Succession review, Episode 304, “Lion in the Meadow”

Succession introduces another nigh-sociopathic billionaire mogul in the form of Josh Aaronson (Adrian Brody), an activist investor who uses his affable smile and autumn walking wear to conceal his greed. He’s a major shareholder at Warstar, and he’s concerned that the Roy family won’t be able to hold together long and well enough to beat back a hostile takeover bid from Sandy Furness and Stewy Hosseini. His vote at the upcoming shareholder meeting is so important that Logan and Kendall agree to visit his private island (of course he has a private island) together to present a united front. The episode is another good one all around, but that’s where the real fireworks are.

That includes the buildup, with Kendall paranoid that the meeting is some kind of maneuver meant to undermine him and going ahead to Josh’s island just so he doesn’t have to confer with his father ahead of time. Once there, Josh quickly reveals himself to be a nasty piece of work. We see that his excuse for luring Kendall and Logan out there — that his daughter was sick — is a complete lie, as she’s frolicking in the pool (of course he has a pool on his private island). He insists that Kendall and Logan take a long walk around the property with them, despite the that than Logan is 83 years old.

So he’s testing these guys, and they mostly rise to the challenge, especially Logan. The best moment of the episode comes when, after the three of them have dined on a cliffside served by private waiters (of course he has private waiters feed them a meal outside), Logan reassures Josh that the family acrimony within Waystar will pass, because Kendall is “a good kid” and “I love him.”

It’s a convincing speech from Brian Cox, and I think Logan is telling the truth. He does love Kendall, and he does want this to pass, and he does wonder if Kendall might take over the company when he steps down…none of that will stop him from stringing Kendall up in the public square and bathing in his blood, of course, but it’s true.

Emmy winner Jeremy Strong is excellent here, too. You can see him struggling to parse Logan’s speech as he’s making it, wondering how much is sincere and how much is made up for Josh’s benefit. But he wants it to be true, and that’s what matters. Kendall projects confidence, but whenever it looks like he might be cornered he turns defensive and paranoid; he resists the visit to Josh’s island in the first place, and when Josh suggests he turn down the heat on his campaign against his father, and worries that the two of them plotted together to sabotage him. Logan may be an old man, but I think I’d still bet on him winning this, because Kendall is not well.

Even after Logan collapses from exhaustion on the long walk — again, remember he’s 83 — he still seems more up to the task of weathering this war. There’s a great moment towards the end of the episode where the President of the United States calls him angry about ATN’s negative coverage, and Logan just holds up the phone and asks his colleague if she wants to what what the president sounds like when he’s angry. The confidence is impressive, and hilarious.

Shiv, Roman and Tom play second fiddle to Logan and Kendall on this week’s episode of Succession

By the way, ATN has ramped up its negative coverage of the president on Logan’s orders; his thinking is that if the backchannels to the White House he tried last week didn’t work, and they didn’t, they’ll increase pressure from the outside until they have some leverage. And it looks like the strategy paid off.

Logan puts Shiv in charge of turning up the heat, but she has trouble getting anyone at ATN to respect her authority, including Tom, who’s preoccupied with going to jail should he need to be offered up as a sacrifice. He has his weirdest conversation with Greg yet, which is saying something. “I would castrate and marry you in a heartbeat,” he tells Greg. I would explain the context but it doesn’t make it any less weird.

Meanwhile, Roman tries to dig up some dirt on his brother by tracking down a homeless man that Kendall and the rest of his bachelor party once bribed to tattoo Kendall’s name on his head. It’s a grimly funny scene where Roman and company dredge up a man’s lowest point and offer to buy it off him, but Gerri advises Roman to shelve it so I don’t know if it’ll be important.

Roman has been keeping a fairly low profile this season compared to Shiv and especially Kendall. But hey, at least he has more of a presence than Connor, who’s been knocking on the door to the family business lately, but people take him even less seriously than Shiv.

Episode Grade: A

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