Did Logan and Kendall Pull A Fast One on Everybody?

As all of us basked in the plot twist ending of the Succession season finale, the Greek tragedy of Kendall metaphorically killing his dad by blowing the whistle on him, Tara Ariano, the co-host of a Succession podcast The Sweet Smell of Succession had an alternate theory. To Ariano, the whole thing seemed like a clever ploy by Logan to do the thing his shareholders were demanding (having him step down) but done so in a way that made his number one boy look heroic, thereby swaying the wavering institutional shareholders to toe the line and vote against Sandy and Stewie’s proxy slate. 

There are two large holes in Ariano’s theory (one of which was pointed out by her co-host Dave Chensky) about which I will discuss later, but let us conduct a quick thought experiment about why this might be the best reading of what happened.

First, Succession is nothing if not intentional. The main storyline during the second half of season two (the cruise line scandal) was a seed planted all the way back in the fourth episode of season one. How many times were we reminded that Gerri is the placeholder if anything happens to Logan? The decision was made in the second season’s first episode, but her position was referenced multiple times, at Tern Haven (by Logan), at Argestes (by Roman), and again in last night’s season finale. Even if Logan is unaware of the weird thing between Gerri and Roman, he noted his youngest son’s good work in attempting to lock down the sovereign wealth money, re-instituting Roman as lone COO while Shakespeare Frank is left to clean up the mess in the cruise line division. Logan, understanding Gerri’s loyalty (something he also mentioned in the finale), Roman’s sudden competence, and handing the actual shit work to a trusted and long-time staffer, would set up Waystar nicely in a post-Logan world.

Second, Logan likes using the hidden hand technique. At several times in season two, Logan successfully masked his role (and intention) by using proxies. The first time was in The Vaulter where he used Kendall as a Trojan Horse to convince Lawrence to cough up the real information about the site and to tamp down the staff’s pending unionization. The cloak and dagger worked - Larry turned over all the information Kendall needed to find the profit centers (weed and food) while avoiding the messy problem of almost 500 unionized employees, who were instead shitcanned with no notice and little severance. 

The second time was in Return, where he used Rhea to trick Shiv into having Rhea float her name as a possible CEO of PGM. The whole move was done to get Shiv to stop asking about taking over for Logan and again, it worked. And of course, Shiv’s prominence during the attempted PGM acquisition had a lot to do with her gender and her politics, both of which Logan understood would make his offer to the Pierces more palatable. 

Considered in this context, Kendall’s betrayal could be seen as the ultimate hidden hand maneuver. Logan’s sacrifice of Kendall was done in front of his entire brain trust and after every other option had been exhausted. If he wanted to make sure everyone would fall for the ruse, he had to dismiss the sovereign wealth idea, the negotiated settlement with Stewie, and cycling through all the other non-Kendall employee options before getting to the obvious answer. 

By having everyone buy into the idea that “it has to be Ken,” it makes the fake betrayal all the more believable (while also exposing everyone else’s venality as they collectively breathe a sigh of relief to be off the chopping block). Logan takes the heat off his company by taking the fall for the cruise line problems, the company moves on (presumably with greater transparency and policies), and most importantly, remains in the family. 

From a storytelling perspective, it also makes the most sense. While all may look chaotic, Logan can quietly work behind the scenes continuing to play puppet master even as he is presumably barred from publicly participating in any Waystar business. It also frees up Kendall to continue with the company, leaves Tom in place (and untouched by the scandal) with Roman, Shiv, and Gerri all jockeying atop the pyramid. 

The one big hole, and it is a glaring one, in this theory is the final scene between Logan and Kendall. While the characters may need to see Logan’s actions in a particular light, the audience does not. Logan’s whole Inca sacrifice story is unnecessary to anyone other the the viewer if this is all a work. Put differently, that scene is not only unnecessary if Logan is pulling a stunt, it actively undermines the storytelling by including it. It is not a small thing and to me, the most compelling evidence that this was not some three-dimensional chess maneuver but rather, a final break between father and son. 

The second hole is smaller, but worth noting. The hidden hand theory assumes that Logan was tipped about Greg’s continued possession of incriminating documents and pulled him in to the plot. It is, as we say in the law, assuming facts not in evidence. Granted, we did not see Greg’s testimony and during Tom’s, Greg melted down so bad Logan kicked him out of the war room they were using. Of course, Logan did tell Greg he liked him when Greg dropped his “Grexit” bomb in Dundee, so maybe Greg, ladder climber that he is, tipped Kendall (who did him the solid of hooking him up with a condo) about his secret stash (which would also take the heat off Greg with Grandpa Ewan). 

I guess we will find out when season three airs.

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Succession Power Rankings - This Is Not For Tears

Previous Power Rankings:

DC Dundee Return Argestes 

Tern Haven Safe Room Hunting The Vaulter

This week on Succession … Roman makes an escape. Shiv has a present for Tom. Kendall hatches a plan. And now, the Power Rankings:   

1. Kendall Roy (last week: 3): While all of us expected a biblical conclusion with the old man sacrificing you at the altar, your eyes were firmly set on Greek mythology. It is hard to know what was the final straw that made you decide to make a kamikaze run at your dad. Maybe it was when he dragged you into the home of the boy you killed or the tepid response to your KenWA rap. He may not have liked the good reviews you got when you fricasseed Gil Eavis or he simply could not stomach the idea you found a little bit of happiness with a kindred spirit across the Roy/Pierce divide. Whatever it was, you realized that blackmail stops working when you no longer allow yourself to be pressured by it. Might your dad go nuclear and spill the tea on your own personal Chappaquiddick? Maybe, but you decided it was time to take a stand and show him you are a killer. And so, with the help of a cousin who returned the favor of your giving him a sick condo by handing you the receipts that will blow the cruise line scandal wide open, and in front of an assembled media horde who expected you to take the fall, you pulled the pin on a grenade that might end up sinking the entire ship Fuck Off. But at least you are free. 

2. Sandy Furness & Stewie Houssani (last week: not ranked): It looks like slow and steady may yet win this race. Without doing much of anything, you now have the whip hand. While the Roy family flailed about trying to evade your grasp, you just kept plugging along, picking off shareholder support. You were confident enough in your position that you passed on Logan’s last minute peace offering and that was before his number one son pulled off the biggest heel turn since Hulk Hogan joined the nWo. The only question is whether you still want this now poisoned chalice. 

