S02.E02: Vaulter

[RealReality]

37 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

I think Greg brings out the worst in Tom because Greg is just as needy and grasping but has a tiny bit more charm. Greg is to Tom as Tom is to Shiv.

Kendall has kids, but Connor does not, neither does Roman or Shiv and since women do all the heavy lifting associated with procreating, I wonder if we will get some pregnancy shenanigans with Shiv? I can almost see her telling Logan she’s pregnant only for him to hurl an insult at her about how she can’t be dedicated to the company if she’s focused on swelling feet and lactating. It would be just the kind of thing that would crush her.

I do wonder if we are about to head into a story line where Logan is experiencing effects from his stroke, bad judgment, unreasonable demands and expectations, all of that.

I agree that cousin Greg is a convenient whipping boy for Tom and Greg is the one person "lower" on the totem pole then tom who is always around or can be around. 

But tom forgets that cousin Greg is actually family and Tom is not.  Also Greg is more likeable because he has  no airs at all and he is so appreciative of everything and anything. 

Greg is also smart and a pretty quick study.  Tom is insecure and so he goes over the top with everything.  

I'd be surprised if shiv got pregnant, but it would be interesting.  

I think Logan's cognitive difficulties have to start showing up again.  At this point it's just Logan in control of everything, which is fine but much more interesting if the monkey wrench of his problems are thrown in. 

During the proxy battle it's probably a bad idea to replace Logan so what do they do?  How long can Logan hide things?  Kendall will probably be the first to see it so can Logan keep him from saying or doing anything?  Does roman make a move?  Does shiv try to push the timeline?  

[Eyes High]

1 hour ago, RealReality said:

I agree that cousin Greg is a convenient whipping boy for Tom and Greg is the one person "lower" on the totem pole then tom who is always around or can be around. 

I've often heard it said that the true test of character is not how you treat your equals, but how you treat your (social) inferiors, and boy is that telling when it comes to Tom (and the Roys in general).

[northboundtrain]

3 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

Didn’t Marcia have a child? I seem to remember that she did. I’m surprised there aren’t more relatives/vultures trying to get an ‘in’ with Logan.

Yes, Marcia's got (at least?) one child, a son. I think he was in the Thanksgiving episode and there was a bit about how Logan had put him in charge of some division at Waystar. It was apparently a surprise to Logan's kids when it came up in conversation.

2 hours ago, RealReality said:

I think Logan's cognitive difficulties have to start showing up again.  At this point it's just Logan in control of everything, which is fine but much more interesting if the monkey wrench of his problems are thrown in.

Could they already be there? I did notice this last episode that it seemed like there was something off about the way he was speaking compared to how he'd spoken in previous episodes...it seemed slower and more deliberate.

[RealReality]

1 hour ago, Eyes High said:

I've often heard it said that the true test of character is not how you treat your equals, but how you treat your (social) inferiors, and boy is that telling when it comes to Tom (and the Roys in general).

This x1000

46 minutes ago, northboundtrain said:

Could they already be there? I did notice this last episode that it seemed like there was something off about the way he was speaking compared to how he'd spoken in previous episodes...it seemed slower and more deliberate.

Maybe.....it would be smart for them to start showing his problems in bits and pieces.  I hadn't noticed it, but subtle hints aren't my strong suit.

[Athena5217]

11 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

Kendall has kids, but Connor does not, neither does Roman or Shiv and since women do all the heavy lifting associated with procreating, I wonder if we will get some pregnancy shenanigans with Shiv?

Do we know that only Kendall has kids or are you assuming because no others have been mentioned? I just ask because could see a future plot involving some kid Roman abandoned that comes back to haunt him. I think Connor and Shiv have enough sense to use contraceptives if they don’t want kids, but their  Window Wacker sibling is a moron.

[BlackberryJam]

9 hours ago, Athena5217 said:

Do we know that only Kendall has kids or are you assuming because no others have been mentioned? I just ask because could see a future plot involving some kid Roman abandoned that comes back to haunt him. I think Connor and Shiv have enough sense to use contraceptives if they don’t want kids, but their  Window Wacker sibling is a moron.

