Category: Uncategorized

Succession, season 3, episode 6: What It Takes

In this episode of Succession, Kendall is working with his lawyer to testify against his dad, but Lisa isn’t making as much progress as he wants. He wants her to try harder in getting the case out about his dad’s corruption, but Lisa tells him that she is doing her best to represent him. Kendall tells Lisa that he likes working with her, but that she needs to try harder. He later goes before a group of people and they ask him questions about the allegations against Waystar, and he tells Lisa that the meeting with these people went horribly and raises his voice so they can hear him cussing them out. Lisa tells him to behave himself, and then pulls him aside and tells Kendall that she is doing her job but she feels he is disrespecting her expertise and her authority as a lawyer, and that he needs to check himself.

On the private jet, Greg nervously looks at his phone because he wants to check in with Kendall if Kendall is going to “burn” Greg, but he hasn’t gotten a response yet. Logan calls over the family and his team and talks about his strategy to bring down the tech industry, which is trying to outshine Waystar Royco so that it will lose its standing in society. Many people in the tech industry lean politically liberal, while ATN news (the media outlet of Waystar Royco) leans politically conservative, and many people are turning to the tech industry and this is hurting Waystar’s sales, so Logan wants to put together a plan so that Waystar can stay on top. Logan also thinks that the Attorney General has a photo of Logan on her dartboard, but Tom thinks that is just a rumor. The family goes to Virginia to a conference where they are trying to find the next president of the United States, since the old one isn’t running anymore. Many of the people at the conference are conservative and they argue about each other’s positions and gossip a lot. Greg confronts Tom and tells him he is worried about Kendall “burning” him, but Tom is too preoccupied with the possibility that he might end up in prison. During one evening in their hotel room, Shiv is watching the news on her tablet about the election, but Tom just wants to have a nice evening with her where they taste different wines. He went out of his way to get her these fancy wines, but she keeps looking at her tablet and doesn’t look at him. When he doesn’t stop talking about prison, she snaps and tells him to get over it. This hurts his feelings because he feels she isn’t really listening to him or providing any support for him when he needs it.

Tom feels lonely and he calls Greg in the middle of the night to grab breakfast at a local diner because that is what Tom thinks he is going to eat in prison. Greg tells Tom he is really worried about prison, and Tom unloads his own worries onto Greg about everything he has been reading about the horrors of prison. He tells him that the diner food they are eating won’t taste as good once they get into prison. I remember earlier in the first season, Tom invites Greg out to dinner to celebrate Greg getting his first paycheck. Greg suggests they go to California Pizza Kitchen, and Tom snorts and starts laughing, telling Greg that California Pizza Kitchen isn’t that great, and that he (Tom) is going to teach Greg how to eat rich people’s food. Tom thinks that CPK is inferior, middle-class fare, and that they should eat like rich people because Greg is now around rich people, so he needs to act and behave like a rich person. He has Greg eat songbirds and drink fancy wine, but now he is eating food at a diner, which early on he would have turned his nose up at. Honestly, I am sad I can no longer eat at diners like IHOP; they had really delicious pancakes, and I used to always get the Funny Face Pancake as a kid. However, I really love Spiral Diner. They have really good vegan breakfast items. Okay, that was totally a tangent, so back to the review of the episode. Honestly, I have never seen Tom so scared and intimidated before. It’s like he went from being this seemingly overconfident guy who acted like he was better than Greg, and now he is quiet during meetings with Logan and also is fearful of Logan’s authority. It’s like he has become a different person since testifying in Congress about the allegations at Cruises.

