is in a tough spot and might be facing possible jail time. He considers offering to sacrifice himself in order to gain favour with Logan. This is ultimately somewhat of a hollow gesture as it’s unlikely Tom will do any real jail time, there is no way that anyone is actually going to be held accountable for the wrong doings in Waystar, that would be an overly optimistic view of the world that this show simply does not have. However, by suggesting this to Logan, Tom earns some brownie points. In the first and second seasons it seemed like Tom was content being Shiv’s lap dog (speaking of dogs, Mondale makes a surprise appearance in this episode) but now he is much more active in the family machinations. Tom has always been a slimeball but now it looks like he is truly learning how to play the Roy game.
Shiv and Tom have a tender moment this episode when he is explaining his plan to her and although she says that there is no way that he can offer himself up as a sacrifice, she also throws in the caveat that it would be a smart idea. Ultimately, Shiv will always put herself ahead of Tom’s best interests and I think that Tom has realized that. I think that that relationship is heading for a violent conclusion but I’m not exactly sure how that all is going to play out.
Shiv and Kendall really go at it this episode. Their first interaction is at a Committee for the Protection of Journalists Galla that they both attend. On the limo ride to the event, Kendall and his group of friends play the Good Tweet Bad Tweet game. Each bad Tweek calling out Kendall’s hypocrisy, deteriorating mental state, or false wokeness is greeted with fake laughs as Kendall brushes most of them off but you can see that the things being said about him are deeply affecting him. One of Kendall’s fatal flaws is that he deeply cares about what people think of him. He is constantly looking for validation, from Logan, from Rafa, from Naomi, from the general public. When Kendall stops caring about his image and just does what needs to be done (like the Vaulter gutting) he is successful.
Kendall does a lot of stuff to make it seem like he is morally superior to his father. He surrounds himself with women, but he never listens to their advice, when Lisa, his lawyer, tells him it’s a bad idea for him to go into Waystar, he says she’s in charge and goes in anyways. He wears an Ai Weiwei pin to the Journalist Galla, Weiwei is a Chinese artist and political activist. Kendall is trying to create the prescription that he is a revolutionary but he really isn’t and everyone can see through his facade. Deep down, I think even Kendall knows that he’s full of shit and it’s eating him up inside because he so wants to be the guy he’s pretending to be but he just isn’t..
Shiv runs into her old fling Nate, at the event. I hate Nate, I’ve hated him since his first appearance. Even after all of the despicable things that the Roys have done, I still think that Nate is my most hated character. Luckily, he is brushed off after just a few lines and Shiv and Kendall have their face off. The interaction starts off with an exchange of “heys” that actually feels very sincere. Shiv and Kendall had that intimate moment in the season 2 episode “Safe Room” and it’s clear that they still care about each other. Both Jeremey Strong and Sarah Snook do a great job in this scene, you can see that these siblings don’t necessarily want to hurt each other but they are fundamentally selfish self-centered people and they are incapable of finding a compromise. So they are willing to destroy the other if need be to get what they want.
Kendall correctly deduces that Shiv is being positioned to be next in line and he shuts down the conversation. Shiv immediately goes to give a debriefing to her father in a really fascinating scene. This is the first time that Shiv straight up asks Logan about what he knew about the cruises scandal. Logan plays it off, acknowledging that the company did some shady stuff but basically concludes that he did what needed to be done. Logan has clearly attended the Walter White school of excuse making as he says that everything he did, he did it for his family, which we know is bullshit.
However, during this rant, Logan mentions that “you [Shiv] will not find a piece of paper that will make you ashamed of me,” which I thought was notable. I think this is the first time that Logan has shown concern about how his kids view him. Now, this could be another Logan manipulation tactic but I don’t think so, I think he is being genuine here. Logan actually cares about how his kids (or at least Shiv) view him and he doesn’t want them to be ashamed of him. Brain Cox has said multiple times that he believes that Logan Roy does love his children and this might be the first time we are seeing some evidence of that. However, this is still a matter of optics, it matters more to him that he maintains a certain image in his children’s eyes than actually caring for their well being.
