Well, it’s the end of the third season of Succession and things are getting spicy and fierce! In an earlier episode, Roman and his siblings found out that their mom, who is Logan’s ex-wife, is getting remarried to a man named Peter Munion, who they don’t approve of because he seems boring. Episodes 8 and 9 take place in Italy, where Caroline (Logan’s ex-wife) and Peter are having the wedding. In episode 7, Greg hit it off with Comfrey, Kendall’s assistant, and got the courage to ask her out. It seems like they are enjoying the relationship in the next episode, but Greg is starting to wonder if Comfrey is actually interested in him, and he starts making eyes at an Italian contessa and tries to ask her out, but finds Roman has started flirting with her instead, so he loses his confidence. He asks Tom for advice, and Tom tells him to go after the contessa and not let Roman go after her. During Caroline’s wedding, Willa (Connor’s fiancée) starts crying because she is getting emotional about the wedding, and Greg looks back and comments to the contessa about Willa’s crying. The contessa says she loves weddings. However, he turns to Comfrey and she rolls her eyes and comments how Willa needs to get over herself, and Greg goes along with her and says Willa needs to get over it to. I am gradually seeing a transformation of Greg’s character towards this season finale and moving into season 4. I knew he had insecurities before, but I think because Tom and other people doled out enough bullying to last him a lifetime, Greg’s sense of self has taken a hit and I’m starting to see his insecurities more clearly. He started off as a sensitive guy, and he seemed nice, but I think because he has gotten enmeshed into the world of Waystar and wealth, he is starting to become hungrier for approval and validation from the people around him and is becoming less of a nice guy. It reminded me of The Wolf of Wall Street, when Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Jordan Belfort, is first starting off at Wall Street and he meets with Matthew McConaughey’s character, Mark Hanna, who is a brash, profane and macho Wall-Street guy who goads the young Jordan to have a drink with him. Jordan uses his manners and politely declines, but Mark convinces him he needs to toughen up and become this animalistic competitive person to survive in Wall Street and that he has to discard his kind sensitive nature. Jordan becomes a completely different person, and he becomes this person who cheats on his wives and sleeps with many women, swindles people out of their money and spends money lavishly. I haven’t seen season 4 to know how Gregory Hirsch turns out in the end, but so far, it looks like things are going to go south because Tom’s relationship with Greg has had so much negative influence on him.
In episode 7, Roman meets with Lukas Matsson, who runs a tech streaming media giant called GoJo, and wants Waystar to acquire GoJo. Lukas hates Roman’s father, Logan, but he agrees after Roman cajoles him enough times. However, in episode 8, things go south when Roman finds on his phone a meme that Lukas posted of him going on a trip to Macau and vomiting money emojis. It pops up on other people’s phones and when Logan finds out about it, he thinks Lukas isn’t going to be serious about the deal and is just goofing off. Meanwhile, Kendall wants to meet with his dad to make up for a really sour relationship between the two. They meet for dinner and Logan calls Iverson (Kendall’s son) over and gives him a piece of his mozzarella, even though Iverson says he doesn’t like mozzarella. In the fifth episode of season 1, “I Went to Market,” a much younger Iverson is playing the game I Went to Market, and he tries to grab the cranberry sauce can from Logan because he won the game, but Logan pulls it away from him and hits Iverson with the can, hitting him in the eye. Logan doesn’t do anything to help Iverson; he just dismisses it and gets angry when Kendall yells at him for hurting his son. Kendall and Logan get back to talking, and Logan tells Kendall that he had to clean up so many of Kendall’s messes because Kendall didn’t take responsibility for himself. He gets up and leaves, making Kendall feel even worse than before. Kendall is lying on a floaty with a beer bottle in his hand, while his kids, Iverson and Sophie, are sitting on the lounge chairs. With nothing to do, they get up and leave the pool. Kendall falls asleep and his face gets more and more submerged into the pool, to the point where he almost drowns. It was a really disturbing scene.
In episode 8, Roman and Lukas talk more about the deal, and Roman asks how he feels about Waystar acquiring GoJo, and Lukas says that he wants a merging of equals so that they can both share the power. Roman is uncertain about this because he wants Lukas to just go with the plan, but Lukas wants to know what is in it for him as well, so he makes this deal about the merger. Logan meets with Gerri, Roman and the rest of his team and asks them whether they should make the deal with Lukas because Logan thinks he isn’t serious about the deal after Lukas posted that meme of him vomiting money emojis. Roman says they should still go through with it, and Logan considers it. Throughout the show, Roman has continuously said sexually explicit things to Gerri, who is on the public relations team at Waystar, and even when she asserted boundaries and told him she was dating and that he needed to respect that, he didn’t respect her wishes and continues to act inappropriately around her. Roman finds himself in hot water, however, after he sneaks his phone under the table, takes a picture of his erect penis, and texts it to Gerri after she congratulates him on the deal with Mattson. Or so I thought he was texting it to Gerri… Roman expects Gerri’s phone to buzz with the notification, Gerri is not looking at her phone. Instead, Logan’s phone buzzes and he ends up receiving the dreaded dick pic. He is, of course, very offended, but he doesn’t call Roman out. Instead, he has Roman come into his office after meeting with Shiv, and he asks Logan why he sends dick pics and if he has a problem. In a matter of seconds, Roman goes from being this overconfident young man with sexual bravado into a scared child, and he tries to reason with his father, but his dad continues to belittle his son and dismisses him. Roman’s transformation at that moment reminded me of how Tom acts when he is around Greg versus when he is around Logan. Tom acts machismo and cocky towards Greg, but when he is around Logan, he is quiet and servile and gets easily scared when Logan intimidates him (then again, who wouldn’t? That scene where Logan makes him, Greg and Karl play “Boar on the Floor” was sadistic enough.)
