S02.E08: Dundee

[TV Diva Queen]

I think maybe Ken hired someone to write that rap.  I'm binging seasons 1 and 2 so all episodes are one in my mind, but I remember early one that Kendall told his Jess, to hire the "late night guys" to write some jokes.  So hiring someone to write his rap wouldn't be out of his realm.  

[sistermagpie]

9 hours ago, TV Diva Queen said:

I think maybe Ken hired someone to write that rap.  I'm binging seasons 1 and 2 so all episodes are one in my mind, but I remember early one that Kendall told his Jess, to hire the "late night guys" to write some jokes.  So hiring someone to write his rap wouldn't be out of his realm.  

Oh, I think it's a given that Ken hired the person who wrote the rap.

[xaxat]

On 9/30/2019 at 12:49 AM, rue721 said:

I am so curious about what she's like as a playwright. She seems so serious and dedicated and it's such a niche ambition that I can imagine her work being pretty cool, but then when she actually talks about the play she sounds so vapid (like she's fretting about desert sand v construction sand?)

This was my favorite obscure background story joke in a show full of them. There really is a difference between types of sand. There are sand brokers who provide businesses with the material most appropriate for their needs. Middle Eastern companies in the desert import the right sand for construction, pro volleyball games on the beach have special "beach volleyball" sand trucked in etc.

So she had a some reason to be unhappy that she didn't get the sand she paid for. Even if it wouldn't have saved her play.

(Especially if Greg was right about the mites.)

[Ms Blue Jay]

I'm sorry I couldn't remember if it was 207 or 208 (so, there are NO spoilers here) but Shiv's dress with the turtleneck that was backless was the most nonsensical combination of dress features.  

They are constantly putting Shiv in turtlenecks and it just seems really unimaginative.  Then to add backless on top of it?  Makes NO sense!

[Ms Blue Jay]

On 10/1/2019 at 4:08 PM, teddysmom said:

Also, I love Tabitha and don't want her written off the show. So we need to figure out how to not have Roman break up with her. 

I've seen this actor around so much (Unreal?  It's Complicated?) and for once, I actually really like her in a role.

Edited January 19, 2020 by Ms Blue Jay

[lucindabelle]

Tthe theater stuff is weird.

i honestly didn’t understand why everyone kept calling Willa a prostitution when she’s been with Connor for years, has no other clients and has an artistic pursuit.

but when balloon actress said she was “not really” in theater I was like wait, what?

playwrights never say things like “these lines are placeholders.” Maybe you’d say that at a READING. 

But you don’t invite 1000 people to a reading and attend in a sparkly dress.

new plays almost never START on broadway- not now and pretty much not ever. Used to be they had out of town tryouts, now things often are at a regional theater first, or off broadway.

yes non musicals can cost a LOT of money- Harry Potter for example; they rebuilt the whole theater. Or to kill a mockingbird.

most original new plays are cheaper but still very expensive.

itis unheard of for there to be just one producer. Nothing in this plot line rings remotely true.

i do think we should know what the play is about.

i DIDNT get that Rhea will probably be pushed out soon- until I came here!

[sistermagpie]

18 hours ago, lucindabelle said:

i honestly didn’t understand why everyone kept calling Willa a prostitution when she’s been with Connor for years, has no other clients and has an artistic pursuit.

Because they have a straightforward financial arrangement where he pays her to be his girlfriend. That's how I've always understood it.

Agreed on the absurdity of how her play gets put on, but the one moment I remember having a different reaction to was the "placeholder" line, which I seem to remember was just her speaking out of nervousness when she suddenly thought it wasn't going over well. Not something a playwright would say, so underlining that she isn't really one.

[lucindabelle]

On 8/28/2020 at 6:07 PM, sistermagpie said:

Because they have a straightforward financial arrangement where he pays her to be his girlfriend. That's how I've always understood it.

Agreed on the absurdity of how her play gets put on, but the one moment I remember having a different reaction to was the "placeholder" line, which I seem to remember was just her speaking out of nervousness when she suddenly thought it wasn't going over well. Not something a playwright would say, so underlining that she isn't really one.

