[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Succession, Season 4 Episode 2, “Rehearsal.”]
“I need to know that we’re killing the opposition; slitting their throats,” Logan Roy (Brian Cox) yells from the bullpen of ATN, riling up his model of a crew (learn: white folks in businesswear). “You’re fucking pirates.”
This week’s episode of Succession picks up shortly after the tight, simmering introduction final week’s premiere introduced us, upping the ante in a number of methods. Even so, this season feels prefer it’s nonetheless on the on-ramp — we’re clearly gearing up for larger occasions, and the restraint exhibited by Jesse Armstrong and firm in “Rehearsal” is spectacular. This isn’t to say that something we’ve seen thus far has been boring; how might or not it’s, with the consistency of one-liners and head-spinning insults? However these first two entries into Season 4, Succession‘s final dance, have felt like groundwork being laid.
The title of the episode refers back to the rehearsal dinner for the approaching marriage ceremony between Connor (Alan Ruck) and Willa (Justine Lupe), the latter of whom is visibly panicking on the dedication she’s presupposed to be making when morning comes. In the meantime, Shiv (Sarah Snook), Kendall (Jeremy Sturdy), and Roman (Kieran Culkin) are too caught up in their very own escapades and endless need to win a spherical with their father to correctly assist Connor on Wedding ceremony Eve. Willa is perhaps a runaway bride, and Connor simply needs to sing karaoke, however the focus stays on Sandy, Stewie, comparables, and everybody’s subsequent strikes.
Sure, Episode 2 grants us an always-welcome look by Arian Moayed’s Stewie, whose vitality with Kendall might be studied and unpacked in an essay all its personal. Every time the friendship/bromance/rivalry falters or cracks, we get a glimpse of the true emotions everybody on this universe works so arduous to masks. The way in which Stewie pleads for Kendall to listen to him out with an impassioned utterance of his title? Theatrics! Drama! Emotion!
In the meantime, Tom and Greg are busy dealing with Logan’s choice to spend extra time at ATN going ahead, together with the subplot of Logan’s assistant, Kerry (Zoe Winters), being given a shot at a internet hosting gig (to some fairly disastrous outcomes). These executives like to deflect and dodge, and finally, it someway turns into Greg’s accountability to let Kerry know that she gained’t be transferring ahead within the function. Whereas the main focus group he fabricated in a panic won’t be actual, I’d personally like to see what notes on “arms being unsuitable for tv” would appear like.
Succession (HBO)