3. Cousin Greg(ory): (last week: 9): Perhaps we did not appreciate the subtle game of one Gregory Hirsch. After all, when we first met him, he was smoking swag weed and vomiting out of the eyes of an amusement park costume. His toenails are not aesthetically pleasing and he is socially awkward, a benign fungus, if you will. But Greg has quietly navigated Roy family politics, an affable Ichabod Crane riding the bench and doling out high fives when the coach calls a time out. Sure, he picked up a bit of a coke habit and does not exactly shine when the lights are brightest, but he wisely switched horses mid-stream, moving out of Tom’s orbit and making a key ally in Kendall. While Greg needed some time to find good dealers to keep our number one boy on an even keel, he recognized the value in having a corporate secret or two up his sleeve. Now, Greg(ory) finds himself in an enviable win/win scenario. Turning evidence against Uncle Loges might get Grandpa Grumps to reconsider disinheriting him and riding shotgun with Kendall may turn out to be even more profitable than the $250 million hanging in the balance. Kudos Greg, you negotiated your own Grexit.  

4. Logan Roy (last week: 1): Self-pity is not a good look even when you are staring down an existential threat to your rule, but you spent much of the time on your floating city ruminating on the injustice being hurled against you. Stepping down would be the right thing to do, but that is not the way you roll. It was telling that when you had a nautical Boar-on-the-Floor without the sausages, every person in your inner circle immediately pointed fingers instead of taking responsibility. This is the culture you nurtured. Gil Eavis may have pompously quoted Emerson, but he was not wrong, the company is a reflection of the man, and in this case, you value self-preservation over all else. You had no problem doing the sterile corporate math that one Kendall was a greater blood sacrifice than Gerri, Tom, and Karl (with a Greg sprinkle) combined. And when it came time to break the news to Ken, the best you could do was a half-hearted gesture to the nobility of sacrifice, but your heart was not really in it. When your son wanted the one thing you could have given him even if it was not true - validation that he could have done the job - you showed your true stripes, grumbling that he did not have what it takes. As Ken publicly turned the tables on you, was that half-smile an admission that you underestimated him or a frisson of excitement at the next game afoot? 

5. Shiv Roy (last week: 2): When handed the opportunity to play CEO, when you were at the most intimate of tables, the place you yearned to be, with a man deciding the future fate of his company, your birthright, and a future he promised, you folded. You may be able to push around scared whistleblowers and be glib in front of a crowd of fellow one-percenters, but when the time came to swing the sword, when emotion had to be removed from the equation, your midwestern meat puppet, the man you have been stepping on and humiliating even before you exchanged wedding vows, finally forced you to find the tiniest sliver of humanity. Will it last? Will it matter? Who knows. If your dad finds a way to maintain power, you have one less sibling to worry about, but in the meantime, you need to do more than spoon feed Tom a fantasy threesome to make your marriage work. 

6. Roman Roy (last week: 4): The hero of Asia closed out the season on a high note. Ro got a verbal agreement from a shady oligarch with enough fuck you money to take Waystar private, but was honest enough with himself (and Logan) to admit that if the money was actually needed, the offer was not solid. With Ken on the chopping block, he even got his old job back, but the victory may be pyrrhic. On the personal front, Tabs seems to be MIA, but you are more than happy to throw yourself in front of Gerri to save her bacon. Your unlikely ascent to the throne could still happen, you just need something untoward to happen to your dad and for Sandy and Stewie to decide the squeeze is no longer worth the juice. Keep your powder dry and your little dick ready, Mole Woman and Tarzan may yet run the show. 

7. Gerri Killman (last week: 6): Sometimes putting emotional labor into a relationship pays off. Your partner treats you to a nice evening out on the town or is simply present when you need to process the struggles of your day. And while it would be nice to let your hair down and have a companion to mix you that martini as you try to wash off the latest dirt you had to handle on behalf of the Roy family, Roman steering the herd cull away from you was a greater reward for helping him work out his sexual kinks than any day at the spa. 

8. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: 10): I will not lie, the early returns did not look good. You were the least enthusiastic participant in a threesome in, basically, the history of threesomes. You were the logical man to toss overboard after your embarrassing performance in front of the Senate and, not for anything, you actually did cover-up all the dirty dealings in the cruise line division. If someone deserved to have his head put on a spike, you were definitely at the top of the list. But you pulled a trump card. You looked at Shiv with those sad eyes and told her your marriage was not working. YOU’RE NOT A HIPPIE FOR GOODNESS SAKES! You are just a square from the midwest with old-fashioned values like not being cool with your wife catching some random cock when she feels like it. You were no longer going to be the doormat she wiped her feet on or the robot who mindlessly carried out her orders, even if it meant giving up the lavish lifestyle you have grown accustomed to. You stood up for yourself. You ate Logan's chicken. But in true Wamgsganian fashion, it may have been too little, too late. 

9. Jess (last week: not ranked): It would be unfair to close out the season without acknowledging our number one boy's number one assistant. As is usually the case, Jess's lines are few, but her presence is meaningful. Serving as Kendall’s assistant is no picnic, between arranging satellite offices for a soon-to-be-shuttered website to triaging the payouts for his petty thefts, hers is a thankless job. But it may turn out to be an important one if Kendall survives the civil war he just started among the Roy clan. 

10. Connor Roy (last week: 5): Tough week for Connor. Just as the nascent Conn-Head movement is picking up steam and his campaign is gaining traction by making his Senate hearing fist pump go viral, all those suction cups connected to his bank account  - the real deal pieces of shit political consultants and the rent-a-girlfriend-who-is-not-really-a-playwright who saw a mark a mile away - have finally milked him dry. The Bank of D-A-D is ready to give you that $100 million lifeline, but there is a simple string attached, two actually. One is the obvious - ending the horse shit pipe dream you had of being President. The other, less so, the truth bomb he dropped, that you are basically as useless as the fake Napoleon dick you bought for half-a-mil. Time to head back to the desert, Connor. 

Not Ranked: Marcia Roy; Willa; Tabitha; Hugo Baker; Karolina; Jamie (Laird); the unnamed yacht employee with whom Shiv and Tom were going to have their threesome; the merlot waterboard; Gil Eavis; Nate; Eduard; Naomi Pierce. 

