“A Times New Roman Firing Squad”
Welcome back to my silly little Succession recap. Thanks to a long hectic week last week, I didn’t even get to watch episode 2 until last night. So let’s do a mini recap of #2 before we go all the way into last night’s episode.
The entire family, under the auspices of getting background on Kendall’s scheme, but more likely feeling burnt by daddy’s rejection, swooped down onto Kendall’s headquarters/Rava’s apartment to talk it out. Greg is freaked out, Kendall adjusts Greg’s tie, and Stewy and Sandy deliver a trojan horse. Kendall seemed to have them all on the hook with a triumvirate plan, until he put himself forward as operating head and then they all bailed, claiming that they wanted to “protect” Logan. Yeah right. We got to see Ewan again and meet his “intransigent” pinko lawyer Roger Pugh, and it seems like Greg is being used a little bit by everyone. I love you Greg. Marcia arrived in Sarajevo to “make peace” with Logan, in effect firming up her financial situation, and Logan touched back down in the US, triumphant with his whole family by his side. It seems like Shiv and Roman, at least, will deal with never-ending abuse from Logan to get what they want the safe way. Is Kendall’s plan unstable? Yes. Will it work? Maybe. Shiv is in place as a ceremonial President, a title that allows Logan to run the show, two steps removed now that Gerri is in charge.
So that’s episode 2.
We start episode 3 with Kendall in a cafe, spilling information to a journalist. He quickly mentions that all this tea is on background, and therefore not for actual use in the interview. Kendall clearly wants to paint himself as a thoughtful sort of suit, “plant[ing] a flag inside” the family business. Kendall is clearly therapized beyond belief (thank God) and is talking about his “headspace” quite a bit. Perfect ammo for his siblings, allergic to anything earnest.
Meanwhile, in the WaystarRoyco tower, Gerri is trying to get some new projects off the ground. Frank wants to do a new spin on Pinnocchio, Hugo is pitching a new PR campaign consisting of “We get it”, smacking of season 2’s “We here for you” debacle, and Gerri wants to invest in an Israeli machine learning operation (perfect Succession madlib). But it becomes abundantly clear that Logan is really running the show.
Tom and Greg are finally reunited, in a beautiful scene where Tom tells Greg to take a cyanide pill, reveals that it’s a mint and Greg’s breath stinks, and then negs Greg by moving him into a messy windowless office, presumably as punishment for being tied to Kendall. As I mentioned earlier, it seems like everyone is playing Greg a little bit, but I personally believe he has strong enough instincts to make measured moves. He just happened to be with Kendall when he went rogue. Basically, I believe that Greg is going to take all the marbles. Eventually.
Tom is clearly soooooo jealous that Greg is hanging out with Kendall. Succession writer Lucy Prebble just posted a rom-com trailer edit of Tom and Greg on her Twitter. So they know what the people want!
Kendall, Naomi, Greg, and a cabal of gross rich people head to some journalism gala in a limo and play a game of “Good Tweet, Bad Tweet”, where the gang rounds up tweets about Kendall and gauge if, well, they are good or bad! Kendall’s ego is being lovingly caressed by his gang of yes-people, he gets to pretend to be self-effacing, and Twitter gets an incredible new reaction gif. Speaking of Kendall’s fake-self effacement, he gets out of the limo, tells Naomi he’s “got something” for the paparazzi and yells, “fuck the patriarchy!” Cara Delevingne who??
Shiv is at this event, so she and Ken have a terse interaction, but not before Nate shows up and decides to be horny at her!! Get out of here Nate!! I get the impression that Kendall, in his delusion, does feel deeply sorry for Shiv. And I can’t blame him, Logan is using her for Representation Brownie Points in the same way that Kendall is taking on the Wokeness mantle. At least Kendall has the good nature to just embarrass himself.
Meanwhile, at an afterparty, Greg is hitting again on Red Scare Dasha and asking Kendall to buy him the watch he promised him (“you deserve it, man!”). Ken claims he was never going to buy him a watch with all the cruelty of an older cousin. Tom would buy him the watch. And then, in another one of the most gut-wrenchingly awful scenes in television history, Kendall decides to put on Sophie Iwobi’s show (played by pop-star-comedian-icon Ziwe, in a role that is half herself and half Samantha Bee). Sophie loves dunking on the Roys, and Ken, on a falsely good-natured self-affirming kick, tells, nay, DEMANDS everyone at the party is allowed to laugh at the show. Sophie talks about Kendall’s case of “Caucasian Rich Brain” and Dasha warns Kendall against further public self-effacement.
