After last night’s episode of Succession, “Chiantishire”, I bemoaned my task of writing this recap. So much happened and with such intensity. But, I always take notes. So, bear with me here.
After another cold open-less title sequence (they’re packing it in!), we are at the Waystar Royco HQ as all prepare for a board meeting. Kerry pulls Sandi and Stewy aside for a pre-meeting with Logan about GoJo. It turns out that Matsson has been “microdosing and tweeting about angels”, which raises Waystar’s hackles. Stewy thinks it might not be a bad thing (of course), which shocks Sandi. She is confused at Shiv’s absence from the pre-meeting, but since she isn’t “inner circle” according to Roman, she doesn’t need to be there.
Turns out, she isn’t even in the building. She takes the meeting from bed, where she has let her dread of reuniting with her mother Caroline get the best of her. At the meeting, Ken’s absence is explained due to an illness, which turns out to be a lie. Logan stands watch outside the conference room, chilling all to the bone.
And then we’re on our way to Tuscany! Shiv and Roman get into a fight, where she calls him “ricotta dick”, and soon enter a whirlpool of linen suits, floppy hats, and bright blues. Roman got some scuttlebutt on their new stepdad Peter Munion, who seems to be just a shitty businessman. Roman is concerned that Peter, who has four children (sounds familiar), is just after Caroline’s money. Shiv thinks it’s about sex. A lot of talk about mom sex these last few weeks. But, not a surprise. Roman lets on that he might fire Shiv once he’s in charge, and his crusade to be the Show’s Worst Character continues.
Kendall has beaten the gang to Italy, freshly shorn with Sophie and Iverson in tow. So big! Caroline enters, resplendent in floppy hat and chilling demeanor, and tells her son that she has to divvy up some of the wedding festivities since Logan does not want to be in the same room as him. Why is she catering to her psychotic ex-husband’s caprices? Well, Peter needs to network. Gerri, looking incredibly hot, arrives with her new boyfriend Laurie in tow, and she informs Roman that he can’t send her dick pics any longer. He doesn’t get it. He thinks she’s being “typically minxy”. The Roman-Gerri fun is starting to get deeply unfun. Connor and Willa show up and he reveals that there’s a Politico profile on him coming, so he needs to firm up his and Willa’s story. Greg and Comfry flirt a bit, but Greg gets cold feet (“is there depth there?”)! Poor guy :(.
Panic sets in as Matsson posts a picture from a private jet with the caption “Going to Macau feeling lucky”. Is he trying to posture about the money he’ll get from the GoJo buyout? Or is he just posting id on main? Roman tries to call, but he doesn’t get an answer. Roman’s incompetence is on full display, and Connor finally proposes to Willa, and she debates her options.
Finally, Logan arrives, with Marcia and Kerry essentially on each arm. Caroline has a chuckle, referring to the menáge as “the skunk, the porcupine, and the concubine”. Peter descends, asking Logan for help getting into Parliament, Roman undercuts Shiv in public once again, and Ken breaks the big rule by confronting Logan. He wants a pasta dinner with daddy, solo. Tiny little Roman attempts to be a literal middleman, but Kendall manages to get through.
The girls hit the town, and Shiv and Caroline finally speak. They throw blame at each other for various wrongs. Caroline accuses Shiv of being ungrateful and distant, and Shiv accuses Caroline of abandoning her. Caroline counters that Shiv wanted to live with her father. Shiv mentions that she was ten years old at the time and therefore not responsible. Caroline reminds her that she was thirteen. Oop! It seems that, if Caroline kept custody, the three would lose their shares in the company. Caroline sees herself as some kind of corporate Mother Courage, making the tough choice for her childrens’ future. Caroline wearily drags from a cigarette and muses, “I probably never should have had children” and commends Shiv for remaining childless. Ouch.
Meanwhile, Roman sits in the plaza outside the restaurant that the women are eating at and accosts Gerri. He threatens to fuck Laurie (CLASSIC Roman) and lays out his plan to un-fuck the Matsson situation by meeting him in Switzerland for a quick talk.
And then we have the big daddy-son dinner. Logan wants granular details on the meal and chef and has no interest in having any sort of emotional conversation. He’s convinced the food is poisoned, so he calls for “the boy” (Iverson) and offers him the first bite. The man used his grandson as a non-consensual poison tester. New lows, gang. Kendall doesn’t want his father to die, claiming that he’d be “broken” upon Logan’s death. Sure.
Kendall wants out. He thought he was a “knight on horseback” with his crusade against the company but the behemoth is just too large. Did Tom get to him in Virginia? Or did his birthday just bring him down? This seems like a great opportunity for the two men to shake hands and walk away, but Logan just won’t have it. To him, life is “a fight for a knife in the mud”, so this isn’t going to be easy.
