The more Succession leaves Waystar’s boardroom and the Roy family townhouse, the more interesting the show becomes. The pacing of the show still feels overly drawn out and meandering, but the show is done a great service when forced to make use of the space its in. This week takes the family to Connor’s sprawling New Mexico ranch for some “family therapy” and general emotional chess.
We start with Logan getting soaked by a balloon filled with urine thrown by a protestor. Logan Roy is our Succession stand-in for Rupert Murdoch so it does feel a little good to see our simulacrum for evil get taken down a notch by some bodily fluids. He meets with what remains of his close advisors at Waystar who are upset about the optics of his most recent move combined with the politically poisonous attempt to purchase the local TV stations.
While Logan and Roman are dealing with the family business in New York, Shiv is still in DC with her devilishly handsome ex-boyfriend Nate who both wants to sleep with her and work with her. His seduction is twofold, personally implicative but professionally explicit. His candidate is our Bernie Sanders stand-in, a possibly naïve but idealistic democratic socialist hell-bent on taking down the huge income inequality gap. Shiv isn’t enamored of his class warfare rhetoric although I do have to give the show credit for working jejune naturally into the dialogue.
Logan decides to address the optics issue head-on by taking the suggestion of one of his advisors and setting up a family counseling session at Connor’s ranch out in New Mexico led by a “corporate therapist” with Harvard Business School credentials. He is partially motivated by the prospect that Kendall will drop his lawsuit against the company, but after learning through the phone chain (Connor to Shiv, Shiv to Roman, Roman to Kendall) that he won’t be attending, Logan decides to go with plan b for the messaging: Operation Black Sheep.
Kendall is dealing with the ostracism from his family—his ex-wife won’t let him see his kids for fear that he relapsed due to suspiciously placed reports of him wandering the streets on drugs. We know that he is sober, but Kendall is at his lowest, and this appears to be the final straw. He decides to fly into New Mexico for some light patricide.
As Kendall ponders his future, the rest of the family arrives at Connor’s ranch, renamed “Austerlitz” after one of Napoleon’s greatest military victories. They mill about in the living room until the therapist arrives. Connor excitedly ushers non-family members out of the room while Logan introduces the therapist to the family while casually mentioning that there will be a photo shoot the next day. This raises some eyebrows, but the therapist assures everyone that they’re all there to talk.
The next day comes at the ranch and as she’s preparing to head into therapy, Shiv is tempted by Nate to go into Santa Fe to meet his candidate but decides to stay back and actually attempt to get somewhere with her family. As therapy begins, everyone is silent. After a minute the therapist begins to say something but Logan interrupts him, beginning with the laughably false “everything I’ve done in my life, I’ve done for my children.” Connor, Shiv, and Roman are taken aback by this, they each acknowledge how “nice” the comment is and that they “hear” it even though they know it to not be true. When Logan goes to repeat his prepared line Shiv calls him out on his bullshit, saying, “I can’t tell whether I’m here for this or I’m here for some photo shoot.” Logan decides this is a great time to drop that it’s actually a photo shoot and an interview, which incenses her and certainly rubs her brothers the wrong way. Connor and Roman shrink away from Shiv’s calls for them to join her in vocal dissatisfaction for the new developments and the therapist seizes the opportunity to ask Logan if he realizes that his kids fear him. As expected, this prompts Logan to scream at the therapist to shut up with some colorful language.
Kendall arrives at a bar in New Mexico and at first orders a sparkling water, making conversation with the cute bartender. She immediately pegs him as an out-of-towner there to visit his brother Connor. As she recites an old sad story about his brother bringing an old dog into the bar begging someone to take care of it, Kendall’s eyes glaze over. Hearing that the person he gave three thousand dollars to look after the dog just took it around back and shot it dead snaps Kendall out of it. He orders a double Smirnoff rocks. Oh, how the unremarkable have fallen.
Back at the ranch, the other Roy siblings are facing off against each other. Logan is combative and angry and the therapist is barely moderating the conversation. When she accuses him of planting the stories about Kendall being back on drugs he denies the reports and ultimately all of the siblings admit they don’t believe him. Logan reacts to this poorly and the therapist suggests they take a break and begin in the afternoon with a clean slate. As he suggests they all take a dip in the pool as a way to bond, Shiv takes an out and decides to meet with Nate and Gil after all while the kids point out that Logan doesn’t swim. Roman and Willa go to the pool anyway and are joined by the therapist who they encourage to jump in. He dives headfirst, smashing his face against the bottom of the shallow pool and breaking teeth, bleeding. A metaphor for trying to dive into the impenetrable depths of the Roy family psyche no doubt.
Shiv’s meeting with Gil goes about as expected—he offers her a job with a caveat, that she must be okay with the fact that he plans on attacking her father both legislatively and in the press with messaging. Clearly, this doesn’t seem to bother her (and why should it, after their earlier exchange) and she accepts the job. After she sits in the car with Nate who once again propositions her. She first rejects him and then takes his hand and sticks it down her pants so I guess she’s really in the mood for betrayal.
Kendall meanwhile is back at the lowlife from the bar’s house, about to smoke some meth (which is new for him). This dive off the deep end of sobriety is only beginning for Kendall who now wants oxy, weed, coke, whatever else he can get his hands on. In his high, he calls Roman to let him know he’s in New Mexico. Roman can immediately tell his brother is high, presumably from years of practice, and pressures him to drop a pin so he can go pick him up. When Roman arrives at the ramshackle home he has to pry the meth pipe out of Kendall’s hand, but he does and gets him in the car shuttling a high-out-of-his-mind Kendall back to the ranch.
Shiv arrives back at the ranch to Logan’s ever-watchful eye and critical venom. Just as things begin to heat up, Kendall, high as a kite, enters the ranch with a grand “what are we arguing about.” The insults are flying at hyper speed at this point: Connor is upset Logan took work to the ranch and didn’t take therapy seriously, Marcia calls Shiv and Kendall traitors, Shiv is working for a political enemy of Logan’s and Logan, well, he finally admits to planting the fake stories about Kendall that sent him off the deep end. When the kids throw their arms up in disgust to his admission, Logan insists that it’s all “part of the game.” He turns to Shiv and tells her that she’s marrying a man far beneath her (as Tom stands directly behind her) because she’s afraid of being left by someone on her level and she works in politics to try to forge her own path but she’s actually just a coward. This read sends her out of the room in tears. Kendall reacts to this by laughing at Logan and accusing him of being jealous of his kids, of what he’s given to them, of what they have. Logan is at first unbothered, but as Kendall continues to prod him, he storms up to him as if he’s about to hit his son (not out of the realm of possibility, by the way, remember Thanksgiving?) but instead he gets in Kendall’s face and says “you’re a fuckin nobody.” Kind words from a loving father.
We prepare to leave the Roys after another week of arguing about the same thing with slightly different words. Kendall climbs a rock formation in the desert and stands alone atop a giant, snorting a line of white powder as he takes in the view. Logan swims through the pool at Marcia’s encouragement. As he gets out of the pool we see scars from lashes on his back (presumably from an evil uncle he mentions in the fight earlier). Shiv sits silently in her room as Tom holds her hand. Next week the family is back in New York. I’m interested to see where Shiv and Kendall go next, although once again the dynamics feel essentially the same to where they were the whole time.