Oh he’s still paying her? I somehow didn’t get that. Obviously he’s supporting her and all that but I didn’t get her taking a salary. Makes sense.

[sistermagpie]

17 minutes ago, lucindabelle said:

Oh he’s still paying her? I somehow didn’t get that. Obviously he’s supporting her and all that but I didn’t get her taking a salary. Makes sense.

I wouldn't swear I was right about that, of course, but I always thought that was the deal, that he asked for a deal where she exclusively worked for him and presented herself as his girlfriend. So I thought she was still getting a salary rather than him just supporting her.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 10/1/2019 at 9:13 PM, scrb said:

Would that wreck Conor?

Remember Stewy and Sandy offered Kendall $500 million for his stake in Waystar.  So you figure Shiv and Roman have similar stakes, worth several hundred million each, maybe over a billion.

So what is Conor worth?  Can't imagine he would only have say 1/10th of the other Roy siblings.

Connor would probably have a smaller amount of Waystar/Royco shares than Kendall.  Since Kendall was a high level executive at the company (who probably never worked anywhere else) part of his compensation would be company shares. I can see the kids all getting the same amount at birth, but depending on how much Connor spent on his ranch and his historical artifacts he might not have as much cash left as Shiv and Roman (who both have jobs).

[FozzyBear]

On 9/30/2019 at 5:21 AM, rue721 said:

Also, Ewan can stop with this mess about disowning Greg for being so greedy as to take a job at Logan’s company. Ewan is on the board of Waystar and I’m certain that that huge chunk of change he’d be leaving Greg comes from Ewan’s stake in Waystar, too. What’s good enough for the goose is good enough for the gander, Ewan. If it’s OK for Ewan to get rich taking Logan’s “blood money” than why isn’t it OK for Greg?

It’s ridiculous for Ewan to threaten to withhold the portion of Waystar/Logan’s money from Greg that he’d get directly from Ewan in return for not taking any money from Logan via Waystar. Or, not ridiculous, personal. This is about the brothers fighting for “ownership” of Greg, not about Ewan’s convictions about Waystar. If Ewan really believed in those convictions, he would have given up his seat on the board long ago and stopped cashing his own Waystar checks. Until that happens, he needs to look in the mirror next time he starts ranting about complicity.

I was actually thinking that in his own way Ewan is just as manipulative and abusive as Logan. He uses his money to control his family as well. It also raises interesting questions about why Greg and his mom seemed so broke at the beginning of the series if Grandpa Ewan is that loaded. I guess Greg’s mom didn’t do enough to fight climate change either! Man whatever happened to Ewan and Logan in their childhood home must have been bad. Those are two truly terrible humans.

[KittyQ]

On 9/30/2019 at 6:30 AM, Eyes High said:

Kendall supposedly cares so much about his father's opinion that one "awesome" too many from Jennifer was enough to get Kendall to ghost her, but he pursued a relationship with Naomi after the Pierce deal went south, knowing full well how strongly his father feels about disloyalty. So which is it?

I think the "too many awesomes" was a straw man - Jennifer could have pointed out that all the Roys say variations of "fuck" too frequently. The problem is that Jennifer said how often Kendall talked about his dad. I don't think Kendall is ready for someone to see how dependent he is here.

[Dianaofthehunt]

On 9/29/2019 at 10:35 PM, haje said:

This show truly has the amazing ability to utterly devastate me one episode and then have me die of complete embarrassment the next. Incredible.

Nothing I have ever done in my entire life was as personally mortifying to me as Kendall’s “rap.”

I wanted to dive under the sofa until it was over.

