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 2, Episode 9 “DC” (B+)

It’s really incredible to see just how focused every member of the Roy family and Waystar Royco board and leadership team is on shifting blame and responsibility away from them rather than acknowledging that there are legitimate things that might need to be examined or changed. Logan has previously demonstrated his intolerance for being told by anyone else what he can or cannot do, and despite his initial fit of rage, he did well on the stand, throwing the baton to Kendall to flip it on Gil and make it seem like he was just trying to settle a personal vendetta. Tom, on the other hand, did not do a great job of addressing Mo’s nickname and the fact that he did know Greg, who completely panicked after he realized that he turned down a quarter of a billion dollars for a prison sentence (though he would likely have gotten both if he had untethered himself from his unforgiving great-uncle). For someone who’s usually far too dramatic and out of touch with what’s going on around him, Roman read the situation perfectly when their business negotiations were interrupted by a political coup and turned into a hostage situation. I suspect he’ll be okay, but there’s reason for him and for Karl, who very calmly had a panic attack, to be afraid. Shiv masterfully intimidated the whistleblower into taking a deal, but that and the extensive cooperation of certain senators couldn’t prevent Logan from suffering his most problematic blow: Rhea deciding that she isn’t going to take the CEO job after all. We’ll see how that plays out in what I’m sure will be a memorable season finale.