At the fancy gathering, Connor and Willa show up, and Willa is busy typing her play on her phone. She wanted to stay home to write her play (Willa is a playwright) but Connor wouldn’t let her, so she has to type it on a tiny screen while a bunch of conservative men talk around her. I feel bad for Willa; it looks like she really didn’t want to be there. Honestly, I thought that she and Greg were going to get together because Greg had a crush on Willa when they met at Logan’s house during Thanksgiving. Greg, though, is too busy trying to sue Greenpeace and not go to jail to worry about that. There is a scene in the episode where an older gentleman is making lewd comments about Willa in Connor’s presence, and when the guy leaves, Willa tells Connor she didn’t want that man coming up to her again. Willa felt disrespected, and I think Connor also doesn’t respect her work as a playwright. He is only focused on his presidential campaign. Honestly, I was so happy to find that the actress who plays Willa was the same actress who played Astrid in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (the actress is named Justine Lupe.) Her character is so different from Astrid’s. Astrid was very eager and excited to participate in Jewish traditions as someone who converted to Judaism, and she was very happy in her marriage to Noah. Willa, however, isn’t happy in her marriage to Connor and feels like she always has to tag along to his social events where she has to be around people who don’t care about the arts.

At the gathering, Roman finds out that his mom, Caroline Collingwood (Logan’s ex-wife) is getting married to a man named Peter Munion. He lets the other Roy children know, and then he later tells Logan, who can’t believe that his ex-wife would marry a man like Rupert Munion. In the break room that evening, they talk about who they think the next president of the United States should be. Some agree it should be Jeryd Mencken, but Shiv strongly disagrees because she doesn’t agree with Jeryd’s extremist policies. Earlier, Jeryd insulted ATN and said that it was only still around to maximize shareholder value, and that Logan Roy was no longer relevant anymore. Logan lets Greg join them, but he tells Greg to keep his mouth shut. When Greg speaks up and asks if he can contribute to the conversation, Roman tells him to shut up and that he can vote in the election like everyone else (he means the American middle and working class people.) Honestly, I think the real MVPs of this show are the people who work behind the scenes to set up all of these lavish gatherings. I really appreciate that the show shows them setting up the tables, catering the food and doing other important unseen things. Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed it at first, but after doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work myself, I appreciate that they showed these people setting everything up. It was soul-crushing in one episode where they had a nice gathering at Logan’s house, and they had to throw all of the catered food out because Logan’s team found a bunch of dead raccoons in the chimney that was stinking up the house. Logan screamed at all of the caterers to throw out everything and that they would order pizza since the bad smell from the raccoon carcasses tainted the food.

Roman has a talk with Mencken, and he starts to dig Mencken’s policies, prompting him to take his side. Connor thinks that he should be the next president, especially because he has been campaigning for a while now, but Greg politely tells everyone that he doesn’t think Connor should be president and then he has to leave the room. Tom gets a call from Kendall and Kendall brings him up to the diner, and Kendall tells Tom he can find a way for Tom to not have to go to prison for the Cruises allegations, if Tom joins him in taking down Logan. Tom, however, says that he is just a “public servant” and can’t do that. Kendall feels that Tom betrayed him, and Tom leaves, telling him that in the room they are deciding who the next president will be. Tom goes back to the hotel, only to find a bunch of people in the ballroom hoisting Greg on their shoulders, celebrating him for something he did. He confronts Greg at breakfast because he is jealous and upset that Greg is happy and he is not, but Greg shrugs it off. Logan has Shiv join him, Mencken, Tom and Roman in a group photo, but she refuses to be in the photo because she doesn’t like Mencken. Logan tells her to come in the photo and she stands, arms crossed, refusing to get in the photo. Logan then goes up to her and asks her if she is really a part of the family, and so she finally acquiesces and gets in the photo, but only if she doesn’t have to stand next to Mencken.

Succession, Season 3, episode 5

I am currently watching the third season of the HBO show Succession, and honestly it is incredible. I am really stressed out though. In this episode, the shareholder meeting is going on, but Logan suffers from a really bad UTI and so everyone on the team has to make sure he is okay. He forgets things, and also does stuff like calling Shiv “Marcia” and he also feels pain when he goes to the bathroom, and Tom has to make sure that he makes it back to the conference room okay. They are also negotiating a deal with Sandy Furness and Stewy Hosseini, and Sandy’s daughter negotiates with the Roy family that they can have seats on the board if they give up their private jets. At first, I was like, What’s the big deal if they have to give up their private jets, but then I realized it’s because they pretty much go everywhere with the jets, especially to international places like Hungary and England.