Meanwhile, Hugo sets up some softball interview questions for Shiv and Roman to answer and make Logan look good. They need to come up with some nice memories of their father. Which there aren’t any of. Roman recalls a fishing trip to Montana, while Logan and Tom wait to corner an ATN anchor who’s tied in with the President. Logan is sure of the President’s protection against the FBI and DOJ, and Tom is willing to roll under the bus after a meeting with a mysterious friend. But Logan is ready to throw Tom. So he’s screwed no matter how he plays it.
All of a sudden, Kendall arrives at WaystarRoyco to post up in his old office, hurdling the gates and acting like a corporate punk rocker or something. He’s incredibly patronizing to the security staff and is greeted on the executive floor by Tom, continuing his tumble under the bus. They get so close, they might kiss. That’ll show Greg. Kendall gets into his office and he’s convinced that Logan had IT hack his AC because it’s too cold in there. Jess, his long-suffering assistant, notes that it’s at 68, his regular temperature. Kendall just has to suffer.
Shiv is sent to the lobby for her first public sacrifice/public-facing event for a press conference-cum-town hall. She clearly has misgivings about her new role, which are all but confirmed when her speech is interrupted by Nirvana’s “Rape Me” blaring over unseen speakers. Poor Shiv is close to a panic attack while security tries to figure it out. But there’s only one person with a flair for the dramatic who happened to be in high school when Nevermind came out that I can think would be responsible for this.
Kendall decides to go on Sophie Iwobi’s show to appear good natured, giving Dasha more hives and the opportunity for him to wear a really bad leather jacket. While he’s trying to pal around with the stagehands and writers (he knows a guy from the Lampoon who’s friends with the head writer), Shiv asks Connor and Roman to sign onto a public letter/response to Kendall. The boys don’t bite, and Shiv sends it out solo. Ken goes from self-righteous to terrified when the letter comes out and Sophie’s writers refuse to not joke about it. Kendall freaks out that he can’t control the bits, but not before he offers to call up Jay-Z to appear on the show in his stead. Kudos to Ted Cohen and Georgia Pritchett, the writers of this episode, for not showing us the contents of the letter until Sophie reads it aloud as Kendall breaks down in the show’s server room.
For seemingly the first time in a while, Roman and Logan have a moment in the latter’s office. Logan insults him for showing weakness and asks him about the fishing trip. It turns out that Logan never took Roman fishing in Montana. It was Connor. Next thing we know, Gerri breaks into Logan’s office to tell him that the FBI is downstairs for documents pertaining to the DOJ investigation. Logan waves them off, but they have a warrant. The mantra of the last five minutes of this episode is “we’re cooperating”. They clearly don’t have a choice any longer, so the Feds head up. Tom is stuck with informing a dinner party full of advertisers that the FBI is on the way. With his best C-3PO impression, Tom tells them “so if you see them. That’s what it is.”
News of the raid starts to dribble out, and we are left with Kendall going full Kubrick TikTok with a scary smile through his tears. And that’s “The Disruption”.
A VERY dense episode. I didn’t even get to talk about Shiv and Tom’s weird scene where he opens up to her and is waved off with an Albeean (Albeeian) “you’re drunk”. Tom is definitely going down for something. But why the sudden push from the FBI? Did Michelle-Anne squeal?
There was some really beautiful dialogue in this episode, from Roman’s “he taught me how to aim my peepee in the toilet” to the return of Logan’s scary muscle man, muttering “I KNOW YOU” to Kendall when he arrives at the office.
This episode also really showcased the grim PR machine of Hugo and Karolina, pumping out “peoples’ real questions”. Finally, from Ziwe to “Good Tweet Bad Tweet” to Kendall’s perfect impression of hack profile writing, this episode was just made for Media Twitter. Good work guys.
What’s coming up next week? Helicopters, Adrien Brody, and Kendall and Logan reuniting in matching black ballcaps. And maybe Tom, Greg, and Kendall will finally kiss.
See you next week!