Ken wants “two bil and a chunky asset” and the games to stop. Logan doesn’t budge and Kendall gets back on the high horse, telling Logan that he “monetized all the resentments of America”, which Logan cops to, seeing himself as a “great revolutionary” having a bit of fun. When it seems that Kendall isn’t walking away without a fight, he brings up the drowning from Shiv’s wedding, calls him “queer” (the second time he used queerness as a moral failing against one of his sons this season!), and correctly points out that he’s always cleaned up Kendall’s messes for him. And, with a “fuck off, kiddo”, Logan trudges out, leaving behind a further-broken Kendall.
Shiv arrives back at her hotel and expresses her desire to win it all. She declares her interest in having a spite baby, and she and Tom get into it. Their dirty talk goes south quickly, with Shiv telling Tom, “You’re not good enough for me” and “Even though I don’t love you, you want me anyway”. Tom is left speechless. She seems to mean it. Take the L, dude.
The next morning, Tom checks in with Shiv about the dirty talk, citing “afterburn”. She quickly turns the conversation to the logistics of freezing embryos, practicalities Tom never considered. He just wants to get his wife pregnant the normal way. According to Shiv, “what happens in Sex Vegas” stays there, and that Tom is worrying too much. “I may not love you, but I do love you”. Just bad vibes.
Roman is seen on a little boat going zoom to Matsson’s fancy pad, where he needs uppies to get on the dock. Matsson isn’t feeling good about the deal and wants to talk through it with Roman. After asking him about his flaws (A Roy man has no flaws!), he lets loose that he wants the deal to be a merger rather than an acquisition (“I’m Swedish. I like equality.”), and the team heads to Milan in order to hash some business out.
Roman breaks this news to Gerri, and she essentially tells him that he’s on his own. Logan obviously doesn’t want to split control, but since he doesn’t “know how to box out a clown”, he has no choice but to play this game. He throws Gerri, Karl, and Frank to the dogs in the event of a reorganization, but Roman miraculously saves the plane from the tailspin.
And thus begins one of the most electrically terrible scenes in television history. You thought the birthday party was bad? Gerri shoots Roman a message of congratulations from across the table, and Roman responds with an invite to dinner and one of (I assume) the many dick pics saved on his phone. But — oh what’s this??? — Roman has sent the picture to Logan. Yes. His gross old dad. Roman’s no dummy and quickly realizes what has happened. Logan takes a five and pulls Shiv into a side room.
It’s now Shiv’s job to explain the Gerri-Roman situation to a flabbergasted Logan. I thought the man knew everything! He calls Roman in, and we see Gerri looking at Roman in an incredible Godfather-esque shot. Logan asks his son if he’s a “sicko”, calls Gerri “old”, and moves to fire Gerri. Roman admits that Gerri is not the problem and asks his dear old dad to leave it be.
Shiv sees a chance and swoops in. In a moment of girlboss fake sincerity and solidarity, she attempts to nerf Gerri and Roman in one fell swoop by getting her to talk about the nuisance with HR. Gerri sees right through this. She’ll talk to her lawyers. When Shiv pulls fake sisterly tenderness, Gerri ices her out with, “I can cope”.
Finally, we see Kendall face-down on a floaty in the pool at his rental. Sophie and Iverson head in, and Ken is revealed to have his face submerged in the water after the kids leave. He drops his beer bottle as bubbles stream out of his nose, and the episode ends.
Kendall?! I’ll be honest, I didn’t initially read this as the end of Kendall, just another bender, but once I thought about the physics for a second, I realized this might be it. But, as Roman says in the finale teaser, “all will be revealed”.
After two weeks of back-to-back intrigue and drama, “Chiantishire” kept focus on the ways these characters will do anything to destroy each other. Kendall and Logan, it goes without saying. Roman’s new habit of pulling the rug out from under Shiv is just repellent and her own negging of Tom is edging towards abuse. The children are all losing their souls as they get older. But it seems like the crusade has killed Kendall, or at least taken him out of commission for a long while.
This show loves its symmetry, and season 1 did end with a wedding and a drowning. But I don’t know if I can wait a week. We must.
Sarah Snook and J. Smith-Cameron both brought incredibly nuanced and thrilling performances to the table in this episode. And whoever engineered Roman’s accidental penis-picture delivery deserves an Emmy. Nay, a Pulitzer. Kudos is due to the OG Succession team of Jesse Armstrong and Mark Mylod.
Have any of you accidentally sent a dick pic or nude to your father? Weigh in in the comments. See you for the finale!!!!!!!!!
