Summary: Public image on Logan is bad so he decides to do a family therapy session at Connor's ranch and invites everyone. Shiv, and Roman arrive but Kendall ignores the email. Kendall is currently suing the company. After rumours of him returning to drugs leak online, Kendall decides to go but gets sidetracked in a bar and ends up doing drugs. The family therapy doesn't go well as Logan is unwilling to properly dig into things. The therapist ends up losing teeth in a pool accident and leaves prematurely. Shiv takes the opportunity to take Nate's opportunity and meet with Gil Beavis, becoming his strategist. Upon returning, Logan is unimpressed and fights with her. Roman goes to pick up Kendall and brings him back. Kendall gets involved as well and Shiv leaves crying after Tom is insulted. The family leave the ranch.
The Good: The premise of this episode is terrific and addresses one of my biggest problems with this show so far: the lack of clear character dynamics. With a family gathering and forced therapy session, this is a perfect opportunity for us to get a good feel of the relationships between all of the characters, especially involving Logan who I feel we hadn't gotten a good chance to understand up until now. The family therapy scene is great and highlights perfectly how monstrous Logan is, and how his children feel about that. The tension in that room is palpable, and the discussions are indicative of the family's troubles. Shiv, Roman, and Connor are all feeling defensive and almost scared in their discussion, with each character's actions informing us about how they feel about their father. Shiv is tired and frustrated by Logan, clearly after many arguments with him in the past. Connor has distanced himself in an effort to stay happy, with his solution to family trouble being avoidance. And Roman is weak and timid like he was in the last episode, terrified to even speak up. All three of them are scared of their father, and the therapy session makes it clear why that is. Logan is not even willing to accept any wrongdoing of any kind, and doesn't care at all about the mental health of his kids. It's all about how he does things, and we're quickly shown why his children are so jaded and afraid when we see how quickly Logan's temper flares up over the tiniest of problems, and how narrow-minded he is. He doesn't even attempt to work with the therapist, and when a hilarious accident happens and the therapist loses his teeth, Logan dismisses him entirely, calling him an idiot, and once again convinces himself that everyone in the world is an idiot except for him. I say once again because this episode makes it clear that Logan's behaviour is a repeated pattern, and I'm sure that this narcissistic, stubborn dismissal of others has been something that Logan's children have had to put up with for their entire lives. So many interactions fleshed out the main characters for us. Shiv had the stand-out episode here as we finally get insight into her frustrations with her father, and we get to see every other aspect of the character brought to light. Shiv's frustration with her father is palpable in every scene, and it's likely what led to her ignoring the family business to get into politics. We also get more depth on her relationship with Tom through Logan's scathing appraisal that she's only with him because he'll never betray her, and through Shiv's desire for romantic affection with Nate (who remains a fun-to-watch scumbag). Further, a car ride early in the episode continues a pattern between Shiv and Tom where one asks the other for their input, only for quick affirmation and redirection of the conversation to something else. They're both too absorbed with their own problems to acknowledge the other's problems, and I bet that this will cause friction between them. I quite enjoyed seeing more of Shiv and Roman's relationship, which seems to be the most fun within the family. Despite tensions between them, they get back to ribbing each other quickly. Their dynamic is fun and it's clear that they have a deep bond. Roman had a surprisingly tender episode as we get to see more of what's in his heart. He's happy to have received some work from his father, who appears to maybe have something of a soft spot for him, but he is somebody who puts family first. After betraying Kendall last episode due to his own cowardice, it's sweet to see Roman dropping everything to help get Kendall away from the drugs in an attempt to genuinely help his brother through a dark time. This is heavy stuff, and it effectively reveals more about these characters. Lastly, there's Connor who remains fairly fun. He has some curious dynamics with Willa (see: The Unknown), but outside of that he mostly serves as comic relief. A lot of what Connor says is funny and misses the point, so I enjoy watching him. Poor Kendall is really suffering in this episode. Having lost his job and his family after Rava and his kids believe rumours of his abuse, Kendall literally had nothing to lose. It's no wonder that he went back to drugs; everyone else believes it so he might as well get the enjoyment out of it. The methheads are fun characters, and it's sad to see Kendall find such serenity after going back to a habit he worked so hard to kick. Kendall no longer cares about anything, and I'm curious to see where he will go now that he feels so adrift. The Bad: This show doesn't do a great job of establishing situations and providing us with the necessary information to follow along. This has been a problem all season long, and I'll highlight one specific example from this episode. I spent too much of the early parts of this episode confused as to where Kendall was, what he's been doing, and what his apparent lawsuit was about. It wasn't until halfway through the episode that I actually found out that there was a lawsuit for breach of contract when I really should have learned this information much earlier. If the premise of the episode is that the family is broken, we should understand what is driving the family apart from the beginning, and this lawsuit is a significant part of what is driving them apart, so it's criminal not to tell us more information about it. Not knowing about the lawsuit has a ripple effect into other storylines too. For example, I never suspected that Logan would have planted a story about Kendall's drug use because I could not have known how it would benefit Logan until I learned about Kendall's lawsuit. This made it confusing to me why Shiv and Roman would think that Logan planted those stories because I did not know what they knew. The most interesting drama about this story is the question of if Logan planted these stories or not, and I was never even asking the question until it was too late, stripping away much of what makes this story interesting. This is just one example of how the show does not establish its storylines effectively, and there have been several cases of this throughout this first season. The stories are very good and well written, I just hope that they get translated to us better. I miss Greg. The Unknown: Why did Kendall decide to do drugs again? What pushed him over the edge? Did it have something to do with the story about Connor? What repercussions will he face for his return to drug use? Is Shiv actually betraying her family by working for Gil Eavis? Why did she decide to do this? Is it just for Nate? Did she have sex with him? Will she cheat on Tom? Connor reacted weirdly to Karolina, do they have some sort of history together? Is Willa going to use Connor for her own goals? I can't imagine this relationship lasting much longer. Who was Logan's uncle? Was he also abusive? The end of the episode revealed some scars on Logan's back, were these done by his uncle? What was Logan's upbringing like? Best Moment: The absolute mess of an argument that happened at the episode's climax was great. Shiv's disbelief at Logan, Logan's fury and hateful words, and Kendall's ambivalent comments combined to perfectly show us how dysfunctional this family really is. Character of the Episode: Shiv. Conclusion: This was a very good episode that finally pulled back the curtain on the Roy family and allowed me to connect with these characters much more than what I had been allowed in the first six episodes. I get the sense that we may have turned a corner with what this episode accomplished, and I hope that there is some good stuff in store for the rest of the season. Score: 68
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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