Content Consumed: Succession Episode 6, Recap and Review
Episode 6 of Succession, aptly titled “Living+”, hit the airwaves on Sunday evening and we’ve all been deeply uncomfortable since.
*SPOILERS AHEAD.*
What was the most excruciating part for you?
Was it Roman finally grieving in the car while an edited on-screen Logan Roy tells his younger son he has a microdick?
Maybe it was Tom and Shiv negging each other to the ends of the Earth (which somehow turns them both on)? Also, biting each other HARD in public?
Perhaps it was Kendall saying “big shoes” about 15 times in front of hundreds of Waystar Royco investors?
Really, there are too many moments to choose from.
This episode is riddled with delusional Roy children.
As we know, they are not good at their jobs. In one of the first sequences of the episode, we see a half-assed effort by Kendall and Roman to convince the Old Guard (plus Shiv) that Matsson is not a good leader, too chaotic, and very unstable.
“Can we recommend a deal with a person of this character?” Kendall asks, very ironically, considering the manic episode he’s been going through since gaining the (co-)CEO position once more.
Gerri rebuffs with: “He’s a genius. Nobody minds a genius acting weird.”
Tom adds: “Honestly, it kind of adds to the mystique.”
Speaking of Tom…
Just when you thought Shiv and Tom couldn’t possibly have a more fucked-up relationship, they play a game of “Bitey” in front of an entire patio of people.
But we’ll get back to that. Shiv and Tom’s first personal interaction of the episode is when he catches her crying in a conference room. “You’re scheduling your grief?” he asks. They kiss and then pretend they didn’t.
Back to Bitey and their screwy relationship of pain. Here are the rules of Bitey: lock arms like you’re sipping champagne with each other. Then dig your teeth into the other person’s forearm flesh until one of you taps out.
Then, have mid-divorce hate sex right after.
After the hookup, Shiv and Tom have one of the most honest discussions of money we’ve seen in Succession. Tom explains that he betrayed her in the Season 3 finale for money. He loves his lifestyle and he won’t apologize for it—and he points out that she’s the exact same. She wouldn’t drop everything to live in a trailer park with him, after all.
“I’d follow you anywhere for love, Tom Wambsgans,” she jokes, and they both laugh.
Another joke: Roman’s drunk on power (and misogyny).
Roman keeps firing high-powered women.
“Shiv’s godmother Gerri?” Kendall balks, if only for a moment, after Roman tells him they should fire her (after he already fired her).
Yes: Roman, trying to be Logan and failing, impulsively fired two powerful women—who are smarter than he is—on the same day.
One of them is Joy Palmer, head of the Waystar Studios film division. Roman tries so hard to be as “ruthless” as his father, emotionally volatile but without Logan’s actual business acumen, that he fires Joy with next-to-no concrete explanation.
The other one, as I mentioned, is Gerri. Legal counsel Gerri, who Roman has endlessly harassed with dick pics and other sexual advances for years now. She has so much evidence against him and it was so goddamn stupid of him to fire her. This cannot be emphasized enough.
Roman didn’t go onstage with Kendall and he’s still not sure if it was the right move, because the presentation started shakey but Kendall ended up with applause.
Really, it’s shocking that Kendall found success with Living+.
“Extreme moral flexibility,” Jeremy Strong called it in a Vulture interview today. Otherwise called: lying to the shareholders after doubling the numbers.
“It’s enough to make you lose your faith in capitalism; you could say anything.” The quote of the episode, maybe? It encapsulates how far Kendall’s gone off the deep end to get the exact results he wants from the Matsson deal, his new position, Pierce, and the entire future of Waystar Royco.
He wants to get a tech valuation for a real estate proposition (a.k.a. WeWork). He wants to don a flight jacket, modeled after Top Gun’s Maverick, for the presentation. He wants an entire house built, with fake clouds overhead, within twelve hours for the presentation. It’s very reminiscent of his 40th birthday party in Season 3.
“Here’s the rule,” he says to all his worker bees. “No one can say no.”
There’s no substance, all appearance. There’s a certainly-illegal price-spiking scheme that just might work—considering the stock price is based on vibes and Kendall can sell vibes.
There are obviously a few kerfluffles in the presentation. It starts off shaky with “big shoes” and ends with Matsson tweeting a comparison between Living+ and Auschwitz.
But in the end: Kendall wins. For now.
Our episode ends with Kendall floating—not drowning, like in his water-based scenes in the previous 3 seasons. Floating on his own delusion.
More notes and questions:
- Shiv is keeping her options open, but Tom is more in the loop than before now, as he sits in on her call with Matsson, shoes on her desk.
- When the hell will Shiv be forced to tell everyone she’s pregnant?! I could see her finally confessing to Tom in the next episode.
- I didn't think we’d get any new Logan footage and I was wrong. Kendall half-smiles when Logan remarks to some off-screen camera crew: “You’re as bad as my fucking idiot kids.”
- Was Roman… turned on by his dad insulting his physical and mental status via edited footage, sent to him by Kendall?
- Clearly, Kendall is having some sort of grief-stricken manic episode (which, to be fair, isn’t exactly unusual for him). The question is when the seams will truly unravel.
- Will Gerri use her main weapon in the system against Roman — the unsolicited dick pics? And if so, when?
- So sorry Conheads. The eldest Roy son was absent from this episode, but the election is right around the corner…
Thanks for reading! Into more Succession talk and TV/movie/music/podcast reviews? Check out Content Consumed. I’ll let you know what everyone’s talking about — and what everyone should be talking about.
