The penultimate episode this season of Succession has everyone flying out to Tuscany for Caroline Collingwood’s (Harriet Walter, Killing Eve) wedding amidst concerns about the GoJo deal with Lukas Mattson (Alexander Skarsgård, The Stand) and the ongoing standoff between Logan (Brian Cox, Medici) and Kendall (Jeremy Strong, The Trial of the Chicago 7).
This episode centered around the character dynamics and relationships, and set up a lot of interesting conflicts for the finale.
At the beginning, everyone arrives at the expansive villa where it’s revealed that Kendall has cut his hair like a teen girl trying to take control of her life during a difficult time, as well as the fact that Logan has made it so Kendall won’t be able to join the rest of the family for some of the events at Logan’s request.
The subsequent scenes are filled with the typical Roy family nonsense with Roman (Kieran Culkin, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) trying to get his mom to sign a prenup to protect the children’s inheritance should things go south and Greg (Nicholas Braun, How to Be Single) getting made fun of by Tom (Matthew Macfadyen, Pride & Prejudice) and Shiv (Sarah Snook, Predestination) when he asks them if Comfry (Dasha Nekrasova, The Scary of Sixty-First) has enough substance for a genuine relationship.
Speaking of Comfry, she’s the one that reintroduces an event that really shakes up Kendall and may play a larger role in the finale.
When he’s asking for updates regarding any requested interviews, she talks about a podcast that has started doing deep dives into the Roy family and tragedies surrounding them, mentioning the death of the waiter at Shiv’s wedding which Kendall was directly responsible for.
This winds up being brought up by Logan who uses it as a way to hurt Kendall when they’re having their dinner meeting and Kendall calls him evil.
The point of the meeting was for Kendall to cash out of the company like Logan had suggested he do last episode, but they wind up having problems as Logan doesn’t want Kendall out of his life completely because he still wants to control his son to some degree—it could be argued that he could also just care about Kendall and want him around, but that’s even less possible than Connor Roy (Alan Ruck, The Exorcist) becoming the President of the United States.
Despite trying to cut a deal with his father, Kendall can’t help but try and get some feelings off his chest, which is normal when it comes to people who have been abused by their parents, though it’s very typical of younger people who don’t have the emotional intelligence needed to be able to communicate it in a non-defensive way.
Regardless, Kendall’s comments got to Logan who tried to explain that he’s not a terrible person, but rather a successful person in a terrible world, but Kendall keeps pushing, which leads Logan to prove Kendall’s point by bringing up the waiter.
It’s a low blow, for a multitude of reasons. Besides the obvious of it being horrible to use a person’s death to win an argument against a person who was involved, it’s particularly low in that, behind his own argument, Logan has a point.
It’s already been established that the guilt has been haunting Kendall this entire time, as it should, but the reason Logan brought it up was to remind Kendall that he’s not as good of a person as he thinks he is; he’s right that he’s a better person than his dad, but that doesn’t mean he’s a good person.
Logan is still an evil person even though he protected his son—it can’t even be argued he’s not the worst dad because he only helped Kendall to protect himself—but it’s the reminder of that situation that really hurts.
When Logan protected Kendall, he was able to get his son back under his thumb. Kendall owed his father for what he did, and he lost a lot of self-confidence and independence when he had to once again rely on his father for help, despite having tried to take him down prior to the death of the waiter.
Reminding Kendall of that was truly kicking him while he was down, as he had already admitted his failings to Logan before their argument began.
It must also be noted that the performance given by Cox and Strong was brilliant, the entire scene so quiet in contrast with the intense emotion behind the softly spoken words.
The scene also showed how immature Logan could be; he’s not overtly immature like his children, but he still displays a stubborn pettiness reminiscent of children despite how calculating and successful he is. From not speaking directly to Kendall to having Iverson (Quentin Morales, Happy!) test his food to make sure it’s not poisoned, it’s just interesting to see that he still stoops to the level of his children at times.
