‘Succession’ Recap: Rhea Out-Roys a Roy as Kendall Makes an Unhappy Return

Sara Vilkomerson

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Well? Something good has come out of the disastrous Pierce deal that didn’t happen: Kendall gets to get flirty over FaceTime with Naomi Pierce! The only thing that doesn’t ring true here is that I’m quite certain that Kendall knows how to take a d–k pic. Anyway.

An even more-in-synch couple is Gerri and Roman, who discuss their dream ticket status. She wants him to do a little inventory of his bad behavior so they can get ahead of whatever the shareholders might hear. Uh, are you sure, Gerri?

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Logan surveys his party, Marcia by his side. He’s satisfied that the little pigs have come to his house, despite the swirl of scandal. He brushes off Shiv to head up with Gerri and the others to see that Sandy and Co have made a video for shareholders at Waystar, detailing what a wreck the company is. It’s not great when it comes to the proxy battle. However, there is one person with a lot of stock they could try to convince to stick with them: the Roy siblings’ mom. Remember her? Logan does, with a groan. He agrees with Frank though that a personal appeal by the kids (but, interestingly, makes sure to say no Shiv) is the right idea. Kendall, who has seemed a bit brighter and lighter, instantly panics. (And for good reason: returning to the scene of the crime and all that). Roman let’s Shiv know that yes she is indeed out in the cold.

Tom breezes in to his internal investigation interview. He immediately starts tossing his former boss, Bill, under the bus. But then, the investigator starts getting tough and Tom starts to unravel. By the time they ask him about records and document destruction, he is in a full flop sweat and tells them he needs to go to the bathroom. He blames his weak bladder. Spoiler: It’s not his bladder that’s weak.

He runs to Shiv, who has just discovered Logan has left the country. She ignores Tom’s fears about how the investigation is not, in fact, softball questions and how he is being set up to be the fall guy, and continues to obsess over Logan’s avoidance of her. She decides she’ll fly out to England herself to fix things.

Logan and Roman are in the car en route to their private flight. Logan notices that Roman is quiet and asks if he’s okay. He skirts along the edges of an apology for smacking his son in the face, but not really, and Roman keeps brushing it off and it becomes definitely one of the strangest Roy conversations to date. (Which is really saying something if you think about it.)

Meanwhile, guess who is on the plane? Rhea! She says Logan offered her a ride. The sons are skeptical. Logan and Rhea discuss some of his potential successors (drink!). He tells her he’d value her thoughts. She lays it out pretty cleanly: Shiv isn’t as smart as she thinks; Roman could be good one day but certainly not now, and Kendall has all the plays but he doesn’t know how to play them. They giggle together rather chummily.

This behavior does not go unnoticed by his sons. Kendall says he hasn’t seen Logan behave like this in while. They have quick sibling bond on a summer with some lady named “Sally Ann” and wonder if Rhea and Logan are having sex. Logan calls them in to talk about Shiv’s memo. And ugh, poor Shiv! They all basically start tearing it apart, Rhea jumps in too. Oof.

Back in New York, Tom drops into Greg’s apartment. He’s entertaining a group of dudes and is probably not thrilled that Tom is there. Especially when Tom starts asking Greg about how it went for him in the investigation. Greg starts talking about how nerve-wracking it is and how much comfort he finds it to have people touching his hair and Tom shuts him down. He needs the damning papers that Greg has been hoarding. Greg doesn’t want to hand them over, but Tom is no longer messing around. He wants the papers or he’ll tell Logan that Greg stole copies. Greg keeps them at the office and Tom is like, cool, I’m staying by your side till I get the papers in your hand.

In London, Rhea and Logan sit by a fire in what is certainly one of his homes. He tells her that Shiv is on her way over and, weirdly, it seems like he’s being truly confessional with Rhea. Rhea is being a little sneaky—she thinks she can help Logan with Shiv. He accepts. Then, he says (rather faux-casually). “Do you want to stay over or what?” See? Romance is not dead.

The next morning, Gerri calls Roman to ask if all the things that she’s heard about him (all classic gross Roman things) are true. This gets interrupted when Kendall shows him the tabloids are writing about the waiter Kendall killed—but in this narrative, it’s that Logan bullied the guy to death. Kendall wants to wake up Logan but is nervous (clearly from past history) that he might walk in on Logan and Rhea in flagrante.

But Logan is alone and sleepy and not excited about being woken. He is also not happy with this new narrative. He yells at Gerri and Carolina and Hugo too. It’s Stewie and Sandy behind this again and, in the name of shareholder instability, they suggest that Logan go visit and apologize to the family to which he agrees. But oh boy is he grouchy. And that’s when Naomi Pierce, who apparently spent the night with Kendall (!), appears. Logan full body eyerolls when she tells him Nan is taking the month off since the whole sale disaster was so draining. She quickly scrams when Logan tells his sons he wants to talk strategy.