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy

Succession Power Rankings - DC

Previous Power Rankings 

Dundee Return Argestes Tern Haven

Safe Room Hunting The Vaulter

This week on Succession … Logan and Kendall go to Congress, Roman takes a trip, and Shiv visits a playground. And now, the Power Rankings: 

1. Logan Roy (last week: 1): You are plausible and appealing even when you are lying. Karolina and Hugo drafted a great opening statement for your testimony in front of the Senate, not a single word of which was true. You sent off Roman to search for your white knight sovereign wealth fund savior while telling Rhea all was good in the world. This is what you do, this is who you are. But in that quiet moment when the ATN anchors are flooding the media bloodstream with your preferred spin and it looks like you are in the clear, you are honest enough with yourself (and your suddenly back-in-favor youngest child) to know that tossing a middle manager like Bill to the wolves will not be enough. No, you are about to go biblical, sacrificing your number one boy at the altar of public opinion to save yourself and avoid losing control of the company you have run for a half-century. 

2. Shiv Roy (last week: 3): In the shitstorm of conflicting interests swirling around that hearing room, you knew just what to do. There was no saving your helpless husband from a verbal beatdown by your former boss, but that was just a sideshow. The real action was taking place behind the scenes. In D.C., everything is transactional. Gil did not accept Bill as the scalp to hang on his wall because he thought he had your dad over a barrel in the form of a second whistleblower who would put a human (and more importantly, female) face on the dirty dealings in the cruise line division. But you outmaneuvered Gil. It may have been soft skills lady duty shit work, but you wove a story with just the right amount of believability, earnestness and faux sincerity to a frightened witness who knew she was in over her head. Is that dinosaur cull you promised at Argestes going to happen? Probably not. But in that moment, when you needed to sell it to a vulnerable woman unsure of her next move, you made it sound believable. 

3. Kendall Roy (last week: 4): Our number one boy has come a long way from that stuttering "dad's plan was better" appearance on TV at the beginning of the season. Then, Ken was still in shock over the life he had taken (not to mention the spa treatment that was so rudely interrupted). Now, he has the chops to go mano-a-mano with a candidate for President of the these United States and walk away with his head held high. Of course, they say no good deed goes unpunished, a lesson it appears he is about to learn. Kendall's reward for trying to clean up the cruise line division while he was in charge and then taking charge when Logan started to mumble incoherently during his testimony will be serving as the sacrificial lamb to the shareholders in order to put down Sandy and Stewie’s takeover attempt once and for all. But hey, at least Naomi showed up to support him. Better not mention you have been drowning in pussy Kendall, she will either be jealous or want phone numbers. 

4. Roman Roy (last week: 6): People like you Roman. You are the kind of guy who can keep rich white men loose during a hostage situation, sorry, administrative action function, with a quick game of  “fuck/marry/kill.” And while no one will mistake you for Vince Lombardi when it comes to giving pep talks to football players (football, soccer, do you even know the difference?) your dad got you hyped up enough to convince you that you can stick your little dick into the right hole and have $10 billion fall out of it. Assuming you make it out alive, you may be able to tell your dad you got laid, even if it had nothing to do with actually having sex. One step at a time. 

5. Connor Roy (last week: 10): Just a steady week for our Don Quixote of Iowa, tilting at straw polls. Sometimes it is enough to be there for moral support and not-so-subtle fist pumps when your half-brother shish-kebobs a stuffed-shirt Senator while low key eyeballing the domain you wish to rule. If there is time, you might even duck into a Conn-Head meeting before flying back to New York hoping ticket sales for Willa's play have improved.

6. Gerri Killman (last week: not ranked): When the bear is chasing two people, you do not need to outrun the bear, just the other person it is chasing. For someone who everyone agrees is neck deep in the shit, you keep walking away smelling like a rose. From Boar on the Floor to the halls of Congress, nothing sticks to you. Now that you have escaped D.C. unscathed, it is time to go home, pour yourself a martini, and wonder why Roman has not called for his nightly verbal humiliation.  

7. Rhea Jarrell (last week: 2): Well, it was fun while it lasted. You did not really believe you could seamlessly shift from being CEO of PGM to Waystar Royco, did you? Nan’s company is Shakespeare and star gazing. Logan’s is a dumpster fire pirate death ship constantly teetering on the edge of disaster. At your first meeting with Logan you told him you had a delicate tummy, making a joke that the one thing they eat at PGM is Pulitzer, but it was clear you had no stomach for doing the dirty work required to keep the good ship Fuck Off churning along. When it came time to put the screws to Kira, you begged off, and now you get to start a new chapter in your life working at a telephone company. Hey, it’s all gravy, right?

8. Gil Eavis (last week: not ranked): That brief moment in the sun when you worked Tom like a speedbag is providing this temporary return to the Power Rankings, but when it came time to tangle with Kendall and Shiv, you were the one knocked on your ass reaching for your mouthpiece. Instead of taking the easy win - a bad guy to pin the blame on (Bill) and covering fire from ATN, who would go after your political opponents, you did what you always do, you overreached. You are the kind of guy who thinks quoting Emerson makes you smart, but when the gloves came off, they had knives and you had a book on philosophy. 

9. Cousin Greg(ory) (last week: 8): You fucked up the easiest game of "Let's Make A Deal" in history. Behind Door #1 was a quarter of a billion dollars. Let me repeat that. A. Quarter. Of. A. Billion. Dollars. All you had to do was quit your job vetting ATN on-air talent for Nazi sympathies and not spend your Thanksgiving shredding evidence of corporate malfeasance. That is it. Behind Door #2 was a misguided belief your Uncle Logan would protect you and not throw you overboard faster than you can say "no real person involved" when the world found out you hitched your wagon to a guy who emailed you "you can't make a tomlette without cracking a few greggs" 67 times. Sure, you are still in line to inherit $5 million when your sturdy grandpa finally passes on, but that kind of money will make you un poco loco Gregory. It is not enough to retire on, but too much to force you to work. Instead of a quarter bil, you are now the world's tallest dwarf, the weakest strongman at the circus. 

10. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: 9): You earned that pithy B+ (bad plus terrible) grade Frank tagged you with. Did you really think a lack of preparation was the reason why you melted under the hot lights of the Senate committee room like the smirking block of feta cheese The Atlantic said you were? If you were not married to the boss's daughter, you would have been banished from the Power Rankings long ago. 

Not Ranked: Marcia Roy; Willa; Naomi Pierce; Don Grundham and the Conn-Heads at the Institute for a Competitive America; Bill Lockhart; Karolina; Hugo Baker; Jamie; Eduard; Hearts FC; Dave the Security Guard; Colin; Stewy; Sandy Furness (who may or may not have syphilis); the Brightstar Cruise Line; the Florida Gang; Senator Roberts; Nate; the Great National Latrine; Sandy's Six Shell Companies; The Cruise Ship Dirty Sex Cover-Up Party; Kira; James Weissel; Tabitha; Karl. 