I could feel the stress in that room when everyone was trying to rush and find a doctor for Logan, and it really stresses out Shiv because she was only focused on the deal with Sandy Furness’s daughter and not on her ailing dad. It stressed out Roman when Shiv told the doctor to hurry up with checking her dad’s pulse and his health, and finally Roman tells her angrily that she needs to calm down and right now just focus on taking care of their dad. There is a scene where Greg meets with his grandpa Ewan, and Ewan is angry that Greg didn’t go with the attorney that he got him and went with someone else, and he tells Greg that he is giving Greg’s part of the inheritance to Greenpeace. This crushes Greg’s hopes and dreams because in an earlier episode, he is telling Connor that he is really pumped to be getting his $250 million inheritance, and Connor warns him about not getting his hopes up too quickly. Greg thinks it will be easy as pie, but after Ewan tells him he is giving away Greg’s inheritance money, Greg gets upset and tells Tom he is going to sue Greenpeace.

There is another scene where Karl and Gerri are trying to hold down the fort during the shareholder meeting, but they fail miserably and they often have to stall because everyone is figuring out so many things at once: how to take care of Logan during his health crisis, whether or not they want to go through with the deal that Sandy Furness offered them, and also Kerry, Logan’s assistant, tells them that the president of the United States is on the line and wants to speak to Logan. They argue over who in the room is qualified to take the call, and they end up letting Roman take the call. They tell him to not use swear words in the conversation, though, because Roman is known for using salty language and being sarcastic in arguments with his family. But Roman does his best to maintain his composure and not swear at the president so that he doesn’t blow Waystar’s reputation, but it turns out that the president is not running again next year and that leaves the family in very hot water.

Kendall also comes back to shake more things up at the shareholders meeting. While Karl is in the middle of making his speech, Kendall interrupts him and pushes him aside, and he tells the audience that he is starting a foundation to raise money for all of the victims of sexual abuse at Waystar Royco. This does not go down well, and very few people end up clapping in the audience. The Roy family members are embarrassed and angry, and Logan ends up having Kerry summon Kendall to a meeting with him but then blowing him off at the last minute. When Kendall tries to call him, Logan tells Kerry to block Kendall’s number from his phone.

Logan is also not satisfied with the results of the shareholder meeting or the deal with Sandy Furness. When Shiv tells him to lighten up and celebrate a little, he gets angry with her and shouts at her to get away from him. Everyone in the room is really scared of Logan, and so during the celebratory toast, no one is laughing or making merry. Instead, there is silence. Also, Tom’s marriage to Shiv seems to be going farther and farther down the toilet. After the deal is sealed, Tom approaches Shiv and wants to make out with her and tells her he is tracking her ovulation cycle because he is horny and wants her to bear children with him, but after a really exhausting interaction she tells him she is not interested and that she actually finds him tracking her ovulation cycles creepy and doesn’t want him to do that. It was already stressful enough when Shiv had an affair with her ex-boyfriend, Nate, and Tom thought that after he got rid of Nate he would go back to having a normal loving marriage with Shiv. But she is so focused on work that she tells him to get over himself when he shares with her his anxieties about going to jail. He looks on prison blogs and thinks about how he is going to go to prison after testifying about the Cruises documents, but Shiv keeps telling him to get over it and that he might not go to jail.

I think seeing this episode from a Buddhist perspective kind of helped. In Buddhism we talk about the four sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death. No one can escape these sufferings, no matter how much money they have or how much success. Even though Logan is this wealthy man with this huge fortune, he is getting compassion. and his health is failing. I don’t know if I am reading too much into this, but there was a brief moment where I saw Tom bring out his Buddha nature when he is helping Logan in the bathroom. Logan has Tom escort him to the bathroom, but then Logan has a pain in his chest and is really struggling to breathe, and Tom makes sure that he gets back to the room okay. I understand he didn’t really have a choice in helping this man, especially because he controls their inheritance and they wouldn’t know what to do if he suddenly did, but I think for a brief moment, after seeing Tom early on bully Greg and act superior to other people, this brief moment showed me he brought out some of his compassion.

