What is this show about? That is in essence the question that arises after last week's episode. It is a valid question because until now the show has been quite a few things: a scathing satire of the right wing entertainment complex, an unflattering portrait of Rupert Murdoch, a farcical take on the inner workings of an ultra-rich family, a Shakespearian drama on a family feud, a character study on a narcissistic father and his silver-spoon scions. It has been all those things at once and it has also been not anything specifically. Which also partially explains the show phenomenal success: everyone can see what it wants to see in it. The audience interprets it how it wants. You could even argue that it is a caricature of what the left thinks of the right. Ironically it was never quite outright about the actual succession to Logan Roy that the title suggests. We've been seeing how he is going on to designate an heir, to the family, his fortune, his empire and/or all at the same time; but it was a proposition that was always in flux.
With this episode, It finally feels like the show is attempting an answer, what is this show: what have we been watching?
This episode gives the feeling that the whole show has actually been about Kendall. Given that it had a rather open-ended storytelling so far it's rather natural that it does not provide a definitive answer, it could still go in any direction. Yet there are a number of elements that lead to the show in general being Kendall's succession arc. He started as the presumptive heir and it took him that much time and efforts to rise-up to that actual position. To self-actualise in some way. A fall-rise(-fall?) arc of sorts and we are finally seeing him becoming the killer his father wanted him to be in the very first episode of season one. It also makes sense in the way the show has always showed us a more intimate side of Kendall which it has not done for any of the other children. We've seen his inner thought more than any other character's.
This episode also strengthens the argument against the social commentary, the political satire and the business aspect of the story. They're present but in reality none of them hardly matter. The real core of the show is that dialogue the three children have around the coffee table, that is what we are watching. The rest, the side meeting of the executives in the kitchen or the library, the snarky comments from Greg, Connors antics, those are all side-shows. They're fluff and flavour. The real engines are those characters of Kendall, Shiv and Roman. Logan is the most important person in that world. But even though his overbearing presence is felt even when he is not in the room with them it turns out the story isn't about Logan, . It might well evolve into something else, but as now it is about the realtionship between Kendall and Logan.
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