This can also be seen in Caroline when she and Shiv have their moment during the bachelorette party.
Mother and daughter have their own scene to parallel father and eldest son, though they wind up sitting together in acceptance once it’s over.
The conflict stems from their dysfunctional relationship and the divorce between Caroline and Logan. Interestingly, Caroline places all the blame on Shiv, saying that the reason she was such a bad mother was because Shiv was a bad daughter.
Shiv tries to defend herself when Caroline points to custody battle during the divorce, saying that she was only 10 and thus wasn’t fully aware of all the nuances which actually holds merit unlike her attempt to try and use this same excuse earlier in the season to absolve herself of the cruise assaults.
Caroline corrects her that she was 13, as if those three years proves that Shiv could be the malicious brat her mother projects onto her.
Ultimately, she admits that she shouldn’t have had children—the first correct and reasonable thing she’s said the entire episode—but also says that she couldn’t have had dogs because Logan is incapable of kicking something he loves to see if it comes running back, which is a perfect description of his abuse towards his children.
The two wind up smoking together, both seemingly accepting of the fact that they blame each other for their own suffering, but Caroline’s words, understandably, stick with Shiv.
So much, in fact, that she winds up ranting to Tom about her plan to take over the company and completely reinvent it, even equating herself to the dogs in Caroline’s comment about Logan.
She winds up saying a lot in this scene, but one of the most striking is, when she and Tom start to become intimate, she tells him that she doesn’t love him.
He confronts her about it the next day, as he’s unsure of whether it was the truth since they had been telling each other to say terrible things. He tries to point out that her comments weren’t typically what people say, but she brushes it aside by saying that she does love him; though she then says a few minutes later, “I may not love you, but I do love you,” which doesn’t clarify much.
They also talk about Shiv saying that she is willing to consider having children, which may have also stemmed from her conversation with her mother. It’s clear Shiv isn’t as committed or thrilled about the idea as Tom, but it has been introduced.
While all of this is going on, Roman has been busy trying to get in contact with Luke Mattson who’s “cryptic” tweets have caused concern amongst all the family, as well as trying to get Gerri’s (J. Smith-Cameron, Search Party) attention like a jealous pre-schooler, except with more dick pics.
The scene with Luke and Roman really emphasized how out of touch both of them were, with Luke saying that failure is interesting because anyone can be successful, and Roman failing to notice the obvious red flags that Luke may not be in the right mental state when it comes to making longterm deals and decisions that he would normally make.
This may come back to bite them, as Logan didn’t find much issue with the new terms Roman relayed, but there seems to be bigger fish to fry as Shiv begins to put her plan of company domination into action.
When Logan agrees to discuss Luke’s request for a merger of equals, Gerri sends Roman a polite text to congratulate him on his work; while she could have meant it in a provocative way, it’s safe enough that no one would’ve batted an eye.
Unfortunately, Roman couldn’t help himself and instead of sending a suggestive emoji and waiting until after the meeting was over—and remembering that Gerri had firmly told him to stop sending them earlier in the episode—he decided to send a dick pic and, in his haste, accidentally sent it to his father.
Logan reacts in a hilarious, yet completely reasonable way, excusing himself and having a bout with the thousand yard stare as he tries to compose himself and understand why his son not only sent him a dick pic, but sends them in general.
Of course, Shiv takes this time to once again show that she’s not above being a horrible person to get what she wants which, in this case, is manipulating the situation to where, regardless of what happens, she comes out on top, as Gerri either reports Roman or gets fired herself.
It’s interesting to that Roman actually has to remind Logan that firing a woman for receiving unsolicited sexual images is not the move, since resident liberal Shiv was the one to plant the idea that Gerri is trying to use this as leverage; Shiv does have lines, but not when it comes to manipulating victims of sexual harassment or assault to get a leg up in the company.
The episode ends with Kendall floating aimlessly in the pool, as a reminder that he’s also part of this dumpster fire, and with one final episode before an unknown hiatus, there’s no telling what will happen.
Rating: 10/10