On Being Asexual

First off, I hope you had a happy Valentine’s Day and also Singles Awareness Day! I normally don’t talk about love and relationships, to be honest, because I haven’t had much experience with them. I have had more crushes than sexual or romantic partners, and yet most of my playlist is love songs. Because love is such a universal experience, and it comes in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. That being said, I want to talk about something that I have been exploring a lot of lately, and that is asexuality. For those who aren’t familiar with asexuality, an asexual person is someone who feels little to no sexual attraction. I first encountered the term around 2012, the summer before entering college. I had gone to a college preparatory program at a nearby university, and I was having a casual conversation about dating and romance with some of the people on the program, and one of them said she identified as asexual and that people at school would make fun of her for being asexual. I told them that I didn’t really want to go out with anyone in school, and so then they told me about aromanticism, which is a lack of romantic attraction.

Over the years I have wrestled with my sexual orientation, and whether I am truly asexual or not. I have even taken quizzes online to find out if I am asexual or not. But as I am educating myself and learning from other people’s experiences, I am realizing that there is no single way to be asexual and there is no one way to look or behave as an asexual. While asexuals experience little to no sexual attraction, asexuality exists on a wide spectrum. There are demisexuals, graysexuals and so many other orientations within asexuality. There are asexuals who who participate in sexual intercourse, who get married, who have children, and there are asexuals, like me, who don’t. There are asexuals who are repulsed by sex, who are indifferent to sex, who are sex positive. There are white asexuals and asexuals of color. To be honest, it’s been a journey exploring my asexuality, but I am glad to have gone on that journey. I remember there was an asexuality awareness campus club at my college, and I wanted to join during my first year, but I already had a lot of commitments with work-study, orchestra and my classes that I didn’t know if I would have time. But then sophomore year, I started to wonder, Maybe I want to dig into this asexualiy research a little more. I found the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) and there was a forum, and I was so excited to join, especially because I hadn’t found many other asexuals on campus except for a few. I also had joined an Asexuality Awareness Club on campus, but once again I didn’t end up joining the club for the long term. I think these past couple of years I am still growing and going through this process of self-realization. I even wrestled with wondering whether my asexuality was just a phase and if I would grow out of it or not. But I am starting to embrace it more, even if it is still a work in progress.

Random Playlist

This is a list of songs I have listened to these past couple of weeks. It’s Black History Month, too, so I wanted to include a lot of music by Black artists.

  1. Monday, Monday: The Mamas and The Papas
  2. You Make Loving Fun: Fleetwood Mac
  3. People Get Up and Drive Your Funky Soul: James Brown
  4. Love, Love, Love: Donny Hathaway
  5. Aquarius, Let the Sunshine In: The 5th Dimension
  6. A Brand New Me: Aretha Franklin
  7. Mary, Don’t You Weep: Aretha Franklin
  8. Golden Lady: Stevie Wonder
  9. Sara: Fleetwood Mac
  10. Too High: Stevie Wonder
  11. Clean Up Woman: Betty Wright
  12. Who: David Byrne and St. Vincent
  13. After the Dance: Marvin Gaye
  14. Hey Love: Stevie Wonder
  15. Fire: The Pointer Sisters
  16. Nikita: Elton John
  17. Fool in Love: Tina Turner
  18. Night Moves: Bob Seger
  19. Baltimore: Nina Simone
  20. Sinnerman: Nina Simone
  21. Bridge over Troubled Waters: Aretha Franklin
  22. Misty Blue: Etta James
  23. Confessions: Usher
  24. I’ve Been Loving You Too Long: Etta James
  25. West Coast: Lana del Rey
  26. Watermelon Man: Herbie Hancock
  27. Boogie on Reggae Woman: Stevie Wonder
  28. Jump: Aretha Franklin
  29. Flowers: Miley Cyrus
  30. Raise Your Glass: P!NK

