I just finished up episode 3 of the third season of the HBO show Succession. Honestly, this show is giving me goosebumps. The acting is really good, and things are really starting to heat up.
Honestly, one part of the show I like is that Shiv Roy is always so well dressed. She just always has the coolest outfits. When she goes to a conference in the evening, she is dressed in a beautiful long dark blue dress and her hair is styled in this beautiful way. She just looks so elegant. Kendall is having a ball releasing all this corrupt stuff about his dad. In one scene, he is in a limousine with Naomi Pierce, Greg and some other people and they are reading tweets that people have written about what Kendall did, and they play a game of “good tweet/ bad tweet” where they judge whether the tweet was good or bad. Logan, however, doesn’t want to deal with Kendall himself. He wants everyone on his team to make sure that he doesn’t come back to Waystar Royco headquarters because of all the stuff he said about Logan and the allegations he leaked about the company’s history of sexual abuse and corrupt practices. It’s interesting how Tom used to come off as this confident person just because he was the head of the news network at Waystar Royco, but the more time he spends around Logan, the more intimidated and scared he becomes. He is in a lot of hot water, and so he gets more and more stressed in his interactions with Greg. Earlier he had a lot of fun poking at Greg and bullying him, but now he sees that Logan is intimidating and he becomes fearful. Tom approaches Greg in his office, and puts two Tic-Tacs on his desk and says in a deadpan way that since they are in deep water, they have to take these cyanide pills. Greg takes him seriously, but Tom tells him he is kidding and that they are just Tic-Tacs. Tom still treats Greg like his subordinate though even though Logan intimidates him. Tom gives Greg another office, but it is a super cluttered storage room with no space to really work. Greg is reasonably upset and thinks it’s punishment, but Tom lets him know he is under a lot of pressure right now because everyone is freaking out about Kendall leaking the cruise allegations and they are trying to figure out how to stop him. Tom tells Greg to come for drinks so they can sort this out. Earlier they had to testify in Washington, D.C. about the Cruises allegations, and this really was not a great experience for Tom or Greg. Tom told Greg in season 1 to shred the Cruises documents, which detailed all of the allegations against Waystar Royco of abuse and other corrupt practices, and Greg did so. I was so stressed for him because I knew there would be consequences if he shredded those papers. I know Greg said he saved copies of those documents, but he still shredded a lot of them and still had to testify in Congress. It really shows how Tom and Greg have a very toxic relationship with one another.
There is a brief moment where Nate, who was Shiv’s ex-boyfriend, approaches her and they exchange some salty insults towards one another. In an older episode, Shiv quit Gil’s campaign even though at the beginning she was on board with Nate and Gil for taking down her dad, and this soured her relationship with Nate. Nate and Shiv had to stop seeing each other anyway because Tom was upset that Shiv still had feelings for Nate even though she and Tom were engaged, and so Tom approaches Nate and tells him to back off of his wife. Kendall approaches Shiv and Shiv tells him that he made a huge mistake releasing those Cruise allegations, and that Logan is really worried that Kendall will mess up the shareholder vote by releasing more about the allegations in his interviews. Earlier, Kendall asked his siblings if they would support his decision to take down his dad and release all this corrupt stuff he did, but they were worried about getting their inheritance cut off so they backed out of supporting Kendall. Kendall thinks they are cowards and goes off and plans to take down Logan and Waystar by himself, with his own team to back him up. Shiv thinks that Kendall is doing all this out of ego, but Kendall thinks she is just being full of it because she is now the president of domestic operations at Waystar Royco.
Meanwhile Roman is in an interview with someone, and they are asking personal questions about his childhood. Roman, however, is not comfortable with the interview and leaves the interviewer. Shiv meets with Logan in private, and he tells her that he needs to trust her because he cannot trust Gerri. He admits that he didn’t know about what happened in the Cruises division, and that he doesn’t read his emails. He also thinks that he is above the law. Kendall, Greg, Naomi and others are at a party and Greg tries to get Kendall to buy his watch, but Kendall refuses. On the big screen TV at the party, everyone watches this comedic commentator named Sophie Iwobi (I just found out that Ziwe plays Sophie), who is sort of like a Samantha Bee-type commentator. She roasts Kendall’s privilege and his whiteness, and everyone laughs because they know it is satire.