In episode 9, “All the Bells Say,” we get a lot deeper into Kendall’s story and where so much of his pain and suffering is coming from. The episode begins with the Roy siblings, Greg, and Willa playing Monopoly outside on a nice sunny day, and they are enjoying the game, but then Kendall comes along, and everyone gets really awkward and quiet around him, and they start to ask if he is okay after his drowning. He dismisses it and says he is fine. Logan calls Roman over to talk with him and Lukas about the deal with Waystar acquiring GoJo. Lukas proposes that he and his company GoJo take over Waystar because GoJo is having more monetary success and engagement than Waystar is, and because Lukas doesn’t think Logan is fit to run the company anymore. However, he tells Logan it is ultimately his choice whether he wants to accept Lukas’s offer or not. Logan tells Roman to get back to the wedding while he and Lukas talk more about the negotiations, and Roman reluctantly leaves. Honestly, after watching these past couple of episodes, I really want to go to Italy. They show so many beautiful shots of the countryside, the architecture, and the food that they eat looks delicious.
Roman goes over to Shiv and Connor, where they are sitting at a table eating pastries. He tells them about the conversation that he, Logan and Matsson had, and then Kendall comes over and they awkwardly bring up the topic of Kendall’s mental health because he tried to kill himself. Kendall tells them they are being ridiculous and that he just fell off the floaty and that it was no big deal. His siblings still think he needs help, though. Connor then gets angry because Kendall is making the conversation about him when he betrayed Logan, and he tells Kendall to stop trying to kill his dad. He then gets upset that no one told him about the merger deal with Matsson, and that everyone leaves him in the dark about these issues. He is also upset because no one congratulated him on getting engaged to Willa, and he leaves angry and resentful towards his siblings. Willa is still uncertain about her marriage to Connor, and honestly, I don’t know if she is happy with this man or not.
I think the most emotional scene of episode 9 was when Kendall breaks down into tears because he is remembering the time that he killed the caterer during Shiv’s wedding in England. In the season finale of season 1, Shiv and Tom get married in England, and during a social gathering, Logan is talking with a group of people and a waiter comes by with champagne. Logan declines, but the waiter doesn’t hear him and overfills Logan’s glass. Logan screams at the waiter and fires him. Kendall finds the waiter outside, and he asks him if he knows where to find hard drugs, and the waiter offers ketamine to Kendall and they both partake in it. They end up driving under the influence, and they swerve to hit a deer and their car goes flying into the river. The waiter drowns and dies, and Kendall isn’t able to save him, and he feels guilty about it for several months. When he finally tells Roman and Shiv that is what has been on his mind for so long, Roman tries to downplay it, like “So what? It’s no big deal” and tells Kendall to get over it. Shiv, however, understands that telling Kendall to get over killing someone isn’t helpful, and instead tells him it’s going to be okay. Kendall breaks down and cries because he feels terrible for what happened to the waiter, and Roman and Shiv end up helping him back on his feet after giving him time to process what he is going through. The three of them take a van to the castle where their dad is having all these business negotiations, and they plan to confront their dad about how he shouldn’t let Matsson take over the company. Roman at first isn’t sure about going along with their plan because he is scared of his dad, but he goes along with it. Shiv calls Tom and tells him about their plan, and Tom asks how it is going to affect him. He gets off the phone, and Greg is getting so excited about the prospect of him marrying the contessa, but Tom tells him to buckle down and focus because things might go haywire for Waystar and they might be going down together. Shiv, Roman, and Kendall meet with Logan, and Logan tells them he will talk to Shiv and Roman only if Kendall leaves the room. Roman tells him it would be better if they all talked about it, and Logan tells them that he agreed to let GoJo take over Waystar. This really pains the kids, and they try to argue with him why this is bad (especially because they could lose their inheritances) and Logan tells them they can make their own pile of money and that they are on their own. It turns out that Caroline, Logan’s ex-wife, negotiated with Logan to not give the kids control over what happens at the company, even though they thought that the divorce agreement would let them change the rules around so that they could have a say in what happens to the company. The kids feel like their mom betrayed them, and after Logan leaves the room angrily, Shiv breaks down and cries and Tom comes over and hugs her. This was a really intense moment.
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