Episode Synopsis: Abbott Elementary, season 3, episode 3

I love Abbott Elementary. It is one of my favorite shows, and I was so excited that season 3 is finally here! I missed the first two episodes, so I need to catch up, but I definitely did not want to miss it. In this episode, Janine and Jacob are trying to find an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter for a student who needs an interpreter, but Janine has to go through several hoops in order to get the interpreter. She has to go through several chains of command, and she has high hopes that she will just get it approved immediately, but that isn’t how it works. Instead, her proposal gets rejected and after going through several people for the approval, she almost gives up. But Ava and Janine’s fellow teachers encourage her to keep going. Meanwhile, a group of Gregory’s students start to come into his classroom and hang out there frequently, even though Gregory wants to spend his free time alone. They come in with issues about their personal lives, and try to ask how they can get girls, and one student passes gas. This causes Gregory a lot of stress because he just wants to spend time alone. I was kind of squealing with joy because there is one moment where the students come in, and Gregory is reading the book Quiet by Susan Cain. If you haven’t read Quiet, I recommend it. As an introvert, I really loved it because it reminded me that there are also a lot of people like me who are introverted and that there is nothing wrong with wanting to recharge in solitude sometimes. Susan Cain talks about how introverts can make valuable leaders and shares her own experiences about moving through the world as an introvert. I remember reading it in high school and feeling, Wow, I am not alone. I feel seen and heard. I feel like Quiet was the perfect book for Gregory because I learned from this episode that he is someone who values his alone time. Gregory finally manages to set some boundaries with the students, and he tells them that they can’t come in his room talking with him about girls, and one of the students asks if he can still pass gas, and Gregory lets him. He has to set this boundary because one of the students asks him for advice about this girl he is dating because he wants to buy her a chain, and Gregory tells him to focus on school and then he and the other guys can focus on girls later. However, the student takes his advice too far and he ends up breaking up with his girlfriend, causing her to break down in tears and causing Melissa to ask Gregory what on Earth he did to make the young woman cry. Gregory realizes that the student took it too literally, and so he has to establish boundaries so that the kids aren’t coming in trying to get him to always give advice about their relationship problems. Mr. Johnson, the custodian, comes into Gregory’s classroom when he is trying to have some alone time, and Gregory tells him he is reluctant that his students think he is the “cool teacher.” Mr. Johnson busts up laughing because he thinks Gregory is anything but the “cool teacher,” and Melissa comes in trying to get a break, and Gregory admits that he is being called “the cool teacher,” and like Mr. Johnson, Melissa laughs because she can’t believe Gregory would be called “the cool teacher.”

Tariq, Janine’s ex-boyfriend, comes back into the picture because there is a student at Abbott named Nick, and Nick’s mom is dating Tariq. Earlier in seasons 1 and 2, Tariq was Janine’s boyfriend, and they had a very codependent relationship in which Janine took responsibility for his mistakes and his mess, and he depended on her to always take care of him. (This reminds me of myself, because I tend to be dependent a little too much on others and get comfortable with depending on them, when I can just do the thing myself. But that’s for another blog post.) Janine breaks up with him because he is just a really not-great boyfriend, and she is moving on with her life and moving up in her career. But when he comes back in this episode, it is not a pleasant experience for Janine, especially when he rubs it in her face that he has a new girlfriend. Tariq learns to respect his girlfriend’s son by calling him the name he prefers. Barbara, who is a no-nonsense teacher and has taught at Abbott for many years, advises him to not call Nick “Tariq, Jr.” or “T.J.” because Nick hates it, and because Nick is his real name. Tariq decides to do better (a little bit better, anyway) and call Nick by his preferred name.

Honestly, I cannot wait to watch the next episode of Abbott Elementary.

Succession Season 3, episode 4

I am just going to be talking about a few scenes in this episode. This is just a rough draft.

