Emmy Catch-Up: Succession

Every year, I watch the six submitted episodes of every series I don’t regularly watch that’s up for one of the Emmy series prizes. This year, I’m getting a jump start to check out the entire season of some of most high-profile shows I didn’t watch when they originally aired.

Succession: Season 2, Episode 4 “Safe Room” (B+)

An apparent shooter inside the building revealed quite a bit about the impulses of most of the main characters on this show and, unsurprisingly, they weren’t particularly pure. Tom was literally pushing his employees out of the way yelling about how an executive was coming through, and when Greg tried to speak up about how he didn’t want to be Tom’s assistant forever, he was pelting water bottles at him to express his displeasure. I recognized Hunter Emery from “Orange is the New Black” as the security guard who couldn’t reveal whether he was carrying a gun and didn’t really step in to protect Greg while they were all stationed in what clearly was not in fact a safe room. Tom skirted around the problematic facts with the suspected fascist reporter, and it’s clear that he has some very unacceptable views. Rhea Jarrell, played by Holly Hunter from “Saving Grace,” made an immediate impression when she was direct and emphatic with Kendall and Logan, and Shiv managed to work on her while they were in the safe room to get her in a good spot when she wasn’t just considering the very high offer numbers spouted by Kendall, which all shocked Shiv since she didn’t believe he was authorized to just say things like that. Logan congratulating Kendall and just nodding in her direction was pretty harsh, and Kendall opened up to Shiv in a much more vulnerable way than I’ve ever seen, which should give her a bit of additional confidence. Roman was the worst possible management training participant, heckling everyone’s ideas and misunderstanding the whole point, but for some reason, his partner Brian seemed to like him. After not being into the phone sex he was starting with Tabitha, he took his relationship with Gerri to a whole new disturbing level that’s sure to complicate their working dynamic. Connor was way too excited to go to Mo’s funeral for the political connections he might make, and after learning the horrible truth behind his nickname and realizing that the biographer Michelle was there, Willa did a superb job of editing his eulogy so that he stated only facts that she couldn’t possibly use for the book.