He tells them what they might offer their mom to stay on his side. They could open up the divorce settlement and throw some money at this problem: offer $10 million but know he’ll go as high as 50. (Sigh). Turns out dinner at her house is never great and Logan, surprising everyone, laughs heartily at Roman’s description of how gross and meager the food served in the past. Kendall tries to take advantage of this light atmosphere to try and find out what’s going on with Rhea, and he fumblingly raises the idea that Rhea might be playing the old man. Logan is not having it. And he uses a phrase that I will have to bleep out but makes me laugh (“You’re the one who’s c–tstruck”). Even Kendall is slightly taken aback. But oh, for a second, it’s so nice to see Kendall looking happy. He tells Logan that he’s taking Naomi to the zoo. Logan is like: uh, no. He asks Logan to come with him to see dead waiter’s family. And you can watch poor Kendall start to collapse into himself. Jesus, Logan really knows how to strike back.

Shiv arrives in London just in time to be totally thrashed by Roman over the contents of her memo. But Shiv’s ears pick up when she hears Rhea’s name in the mix. She meets Rhea for lunch. Rhea is doing a whole hey girlfriend thing with Shiv—how compelling a man Logan turns out to be, how kind. Shiv’s face speaks for us all. But here’s the thing, Rhea gets Shiv to open up a bit. And she lets her guard down when Rhea flatters her—and she takes her advice that she should let Logan know she has options. She even suggests Shiv talk to Nan Pierce. Oh boy. She even thanks Rhea. Remember that one later!

Greg and Tom hit Greg’s really rather fancy office. Tom basically laughs in Greg’s face when Greg asks for a different office (we remember you barfing out of your eyes in season one, bro!). Amazingly the docs are kept in a folder marked “Secret.”

Kendall and Logan make weird awkward chit chat in the car. When Logan tells his son he’ll be hanging with Rhea again that eve, he flies off the handle at an imagined (maybe) tone. They keep going in silence, passing a makeshift memorial where Kendall first Chappaquiddick’d the waiter. Logan twists the knife a bit when he tells his son to come inside with him.

They get to the house and it is generally as terrible as you would imagine it might be. Kendall takes in the details, the photos, the leftovers of a life gone, and generally looks barfier than Logan did at that retreat. When Logan gets out from his meeting with the waiter’s parents, Kendall asks if he should say anything. You can imagine Logan’s response.

After, in the car, it keeps getting worse! Logan talks about how hard it was for the poor parents. He throws a mean comment in about drug use, and continues to chatter away while the lambs in Kendall’s head continue to shriek louder and louder.

Greg paces in the bathroom testing a recorder in his pocket. Oh boy. What if Greg turns out to be the whistleblower of this whole thing? Mastermind Gregory!

Back at the site of her wedding, Shiv and Roman try to eat as much as possible as apparently dear old mum is not much in the way of the cooking dept. Sure enough she made some pigeon (blech) but not quite a lot because who on earth could possibly be hungry? And I LOVE this woman. Her response to a banal, “How are you?” is pure offense. (Still shot in the bird!) Their mom is no fool; she knows Logan wants something. Boy, the Roy kids sure do have every right to be total nutbags.

She asks for the Hampton house. Not because she likes it, but because she knows Logan does. Or, she offers, $20 million but the kids have to come to Christmas. She suggests they put it to Logan and let him decide. Haha, can you guess which Logan prefers?

Meanwhile, Kendall—whom we heard was at the pub—puts some cash through the dead waiter’s family’s door. Back home with his mother, she merrily tells him his father has sold them off for a measly $20 million. He tries—and this is heartbreaking—to talk to her. He tells her he wants to tell her some things and can he talk to her? Sure, she says, absolutely. But, just one thing: She’s too tired for difficult things. Is this difficult? Uh, yes. Maybe in the morning, she suggests? And who else here desperately wants to rush in and give Kendall a hug?

Back in New York, Tom is burning papers and Greg is trying to get him to say things that would incriminate himself. But Tom isn’t playing along, he’s too busy throwing lighter fluid around. Greg takes the opportunity to grab a few pages while Tom is looking for a new lighter. Gregory!

Shiv tracks down Logan in the morning. I have said it before and I will say it again: She truly is the most like him in many ways. They banter testily a bit, before getting down to why he was avoiding her and discussing her memo. He claims he hasn’t read it. They both know he’s lying.

She asks if it’s still her as successor. (Drink!) He asks why then she put her name in for the Pierce job. She does not tell him that Rhea suggested she do so (she probably should have), but instead asks how he knows. Turns out, he says, Nan Pierce has been shouting it all over town.

It’s not going great, parentally, in the country either. Roman pops downstairs, asking if his mom is making breakfast. Kendall lets him know she left a note that she had a lot to do and she’s sorry if she misses their departure. YEOW. The brothers share a brief glance of shared fraternal misery.

But that’s not all! On the plane home, Roman seeks Logan’s approval for screwing his mother. Of course, he doesn’t get the Oedipus reference from Rhea, but no matter. She’s doing her own kind of screwing—specifically Shiv. The whole play by her was masterful and even Logan acknowledges it. He even says he might look further afield for his successor. She agrees to help.

Shiv calls Kendall and warns him: Be careful of Rhea. I’ll say!

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