Gregory goes to see Logan and he greets Logan with a hearty good morning. Logan offers him something to drink and Gregory has this confused look on his face and asks Logan if he means an alcoholic drink. Gregory asks for a rum and coke, but he is at first joking around, but Logan takes him seriously and asks Kerry, his assistant, to bring him a rum and coke. Gregory says that Kerry doesn’t have to do that, but Logan says “What Greg wants, Greg must have.” Greg is very nervous throughout his discussion with Logan because Logan is an intimidating man, and Gregory is in hot water because Kendall went against the Roy family and talked about a lot of corrupt practices that the company did for many years. Gregory still works for Logan, so Logan has Gregory sign a non-disclosure agreement, but Gregory wants to know what is in it for him. Logan tells him that is not how things work with him, and so he makes Gregory sign the agreement. The scene where Greg wonders if Logan means to offer him alcohol reminded me of the scene in Mean Girls, where Cady Heron goes to Regina George’s house for the first time, and Regina’s mom, who is a permissive parent who lets her daughter do whatever she wants, brings them drinks. Cady asks Regina’s mom if there is alcohol in the drinks, and Regina’s mom tells her “Oh, honey, no! What kind of mother do you think I am?” But she tells Cady that if she wants alcohol, she has it in the house and Cady is welcome to it, but Cady politely declines. Greg reminds me of Cady before she became a Mean Girl because he is polite and awkward. They both remind me of me when I was growing up because I am awkward and introverted, and I remember people would always joke that I was too polite.

There is another scene where Tom approaches Greg in Greg’s office about how he, Tom, might go to jail. Greg is excited because he might be transferring to another department, the Parks division. Tom is not happy for Greg because all he can think about is his lawyer telling him, Tom, that he might go to jail after he testified for Congress about the Cruise documents. Tom tries to beat up on Greg and starts hitting him and telling Greg to fight him, but Greg tells him to stop hitting him and that he doesn’t want to fight. Tom and Greg have a very toxic relationship. I wouldn’t even call it a friendship because Greg just tries to do whatever Tom says because Tom intimidates him. I really do love the acting between these two characters. Somehow Greg’s office got cleaned up pretty quickly. At the beginning, Tom offers Greg the office and it is very unkempt and messy and there is stuff everywhere, and there is no room for Greg to have a space to work. But by the time Tom comes back, he sees that Greg has a desk and space to work, and there is a basket of large croissants and other pastries on the desk. Honestly, those pastries looked delicious. I am vegan but I would have loved to enjoy a pastry or two with Greg and Tom at the moment.

There is another scene where Logan gets heat exhaustion. He, Josh and Kendall are talking about the shareholder deal with Josh, who is a major investor (I was really pumped to see Adrien Brody playing Josh’s character because I loved his work in Cadillac Records, The Pianist and The Grand Budapest Hotel), but Logan has health problems and can’t walk that far, and Josh is taking them on the hike way too far. Logan refuses help when Kendall offers to call a doctor, but then he starts vomiting on the side of the road and then has a heart attack, prompting Josh and Kendall to get him to a doctor immediately. Kendall asks Josh about the deal, but Josh thinks Kendall should focus on taking care of his dad. Roman tells Kendall that Josh pulled out of the deal because Logan’s heart attack scared him.

TV Show Synopsis: Succession, Season 3, Episode 3: The Disruption

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.

Lambert’s

During road trips to Chicago, we would often go to a few places: The Flying Fish in Little Rock, Arkansas; Cracker Barrel (anywhere we went through the South had a Cracker Barrel, so we were pretty fortunate in that sense); or McDonalds. During one road trip to Chicago (I think it was during my winter break), we decided to go outside our comfort zone and try a restaurant called Lambert’s, which was located in Missouri. We didn’t know much about it, other than that they were called “Home of the Throwed Rolls.” We were pretty intrigued by the title, not just by the intentional grammar choice but because as a kid I was picturing a scene where a bunch of waiters and waitresses were throwing rolls at people in a sort of Sylvester Stallone action type movie. Would I get hit in the eye? The groin? The nose? How would I dodge these rolls once the waiters and waitresses started throwing them? And would this go down as a food fight, the kind I saw in movies like Max Keeble’s Big Move? I am exaggerating, but from what I can remember they were serious about throwing the rolls. And even more serious about the portion sizes.