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

Succession Power Rankings - Safe Room

Previous Power Rankings:

Hunting

The Vaulter 

This week on Succession, Logan takes a meeting, Connor gives a eulogy, Roman does some work, and Greg gets a promotion. And now ... the Power Rankings: 

1. Logan Roy (last week: 1): When Logan Roy says something will happen, that thing happens, and in this case, the wheels are in motion for the PGM acquisition. Otherwise, it is steady as she goes on the good ship Fuck Off. Shiv has been brought into the fold, Roman is off at management training and Kendall is diligently apportioning out the old man’s meds. Sure, an ATN employee killed himself at his desk and Logan had to install a (tasteful) anti-suicide barrier on the roof of Waystar HQ so his number one boy does not take a header off the building, but now that Shakespeare Frank has greased the wheels with Rhea Jarrell, Logan’s long-held dream of screwing over his brother Ewan by buying the media conglomerate he gets his news from is that much closer to reality. 

2. Rhea Jarrell (last week: not ranked): What price can you put on fronting a news organization with a carefully cultivated reputation for objectivity that has exercised editorial independence for 150 years? Apparently, $24 billion, give or take. You see the synergies, you can almost taste the payout, but you are a mere conduit for the interests of your Pierce family overlords, so you will take Logan’s eight-figure offer to them, along with your honest assessment of whether he can be trusted (yeah, right). 

3. (tie) Shiv Roy and Kendall Roy (last week: 6 and 2, respectively): Safe Room highlighted a point I made a few weeks ago - when the Roy kids are working together instead of trying to step on each other, they make a formidable team. Rhea confirms Kendall’s initial assessment of a potential merger (a “plug and play” connection that offers cost-cutting opportunities) but needs Shiv, and her more liberal politics, in the room to open the door for serious negotiations. Shiv also recommends firing neo-Nazi hairdo Mark Ravenhead well before Rhea suggests the same thing as a peace offering toward the Pierces. 

But it was the final scene of the episode that really shook me. A show that rarely allows its characters to be vulnerable with each other did so in an agonizing way. Kendall is broken and consumed with guilt and he finally lets that out, if only for a moment, when he and his sister embrace. Instead of pulling away, she softens, and, for a moment at least, the scheming is set aside because this is her brother, exposing himself in a human way. 

5. Cousin Greg (last week: 7): Say what you will about Greg, but when the time came to level up from executive assistant to executive, he played his hand beautifully. Blackmailing Tom for a seat at the grown up table was nicely done, but going from a combination of Tom’s coffee boy and Kendall’s drug hook-up to a corner office is going to be a bumpy ride. 

6. Gerri Killman (last week: 3): A good general counsel wears many hats. She must understand the intricacies of her company’s 10-K statement, the finer points of a potential acquisition’s pension plan, and be vigilant for an out of the blue crisis like a satellite blowing up on the launch pad. It is understandable that after a long day at the office, Gerri likes to unwind with a nice martini and some hard core phone fetish play with her boss’s son. 

7. Roman Roy (last week: 8): Sometimes, to get ahead you have to take a step back. In Roman’s case, it means walking around a Waystar amusement park as the World’s Biggest Turkey and having his lines from the welcome video omitted. Suffering through lame team building exercises and stale pastries is a small price to pay if it means making his way back into Logan’s good graces. Of course, the only thing more predictable than his laissez faire attitude toward management training was the reveal that he is a submissive who gets off on being told what a bad boy he is by a powerful older woman. Gobble-dee-go-fuck-yourself! 

8. Willa (last week: not ranked): Being sent as an emissary to the funeral of a long-tenured Waystar Royco executive is a tacit acknowledgement that Willa is slowly being woven into the Roy family tapestry. This is the kind of skill one needs to hone if one is going to be the First Lady of our nation; however, Willa’s true contribution, landing her first ever spot on the power rankings, was her anodyne, on-the-fly eulogy of Moe(Lester) for Connor, saving him from any embarrassment once Michelle Pantsil’s biography of Logan is published, complete with whatever dirty details the now dead Uncle Meathands shared. 

9. Brian (last week: not ranked): Life at Waystar Royco is a funny thing. One day you’re slumming it at the Fort Myers resort being held back by supervisors who do not appreciate your unique blend of intellectual promiscuity and cultural conservatism, the next day you’re hobnobbing with “Ron Rockstone” spitballing knock-off Saving Private Ryan VR experiences on the fast track to corporate HQ in New York City. 

10. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: 10): Going from the cruise line division, with its unreported sexual assaults and hush money payments, to ATN, with its possibly neo-Nazi anchors (but he does skew young!) and Antifa protestors, has a bit of the frying pan into the fire vibe to it. Nothing like having to ask your star news anchor if he's ever been a member of the American Nazi Party or double check his math on the body count from World War II to drive home the point that Tom is in-over-his-head. Jonah may be a human foot stool for him to humiliate, but when the shit hits the fan, Tom is relegated to the kid's table safe room, getting dunked on by Cousin Greg, who is looking to escape from Tom’s insecurity gravity field. On the plus side, a job has opened up in the “latte me” department. 

Not Ranked: Marcia Roy; Connor "interested in politics from a very young age" Roy; Tabitha; Frank; Jamie; Karolina; Michelle Pastil; Mark Ravenhead; The Wolfpack; Maria, Lester's Sad Widow; Jonah, the Human Foot Stool; Jess; Stewie; Sandy Furness; Sno-Jo; Paula Conroy, the overly excited Waystar Royco management training coordinator; Coriolanus; Brian's nephews Cooper and Clark; Frank's library card; the candy and vape fluid Kendall stole.

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Succession Power Rankings - The Vaulter

The Succession Power Rankings - The Vaulter Edition

1. Kendall Roy: I am not here to pretend all is well in Ken’s world. He carries so much guilt he cannot even hug his daughter after she got to meet Sno-Jo at her birthday party and the thanks he got for poring over Vaulter’s financials for 36 hours was a defenestration in front of his dad when Roman springs the news that plans are afoot for the employees there to unionize, BUT, when given his marching orders to gut the online site, he does so deftly. He hoodwinks the staff into not unionizing then harvests a bunch of ideas before bloodlessly firing them all. Kendall’s reward is a return to the “C” suite even though Logan literally takes a call from Shiv confirming she’s ready to come into the business while Kendall gets his promotion. 

2. Cyd Peach: Every four years, Logan sends Cyd a latte sipping douchebag with a $100 haircut who she devours in one bite like a freaking anaconda in a Discovery Channel documentary. The woman is a human stiletto and will make a meal out of Tom and then pick her teeth with his bones.

