WiC Watches: Succession season 2
Photo credit: Peter Kramer/HBO
Episode 206: “Argestes”
The Roy family takes a huge hit while at a media super-summit called Argestes. Logan desperately wants to close the deal with PMG, but Nan Pierce is dragging her feet. Meanwhile, Waystar Royco gets targeted by The New Yorker over a decades-old story of sexual assault and possible murder attached to the company’s cruise ship branch, and Logan knows he has to close before the story breaks or the Pierce family — with its high moral values — will back out.
Usually, I break down the episode’s action with a “Winners & Losers” list, but “Argestes,” no one was a winner, so let’s all join the loser’s club and dive right into the muck.
Losers
- Waystar Royco makes the list because the scandal surrounding the cruise lines division caused the Pierce family to back out and turned the entire Roy family into the laughing stock of the Argestes summit.
Photo credit: Peter Kramer/HBO
- Logan Roy had a bad time at Argestes. His only reason for attending was to complete Waystar’s acquisition of PMG, but the conference was in the mountains and he caught the altitude sickness. He also grew increasingly unhinged as the episode went along, finally slapping Roman’s face and then swearing and screaming at Nan Pierce when she told him the deal was off.
- Tom continues his losing streak. His panel for ATN News absolutely bombed. Tom really wants to restructure ATN and make it more respectable, so he changed the news division’s slogan to “We’re listening.” Only the cable boxes Royco sells as part of its satellite and cable television division actually have a listening device built in, so the company is literally listening without its customers’ permission. Poor Tom.
Photo credit: Peter Kramer/HBO
- Roman Roy wanted to make his father proud, but when he, Kendall and Shiv sat down for their panel, he screwed it up royally. Then his dad slapped a tooth out of his mouth. Not good.
- Kendall Roy is getting darker and more manic with every passing episode. In “Argestes,” he verbally abuses his team of lawyers, then walks around the conference like a dead-eyed terminator talking shit to potential rivals. Kendall is headed down a dark, dark road and I worry he won’t survive the season.
- Rhea Jarrell — PMG’s CEO — has been having some very strong episodes up until this point, but in “Argestes,” Nan Pierce fires her when Nan found out she had been giving Logan insider information. I really hope this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Rhea, because Holly Hunter has been a delight this season.
Photo credit: Peter Kramer/HBO
This was a fantastic episode of Succession that showed the Roy family scrambling in the face of adversity, and then imploding when things didn’t go their way.