We walked into the restaurant and blues music played on the stereo. It was a bustling day, and there were quite a few people. Even though we didn’t eat red meat or poultry, we ate fish, so we ordered four plates of fried catfish. They would charge us extra if we shared a plate. I didn’t know what was in store for us when we set foot in the restaurant, but let me tell you, it was neither Cracker Barrel nor The Flying Fish. It was a completely new experience.

Waiters came around with tin cans of a sticky syrup called sorghum. Up until I stepped foot in this restaurant, the only sweeteners I had consumed were honey and cane sugar.

“Sooorrrrghum on your rolls!” a young mustachioed waiter hollered as he came around with sorghum. Fluffy hot rolls flew at us, and we caught them with serious baseball sportsmanship.

“Macaroni and tomatoes!”

I nodded, and the waitress heaped my plate with macaroni and tomatoes. I ate. Mmmm, I said, as I dug into the buttery pasta. My stomach shelf was at about 40 percent. I ate a bread roll with sorghum. It was an interesting taste. I chewed the roll and swallowed, and it worked its way through my throat like warm glue. Oh, gosh, my stomach groaned. You are at sixty five percent, kid. Slow down.

“Fried okra!” As a kid who grew up in the South, I couldn’t say no to some fried okra. It was just too good. I savored each bite. My stomach was yelling a little louder. You are at seventy-five percent! Don’t give me any more food to digest!

But I couldn’t. I also didn’t want to hurt the waiters’ feelings by saying “no, thank you.” Our plates of fried catfish came around, and by the time they got to our table, our stomachs were smaller than our eyes. I wanted to take a break, but the food just kept coming around. My stomach was screaming, STOPPPP!!! IT IS WAY TOO MUCH FOOD! You are at 110 percent!!! I weakly eyed my catfish, and my stomach nearly lurched. I grabbed my fork and cut through a sliver of the fried fish filet and took a bite. Delicious. I took more forkfuls and almost made it through half of the catfish. My family was almost done with theirs and they were getting pretty full, too. We groaned from the pain of eating more than your stomach allows you to.

“Macaroni and tomatoes?” A woman came around with a bowl of macaroni and tomatoes. She had a Santa hat on, and a cheery disposition.

I waved my hand in defeat. I might as well have waved my white napkin and called a truce between me, my stomach, and all that delicious Southern goodness.

“No thank you, ma’am.”

She gave a concerned look.

“Are you allergic to the food?”

I shook my head.

“No, ma’am, I am just full.”

She moved on to the next table.

We paid the bill and thanked the people at the restaurant. We slowly got up and used the restroom and then waddled our way to the car, sleepy and full. I don’t know how Mom and Dad are going to drive back, I thought. We ate so much food.

We got in the car, and the first thing my sister jokingly said was, “Wow. Let’s go get some ice cream!”

We all gave her dagger eyes. I couldn’t drink alcohol because I was underage, but it wasn’t until I ate in that restaurant that I learned you can be intoxicated just from eating a lot of good Southern food until your stomach is begging for mercy.

The Road Trip

We drove past the cornfields.

Rows and rows of cornfields

The road stretched and yawned before us

As The Doobie Brothers’ “Black Water”

Played on the staticky radio

We passed a large body of water

Shimmering in the summer sun

As the heat licked my forehead

And sweat dripped down my leather back

The can of cream soda sizzles as Jenna

Clicks back the tab

And knocks it back

She lets out a long belch

And we scream in laughter.

We pass 18-wheelers

Minivans

Sedans

Each car tells a story

Carries a human with emotional baggage.

We stop at a motel for the evening

And then start back up the next morning.