Alright, the time has come during this quarantine and down-time in my regular viewing to finally watch the second season of Succession. I also felt I wanted to put some distance between the seasons, because like I said in my review of the first season, this show is intense. And like I also said before, this show deserves all the awards it’s received! In fact, it may deserve more. After finishing the final episode today, I’m not sure why Jeremy Strong hasn’t been nominated for everything.
Anyways, the second season picks up basically right where the first season ended. Since Logan has covered up Kendall’s murder of the server at Tom and Shiv’s wedding, he is sort of trapped under Logan’s thumb. He gets Kendall to publicly back down from the deal he had going with Stew and Sandy because “dad’s plan is better.” Kendall is a man beaten down for several of the first few episodes, especially when he’s also ordered to cull the company he worked so hard to acquire in the first season. But he keeps taking it because his dad made a very real problem go away.
Too bad there are a lot more problems up ahead for the Roy family and their precious familial company. Shiv has been promised the keys to the kingdom, but in true Logan fashion, he keeps giving her whiplash, eventually announcing an outsider, Rhea, to be the CEO replacement whenever Logan finally steps away (or dies, really). But all of this doesn’t really matter because Stew and Sandy are still actively trying to acquire Waystar-Royco thanks to what Kendall started, and they just may succeed.
That’s why Logan decides he wants to buy another large news network, only that plan goes to crap once the Cruises horrific transgressions get brought to light in the worst possible way. The other network backs out, which means the acquisition is still a go, or at the very least, the shareholders may want to clean house. To make matters worse, the family has to address that they knew nothing of the murders and rapes that took place in Cruises in front of Congress. It’s truly cringy to watch, except for Kendell who still seems to be the only one with any business savvy.
Ultimately, in the final episode of the season, while everyone is on a nice yacht, the ultimate goal is to pick someone from the family as a blood sacrifice since they couldn’t successfully go private. I will say, Roman’s efforts to get the private funding was probably the most responsible I’ve ever seen him. The most intense vision of this family’s awfulness is seeing them all sit around a table trying to justify who’s head should be on the spear. Compelling cases are made for a large number of the family, namely, Gerri, Tom, Greg, and Frank, but Logan determines that none of them would have enough of an impact. Since Shiv has been on the outskirts of the family business for a majority of the season and Roman recently proved himself, it’s makes perfect sense that Kendell is Logan’s choice.
Logan tells Kendall that he’s been forgiven for all of his past transgressions, but his sacrifice will have the most impact. Kendall asks Logan if he ever thought that he had what it took to run the business, to which Logan replies no, because he just doesn’t have a killer instinct. Kendall accepts and gives what I assume is a heavily-loaded kiss (Judas, anyone?), and when his sacrifice is announced to the family, it’s the first time I’ve seen what I consider family love from this hoard of vile people. Since Kendall has been so docile for the entirety of the second season, I almost forgot about his actions in the first season. This is what makes his public statement, meant to take responsibility for Cruises, turning and placing blame on his father is both surprising and not at all surprising. As Logan watches with shock, he also looks sort of proud of his son.
The last episode of this second season of Succession is perhaps maybe one of the greatest episodes of television I have ever watched. The last ten minutes are so tense and filled with emotion that I caught myself tearing up at a few interactions before my jaw dropped with Kendall’s betrayal. Again, this family is written so awful that they are quite literally perfect. Kendall, with Greg’s cached Cruises’ documents, seems to have himself set up perfectly to make great moves for himself in season three, but I will never ever count Logan out. he is ruthless and has a pulse on everything, even when you think he has to be in the dark. This show is amazing, and one you should totally be investing your time in during this quarantine.