Lady S.

I liked when she was disappointed to learn Kendall's birthday had performance art aspects yet she wasn't consulted. That just shows why she and Connor get along, apart from her attraction to all his money. Those two really do support/humor each other's career delusions. The old kook and his sugarbaby look more functional than Shiv/Tom or any of Kendall's relationships. So long as Connor isn't spouting supervillain-esque political plans or going off on caterers about butter coldness, I find him easily the most likable sibling. As a semi-related aside, I continue to wonder why people take the clips in the opening sequence literally when the 4 kids shown together first all look pretty close in age, meaning only a couple years between Con and Ken, as if he was only a baby when Logan's first marriage fell apar. The references to Connor taking a fatherly role with his half-sibs imply more of a gap between them, though I assume the actor is still playing younger than his real age. (Irl Alan Ruck is 65, over 20 years older than Jeremy Strong and over 30 years older than Sarah Snook.) Whatever his rl injury was, it reminds me of Tom's unexplained black eye in s1 which he tried to pass off as a sex injury (to Shiv's brothers because this family doesn't know the meaning of the word inappropriate). I assume that was also an irl actor thing.

Yeah, I think he must have already had a good job at Waystar when they first got together. Iirc he got the promotion to head of Cruises after they got engaged as a welcome to the family, but there's no way Logan hired him and started moving him up the ladder just because Shiv was dating him. If Shiv had Daddy wrapped around her finger like that her life would be very different.

It must have been the Waystar streaming app which they're trying to replace with his.

IIrc, the visit to the dead guy's family was just to fork with Kendall and defend Logan's own name because he argued with the waiter. The family has no idea about the rest of the story. Logan didn't just turn a blind eye, he had his security guy cover up Kendall's involvement in the accident. I do wonder if it's not just Logan's own liability at play but his general NRPI attitude. It's one thing to send Ken to jail to protect Logan, could be another entirely to see any Roy arrested for a personal crime involving some low-class nobody.

Yeah, the "prove it" wasn't flirtation, just a comeback to Tom's bs where s1 Greg would have just chuckled awkwardly. There have been multiple signs that Tom no longer has the hold he used to over Greg back when none of the other Roys paid attention to him, and it's left Tom pretty frustrated. Being the company Christmas tree was Tom's one way to feel important and now he doesn't even have that because he can't really be confident of Logan's gratitude for his attempted sacrifice. As for Tom/Shiv, I don't think Roman was completely on the money about her being eager for his prison sentence so she could "ride dick" again, but more that both of them had got used to the idea of this enforced separation where their issues wouldn't be staring them in the face so much. Now they're back where they started, stuck with their marriage problems, and neither knows how to deal with it. Roman really is a moron if he truly believes he's the only kid needed, learning nothing from the way Logan jerked around Kendall and Shiv while refusing to ever actually step aside. And he's failed to realize that Logan's sudden regard for him is because he tells Daddy what he wants to hear and he probably won't be pleased to hear about Roman's promise to keep him away from Lukas. Sadly, I don't think Team Kendall is worth joining at this point. I did think her actually defending Kendall at the end was a sign of something. Hopefully, we are seeing her come to the breakthrough that there's no future for her at Waystar. A comment on another review reminded me that Logan used to refer to Kendall's past addiction trouble as a mental breakdown in s1 while everyone else just spoke of rehab but it's becoming more and more clear there was some truth in that. Kendall has serious mental health issues of some sort and the cocaine and whatever else is just him self-medicating. There was a lot of other messed-up stuff going on at that party but I thought it was unfair of Kendall to be the jacket police while going around most of the night wearing a coat over a sweater himself.

Yeah, there's rejecting pity sex and then there's that. The fact that he was tracking her cycle with the aim of trying to babytrap her before even discussing the prospect of having a child was pretty fucked up imho. The fact that she moved on from that and is still trying to make some effort with him says something. I doubt Shiv would really know how to comfort him any other way (how much emotional tenderness do we think any of the Roys grew up with?), so I don't know that it means she doesn't care at all.

I thought he was just cruelly teasing Connor while waiting for everyone to agree on someone else, but he likely was testing Greg too. Connor said something last season about his team cleaning up her background but I think nobody else mentioning it is proof they were not seriously considering crowning him. Although I wonder if a former-call-girl partner would be a dealbreaker if Connor really was in touch was the base the way Mencken apparently is. It was an empty gesture made because Kendall had to lash out after Tom accurately described Kendall's track record vs. Logan's. If Tom's going to prison he has little to fear from the family knowing he met with and rejected Kendall. Is Logan going to deprive him of being the Christmas tree because he saw the enemy without permission? It might have helped Kendall if he could try to win someone over without insulting them. Tom is a shameless social climber but he also clearly has genuine feelings for Shiv. There's no reason to keep putting himself through this misery otherwise. I'm glad to know Tom may be tracking Shiv's cycle but has drawn the line at trying to replace her birth control with placebos or something. She's a bad wife in many ways but not because she won't let him get her pregnant to make him feel better. Especially since he doesn't really want a child either, he's just desperate to feel more secure in his marriage.

