Summary: Logan goes to visit the President, but believes he's been snubbed when the President says he has a terrorism problem to deal with. Kendall and Roman continue to secure support for the vote of no confidence. Roman meets with Lawrence that night and wins over his support. Kendall is invited to meet Logan and fears that he knows, but it's only a social visit. Tom decides to treat Greg at a good restaurant. Greg has dinner with Ewan beforehand and learns that Ewan intends to go to the meeting. He tells Tom, who informs Kendall. Shiv meets with Nate and is convinced to leave her client to join in on supporting Gil, Nate's client. There is sexual tension between them but nothing happens. The next day, Kendall flies out to Long Island to win over Ilona's support for the meeting, but is unable to return due to the terrorist attack and has to drive back. The meeting starts and the vote of no confidence begins. Without Kendall's presence, Logan stays in the room and intimidates several people to stay quiet, including Roman. The vote of no confidence falls through and Logan fires Kendall, Frank, Asha, and Ilona who all voted for it.
The Good: Watching the night before the vote was more engaging than I expected. This vote has been built up as a big deal, so knowing that we were on the verge of seeing it made me invested in seeing how it all happens. It's engaging to see Kendall and Frank outline all of the votes so we can actually follow what's going on. It's important that we understand the importance of each vote, and exactly who is being counted on during the meeting. Watching the arrangements the night before makes it all clear to us, setting up the board meeting in an exciting way. Furthermore, we do get some lovely character moments, which I wish we could see more of in this show (see: The Bad). Roman showed a new side of him when he met with Lawrence by making a surprisingly effective pitch, showing an understanding of his own strengths and weaknesses and buttering up Lawrence at the same time. Roman has come off as an idiot for much of this season, so it's nice to finally see what some of his better qualities are. Unlike Kendall, Roman has significant people skills and an understanding of what others bring to the table. Kendall gets an unexpected call from his father to visit, and I was surprised to see that it was just for a social visit. This brief interaction between Logan and Kendall was quite good, and it fittingly planted some guilt in Kendall who was reminded of the relationship with his father that he will likely lose after the vote of no confidence. Also on this night, we get some solid enough side stories with Tom, Greg, and Shiv. Tom treating Greg to a high quality restaurant is fun (especially as Tom disses CPK), and informs us of Tom's character, showing what he thinks of being rich. He lives in his own little bubble and doesn't see the bigger picture. But he does seem to genuinely care about Greg. That he takes Greg with him to celebrate is touching in a way and informs us that Tom does feel some sort of connection with him, even if he does immediately throw Greg under the bus at every turn. Greg continues to be interesting, and I suspect he's more cunning than he lets on. He notably only told Tom about the information he got from Ewan after it would serve to benefit him. Shiv continues to feel a bit too distant from the main story, but we learn more about her in this episode, specifically with her relationship with Nate. It looks like Shiv will have to contend with the idea that Tom may be too docile for her, and there may be a temptation for her to cheat on him. It's nice to see Shiv finally heading somewhere after being stagnant for most of the season. Everything builds up to the board meeting, and the pay-off is tremendous. The sequence is structured perfectly as everything falls apart for Kendall. All of the best laid plans go awry because of Kendall's poor decision-making, and the result is Kendall fumbling his best shot to take over the company. I appreciate how much of what happened is Kendall's fault from his poor decision-making to visit Ilona in person, to the subtle detail of him dismissing a terrorist threat earlier in the episode only for it to screw over his plans later in the episode. I also like that the show establishes the significance of Kendall's tardiness as a point is made how Logan never arrives late to a board meeting. Yet now Kendall wants to take over and is tardy when it comes to showing up to the meeting where he wants to take over? That's an awful look, and the episode makes it clear why this is a big deal. Kendall's absence also results in a clear lack of leadership, allowing Logan to remain in the room, and creating uncertainty that loses the votes of Stewy and Lawrence, and it results in Roman cowering under the pressure of his father (a fantastic moment that offers us a glimpse at how small Roman feels underneath his joking demeanor). This group of people needed a leader, they didn't get one, and the result is the single possible outcome where Kendall loses. We've watched Kendall's incompetence for 6 episodes now, and this conclusion for him is absolutely fitting from what we have seen. The sequence captured suspense nicely as well. Kendall's plans were well made so it was tough to figure out if the vote would work or not, and Kendall's lateness mixed with Logan's hate-filled remarks added a lot of suspense. The Bad: I'm still not fully into the show and its characters. Seeing how this episode went, I think the biggest issue so far has been a lack of character interactions that inform us about the relationships between characters. This show is all about the Roy family, yet we've seen precious little about how all of the Roys interact with one another and what they think of each other. Logan has only extensively interacted with Kendall, and we've hardly seen him with the other kids. Meanwhile the kids don't even interact with each other all that much, and I'm uncertain about how close they are and how I should feel about them. For example, Kendall gets fired and we see several characters hearing the news. Yet I'm uncertain about how they feel about this because I don't know how they feel about Kendall, making these scenes fall flat. After six episodes all of the important character relationships should have been established for us, yet they have not been and the show suffers because of that. This episode had some nice character moments like Roman balking to Logan, but these moments are too few in number to make us care about the characters and their conflicts. I need to see more family dynamics for big events like this vote of no confidence to mean more to me. The superfluous nature of the side stories rears its ugly head once again. This episode could have been great had it been entirely focused on the vote of no confidence. I was thoroughly engaged in this story and I found it to be compelling for a standalone episode. What's the issue? The issue comes whenever the story veered off to check on other characters. Tom and Greg have been a really fun aspect of the show, but I struggled to care about their misadventures when such a big event was looming on the horizon. The same goes for Shiv, whose inner conflict and plot-related conflict were not engaging for me considering what else was happening in the episode. Any time the episode cut away from the A-story, I found myself itching to get back and caring very little about what was happening on-screen. The Unknown: What happens next after the firing? I'm sure that losing half of the board will be an enormous loss for the company, and it's bound to make an impact. Who will replace the existing members? What's next for Kendall? He's practically a nobody now. What's his next move? Where does he go next? Will he try to find a place back at Wayster Royco? I'm sure that Logan won't have any big plans for Roman after what happened. Will he be demoted now? How is Logan going to handle him? Why are Tom and Shiv together exactly? How did they meet? What did they see in each other? The show has been very vague in telling us why they are together. Will Shiv cheat on Tom in the future? Will we see Shiv getting involved in the company after what happened? She was very upset to have been kept out of the loop. Best Moment: The entire vote sequence is fantastic. From Logan slowly realizing what's going on and refusing to budge, to everyone's awkwardness due to Kendall not being there, and to Logan dressing down everybody who goes against him, this sequence captivated at every turn and created a memorable setpiece that was thrilling to watch unfold. Character of the Episode: Logan. Conclusion: Certainly the best episode so far, and a very unpredictable and intense experience. The show still has to iron out some issues before it can ascend to a higher quality, but this is a step in the right direction. Score: 67
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
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