Later on in the episode we are introduced to Sophie Iwobi, the host of a satirical late-night comedy show that labels Kendall as the “Oedipussy,” which is just some of the greatest television writing of all time. Kendall plays it off like he enjoys being attacked, he thinks that by acknowledging all the negatives about him it will make him more transparent or more affable, or something like that. Kendall tries to be so extremely woke that he recognizes the inherent hypocrisy of what he’s doing. In a brilliant bit of PR, he volunteers to go on Sophie’s show, which will not end well.
Before that though, he makes his way down to the Waystar Royco offices because he can’t let his father “dominate the battlespace”. At the office, he is confronted by Colin who tells Kendall that “he knows who he is” in what is genuinely the most terrifying moment of the show so far. This is obviously in reference to the incident in the end of season 1 when Kendall drove a car off a bridge killing a waiter in England. Colin was the one who covered up the incident and is fiercely loyal to Logan as his head of security. This is the third straight episode that they have made mention of the Kendall incident and that must be a sign that that shoe is going to drop sooner or later.
During Shiv’s first address as President of Waystar during the company’s town hall, Kendall plays Nirvana’s “Rape Me” on the loud speakers in a truly amazing moment. It is so on the nose but at the same time so perfect, it totally fits within Kendall’s personality and I think it’s the first genuinely effective move that Kendall has ever pulled off (aside from the press conference of course). We see that Shiv is shaken by this, as much as she tries to play it off, she desperately wants to take over and be a part of the company and now Kendall has humiliated her at her coming out party destroying her image in front of all of the Waystar employees and staff. In Shiv’s eyes this is a formal declaration of War.
Shiv writes up a scathing letter about Kendall, questioning his parenting abilities, highlighting his misogynistic comments, and calling out his struggles with addiction. She brings the letter to Roman and Conner but they both refuse to sign it. Conner tells her that he would like “some suck suck on his dickie dick” before he can give away the valuable resource that is his signature, god I love Connor. Roman gives a more insightful answer, although equally vulgar. He claims that he doesn’t feel right about selling out the man who taught him how to pee straight. This shows us that Roman still has affection for Kendall, and that Kendall was basically the person who raised Roman. In a later scene, we learn that Roman told a news reporter a fishing story about him and Logan that was actually him and Connor. Roman does not have any good memories associated with his father but he does have good memories associated with his siblings and he’s hesitant to ruin them.
Shiv publishes the letter anyways and the things she says really get to Kendall. He cancels his appearance on Sophie’s show and breaks down in an IT closet, in direct contrast to the cocky and arrogant way he started the episode. It could be that he saw this letter as damaging his public image but I think it has to do more with him being hurt that Shiv sees him this way. Kendall knows that all of the stuff in Shiv’s letter is absolutely true, which is what makes it so painful for him. Kendall can be clueless at times but at other times he can be incredibly self-aware. Just because you point out your flaws doesn’t mean you’re actually addressing them, now that Shiv has pointed out his shortcomings publically he can’t hide from the truth anymore and it breaks him. However, we see that his spirits are somewhat restored when he sees that Waystar is being raided by the F.B.I. and a slight smile creeps onto his face. At the end of the day, Kendall kind of wants to be a better person and have people see him as a good person but what he really wants is to win.
I feel like a broken record at this point but this might be one of the best episodes of Succession yet. It doesn’t have a central set piece like last week’s episode but there are so many enjoyable and impactful moments packed into it. It’s incredible. I do enjoy the episodes where the whole family is together but I don’t think we are going to get many more of those this season. It feels like the gloves are off now and things are starting to get a bit more serious, we are heading for a breaking point with several characters and the battle is really starting to get good. The best show on television delivers another amazing episode, next Sunday can’t come fast enough.
