You know that your relationship with your mother is complicated when you give her a wedding toast that criticizes her for being an absent mother and puts her marriage in competition with yours. Shiv’s wedding speech to his mother frozen in SuccessionThe season 3 finale is one for all ages: “I’m jealous of the time you spend with her,” Shiv tells his new father-in-law. “I hope your marriage is as rich, happy, rewarding and fulfilling as mine.”
Last week’s episode ended on a suspense: Kendall Roy floating upside down in an infinity pool after finally throwing in the towel in his own competition with him and Shiv’s other troublesome father. The end begins with the reassurance that, no, that New Yorker The profile was not a goodbye for Jeremy Strong. As the family plays monopoly, Logan assures Kendall’s son Iverson that his father is fine. Now is the time to see Mom remarry and, predictably, none of the children are really doing well.
Kendall is doing her best to show her more normal self-righteous facade when she meets her siblings before the wedding. He informs his siblings that he is ready to “get into everything” and share the family’s dirty secrets with the press. (“We have been talking to Vanity fair“, Comfrey mutters at one point,” but it’s mostly us calling them. “) Meanwhile, Shiv doesn’t stop teasing Roman with jokes about how much he wants to fuck with his mother, just one more humiliation for the baby of the family.to try to shake me off after last week’s dick photo fiasco.
Roman seems pleased when Dad decides to bring him in to strike a final deal between Waystar Royco and the eccentric tech mogul he’s been courting, Lukas Mattson. But then the questions come: “So what is it, son? Are you afraid of the pussy? Are all the screens on your ass with you, or what? … If you need to straighten up, do it, okay? I don’t want to know. “Insisting on his kids about their sexuality is something of a hobby for Logan, who has asked not just Roman but Kendall if he’s” queer “before, usually as an intimidation tactic.
This season she has become obsessed with Roman’s “sex issue,” as Shiv calls it, but neither she nor anyone in Roy’s orbit should open their mouths on the subject. Shiv’s toxic relationships with her parents have rendered her unable to trust; Despite what her toast entails, the best flirt she’s had with Tom in years is teasing Greg. In fact, it is Shiv’s inability to see her husband for who he really is, and how he really feels, that causes everything to fall apart in the end.
But more on that later, first to the point.
When Logan and Roman sit down with Alexander Skarsgård’s Swedish coaching brother, things start to go south for the Roy Family Peewee League. Lukas doesn’t want to merge; wants to take over, which endangers the luxurious positions of the Roy children. Logan sends Roman to the wedding, and Roman is right to pout; it’s pretty clear that Logan is thinking about Lukas’s proposal.
Roman arrives just in time for a children’s table intervention with Kendall, who is pretty sure he’s not the one with the problem, but his siblings. But then he says something fascinating: “Do you have any idea how it feels, as an older son, to be promised something and then take it away from you?”
Connor, the royal eldest son, just wishes someone had told him about last week’s merger of equals, or maybe he ever considered it. he to take his father’s mantle. “You are injured?” he asks. “I didn’t see Pop for three years, but your spoon wasn’t shiny enough, huh? This is not just about you. “
It has become clear this season that Connor, Logan’s only son from his first marriage, became an emotional substitute for his father with the other children at some point; at least, he took his brothers fly fishing when Logan couldn’t be bothered. . But because this family has no sense of loyalty and because Connor is, to be fair, something of a jerk, all Connor has received from his family is taunt and bile.
On the bright side: To answer one of our burning questions before the end, Willa, clearly feeling sorry for Connor, decides to say “yes” to his marriage proposal from last week. “You know what? Fuck it … How bad can it be? (Great story for kids).
But then things fall apart: The news reaches Roman, and then Shiv and Kendall, that it’s possible that Dad is almost definitely working to sell the company below them.
