Summary: James Weissel reveals all about the cruises situation, and Logan, Kendall, Tom, and Gerri have been called to DC for a hearing. They decide to use Bill as a scapegoat and to feign ignorance of the issue. It starts with Gil questioning Tom, and Tom answers horribly. He returns and panics about being set up as a patsy. Logan and Kendall go up next. Logan deflects to Kendall who delivers an excellent response to minimize damage. Shiv learns that Gil has another witness who is willing to talk. Shiv goes to speak with her and manages to convince her not to testify. Rhea decides to leave the company after being blindsided by this scandal. Logan realizes that they need to make a blood sacrifice. Roman goes to Turkey to secure a deal with Eduard. He pitches well, but suddenly finds himself in a hostage situation.
The Good: The cruises situation has completely gone off the rails in this episode, and the enormity of that threat makes the episode immediately engaging and intense on a level above previous episodes. There is genuine weight to the hearing because if it goes badly, then Waystar Royco could go down in flames. The episode understands this significance, and capitalizes on it from the first scene. Seeing everyone huddled in front of the TV watching the James Weissel interview is both gripping and hilarious. The interview lets us know the scale of the situation, but it also allows for a lot of terrific comedy as the Roys all comment on the interview in an attempt to downplay everything. The hearings make up the majority of the episode, and they are terrific. Up first was Tom and Gerri (I'm disappointed in the lack of Tom and Jerry jokes), and since it's Tom up there, you know how this is going to go. The show does not disappoint with how hysterically disastrous this went. Tom manages to flub each and every question in spectacular fashion, making me laugh more and more at his stupidity. Tom does a spectacularly bad job trying to explain away Mo-Lester's nickname ("I guess he just seemed like he could be one"), he promptly gets nervous and denies knowing who Greg is to a baffled response backstage, and the biggest laugh for me is the exposure of the "you can't make a tomlette without breaking some greggs" email chain that he apparently sent up to 67 times every evening. This entire sequence is a masterpiece in comedy, and I love that "Succession" has the courage to make such a disastrous moment in the story be so unapologetically hilarious. I really have to applaud Matthew Macfayden's acting here because he sells the comedic value of this scene extraordinarily, but then is able to switch gears immediately after and make us feel bad for Tom when he returns backstage. Tom is shaken by the whole thing, and rightfully furious that he was given zero preparation and essentially just told to wing it. Greg's frustration is also understandable, and I found the drama in this short scene after Tom's hearing to be extremely affecting. Kendall and Logan walked out to their hearing with much more pressure on them now that Tom has already failed. This made it all the more satisfying when Kendall stepped up and turned things around on Gil. With Logan being nervous and deflecting, everything relies on Kendall, who hasn't exactly been the best in situations like these in the past. So when Kendall speaks up, I expected him to mess up and say something horribly wrong, but instead he commands the hearing and handles himself superbly. I was vastly impressed, and found myself cheering that Kendall helped pull the company out of a disaster. Connor's dumb little fistbump in the background was the cherry on top. In fact, this wasn't only a good episode for Kendall. All of the Roy siblings stepped up to save their family business in this episode. While everyone else was at DC, Roman went to Turkey to secure a deal with Eduard and did an excellent job. He's still a total dork sometimes (that soccer speech was pure gold), but he's likeable and he performed a good pitch (though I'm disappointed that we didn't see it all on-screen). Getting caught in a hostage situation was not what I expected, but Roman handled himself well. Meanwhile Karl surprisingly provided the best laughs with his panic attack ("you look the same"), and that glorious pan to Karl with his hand raised when Roman asks whether he should raise his hand or not. Shiv manipulating Kira was a dark and fantastically acted scene. Shiv pulled out the most ruthless part of her as she connected with Kira, told her the "truth" and lied to her face about what she thinks about the cruise situation to convince her to not ruin her life by going public with this. This is really dark stuff, and further cements how cold, callous, and self-absorbed the Roys are at heart. Shiv stepped up to remove Kira from the witness list, and I enjoyed this very much. The Bad: I'm disappointed with how the show handled Marcia and Rhea. It looked like Marcia's conflict with Logan was heating up to go somewhere interesting, but now she's just gone. If that's all that the show had in mind for her, I'm extremely disappointed. Marcia had so much more that she could offer the story, and the show spent lots of time building up that she had her own agenda. Now, it's all had no pay-off. It looks like Rhea has had a similarly underwhelming ending. The last two episodes have built up Rhea as a threat in such an enticing way. But now the character has been written out of the story in such an anticlimactic way, with Rhea's conclusion feeling like a footnote in a busy episode. I feel like Rhea's story was expanded beyond Pierce due to Jesse Armstrong wanting to get the most out of Holly Hunter, but the conclusion had to be rushed to make way for the cruises scandal to take central focus in these final episodes. I'm not too pleased with Gil and Nate telling Shiv that they have another witness. I get that they wanted to gloat, but it felt a little bit too easy for Shiv to get this information from them. The Unknown: Who is going to take the fall for cruises? Tom? Kendall? Greg? Someone else? Is Marcia gone already? Will she come back, or is she gone for good? What exactly happened in Turkey? Why did Roman get called in by the government? Is he going to have to pitch to them, or do they have something else in mind for him? Will Shiv actually fight from the inside with Kira? I highly doubt it. Will she need to find a way to keep her in line? Best Moment: Tom's disastrous panel was maybe the hardest I've laughed all season. Character of the Episode: Tom. Conclusion: "DC" raised up the stakes significantly in season 2, and the result was a thrilling and hilarious episode that continued to mark "Succession" season 2 as essential television. Some aspects like Rhea and Marcia's underwhelming exit were disappointing, but the fantastic scenes like Tom's hearing, Shiv manipulating Kira, and Kendall turning things around on Gil made this episode easily overcome its weaknesses. Bring on the season finale. Score: 73
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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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