Shiv comes home and finds Tom petting their dog and drinking. He is worried that he might go to jail because things are really going downhill after the Cruises allegations, and Tom says he should speak to Logan about it and propose himself as the beating post. This scene really showed me how scared Tom is of losing his reputation and how scared he is of Logan Roy’s power. I thought the scene where he has to play that humiliating Boar on the Floor game was bad, but that was just the beginning. Tom finally sees Logan for the corrupt and manipulative person he is. Kendall wakes up and checks his phone for more commentary from people about him, and he is starting to soak up all the attention that people are paying to him. He probably feels good considering his dad kicked him off the team on that episode where they are on a yacht. Kendall sees Michelle-Anne Vanderhoven, the senior White House aide, on ATN news talking about the allegations against Waystar, and he calls Jess and Greg to tell them to prepare his office at the Waystar Royco building because he is going back to the office. Logan confronts Michelle about what is going on, and tells her that this whole thing has become a witch-hunt and that prosecutors are after him. Logan doesn’t want anything to do with this, but he can’t just get away from this without consequences. Shiv and Roman read some of the responses and questions fielded from employees at Waystar, and many of them have to do with the toxic environment at the company. They suddenly receive word that Kendall has arrived at Waystar and is going to enter the building, and Logan yells at everyone to keep him out of the building and prevent him from going in. Karolina and Hugo, who are PR assistants to Logan, go down to the entrance and try to block Kendall from entering. Kendall finds that his keycard is no longer working, but he determines to go through the entrance anyway. Kendall makes his way upstairs and Tom approaches him. Tom is extremely nervous that Kendall is here, and they have an awkward conversation, but I could tell Tom was really nervous because he knows Logan won’t be happy knowing Kendall got into the building. Kendall whispers to Tom that he has an opportunity to join Kendall in destroying his dad’s reputation, but Tom is too nervous to side with Kendall because then he will lose his reputation and social standing. Kendall then goes into his office and finds that he is locked out of his computer, and he starts to wonder what is going on. Then he feels the room is cold and finds that someone has hacked his A/C. A security guard appears in the room and intimidates Kendall, telling him “I know you.” Shiv then gets up in front of several people to address how Waystar is responding to the sexual abuse allegations that Kendall (she refers to him as a “senior executive” rather than his real name), but before she can finish her speech, someone blasts the song “Rape Me” by Nirvana, drowning out her speech (I wasn’t sure who did it, but I realized it was Kendall who ordered someone to blast the song.) Everyone is just really confused. Shiv decides to draft a letter attacking Kendall and wants Connor and Roman to join her in getting the letter published, but they don’t think it is a good idea because it has a lot of private stuff about his life that he wouldn’t want anyone to know about. Shiv gets angry and publishes the letter herself. Kendall goes on Sophie’s show and he is really excited to meet the writing team, and he tells them to come at him with all the insults and jokes about him because he thinks he can handle it. However, he finds out that the letter Shiv wrote about him and his personal life has gone online (I didn’t know what it was at first. I thought that they were going to release the dick pic that he took for Naomi Pierce, but then I saw he was reading a lot of text on his phone, so I realized it was probably something else that he didn’t want to be released.) He tells the producer that he doesn’t want them to bring up that letter when he appears on the show and says he may have to sit the interview out, but the producer tells him they go on in fifteen minutes so they can’t change anything. He feels embarrassed and pained, and he walks down the hall as ominous piano music plays, and he goes into the back room and curls up alone and refuses to go on the show during Sophie’s segment about him. Gerri informs Logan that the Department of Justice is coming to Waystar to issue a search warrant in light of the allegations, and Logan agrees to cooperate. Tom is having a nice dinner with everyone, but Hugo interrupts to tell him about the search warrant, so Tom has to inform everyone it is happening.
I am anticipating what is going to happen in the next episode. Honestly, I cannot stop watching this show. It is full of juicy drama. I think this episode really showed me how fed-up Kendall is with his dad at this point. He sees how his dad is treating people poorly and how he manipulates Kendall and all the other kids, and Kendall is just done. Greg was closely following Tom these past two seasons, but then when Kendall had Greg accompany him to interviews and work with Jess to be his advocates, Tom got jealous and upset with Greg. I wonder how or if Logan is going to cooperate with the FBI investigation, because earlier he was telling Shiv that he was above the law and could handle what was about to come next for him, but I don’t know if that’s the case anymore. I still think it’s interesting to see this change in Tom’s character, though. For the last two seasons I saw him pick on Greg, and then he has Greg be his assistant. But then he is intimidated by Logan, to the point where he volunteers to be the one to go to jail for wrongdoing, but Logan says that won’t be necessary. I think Tom saw especially how bad Logan was not just in Hungary but also after Kendall, Shiv, and Roman hold a panel discussion and Shiv jokes about removing their dad from power (“an old-fashioned dinosaur cull”) and Logan hits Roman for joking about his dad being an “old dinosaur.” Tom sees this and realizes how much of a bully Logan is to people. It must have been a humiliating experience for Kendall, though, to have Shiv release that personal information about his addiction and relationships. In an earlier episode, the two of them hugged and Kendall thought he could trust Shiv with stuff about his addiction and recovery, but she lost trust in him after he went against the company and released the allegations. I think having that letter put up on the Internet for everyone to read about was a painful experience for Kendall because that was really personal stuff, and even Roman and Connor thought it was a messed-up idea for Shiv to write that letter attacking Kendall. I really love Jeremy Strong’s role as Kendall. He brought a lot of energy to this role, and so much depth. I haven’t seen many of his previous works, but he really acted the hell out of his role as Kendall. It’s like he just went full throttle with his character at this point in the season, and I’m soaking up every minute of it.
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