Kendall sinks to the ground and laughs when Shiv asks if she has an “angle” on the deal. He insists that “he is not here.” Finally, his brothers give him the opportunity to tell them what he is really feeling and, by some miracle, he accepts it. He finally admits to killing the waiter at Shiv’s wedding. “It’s fucking lonely,” he says. “I am all apart.” He sobs on the ground as Shiv says what we all knew was coming: Yes, this is a terrible time, but they need to talk about this fusion. Now.
Another surprise: when Shiv asks where he would like to wait for Kendall, he instead asks to travel with his brothers. They say yes without hesitation. Roman wraps his arm around his brother and rubs his newly buzzed head, an echo of the playful warmth we saw during last year’s finale. In the car, however, Kendall reveals that thanks to her mother’s divorce agreement, the children can now annul their father.
“He sobs on the ground as Shiv says what we all knew was coming: Yes, this is a terrible time, but they need to talk about this fusion. Now.“
The moment is electric, vulnerable, dangerous. Last season we saw Roman and Shiv trying to figure out what the other was feeling on the yacht and, you know, Shiv threw Kendall under the bus with Logan. This time, alone as they will always be in the back of the car, the Roy children tell each other what they are really thinking, and they all agree that it is finally time to “kill” Daddy.
Now we go back to where Kendall was at the premiere: Cellphone theater. The children call on their allies on the journey to confront their father. Roman calls Connor, Shiv calls Tom, and Kendall checks that the lagoon is legitimate. (This.)
Unfortunately for would-be mutineers on this old steamboat, a glaring mistake ignites their entire plan before they even walk through the door.
Shiv’s marriage has been falling apart before our eyes the entire time. SuccessionBut things have gotten dire since Shiv showed how glad she was to see her husband go to jail. (Go figure.) It also didn’t help when Kendall condescendingly congratulated Tom on marrying to power.
When Shiv calls her husband to update him on his latest plan, he asks a very reasonable question: “Where do I fit in, Shiv?” Your answer? Kind of inspirational “We’ll figure it out.”
Naturally, there is only one person with whom Tom wants to share this news. When Greg gushes to Tom about his latest flirtations with a Luxembourg princess, his curiously purposeful corporate confidant responds with a proposal of his own. (Everything is very Pride and prejudiceit’s not like that?)
“Things can be on the move,” Tom says, his voice dripping with conspiratorial intrigue. “Do you want to come with me, Sporus?”
Smart viewers probably know what’s coming next, but it’s the execution that makes Kendall, Shiv, and Roman’s confrontation with Logan so hard to watch.
Logan isn’t the least bit surprised when his kids stormed the meeting room. His rationale for selling the company, essentially giving himself another pile of multi-million dollar money to throw on top of another while leaving his (still very wealthy) children out in the cold? “Make your own fucking pile.”
And unfortunately for Team Succession, Dad was one step ahead. Someone she tipped him off, giving him time to call the children’s mother and convince her to take most of them away. The parents of the Roy children, whose acrimony has forced them to act as intermediaries for all sorts of sordid messages, still banded together to betray them.
Kieran Culkin has never been more wickedly heartbreaking than here. As indisputably disgusting as Roman is, Culkin’s pathetic pronunciation of the words, “Dad … Please?” When his character realizes that he has lost, he hits the same nerve as a child who flinches after being slapped. But Logan doesn’t want any of that.
“Please? “he asks. Roman will have to do better than that. What does he have to offer Logan in exchange for his mercy, his support?
“That I have?” asks the consummate failson. “I don’t know, fucking … love?” As Logan is quick to point out, the claim is a bit tenuous under the circumstances. “Are you talking about love?” he asks. “You should have trusted me.”
But that’s not the moment that seems to crush Roman the most, it’s when Gerri responds to his pleas for help with a great, “How does it serve my interests?” These children need a lot of therapy.
In the end, Shiv faces perhaps the worst betrayal of all: the realization that her husband, the one she thought she had under her thumb, is almost certainly the one who sold her. His breath trembles as Tom mutters, in that innocent and gentle voice, “Hey, Shiv, are you okay?” A safe prediction for season 4? Things can only get more sinister from here.
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