“Getting the Demons Out, I Guess”
Last night, HBO aired one of the most harrowing episodes in television history. More nerve-grinding than Ari Aster’s horror hit Hereditary, the seventh episode of Succession’s third season, “Too Much Birthday” was a brutal dive into the empty pool of the Roys’ intricate family structure, the jealousy that motivates all characters, and Greg’s sex life.
We get right into the thick of it, Kendall on stage with a microphone. Is this a reprise of “L to the OG”? No, he’s giving us a tender rendition of Billy Joel’s “Honesty”, sound-checking for his “big nervous fucking breakdown of a fortieth” birthday party. Ken is fully irony-pilled at this point, claiming that this rendition of Joel’s ballad, to be sung from a crucifix, is meant to be satirical. “Nut-nut”? “Anti-fragile”? Our man is fully losing it. In his words, “it’s gonna be epic”.
We then hop over to the Waystar Royco tower, where Shiv, Tom, and Roman are expecting to join a meeting with Lukas Matsson, the CEO of GoJo, which appears to be some sort of technobabble super app. Matsson is a CEO celebrity (think Musk), so he can’t be bothered to come in and meet with the Roys. But, there is good news. According to an unnamed friend at the DOJ, Kendall may have “overpromised” and the case against Waystar might be falling apart. Most notably, Tom (who was seen looking at pictures of various jails on his tablet earlier) isn’t going to jail. After this news breaks, Logan sweeps by a victorious Tom and mutters “I’ll remember”. Spooky. And then Tom does the logical thing.
Kiss his wife? No, he saunters into Greg’s windowless office, gets up close and personal with his boy… and flips the desk. Beating his chest and humping file cabinets, he boasts that “The Waystar Two” are free, and gets even closer. Are the TomGreg truthers finally getting what we want? Well, kind of. There’s a chaste forehead kiss and Tom’s out of there, leaving Greg to pick his desk back up.
Logan is steamed at Matsson’s absence, and wants to take another run at acquiring Pierce (per Kerry’s advice), which is an awful idea all-around. One media dino consuming the other? Nah. Matsson will be present at Kendall’s birthday party, so Shiv and Roman decide to go. Now they can watch their brother/frenemy make an ass of himself AND close the deal! On his way out the door, Logan hands Roman a card to give his brother. I bet it’s a Buffalo Wild Wings gift card.
And then we are at the party. So much happens, so much is going on. The party is held at The Shed, a more-or-less forgotten multi-disciplinary arts space in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards that was built three years ago, a shrine to the ruling class’ love of the arts as a tax write-off. Fitting!
“THE NOTORIOUS KEN IS READY TO DIE” is emblazoned on the building as “the sibs” enter. Tom wants to get wasted, Greg is looking to score with Red Scare Dasha, and Roman and Shiv are all business. Connor has busted his arm (Alan Ruck tore his rotator cuff!), and coats and phones are to be deposited at the door. Roman refuses, and Connor wants to keep his coat on.
The party is some sort of immersive theater experience, complete with nurses handing out cocktails in baby bottles, a pussy walkway, and sperm graphics. Roman realizes that he has entered the party through his mother’s allegorical vagina, repeatedly entering and exiting. I think Freud would give up with this guy. Tom is insanely jealous of “nine-foot-tall Cro-Magnon man” Greg’s attempts to pick up Comfrey, telling him he’s out of her league. When pressed on how he picked up Shiv, he confides, “I got a dick the size of a red sequoia and I fuck like a bullet train.” And, once again, they bait us, with Greg asking Tom to “prove it.” Someday, friends. Someday.
Kendall brings his siblings to a gallery full of fake headlines about their various downfalls, from a “jerk-off accident” to shitting in a sleeping bag. Connor is greatly upset at the latter headline, divulging that this happened on the infamous camping trip, and asks Kendall to take it down. Ken opens his card from Daddy, which says “cash out and fuck off” and contains a contract for Kendall to sell his shares to Roman.
Matsson is in a treehouse in the middle of the party, designated for “cool people only” by the birthday boy. Shiv and Roman are not allowed in. When they try to get in to see Matsson, it’s revealed that Shiv wasn’t informed about the sale of Kendall’s shares, which she thinks should go to her, so she decides to get drunk and dance within an inch of her life.