3. Logan Roy: The man is manipulating his children like some sort of modern day Tywin Lannister while also fighting off a proxy battle from an equally dickish competitor. Just a solid episode of growling at his underlings and doing what he does best - humiliation and telling people to fuck off, but could someone find the poor man three women for his board of directors? 

4. Tabitha: Has anyone this side of Cousin Greg had a more meteoric rise? She has parlayed a bachelor party blow job into becoming Roman Roy’s confidant. Of course, everyone is focusing on her “you should swallow something” closed-loop call-back to Tom, but her withering put down of Roman, “mazel tov, you did a thing” was what really turned my head. Unclear if she’s playing the “I’m above it all” card (which makes her more desirable) or if she just does not give a fuck, but she brings all of Willa’s eye-rolling and none of her sketchy background and I am here for all of it. 

5. Shiv Roy: I would have ranked Shiv higher but she gave up the one thing she had - leverage - by bailing on Gil. Her attempt to nudge Kendall into defying their father by saving Vaulter went nowhere and Roman does not even consider her a threat. Three years (minimum) is a long time to wait for the CEO job.  

6. Cousin Greg: A classic good news/bad news week for Greg. The good news is that he found 30 (maybe 50?) people Tom can fire at ATN and he has supplanted Jess as Kendall’s drug procurer of choice. Even better, Kendall gifts him a dope condo in Manhattan so he doesn’t have to commute in from Staten Island (which might as well be Cleveland). The bad news is that Kendall wants to use that condo as some sort of Caligula-like fuck pad cum drug den and ATN’s views on racism do not exactly align with Greg’s. 

7. Roman Roy: Quietly drafting the other competitors for dad’s attention, he gets key intel from the Vaulter staff at the low, low price of a couple of rounds of overpriced IPAs. He almost pulls off a dinner party (race relations, kale, etc.) and has a girlfriend who is way too hot (and tall!) for him. Still too reliant on Gerri and no one takes him seriously. 

8. Gil Eavis: Signs are pointing toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on a private jet he has free use of on the weekend and he hasn’t lost his touch with the common man. He did, however, lose his chief political consultant who he was planning to make his Chief of Staff. Oh well, enjoy the gluten and melted cheese. 

9. Tom Wamgsgans: Tom has gone from swallowing his own load to swallowing a torrent of insults on everything from his suits to his haircut. His dream of one day running Waystar Royco evaporated in roughly the amount of time it took his wife to pour him a nightcap. His only hope is massaging his father-in-law’s g-spot by trimming back stationary use and firing some low-level staffers at ATN. Also walks around as a cuckold while fearing his wife will find out her brother’s new girlfriend sucked his dick at his bachelor party. 

10. The Vaulter Red Shirt Who Spit in Kendall’s Face: Shouts to the guy whose health benefits will be terminated at the end of the month and will only get a week’s severance for every year he worked at the now-mostly shuttered website. 

Not Ranked: Marcia Roy; Connor Roy; Willa; Stewie; Lawrence; Gerri; Sandy Furness; Jess; Nate; Stanley, the Real Estate Agent; the Vaulter bee hive; Julia, the amusement park employee who takes the Wagon Train ride up to a point; Shiv’s bottle of hand sanitizer; the Bodega guy who did not notice Kendall steal a two-pack of batteries; Logan and Marcia’s Alexa; the Facebook algorithm; the five interns now running the weed and food verticals at the stripped down version of Vaulter.

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Succession Recap - The Vaulter

If Logan Roy could create a Franken-Child made up of the best parts of his otherwise damaged spawn (Shiv's mercenary attitude, Roman's ability to read people, Kendall's penchant for scheming), he might have himself a person worthy of filling his shoes. Instead, he has three wannabe piranhas nipping at each other in hopes of being the last fish in the tank. This is unfortunate because if the kids took a moment to appreciate each other instead of searching for a spot on each other's back to insert a knife, they would realize each complements the others' weaknesses. If Logan was not so busy setting them up to compete in a bizarro Lord of the Flies contest, he might be in better shape to save his company.

The second episode of Succession's second season nicely proved this point. Most of the episode focused on the fictional Buzzfeed cum Mic cum Grantland online media source Vaulter. Kendall bought it at a premium in the show’s first episode, believing in it a tech Valhalla to move Waystar Royco deep into the 21^st century. But the old man was not as sanguine, and as the family tries to fight off a hostile takeover attempt, the site’s bloated budget looks ripe for a good downsizing. 

When Logan deploys his two children to kick the tires on the operation, Roman susses out Vaulter's wonky financials and worse, <gasp> plans to unionize. Instead of being papered to death by Lawrence, Roman gets this key intel at the cost of a few overpriced IPAs. While Kendall burns the midnight oil (as it turns out “weed” and “food” are the sole profitable pieces of the whole enterprise) and can’t pitch his dad on the benefits Vaulter possesses, it is Kendall's gravitas that allows him to first hoodwink the staff into ditching their plan to unionize (and cough up new ideas he could use later) and then carry out a bloodless firing of the entire staff (quite a commentary that the only profitable parts of a 480-person website could be cherrypicked and run by a 5 person crew of interns). For this, Kendall gets a promotion into Logan’s CEO suite even as Logan is on the phone (right in front of him!) confirming with Shiv that she has bailed on Gil Eavis.

Shiv’s decision is a curious one. On the one hand, she is wise to her father's ways ("two contenders, one chair, that's his favorite," she observes to Tom after his promotion to co-run ATN with human stiletto Cyd Peach) but she dumps the one thing she had – leverage – when Logan forces the issue. You want this, he seems to say, here is what you need to do. When she wavers ever so slightly on his three-years-and-change plan, he moves on to the next issue. Her reluctance is understandable. Three years is a long time and a lot can happen along the way. Kendall, admittedly a soulless automaton now carrying out his father's orders not like some sort of pussy-chasing Tech Gatsby but more like a Corporate Bro Terminator, is already well ensconced, albeit with a dirty secret that could destroy him. Roman, feckless and work-averse as he is, cultivates Gerri, the company's Swiss Army knife of a general counsel, to make up for his lack of heft. Balking at the need for seasoning when she sees one unqualified brother and another who tried to swipe the whole thing (on her wedding day no less!) is understandable, but, as the kids used to say, don’t hate the player, hate the game. 