Yeah, none of them can deal sincerely with genuine emotion between them (because Logan would have raised them to see that as weakness), but they still care deeply. Shiv asking Kendall if she went too far seemed notable in itself, and Roman somehow found time to get Kendall's favorite pastries while trying his best in every other way to treat him like their worst enemy, and then he covers for Shiv to Logan after repeatedly saying he was only there to spy on her, and neither of them reported anything Kendall said to Logan. Then there's Roman defending Connor to Kendall after Con stuck up for him, even though he's said meaner stuff about Connor himself, including the crack last season about his mother. Connor turned out to be the most mature out of all of them, hugging Kendall in greeting as if there were no hard feelings, freely admitting that they all knew about "Uncle Mo" even if that didn't make it their fault, scolding Shiv about Roman and going to bring him back, and I'm assuming Kendall's insults didn't get under his skin because he really has heard it so many times before. He's completely delusional about the outside world beyond the family, but when it comes to their bullshirt, seems Logan really did him a favor by setting him aside years ago in favor of the kids from his second marriage. Speaking of family dysfunction, it's fucked-up not just that the reasoning for the donuts being safe was only that Logan wouldn't poison his grandchildren, but also that Logan's greeting to Roman involved fake-punching him. I still don't believe that was a one-off incident last season, given Kendall's instinctive reaction. Not just attack mode, Logan mode. Logan has also called Roman a moron and Shiv a coward, and you know Roman's remark about Connor being told he doesn't matter plenty of times before referred to Logan. I also don't think it's a good sign that Kendall still shares Roman's mindset about Logan's ability to "shut it all down", going on to the lawyer about being prepared to have the police arrest the FBI or whatever. Comparing Logan to Alexander the Great also says a lot imo. (And why would anyone wanna recreate what happened after he died?) Kendall is right that Shiv doesn't have the experience, but I think she's also got a point that the guy still trying to stay out of jail (and still trusting Stewy for some reason) is not the obvious best choice either. It's just that none of them would admit that someone outside the family might be the best choice because they really do see it as a birthright to inherit. Either one of them must win Daddy's love/#1 spot or one of them must take him down, but there's no taking the backseat for another sibling to do so.

Tom did cover for Greg during boar on the floor against his own interests, rather than revealing Greg's "pre-meeting" with the biographer. Theirs is another complicated alliance, and despite his continued bullying of Greg(ory), I feel like Tom has more emotional investment in the relationship. I guess that's just the kind of guy he is, whether in his marriage or his fuck-up apprenticeship of his wife's cousin.

I don't think it was a coincidence that the sibling meeting was written to take place in a kid's room.

There's a lot going on here, but I'm amused to know Roman's siblings know about his weird sexual hang-ups, which I guess shouldn't be surprising. Interesting that he in effect covered for Shiv to Logan later, when she was clearly the one most ready to leave Logan if she'd felt Kendall's offer was worth it to her. I know all the siblings have shares but it still felt like a sign of the desperate times to see both sides courting Connor's loyalty, especially Logan. Really glad to see Marcia back, and sounds like she has not forgotten Kendall's car accident but Logan is reluctant to use it.

Didn't Kendall also force Greg to do coke with him when Logan had him watching Ken in s1 at Tom's bachelor party? Then in s2 Kendall chose to party in Greg's apartment instead of his own. Basically, Greg has a high tolerance for humiliation and is willing to grab whoever's coattails are available at the moment. If he was choosing sides based on sentiment he'd have no reason to be involved with any of them. (I think Kendall must have remembered what Greg told him about the papers earlier and called him for the press conference, not the other way around.) I wonder if Tom's worked out or is going to figure out that Greg didn't burn all of his insurance copies. I wish we could all hate-watch Willa's play. She seems weirdly devoted to kooky Connor by now, reminding Logan he exists while Connor doesn't even notice the brush-off. (Justine Lupe's promotion to the opening credits likely indicate Willa's in it for the long haul, assuming they're planning better than with the s1 credits. The closed captions even gave Willa a last name which I don't remember her having before.)

