A breakneck Succession sees Logan go “piss-mad” as the shareholder meeting arrives

Halfway through the third season of Succession, we are finally at the shareholder meeting! We’ve only been hearing about this event since what seems like the very beginning of the series, as the Roys and Stewy/Sandy/Sandi (SSS) argue and fight and snipe at each other over swaying the shareholders one way or another. There have been smear campaigns and ads and phone calls disparaging each other, and tens of millions spent by the competing factions trying to get the shareholders to vote with the Roys or with SSS. Josh Aaronson threw his 4% in with SSS, but what will the rest of the shareholders do? All those “retired janitors of Idaho,” as Roman so sneers, who hold the future of Waystar Royco in their hands?

This fifth episode, named after those regular people whose little shares add up to so much power, continues the “Logan isn’t so healthy” vibe of the preceding episode, “Lion In The Meadow,” but also lays down a few different narrative tracks. Kerry certainly seems a little too giggly with Logan, doesn’t she? There are some shades of Rhea here, which is kind of amazing given that Logan just reconciled with Marcia and I thought he would be slightly more discreet.

Meanwhile, Roman and Shiv continue to fight over Logan’s affections with their overlapping ambitions, with each of them trying to understand the father who plays everything close to the chest, who constantly lies to them, and who in his affected state might not be saying exactly what he means. Who came out on top here? I’m leaning toward Roman, although Shiv certainly was patting herself on the back for securing herself a seat on the board.

We’ll see if Logan lets that stand. And now that President Raisin is out thanks to ATN’s wall-to-wall “Memorygate” coverage of his potential neurological condition, who steps into the Republican power vacuum left by his absence? We’ve seen during the past couple seasons, and just now by the President’s decision not to run for another term, that ATN—despite being a legacy media company without many tech expansions—has outsized power over the Republican base. Who does ATN make their next king?

And I haven’t mentioned Kendall yet, but honestly, I’m not sure what he’s doing. It is very well possible that I just do not understand business; I am simply a lowly pop culture writer! But Kendall bouncing back and forth between SSS and the Roys seems shortsighted, no? And threatening to burn Greg—seems bad! Kendall is floundering in light of failing to secure Josh’s shares and after yet another horrendously personal fight with Logan, and maybe ostracizing Greg isn’t the best idea. I would think with so few allies, Kendall should try to keep the ones he has. Especially because his big move to sway shareholder opinion in his direction fails fairly thoroughly.

No one is impressed, or moved, by Kendall’s awkward walk onstage, commandeering of the mic, listing of the names of women who have been abused, dismissed, or erased by Waystar Royco, and announcement of a foundation to help them. “He looks crazy, and I think that can be good for us” is a very cynical thing to say, but it doesn’t seem incorrect! Kendall, who isn’t even wearing a tie, might be losing public support, and sure, that’s a separate thing from having the FBI and the Justice Department on his side.

But it’s an overall weakening that, even in light of Logan’s diminishing health, doesn’t make me particularly hopeful that Kendall comes out on top of all this. (And, frankly, given how we’ve seen him treat his siblings, and his own combination of weakness and self-aggrandizement, Kendall isn’t a good choice to lead Waystar Royco, either! All the Roys are terrible! Sophie Iwobi is not wrong!)

“Retired Janitors Of Idaho” takes place entirely on the day of the shareholder meeting, and begins with Waystar Royco leadership realizing that Logan is willing to let the day go to a vote. It’s a dangerous proposition since they know they’ve lost Josh, but what they don’t know is that Logan gives Kerry the day off, and she trusts him with his own UTI medication. (Not a great idea since we just saw Logan collapse during a hike, but whatever, Kerry! I don’t understand your motivations at all!)

Negotiations between Waystar Royco and SSS are heavy: The latter want four board seats, and they’re not budging—until Kendall gets involved. In a secret meeting with Stewy, Kendall tries to spin his enlightened-man persona to little effect (“Shouldn’t you be on a rainbow soapbox somewhere screaming ‘Time’s up?’”), but what lands is Kendall’s insistence that SSS reach a deal with Waystar Royco so each can get a little bit of what they want.

But Logan, in his uncanny way, wonders why SSS is now so eager to come back to the table after holding firm on negotiations for so long. So he sends Shiv, Roman, Gerri, and Karl back out to meet with SSS while Frank is forced into stage duty entertaining the shareholders, and while all of that is happening, Logan deteriorates after forgetting to take his UTI medication. He gets “piss-mad.” He starts seeing things, like a dead cat under his chair that everyone has to then pretend to remove. He doesn’t remember where he is or who he’s talking to. And so “Retired Janitors Of Idaho” crystallizes two things we already know: Logan is infirm, and the Roy children cannot run this company together.

