‘Succession’ Lets the Roy Siblings Come to an Unusual Detente for ‘Mass in Time of War’

“Succession” has featured precious few scenes featuring solely the four Roy siblings, which is both frustrating given how fun these actors are when together, and completely fitting given how the Roy family (dis)functions. With their familial relationships inextricably tied to their business dealings, Logan’s children have rarely been able to approach each other as siblings without arousing suspicion. In fact, the closest they’ve come to “hanging out” in the years we’ve known them has been toward the end of both seasons, as the twin specters of doom and distrust still loomed large.

In Season 1, Kendall, Roy and Shiv snuck out the night before Shiv’s wedding to smoke a joint in a rickety rowboat as they might’ve done as teens, a lovely moment marred by the fact that Kendall already knew he was about to betray them. In Season 2, a traumatized Roman haltingly asked Roy and Shiv if they might be able to “talk about stuff” someday, an uncharacteristically genuine request that threw Kendall and Shiv so much that they had to respond in mocking goblin voices. (Neither moment, as you might have noticed, deigned to include Connor at all.)

All this is to say: it would be significant for the four Roy siblings to gather at all, let alone under the shroud of secrecy and suspicion that marks Kendall’s attempt in this episode to unite them against their father. Watching the Roy siblings bicker and bargain — in Kendall’s daughter’s room, no less — is a stark reminder of the fact that these incredibly rich and powerful people are, despite their best efforts, family first. For better and for worse, the Roys intrinsically understand each other and what they’ve been through like no one outside that room ever could. This holds true for both big traumas and the small pleasures of sibling rivalries, like Kendall baiting Shiv with papers he knew she couldn’t resist.

It makes sense that Kendall would want to get them all on his side, and not just because doing so would inevitably end his father’s control of the company for good. If nothing else, Kendall simply needs and values people who can truly appreciate what he’s been through. (Why do you think he’s so infatuated with Naomi Pierce, a woman with addiction issues from an uber-wealthy media family? She’s fun, but more than that, she’s familiar.)

From a narrative perspective, seeing all four Roy siblings ping off each other is a fascinating exercise in how people belonging to the same family can both understand each other and have incredibly different experiences from each other. When eldest siblings Connor and Kendall try to cut the bullshit and say they knew more about Logan and company’s misdeeds than they wanted to admit, younger siblings Shiv and Roman hold firm on the company line of, “at least we didn’t know specifics.” Maybe the most telling (and sibling-specific) moment comes when Shiv tries to tease Roman, but instead ends up unleashing a devastatingly personal, poisoned barb (“you love showing your pee-pee to everyone, but someday you’re actually going to have to fuck something”) that causes Roman to walk out. If Connor’s sigh as he went to get Roman back is anything to go by, this dynamic isn’t exactly a new one.

Throughout all these charged moments, Snook, Culkin, Ruck and Strong deliver nuanced performances that show exactly how much knowledge and insight they have about their characters. No matter how the rest of the season pans out, these scenes should stand out as singularly revealing ones for the series overall. Unfortunately for Kendall, though, this unusual meeting leaves him with empty hands, inspiring him to unleash the kind of deeply cutting, personal insults that only a sibling can concoct, and never take back.

It pains me to say that Kendall’s on the wane in an episode that includes him acknowledging he should speak with his therapist about his daddy issues, but facts are facts: when handed a huge opportunity to unite all four siblings against their father, he whiffed it. In all his excitement for finally standing up to his father in a way no one can deny, Kendall’s made the questionable decision to frame his breakaway as a noble quest against Logan’s rotten forces of darkness. Even if it’s technically true that Kendall has loftier goals in mind for Waystar Royco than his father, making the case that he’s the morally correct one still isn’t an argument that would ever sway his skeptical siblings to join him. He should know better than to depend on his family’s moral compass still ticking, and his failure to come up with a more solid pitch than “it’s the right thing to do” doomed him long before those donuts showed up.