I feel like that's a preliminary list of hopefuls. Greg's mom was also mentioned but Greg told us later she has no confidence in Team Kendall. (And while her method of dealing with that is irrational, I can't blame her for lack of confidence in a manic drug addict trying to take Logan's throne while keeping his own hands clean.) And I believe they mentioned Aaronson(?, one of the upcoming guest stars) who Team Logan is courting as well. Everything is still in flux right now, likely including even Greg the Egg. And then he congratulates himself for being surrounding by women after disrespecting all of them except Naomi. I also like how he told both Frank and Rava he was doing it for them too, and he probably even believes that too. He's gone from standing up to a dad trying to sacrifice him to a righteous crusader fighting a "revolution" against evil.

Yeah, since that's where Logan's grind your bones to make my bread threat came from. Kendall's most unhinged moment had to be joking about Greg's (false) presumption he never killed anyone after the OJ reference, then yelling the juice is loose.

I think he was a dead man walking from the time he hid inside while she met the spectres. That was when she realized she didn't need him at all anymore. The fact that he pulled out the partnership offer after he saw her control them (and when she'd already mocked his fear early on) was a real sign of just how much he'd been kidding himself pursuing her all this time. Love that Coulter apparently just sat there for hours afterwards with his corpse, drinking wine and playing with fire. At this point, I'm actually feeling sorry for the creepy monkey when she pulls shit like this on him.

Yeah, that image stayed with me for the rest of the ep so I didn't even wonder how she knew how to drive a car later. However I did wonder how Mary Malone knew the exact spelling of her name to google. It's not like Coulter had a business card to give out or anything, unless I missed that. I'm choosing to believe that the reveal that the witches' daemon-distance ability is not innate but achieved through trial was meant to imply that any non-witch could do the same if she somehow learned the ritual. Otherwise I don't see the point of that exposition being delivered that way as the witches' ambassador dude had no reason to tell the Magisterium about that secret completely unprompted. I do also like the idea that she just has that much inner-power and inhumanity, though. I'm also connecting the vo from a couple eps back about the knife-makers just hoarding shit instead of using it for any higher purpose with Boreal's situation. It appears he's just used his years world hopping through unclosed windows to collect a bunch of treasures that only he knows he has, with no deeper agenda. I have to agree with Coulter about how lame that is. Roger's daemon definitely spoke but I don't remember if it ever spoke to Lyra. As a child's daemon, Pan can still change forms and be as big as he wants. And I assume the attacking daemon would always have an extra advantage as their human would not be the one immediately incapacitated. It helped that the guard was pretty incompetent. Just knowing "Latrom's" first name meant she must be his lady friend and authorized to go through with no identification and no Boreal/Latrom at her side. That guy's probably gonna get fired.

I don't think Lyra wants to find hers again, given what happened last time when she was trying to find him and give him the alethiometer. I'm struck by how she blames only herself for Roger's death, as if she's just decided that both her parents are inherently dangerous beings and Asriel was only acting according to his nature. As if she delivered her best friend to a ravenous alligator instead of her own father. She keeps saying she won't "betray" Will the way she did to Roger, which should include not seeking out Asriel again. (Neither of them knowing that Will's dad wants to team up with Lyra's, just as he doesn't know that the new bearer of the subtle knife is his own son. Ah, dramatic irony!) The only way I could see Lyra wanting to see her father after he murdered her closest friend would be to confront him over that but she just hasn't displayed any anger toward him, the actual murderer, only toward herself. This episode was the best so far for me for several reasons but what sealed it was no tedious Magisterium political scenes. Only the good stuff.

Well, we've been told the place is dangerous for grown-ups, and clearly he knew he needed kids to do the hard work here or else he would've already gotten the knife himself. Maybe he went there once and had to quickly run away from the spectres.

I thought it was pretty clear when he was yelling at Tyrion to shut up as Tyrion told him it wasn't his place to decide that this had gone beyond orders for him. And the way he looked at Jon last ep as Jon tried to restrain his own men was as if he was itching for a reason to kill him, even though Dany still wanted Jon to the end and what Jon did with his own men was really not Grey Worm's perview. He's not meant to be the same unthinking unfeeling soldier from before he knew Dany and Missandei. (I also thought it was interesting that he sentenced the Lannister prisoners to die, which suggests more autonomy than a mere executioner.)

Fun fact: the only way Rickon's name came up after his death was when Jaime was pretending to not know Dickon's name. So, yes, his siblings did forget.

Bran's predecessor claimed to have been waiting for him for 1000 years, long past the normal human lifespan. I think it can be surmised that he needed to be rooted in the cave to stay in the human world. Bran's physical body is still pretty young but all he needs to do is find one weirwood cave in the south or plant a new tree to rule Westeros forever once his human body gets closer to an end.

The exceptions to tradition would be when the wife's house is in danger of dying out and is much more prestigious than the husband's. It's really not as modern as it's being made out to be. The north having its first female ruler would be a much bigger deal than her forefathers' name being allowed to live on with her children.

I don't think she was speaking the same to both groups, hence why she addressed them separately.