But neither of these things is exactly news, and so there is a sort of recurring quality to some of this. Logan, as we’ve seen from the first season, can get confused. Roman and Shiv, as we’ve seen from the first season, might dislike each other the most out of all four siblings. Everyone else in the C-suite, as we’ve seen from the first season, is terrified of making their own decisions lest they disappoint or infuriate Logan. There is a real power vacuum without him at the top given how much he’s limited Gerri, Frank, and Karl’s actual ability to rule without him, and they’ve been trained to tiptoe around the family in a way that even extends past the present.

Gerri would have absolutely taken that first deal from SSS, even with the caveat that they be able to veto family leadership of Waystar Royco, if it weren’t for the Roy children. She cares about “visionary chief operating officer” Roman because, I think, she knows there is no future at Waystar without the children’s involvement. But if the kids didn’t have to be involved? Cut them out, man! Consider her face when she heard Kendall complain about Logan throwing away “everything I have fought and bled for”! The nepotism is toxic!

So the back and forth goes, with SSS getting petty about private jets and the Waystar Royco cabal scrambling to understand what’s going on with Logan. (Asking for Caroline, the ex-wife whom he hates, is a pretty bad sign!) I appreciated the rhythm of the scenes within Shiv, Roman, Tom, Gerri, Karl, Hugo, and Karolina, with everyone seemingly playing a game of “not it”—throwing around responsibility in case someone made a choice with which Logan would not agree. “He’s fucking Dad, he’s six moves ahead,” Roman says, but putting that much trust in one person whose health you know was compromised just recently seems like both bad business sense and like a fundamentally imbalanced parent/child relationship.

Where the deal lands, though, after everyone argues about whether Logan actually supports it or not, is in Shiv’s hands. In a meeting with Sandi where Shiv plays the “daughters of fathers” card, she promises SSS a fourth seat on the board and an end to the use of private jets, and also secures another seat for herself. That ends the stalemate—but it doesn’t please Logan, who becomes more himself after the group tracks down Kerry, learns Logan had his medication the whole time, and gets him to take it. He calls Waystar Royco the recipients of “the shitty end of a deal,” he snaps at Shiv for “buzzing in my fucking ear,” and he congratulates Roman for his work fielding the phone call from the President.

He doesn’t bat an eye at Roman calling Shiv a bitch, and he blocks Kendall’s number. How much longer will Shiv take being alienated by the father who once promised her the company, but who now seems to clearly prefer Roman? How many more times will Kendall fall for the promise of Logan’s approval? How will Roman act now that he’s clearly the favored heir? And now that the shareholder vote is no longer a danger—how long until Waystar Royco is back to their same old shenanigans? (… Did they ever really stop?)

Stray observations

• One of my favorite recurring motifs in this series is the gigantic food spreads that get placed out for family meetings and work events (remember all that thrown-out lobster and seafood at the summer palace?), and how no one ever seems to eat but Greg. He’s got that real “intern who doesn’t know where his next meal is coming from” approach to snacking.
• That poor bunny rabbit. I am pretty sure “If he can do people, he can do rabbits” is not how medicine works! Also, Jess’s pained reaction face when the babysitter calls about the bunny having too much bagel: priceless.
• Connor really isn’t messing around, huh? All the threats about spilling details from “our semen-stained family scrapbook,” and his assessment of his siblings as “Roman’s a knucklehead, Shiv’s a fake, Kenny’s screwy.” Connor is getting increasingly desperate in a way I didn’t anticipate, although I guess being out a couple hundred million because of your girlfriend’s failed play and your stalled presidential run will do that to you. Good luck in Europe!
• Arian Moayed in that turtleneck, we are truly blessed. His sardonic line delivery of “You should save that for Vanity Fair, bro. I’m all good,” was a joy, rivaled only by Kieran Culkin’s faux-aghast “Oh, really? It’s not cool to tell the President to blow me?”
• Shiv’s continued attempts to unsubscribe from Kendall (“I no longer wish to receive these calls”) is perfect bratty-sibling behavior.
• Security guard Colin, played by Scott Nicholson, was the guy involved in covering up Kendall’s accident in season one. Sorry I forgot your face, buddy!
• Hope Davis’ expanded screentime as Sandi has been great, and her belittling “I just do what my dad tells me, like you guys” was wonderfully pointed.
• Grandpa Ewan’s advice to Greg that “You need to take yourself seriously, kid,” seemed genuinely heartfelt, but of course Greg is ignoring it by suing Greenpeace over his inheritance. Seems in line with the continued corruption of our tallest boy.
• I cannot tell if Tom legitimately cares for Logan in some son-in-law way or if he is the best actor in this whole damn family, but “You don’t need me to hold the scepter?” and his stilted “Pop. Poppa?” were the perfect combination of questionably sincere and almost touching. And then he had to go and ruin it by trying to baby-trap Shiv!