One of the things I have come to love about Succession is its concentric circles of maneuvering. Shiv, Roman, and Kendall are all orbiting Logan’s office but The Vaulter exposed Tom’s utter, shameless, and overt ladder climbing too. The “plan,” we now know, he and Shiv concocted involved Tom becoming CEO at some point (dubious, considering his fecklessness) and props to the actor playing Tom, he gets kicked in the groin multiple times in this episode and his reactions to each are letter perfect, whether it’s bachelor party fling Tabitha telling him he might want to “swallow something” or Shiv downloading Logan’s offer to her with Tom having to feign support even as the blood is draining from his face and he sees his future as some sort of man servant (or cuckold?) is really outstanding. 

All that is left for Tom is to kick someone beneath him and that is Cousin Greg, whose stardom (at least in my twitter feed) pleases me. He is written with such a wonderful combination of naivete and earnestness yet he is subtle enough to appreciate the value of accumulating favors (and secreting away compromising blackmail material if needed at a later date). While he may have to put up with some randos boning in his bed, that seems a small price to pay for living in a massive condo with 30-foot high ceilings and sending a few clerks to the unemployment line at ATN if it helps put a few pelts on Tom’s wall for Logan to admire. 

Threaded throughout The Vaulter and the series generally are a legion of what are the rich person’s version of science-fiction red shirts. These are the servants, the chauffeurs, the door holders, the mass of millennials in the Vaulter fish bowl, and more, all of whom are disposable and interchangeable parts for obscenely wealthy people. Connor’s obsession with great battles and military leaders is telling – those historical events and figures similarly revolve around decisions made by the few affecting the many, yet the bubble of privilege that shields the Roys from ever experiencing consequences for their actions just emboldens them to keep doing bad things. 

In this way, Kendall’s soul deadened affect stands out. While Connor rents living space and a faux girlfriend, Roman walks away unscathed when a rocket blows up on the launch pad, Shiv cheats right under her husband’s nose, her husband makes plans to fire 50 people, and Greg does as he is told, none of them appear to notice or care how their behavior affects others. Kendall clearly does (though those Vaulter employees might disagree), at least as it relates to his whole I-killed-a-guy-and-it-got-covered-up-to-protect-me thing. 

Of the Roys, I find him the most interesting because he does appear to have some humanity when interacting with people outside his bubble. He isn’t reaching for the hand sanitizer when he comes into contact with the masses, he is polite to an amusement park worker when his daughter wants a ride to go faster, and even last season, when the anchor of one of ATN’s news shows is his date at a charity ball, he blanches when she tells him she basically felt forced (by her boss, who reported to him) to go, even though she had a boyfriend. If you put aside the drug addiction and the responsibility for another person’s death, you might even find Kendall’s subtle act of rebellion – pilfering a two-pack of batteries on his way out of the bodega – charming.

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The Kids Are Not Alright

There is a line from the just-finished first season of HBO's remarkable teen drama Euphoria that I think about a lot. It happens in the fourth episode, when Rue, the show's protagonist and recovering drug addict is excitedly telling Ali, the-closest-thing-she-has-to-a-sponsor, about her new bestie Jules. Rue is crushing hard on Jules in the way that teens swoon - hard, deep, and total. Instead of absorbing this information neutrally or showing enthusiasm that Rue has met someone who might be good for her, Ali is dismissive. "Nothing in high school lasts forever," he observes, snuffing out Rue's happiness like a cigarette. It captured neatly so much of what I loved about this daring, but unsubtle look at teen culture in America.

Euphoria saturated itself and the TV screen in all of what makes being a teen such a minefield. It is a time in your life when you have the first taste of independence but little of the experience needed to navigate the big emotions this show marinates in. In its desire to speak big truths, Euphoria left few stones unturned. The standard teen angst of crushes and first loves, of pregnancy scares and parties, is told for the internet age, a generation born after 9/11 that is online all the time, gets hooked on drugs in mom and dad’s medicine cabinet, and vape now-legal marijuana. 

Thematically, the internet is like the atmosphere, omnipresent and defining. It informs the characters’ views on sexuality (degrading toward woman), how they interact (intimately, but at a remove), and serves as an escape valve where teens can binge watch reality TV to numb their pain or google the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Euphoria is not the first TV show to serve as a meditation on the dual-edge of our wired world - both connecting and isolating us in ways we do not fully appreciate, but its unflinching view of that phenomenon, where emotions are splayed in their raw form, is jarring. 

To be sure, the show broke new ground in a variety of ways, its casual (and extensive) level of full frontal male nudity, cheeky asides (Rue’s “dick pic” PSA), hallucinogenic cinematography, and exploration of teen drug use gave Euphoria a  unique look and feel. As I noted in a tweet, an 11th grader runs a side hustle as an online dominatrix for middle aged male pay pigs and it is not even one of the show’s three craziest story lines.  But beneath the veneer, if you can get past the ten-year-old drug dealer and the password-protected “slut shame” pages of underage teen girl nude selfies, the adults who are venal and creepy, clueless and neutered, is a love story between Rue and Jules. 

And that is where the unevenness of the show sets in. Rue’s story is at its most compelling when she is a charming hustler manipulating her square friend Lexi into giving her clean pee or bailing on a drug debt before it can be collected. Zendaya’s magnetism is never stronger than when she is sizing up her opportunities, deftly side-stepping land mines of her own creation, and consuming the world in a blur of pharmaceutical potions. Her come-to-Jesus moment with Ali puts her on a sober path, but the result is an endgame that reduces her to a single dimension - pouty buzzkill moping while her crush spirals out of control. 

As the season reached its end game, it seemed to trim its sails. The smaller plot points are rushed to a conclusion during the school’s winter ball. Nate, the star quarterback (who may also be sexually conflicted, a sadist, and a psychopath),  dodges responsibility for brutally assaulting a man who hooked up with his on-again-off-again girlfriend and for (separately) assaulting her. As the couple grinds away on the dance floor, her friends blankly observe that their mutual obsession means they are made for each other. Kat, she of the massive Tumblr fanfic following and burgeoning findom empire, revolts against it in a John Hughes moment, embracing nerdy Ethan as her match. 

The ball also frames the characters in a way that made it feel like we were watching a gal pack aging in reverse - one that began with Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, then to Hannah, Marnie, Jessa, and Shoshanna, and now, Rue, Jules, Maddie, Cassie, Lexi, and Kat. Which is fine so far as it goes, but this level of derivativeness suggested the show was traveling in the wrong direction. When Rue and Jules decide to escape the suburbs for the big city, Rue (predictably) is left on the train platform, unable to jettison the box she lives in. My immediate thought was of the milquetoast 90s movie Mr. Holland’s Opus whose climactic scene is not that different (just with a middle aged man deciding not to leave his wife for the ingenue when they are about to depart for the big city instead of a teen drug addict bailing on her transgendered girlfriend). Zendaya does such an effective job of desexualizing Rue that her romance with Jules has a requisite level of awkwardness when there is unequal attraction; however, Rue’s feelings could have been left unrequited without any harm to the plot line.