 

[jeansheridan]

On 3/4/2022 at 6:32 AM, FozzyBear said:

It also raises interesting questions about why Greg and his mom seemed so broke at the beginning of the series

Greg never seemed broke to me. He seemed like a weed smoking college graduate who was aimless. But he also didn't seem like he knew that potentially $250 million was coming his way. He didn't act that way is what I mean but I have to wonder now about all his interactions with a real up and comer like Tom. I assume Tom was upper middle class in the Midwest but not multimillionaire rich. Tom might be annoying and snobbish but he did scramble his way up. Greg can be so bumbling because he has a massive safety net.

[cardigirl]

47 minutes ago, jeansheridan said:

Greg never seemed broke to me. He seemed like a weed smoking college graduate who was aimless. But he also didn't seem like he knew that potentially $250 million was coming his way. He didn't act that way is what I mean but I have to wonder now about all his interactions with a real up and comer like Tom. I assume Tom was upper middle class in the Midwest but not multimillionaire rich. Tom might be annoying and snobbish but he did scramble his way up. Greg can be so bumbling because he has a massive safety net.

I got the feeling that Greg was desperately poor, in the sense he had no liquid assets. Was he going to be rich? At some point, yes, but his mother and he never had much money, so he was on the fringes of wealth without any actual cash. The episode where he drives his grandfather to NYC for Thanksgiving was so painful for me, because he didn't get anything to eat. His grandfather didn't want to stop for food anywhere, and Tom sent him off to get rid of the evidence before he could sit down and eat. 

Then he hooked up with Kendall and started being paid a bit more. Still not on the level of his cousins, but enough where he could afford a haircut and nicer clothes.  

I think the Greg and Tom dynamic is so interesting, will be curious to see where it ends up. 

[jeansheridan]

2 minutes ago, cardigirl said:

The episode where he drives his grandfather to NYC for Thanksgiving was so painful for me, because he didn't get anything to eat. His

I don't recall that episode. That is sad although I feel like that have been more of a writing room "bit". Greg never gets to eat on Thanksgiving. How funny. More than him being too poor to eat.

[cardigirl]

7 minutes ago, jeansheridan said:

I don't recall that episode. That is sad although I feel like that have been more of a writing room "bit". Greg never gets to eat on Thanksgiving. How funny. More than him being too poor to eat.

It's from Season 1, episode 5 "Went to Market."  Greg also promises his mother that he will ask for more money for her. 

Edited May 21, 2023 by cardigirl

[sistermagpie]

34 minutes ago, jeansheridan said:

I don't recall that episode. That is sad although I feel like that have been more of a writing room "bit". Greg never gets to eat on Thanksgiving. How funny. More than him being too poor to eat.

I don't think they meant he was literally too poor to eat. Just that he grew up, it seems, in a more normal way. We know that from the way he keeps getting introduced to looking at things in the rich way and has gotten accustomed to it. On Thanksgiving it wasn't that he didn't have money, it was that he was being ordered around by selfish people whose immediate whim was always too important to let the guy just grab some bread and turkey slices.

[Guest]

On 5/21/2023 at 10:34 AM, jeansheridan said:

Greg never seemed broke to me. He seemed like a weed smoking college graduate who was aimless. But he also didn't seem like he knew that potentially $250 million was coming his way. He didn't act that way is what I mean but I have to wonder now about all his interactions with a real up and comer like Tom. I assume Tom was upper middle class in the Midwest but not multimillionaire rich. Tom might be annoying and snobbish but he did scramble his way up. Greg can be so bumbling because he has a massive safety net.

The way his mom says, in the pilot, "I'm not sending you any more money" was more of a "this money I've been sending you is a hardship to me" and not "I'm trying to teach you responsibility" to me.

[Scatterbrained]

I haven’t read all the replies, but my take on Kendall loosing interest in the actress occurred when she told him, “You talk about your dad a lot.”  He took it as a criticism, which he can’t seem to handle.  It might be that he realized, she might be impressed by his big gestures (flying her places, but not impressed with him).  She might like his stuff, but she doesn’t really like him.

So, his saying, “You say the word ‘awesome’ a lot” was him mirroring that interaction and devaluing her as much as she devalued him.  
 

He had to get his dig in, get the final word, and then he was done.