I KNEW Kendall wasn’t dead at the end of the last episode! (It was WAY too subtle to be a death scene, for one thing.) Other than inside. He was for sure dead inside. Poor Kendall. Someone get this man checked into a pricy, gorgeous group therapy joint and get him sorted. It worked for Don Draper! Although honestly, he might not need it anymore. It turns out your siblings sticking by you to try to ruin your Dad’s life/business does wonders for a man’s psyche. Or at least a Roy’s psyche.
My gloating aside: WHAT AN EPISODE. This season has felt like it’s been treading water in a lot of places, but this episode had action and emotion. And the mid-level managers at Waystar had to have been getting WILD texts on the group chat with the assistants who got dragged to Italy:
ASSISTANT I: ummmmmm some weird shit is going down out here, like maybe they’re selling the company to this tall HOT swedish dude
ASSISTANT II: also that tall weird kid who works in the copy room now is banging (????? maybe) this italian countess and she seems really into him
ASSISTANT I: seeing these kids with their mom is….like….something. this family is effed up. she’s….not nice. none of these people are nice. what are we doing working for them. I might be having an existential crisis.
ASSISTANT II: also I think whatever kinky thing was happening with Gerri and the little swear-y one is over. their energy has gotten super weird?????
ASSISTANT I: we miss you. they gave us burrata!
To the final Effs Scale of the season!
1-3 Effs, AKA This Is Moderately Diverting: I really don’t care that much about the nuts and bolts of this GoJo Merger on the face of it, other than because ASkars is beautiful and so is his place at Lake Como. (FWIW, there was a diverting piece in Traveler this week about the travel specialist who planned out this Italian trip for the Roys for this show. Logistics!) It’s also always fun watching Brian Cox do his Logan Roy thing turned all the way at 10, and the actual plot fall-out from said merger/buy-out is going to be incredibly interesting — to say the least. But the Charlie Brown teacher wah wah wah business blah blah to actually get there was a bit of a snoozer for me, until… please cross-reference 8-10 Effs.
4-7 Effs, AKA We Are Quite Intrigued: I have been waiting for Connor to have this breakdown about his place in the family and I don’t even blame him. I’ve also never been so happy to see a frankly probably bad person have his offer of marriage accepted with the dulcet words, “fuck it! How bad could it be?” (Truly! I am sincerely happy that Connor and Willa are getting married. For one thing, this show loves a wedding and they never go well — like people get murdered and families are ruined every time someone gets married on this show. Second, this will be a disaster for their relationship. She’s already sobbing into her champagne.)
Okay, and this was obviously not even a D plot — more of just a funny runner — but Tom telling Greg that if he marries this Countess, he is “one plane crash away from being Europe’s weirdest king” was extremely funny to me. Please let this show somehow end with Greg as ruler of Luxembourg. (TECHNICALLY, of course, Luxembourg doesn’t have a King, so he’d be the Grand Duke, which Greg gleefully explains to Tom.) (TECHNICALLLLLLLLY, I’m fairly sure he’d actually end up with some consort-ish title but we don’t need to get into that here.) I will additionally note that I feel like I’ve ended this season really invested in Greg and Tom’s relationship/respective deals with the devil. As, I think, have they.
8-10 Effs: THIS IS WHAT I AM HERE FOR: Is…Logan….really going to have another baby? Okay, this isn’t really that high on the Effs Scale, because it hasn’t happened yet, but I do not think this show mentions this if it’s not maybe going to happen and honestly I think it would be SOAPY IN THE EXTREME — which I’m always, of course, in favor of. (I do feel like Marcia got to do literally nada this season, and I also think him having a new young wife and a new baby would be sincerely juicy from a story standpoint.) (Honestly, if I were writing Succession — and I AM willing to consult for a fee! — I’d have an illegitimate adult child show up to ruin things for the current Roys, and honestly it makes more sense to have all this New Sibling Talk be foreshadowing that.)
Speaking of Logan’s kids, KENDALL. I never really thought he’d admit to kinda murdering that cater-waiter. He really more involuntarily manslaughtered him, to be fair, as I think Roman very crassly, albeit with very good intentions, tried to point out. (Remind me not to go to Roman Roy the next time I’m having an emotional breakdown by a bunch of trash cans — and definitely remind me to go to him when I need someone to convince me I’m not a murderer). I do think Shiv and Roman actually do love Kendall, and that scene with the three of them was so meaty and satisfying and good — and it was likewise really fun to see Kendall slowly come back to life to try to overthrow Logan (which is what he’s wanted all along, after all). I told you he’d make it through this season alive!
Speaking of: Hot damn, the last 15-ish minutes of this episode delivered. My mouth literally dropped when we found out that it was Tom who tipped Logan off to his own wife’s plan for world (or Waystar Royco, anyway) domination. When he said he’d never seen Logan Roy get fucked, he really meant it. But I truly did not think he had it in him — and obviously neither did Shiv. GAME ON! (Whenever season four starts, anyway).
Bits of note which didn’t fit into our super scientific system of effs but which deserve recognition nevertheless: Okay, yet again, Italy looks AMAZING, I’m actively angry I’m not at a villa right now; “America….I dunno.”; “I’m not a FUCKOMETER.”; and, most importantly, what on EARTH was happening with Kendall’s giant necklace? (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that once he took it off, he was able to come clean to his family about his kinda-murder and come back to his true self. That necklace was symbolic of the millstone around his neck!)
And, finally, the best outfit of the week lives above, in the header: This dress on Willa is good but mostly I want to shout-out her highlights, because they’re amazing.