It was a disappointing end to an eight-episode run that had some stand out moments and performances. The early part of the final episode featured a haunting voiceover of Rue’s mom reading a letter to herself of what she did not not know when Rue was born that still lingers with me. A young Nate finding out his father cheats on his mother by fucking cross dressers and transsexuals - and recording those encounters - is devastating, and the monologue Ali drops on Rue, about the emotional harm she did to her younger sister, who found Rue OD’d, and how Rue will have to live with that responsibility, is a truth bomb no 17-year-old should have to hear. 

Similarly, Maude Apatow’s Lexi shines when given the opportunity (her Bob Ross Halloween outfit and her run as wing woman for Rue’s manic police detective fugue state were standout) but she mainly serves as the can’t-meet-a-boy-overshadowed-by-her-hotter-sister-Cassie. Hunter Schafer’s Jules is astonishing, from the brutally disturbing hook up with Nate’s dad in the premiere to her weekend escape to the city where she meets Anna, Jules dangles emotions like a puppeteer, careening from moments of quiet intimacy to full on rebellion that are exhilarating and difficult to watch. 

As the girls muse on the scene unfolding in front of them at that winter ball, they wonder whether this is their last chance to dream or have no ability to do so. I could not think of a better description of being a teenager.

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Barry

Hollywood is a land of make believe inhabited by people who pretend to be someone else. Any time a TV show tackles the struggles of actors, there is an Inception quality to it - you have real-life stars portraying not-yet-famous characters next to real-life not-yet-famous actors trying to break through and make it big. In Barry, which wrapped its first season on Sunday, the added wrinkle is that among the strivers at a community theater acting troupe is a hit man who made his way to La La Land to kill one of their classmates. 

The season unfolds on the outskirts of Los Angeles, on stage and among the low rent criminals Barry meets. The two worlds intersect because dimwitted blonde Ryan Madison is sleeping with the wife of a Chechen mob boss named Goran. Barry is contracted to kill Ryan but can’t go through with it after accidentally walking in on an acting class led by one Gene M. Cousineau (played with brio by Henry Winkler, who walks off with every scene he is in) and befriending Ryan and his fellow classmates. 

You quickly realize everyone in Barry is D-list. Gene is a past-his-prime actor still auditioning for one line roles and whose main career achievement appears to be a coke-fueled performance of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night not in the three hours it usually takes, but less than forty minutes. Nevertheless, Gene is beloved by his actors, a motley assortment of fringe talent whose acting credits extend no further than You Tube videos and a CSI cameo as a dead body. The Chechen Mafia types think it’s ‘big time’ to send a bullet to a rival gang but Goran, and his goofy number two, Noho Hank, conduct business over phones tapped by the police, record their own criminal behavior for reasons unknown, and Hank sends Barry texts with emojis more appropriate for a twelve-year-old than a cold-blooded killer.  

It is all low rent, like the bric-a-brac that sprung up around Disneyland in Anaheim because Walt was not smart enough to buy the adjacent land (a problem he rectified in Florida). The theater troupe runs through scenes from movies while Gene toggles between boredom and ferocity (his takedown of Barry’s performance of the scene made famous by Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross might be the single funniest in the show’s eight episodes) while the police officers who investigate Ryan’s murder have a Keystone Kops aspect to them. The lead detective, Janice, is seduced by Gene’s hammy come-ons while her underlings generally fumble about until the case breaks late in the season. 

As Barry’s sort-of love interest, Sarah Goldburg’s Sally Reed comes closest to getting her brass ring. She desperately wants to nail her role as Macbeth in front of an agent who she hopes will sign her so she can then dump him when she becomes more successful (hey, it worked for Emma Stone). While she has the unfortunate experience of getting dropped by another manager who she won’t sleep with, she is a ladder-climber, dropping Barry when he becomes jealous of her flirtations with a guy who voices Pinnochio and muscling her way past her classmates for the starring role in their Shakespeare production only to circle back to Barry when his grief over killing a Marine buddy spills over into his Macbeth performance with her. 

Overall, the show has an off-kilter feel. Through the first half of the eight episode season, Barry’s world weary assassin is reminiscent of John Cusack in Gross Pointe Blank. Bill Hader is more sad sack, his facial expressions elastic in joy when Sally is with him but often puzzled and muted when trying to cope with his handler, Fuches, and the Chechens. The introduction of Chris (the Marine Corps buddy) midway through the season is the pivot point that takes the show in a much darker direction. Barry, Chris, and two other former Marines are enlisted to knock out Goran’s Bolivian competition, but their mission fails. The two Marines are killed in a shootout and Barry murders Chris when he threatens to go to the police, staging the scene as a suicide even though Barry had met the man’s wife and child. 

Barry appears to wrap things in a neat Hollywood bow when Barry murders Goran and his henchmen and the police pin the whole mess on a gang war with the Bolivians, Ryan (the deceased actor) and one of the Marines who died in the shootout with the Bolivians. But in an odd coda scene, we flash forward in time. Barry and Sally are together, working on a two-person play (directed by Gene) and spending a weekend with Gene and Janice at Gene’s retreat. Janice notices Barry’s surname is listed as “Block” not “Berkman” on the play’s poster and her suspicions are further aroused when Gene reminisces about the impromptu monologue about being a hit man Barry did to get into Gene’s acting class. When Janice sneaks out to look up “Barry Block” on Facebook, she ties the whole caper together, realizing it was Barry who appeared on a grainy video of the original murder scene. He confronts her and tries to talk her out of arresting him. When she demurs, he kills her, promising to be better as the show fades to black.

Huh? Barry has been renewed for a second season so I suppose this loose end will also be tied up, or maybe it was all just a dream (there were several such sequences in past episodes). This is Hollywood after all. 

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Varys -- Double Agent?

HBO wrapped the sixth season of Game of Thrones with a commanding image of Daenerys, her retinue of advisors and a massive armada steaming for Westeros. It was an impressive sight made all the more so by an alliance cemented by Varys in the waning moments of The Winds of Winter that brought the Dornish and the Queen of Thorns (House Tyrell) into the fold.