When we finally meet Matsson, he is drinking a beer, asking for “privacy, pussy, and pasta” and playing a game on his phone. Ken gets called away to say hi to Rava, who just wants to go home, and naturally becomes a target of Kendall’s ridicule. She mentions the kids’ present, wrapped in rabbit wrapping paper, which Ken didn’t see. Ken grabs a 40 of Olde English from the bar and the misery begins.
Poor sweet Greg goes to talk to the birthday boy, who tells him to “stop leeching” from the family, curl up, and die. No one talks to our Greg this way. Greg copes by punching an image of Kendall on a TV screen in the balls. Kendall is nitpicking about the party and vibes, Connor gets a cashmere so he can take off his coat, Willa stands up for him, and Roman finally gets into the treehouse by going full Karen.
Roman and Matsson are equally matched in off-putting behavior, and Roman swiftly turns their conversation to the merger. Matsson wants to know (with all due respect) when Logan will die, mostly because he doesn’t want to deal with him. Roman offers that Matsson “never ever” has to speak to Logan, and after literally pissing on StarGo, Waystar’s faulty streamer (heh) app, it seems like the GoJo sale is good as gold.
Ken has a full Karl Havoc moment, and decides to renege on the performance of the Billy Joel tune, which would have involved a tuxedo and a crucifix. The party was ostensibly supposed to be a parody of a rich manchild’s birthday, and Kendall thinks that it’s just an asshole’s birthday now. The Kendall doth protest too much.
Greg gets back to a miserable Comfrey, who has to sell back a bunch of vintage He-Man lunchboxes, try to get in touch with Springsteen, and find a jet pack, and they decide to go on a date. Tom did some blow so he’s miserable in the compliment tunnel (“why isn’t anybody here happy?”), Shiv is still dancing, and Roman is being nuts, essentially telling Shiv to get over being left out of the holding company.
Kendall digs through a tower of gifts to find the one from his kids, and Naomi gives him a watch as a present. He already has one, so he doesn’t want it. He breaks down in her arms and they decide to leave the party, running into the siblings on the way out. Shiv doesn’t know that Logan and Roman have been spying on Kendall’s nanny and kids, which is another thing that Roman doesn’t think is that big a deal. I don’t know if Roman took “drugs in the wrong order” like Tom did, but he is truly vile by this point of the episode. After telling Kendall to hit him, Kendall exits, telling Roman that he is “not a real person”, so Roman pushes him over, sending him to the floor. He doesn’t get why anyone is mad at him.
As the episode winds down and the party ends, a coke-jawed Tom wants to hit some clubs with Shiv, Roman calls Daddy to tell him about Matsson, and Kendall sniffles on his balcony, wrapped in a blanket. Naomi tells him, “it’s just a party” and we fade out.
Truly a stomach-turner of an episode. Roman’s cocoon has molted and he has transformed into one of the most despicable characters on the show. He has been receiving nothing but positive reinforcement from an infirm Logan this season, and through this we can see him taking on some of his old man’s traits.
Coupled with his vocal embrace of the fascist Mencken, his headlong slide into losing his soul is picking up some velocity. Him leaving Shiv out of everything is also starting to be a problem. I feel like I ask this every week, but is THIS what it will take for Shiv to jump to Kendall’s side?
And I know Kendall is an archetypal “poor little meow meow”, but this episode was just brutal. It distilled one of the show’s many theses, which is that you can not throw money at a broken, unhappy life to fix it. The saddest capitalist will never get what they truly need.
The last third of the episode so perfectly captured the undergrad feeling of going to a party to have the best time ever, only for the end of the night to bring fighting, crying, and running away. Kudos to Lorene Scafaria, director of this episode (and Hustlers!) for distilling the awful chaos of Kendall’s party.
Matthew MacFadyen deserves an Emmy for the scene in Greg’s office alone. That man is powerful.
Next week, the whole gang goes to Italy for Caroline’s wedding to Peter Munion. No idea what will happen, but I do know that wherever the Roys go, everyone will be miserable.
I hope you can unwind after the toxic fumes of “Too Much Birthday”. I recommend this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiMuiWZSNM8