Logan’s cutthroat instincts are what made him such a behemoth in the first place, so it stands to reason that he would come roaring back once he rediscovered his own killer instinct. Shiv temporarily dropping off the map unnerved him, and even the faintest possibility of his children teaming up against him had to be disorienting. But with that beautifully timed donut delivery, Logan did well to remind them that he’s almost always a step ahead. Kendall was already losing his argument by then, but that simple physical reminder of their dad was all Roman, Connor and Shiv needed to reject the golden parachute Kendall was offering. Logan still doesn’t have a checkmate move against Kendall, but a destabilizing one will do nicely, for now.

Incredibly, Greg’s still trying to play all the different sides of this situation even though he personally provided Kendall with the damning documents that made his strike on Logan possible. So while going to his uncle Ewan (James Cromwell) for help was probably a good call no matter what, retaining a less than completely killer lawyer may not pan out so well for him. Greg has a way of getting out of basically anything unscathed, but he’s going to have to make a more permanent choice sooner rather than later.

Gerri (J. Smith Cameron) taking a sneaky photo of her television to capture the news of her becoming CEO is extremely endearing, and also an unspoken admission of how much she really did want this job. Pair that with her snapping into action once Roman tells her of Kendall’s attempt to wrangle all the Roy siblings (“a nightmare for you if that happens”), and Gerri is showing her cards in a rather uncharacteristic way. She might not even be playing Roman as she insists that none of the Roys are likely to lead the company should they follow Kendall’s plan — Gerri can rarely resist figuring out the logical way of things — but her point blank telling Roman to stick with her is a canny move of shoring up Roy support where she can get it. That Roman then responds to Gerri calling herself “a very dangerous enemy” with his usual flirting (“don’t threaten me, Gerri, I don’t have time to jerk off”) seals the deal, as she well knew it would.

Roman isn’t particularly good at being sneaky, so it’s probably just as well that he barely even tries here. “Just so you know, I’m only here because I’m a spy,” he eventually says, shrugging that he’s only entertaining Kendall’s pitch to gather intel for Logan. Even as he winces when Kendall looks him in the eye to say their father would happily send Roman to jail if it meant keeping himself safe, Roman’s twisted allegiance holds firm. At this point, Logan’s done too good a job of beating Roman down — emotionally, physically, spiritually — for him to be able to strike back. Roman’s deference to his father and lack of conviction might have cost him the CEO job, but it also makes him one of Logan’s most valuable (or at least most malleable) assets. If seeing Roman let Logan pretend he didn’t hit him at Argestes didn’t prove that Roman’s in no place to stand up to his father — at least not yet — watching Roman play along as Logan fake-punched him for the cameras made it all too clear.

Now that Kendall seems to have lost his siblings, it’s a good thing he also took time to strategize with Stewy and Sandi (Hope Davis), the new steely face representing her father Sandy Furness (Larry Pine). With the shareholder meeting still on the horizon and Logan reeling on the ropes, they still have most of the power — and, judging by Stewy’s elaborate, extremely on the nose gift of a Trojan horse, an excellent woodworker on retainer. Everything’s coming up Stewy and the Sandies!

Meanwhile, Hugo (a perfectly exasperated Fisher Stevens) is making a solid case for overtaking Karolina (Dagmara Dominiczyk) as Waystar’s most beleaguered senior executive. After coordinating crisscrossing private jets to help Logan dodge potential extradition, Hugo now has to make sure Marcia’s back on board the good ship U.S.S. Make Logan Palatable Again. Marcia, as we will soon discuss in reverent detail, is a formidable opponent enough on her own. Now that she’s armed with her own terrifying lawyer, though, Hugo never stood a chance.

The second Marcia strolled into the hotel with a clipped “bonjour,” I realized with a rush of admiration that I might’ve missed her even more than Logan. Even as Abbass turns in a performance so consistently sharp she draws blood with every line, Marcia’s long been an underappreciated element of the show (so it’s only fitting that the character herself realized it before too long). Will Hugo ever recover from Marcia coolly saying Logan was “led by his prick” and Rhea (Holly Hunter) “was a whore, and it’s not my problem that she wouldn’t finish him”? Will I? Probably not, no.

As Marcia retook her rightful place behind Logan, director Mark Mylod beautifully framing the shot to capture her Lady Macbeth-ing with a Cheshire cat smile of triumph, she reentered the series as a newly dangerous, powerful player. In this incredible comeback from her humiliated retreat, Marcia made it clear she won’t be fooled again — or else.