But what if instead of collecting what passes for a Westerosi version of the super friends, Varys was actually engaging in a deeper game on behalf of Queen Cersei? Judging from the first three episodes of Season Seven, the possibility of a mole within Dany’s circle may be the Occam’s Razor for why she is now, as The Ringer crew put it, in danger of becoming GoT’s 2016 Golden State Warriors – blowing a 3-1 lead to an inferior opponent.

Consider Dany’s military plan to conquer Westeros. It called for the siege of King’s Landing by the Dornish and Tyrells, with the Unsullied storming Casterly Rock to cut off a potential route of retreat for the Lannister army. It all made sense until Euron destroyed Dany’s fleet and captured Ellaria and Yara, Cersei sacrificed Casterly Rock (strategically unimportant) and moved her troops on Highgarden instead, not only snuffing out the Tyrell army but looting its gold to pay off the throne’s debt to the Iron Bank.

While it is possible that Jaime and Euron are military geniuses and Tyrion a fool, in this show, so pregnant with deceit and double-dealing, Varys’s position within Dany’s small council points to a different solution. After all, if Varys was working for Cersei, she could not ask for anything more than having all her enemies huddled under one tent to then be picked off one by one with inside intel on their military plans. Not only would the destruction of old houses allow her to insert new leadership beholden to her (see, Randall Tarly) but would make her rule unquestioned, with no enemies (or dragons) to deal with.

Dany sensed this in her tense back-and-forth with Varys, ticking off his prior betrayals and putting to him the question of why she should trust him. His “I choose you” declaration sounded sincere but for a show that fetishizes the idea of a man’s “word” having great value, the successful players of the game deftly sense when their allegiance should sway in order to move up the ladder. Indeed, with Little Finger ensconced in Winterfell with the Knights of the Vale at his command and always one for a heel turn when it suits his purposes, he could deliver Sansa to Cersei and be richly rewarded even as Jon is now marooned at Dragonstone – the walls of the Resistance could crumble before they even had a chance to form.

And while unsatisfying to those who see Cersei as a cruel and evil woman, it would not be at all inconsistent with either the show or the books’ idea that “good” men and women do not always triumph in this world. Indeed, it is often those who are willing to assert their power, regardless of who is killed in service of the wielding of that power, that triumph. Of course, this could also just be a massive head fake to stretch the drama, this is television after all.

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The True Detective Backlash

On the roller-coaster ride that is the zeitgeist of modern popular culture, HBO's True Detective is at a nadir. The show, which spawned a thousand thought pieces during its bravura first season suddenly cannot do anything right. In the wake of the second season premiere, the reviews were damning, mocking everything from the overwrought dialogue to the forced imagery of eagle heads and artisanal dildos.

 

If there is anything we like more than an underdog, it is knocking someone off a very high pedestal. Having caught lightning in a bottle, True Detective was bound for a fall. Nic Pizzolatto, the creator of True Detective, is a particularly inviting target - he is self-absorbed and pretentious, has said some odd things in interviews, and has a very high opinion of himself. The first season landed in that perfect Venn of "serious television" and "internet sensation" that translates into something more sought after than ratings: buzz. From Twitter to the office water cooler, people could not get enough of Rust Cohle's aluminum Lone Star stick figures or his rhapsodizing like a 2 A.M. dorm room philosopher.

 

The web happily fell down the rabbit hole of obscure books and freeze frame images to discern the identity of the "Yellow King" and slapped show dialogue on fake greeting cards. But here is the thing – the half-life of cultural relevance in today’s day and age is incredibly short. The critical acclaim for True Detective was just another sugar high before the next big thing. By the time award season came around, the show garnered many nominations, but the once-thought acting award locks for Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson did not come to pass, while Pizzolatto and director Cary Joji Fukunaga were recognized at less prestigious ceremonies than either the Emmys or Golden Globes.

 

So when the casting and storyline for Season 2 were announced, the first hints of a backlash were primed to begin. Vince Vaughn? Four lead characters? A meditation on power and corruption through California land use policy? No Cary Joji Fukunaga? On first viewing, The Western Book of the Dead seemed to validate much of the criticism. The hour did feel cluttered at times trying to shoehorn in all the leads, there was a level of exposition that came off as heavy-handed, and having imbibed eight episodes worth of time-is-a-flat-circle-esque ramblings, lines like “Don’t do anything out of hunger, not even eating” came off as stale, not substantive. The cinematography, which was used to such great effect in turning rural Louisiana into an alien landscape, was now used in service of endless highways and industrial sites.

 

Of course, Pizzolatto was in a no-win situation. Had he simply made a second season with his first season stars (or in the same location) the outcry would have been that he was unwilling to take chances and the story would have been directly compared to the first season. Having chosen to start fresh with a new cast and location, critics are experiencing an addict’s woe – chasing the euphoria of the first high. When something so original and interesting is aired, the natural inclination is to want the next iteration of it to be equally good if not better. Second seasons are by their nature tricky in the same way movie sequels are, especially when the first go-round is so iconic. While shows like Seinfeld and Breaking Bad did not peak until several seasons in, other shows like Homeland and House of Cards have suffered similar sophomore slumps.

 

So allow me to offer a modest proposal. Stop extrapolating whether you will like an entire season of television based on a single hour of it. Go back and re-watch the premiere with an open mind, re-consider some of the warts you saw on first viewing. Take in Season 2 of True Detective without the baggage of comparison to what you already know. Wipe your own critical slate clean. Instead of hoping you will get that same chill up your spine when Rust Cohle said that the universe was one big ghetto, appreciate the genius of a coked-out, alcoholic Ray Velcoro calling his own son a pussy and looking a 12-year old in the eye and screaming FUCK YOU. Instead of envying the ample bosom that swelled in Marty Hart’s face, consider the empty shell that passes for Paul Woodaugh’s soul and the blank look on his face while receiving an enthusiastic blowjob with as much excitement as a trip to the dentist (and by the way, why did he wait until he was at his girlfriend’s apartment to pop his Viagra? Wouldn’t it have made sense to take care of that before he arrived so he would be at attention and ready to go?) Instead of the banter between Papania and Glbough, be open to Ani Bezzerides and Elvis Ilinca (I mean, come on, who doesn’t love a guy named Elvis?) And while you are at it, do not drill down too deeply into the weird iconography found in Ben Casper’s home or the riffs (or wig) of new age guru Eliot Bezzerides. We all know those blind alleys only lead to frustration and disappointment.

 

Meanwhile, the critics will continue picking apart the dialogue, marinating in absurdities like the saddest guitar playing woman in the world, and hate watching every flat line delivered by Vaughn. In doing so, they will, to paraphrase this season’s tag line, get the show they deserve.

 

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