Summary: The Roys head to Scotland to celebrate Waystar's 50th anniversary. Gerri learns that James Weissel is threatening to be a whistleblower on the entire cruises situation. Shiv doesn't trust Rhea and tries to get Roman and Kendall to join her in fighting Rhea. After pettily exposing her in front of Logan, Rhea speaks with Roman and Kendall and manages to get them to not fight her. Rhea organizes a surprise party for Logan. At the party, Logan shows doubt to Shiv about picking Rhea as the next CEO and asks for her advice. Shiv learns that the whistleblower is being backed by someone and that the next CEO will be screwed over by the cruises situation coming to light, and she encourages Logan to announce Rhea, which he does. Kendall hooks up with Jennifer but immediately dumps her after Logan doesn't like her. Ewan threatens to cut Greg out of his will unless he leaves Waystar, but Logan convinces Greg to stay.
The Good: The Rhea storyline is a lot of fun. Shiv was personally defeated by her, so she has an extreme motivation to take her out as a form of petty revenge. Unfortunately for her, her brothers don't share that same motivation. Sure, Kendall is happy to get Rhea to name-drop Rose and embarrass herself, but he has no huge grudge against her, and the same goes for Roman. As such, they are both susceptible to being swayed by the simplest, most obvious flattery, and it's amusing to see Rhea's desperate attempts to reach them actually work. In that great scene between the siblings (fantastic dialogue and so many good laughs), I was thoroughly amused that Kendall and Roman were both unwilling to help Shiv, and Shiv's frustration was totally understandable. The story came to a compelling end as Shiv reconnects with her father and has to choose between her selfish motives and genuinely helping him out. But then an answer comes right to her where she can do both: she can support Logan emotionally and also screw over Rhea in one fell swoop. The stars aligned for Shiv, and she most certainly will feel like a genius for what was ultimately just dumb luck. It remains to be seen what happens to Rhea next (see: The Unknown), but I'm invested to see how this Rhea/Shiv/Logan situation resolves itself. This episode did a good job of exploring Logan's background. We never get more than mere glimpses of the past in this show, but I find that to be very effective. In a way it connects us more with Logan who never spends time reminiscing about the past anyways because "there is too much of it". So seeing these little specks of history revealed to us endears us to his mindset while also revealing information in a very engaging way, relying on us to connect dots with what little information we are given. I also quite liked Ewan's presence in this episode. It was sad to see the two brothers reflect on their childhood in a brief scene only to go right back to each other's throats immediately after. Poor Greg gets caught in the middle with Ewan abusing his wealth to get Greg to leave Waystar, while Logan emotionally manipulates Greg into staying specifically to get back to Ewan. You can't tell me that Logan actually cares about Greg, he most certainly only said what he did just to spite Ewan. The complexity of the relationship between Logan and Ewan continues to be enjoyable, and I am curious to see what more will be done with these characters. This episode has some excellent comedy throughout, and is one of the funnier episodes of the season. Kendall's rap steals the show (see: Best Moment), but his interactions with Jennifer are a blast, and it's especially funny when he tries to shoo away Connor who begs to get Jennifer back to work. Shiv recruiting Tom to flirt with Rhea further reminds us how horrible their relationship is, but it also gives us an excuse to see Tom flirt, which is every bit as funny as you would expect. Greg delights as always with his "Gregisms", the highlight of the episode being him "negotiating a Grexit" with Logan. I also got a laugh out of how fitting it is that Logan ignores all of the well-wishes from his children and instead focuses on discussing things with others while his kids talk about how much they love him. Roman buying a football team for his dad but buying the wrong team was fantastically funny, and a signature Roman moment. There are some nice character moments that I enjoyed. Marcia subtly threatening Rhea by asking her if she's been tested for STDs is quite funny. I also really like that Marcia allowed Rhea to go through with her surprise party, knowing full well that Logan hates them (from back in "Celebration"). Kendall breaking up with Jennifer immediately because Logan disapproved of her is quite heart-breaking. He was absolutely giddy about her, but the moment Logan didn't like her, all of that affection just vanished. Add on Jennifer commenting on how much Kendall talks about Logan and this becomes a sad exploration of how Logan controls just about every aspect of Kendall's life. Poor Connor is always given the short end of the stick. It's quite sad to see how much he tries to get some sort of support and connection with his father, only to be ignored and dismissed at every turn. The Bad: Kendall hooking up with Jennifer was an odd storyline. He was just seen with Naomi in the previous episode, yet now he's hooking up with someone else without even a mention of Naomi? If Kendall was always open to having multiple relationships, I would have accepted this. But he's never been shown to have this quality, especially with how fixated he was on Rava back in season 1. So I'm left confused as to why he started this relationship to begin with, and just what is going on with Naomi. It would be even more perplexing if this is Jennifer's only appearance and if the Naomi storyline just continues like nothing else happened, which I suspect may be the case. I still feel like Marcia's story has been underdeveloped. I wish that we had spent more time getting to know her in the first season because this divide between her and Logan comes right out of nowhere. It's a shame because Hiam Abbass does a magnificent job in the role, but Marcia has never felt important outside of the first few episodes of the show that suggest she is manipulating Logan. I hope the show has more for her to do outside of getting frustrated with Logan in every episode. The Unknown: Who is backing Weissel? How is his reveal going to affect Waystar and the Roys? Will they be able to handle and survive the leak of such devastating information? Will Jennifer return later? Did Kendall really just break up with her because Logan didn't approve of her? What happened with Kendall's relationship with Naomi? Why did he hook up with Jennifer if he was already pursuing Naomi, as we saw in "Return"? Will anyone back Rhea in her new job? Will she be able to survive cruises, or is this going to destroy her? Is Marcia's relationship with Logan in danger? Can Logan repair the damage he has done? Can Ewan do anything else to get back at Greg if he continues to work at Waystar? What happened with Rose? Why does Logan blame himself for her death? Roman suggested that Logan's first wife (Connor's mother) was in a psychiatric hospital. What happened with her? Is there a history between her and Logan that we haven't learned about yet? Best Moment: The "L to the OG" song was absolutely hilarious, and I loved every second of it. Jeremy Strong goes all out for this performance, and the scene is made better by the reactions of all the characters. Logan looks embarrassed, Shiv is laughing intensely, Roman seems jealous, and Greg is just genuinely enjoying himself. The richness of the characters is what makes this work so well and makes it incredibly funny. Character of the Episode: Kendall. Conclusion: This was more good stuff. "Dundee" moved forward in the Rhea storyline and had some nice moments that highlighted Logan's past. It's not the most exciting or intense episode and it does have a few writing flaws, but it's entertaining and does a good job of setting up the season's endgame. Score: 66
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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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