I'm assuming. But considering that Roman can't actually seem to have sex with a woman, I think it's probably safe to say that he doesn't have any kids out there. I think Roman is totally gross and his sexuality is really screwed up, but I don't think he has any kids.

Connor could possibly have a child out there but I'm sure he would have talked about that child and using it on the campaign Trail or something at this point.

[RedDelicious]

I thought in Season One, Roman was married to Grace and the little blonde girl in the helicopter was their daughter?  I want to say it was episode 1, and then later in the Thanksgiving episode, their relationship meets its undoing when Grace watches the turkey movie with the kids, one of them being the little blonde girl. Then they just...went away.

[BlackberryJam]

59 minutes ago, RedDelicious said:

I thought in Season One, Roman was married to Grace and the little blonde girl in the helicopter was their daughter?  I want to say it was episode 1, and then later in the Thanksgiving episode, their relationship meets its undoing when Grace watches the turkey movie with the kids, one of them being the little blonde girl. Then they just...went away.

Oh...maybe you're right. I looked at IMDB and she's credited as Grace Roy, but then checking out reddit, this seems to be fluid, she's girlfriend, she's wife, etc, but there's no mention of any kids of Roman's at Shiv's wedding.

If that was supposed to be a thing, it seems to have been dropped.

[RealReality]

1 hour ago, RedDelicious said:

I thought in Season One, Roman was married to Grace and the little blonde girl in the helicopter was their daughter?  I want to say it was episode 1, and then later in the Thanksgiving episode, their relationship meets its undoing when Grace watches the turkey movie with the kids, one of them being the little blonde girl. Then they just...went away.

Wow, congratulations on your memory.  In other news I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday 🤣

[RedDelicious]

3 minutes ago, RealReality said:

Wow, congratulations on your memory.  In other news I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday 🤣

Don't ask me to remember anything that I *NEED to remember however 😄 

But yeah the reason the little girl in the helicopter stuck out to me is I recall that Roman was affectionate towards her as if she were his child and I also remember that in the helicopter Logan seemed to regard Roman with some degree of affection as well. But that also seemed to go away.

[scrb]

If Grace was his wife though, she just packed up and left, no divorce, no custody battle, etc.

And then he hooked up with Tabitha shortly thereafter.

[meira.hand]

20 hours ago, northboundtrain said:

On 8/20/2019 at 8:00 PM, BlackberryJam said:

Didn’t Marcia have a child? I seem to remember that she did. I’m surprised there aren’t more relatives/vultures trying to get an ‘in’ with Logan.

Yes, Marcia's got (at least?) one child, a son. I think he was in the Thanksgiving episode and there was a bit about how Logan had put him in charge of some division at Waystar. It was apparently a surprise to Logan's kids when it came up in conversation.

It was Marcia's son that said he saw Kendall, all wet, coming back from the pond to the house and sort of forced him to cave in to his father's assumption of his being in the car. If it was just his room key card being found at the scene he might have tried to deny he was involved.

[Pop Tart]

4 hours ago, RedDelicious said:

I thought in Season One, Roman was married to Grace and the little blonde girl in the helicopter was their daughter?  I want to say it was episode 1, and then later in the Thanksgiving episode, their relationship meets its undoing when Grace watches the turkey movie with the kids, one of them being the little blonde girl. Then they just...went away.

I think they changed who the Grace character was from the pilot episode into the rest of the episodes. For the pilot she's listed as Grace Roy (Roman's wife) but by the time they're at the Thanksgiving get together she's just his girlfriend and she and the child weren't seen again after she disagreed with him about a movie (I think).

[luckylou]

Prior to his masterful surprise destruction of Vaulter, Kendall was appallingly eager to be liked by everyone. Perhaps he has learned to stop being so hapless and over-eager; it will never again be as easy for him to double cross someone as it was with Vaulter, but he must feel considerable pleasure in having destroyed those who had such contempt for him.  Maybe this is the beginning of a more assertive Kendall.  He takes pleasure in stealing and then tossing the batteries from someone who paid no attention to him...kind of a repeat of what happened with Vaulter.

[DrSparkles]

On 8/19/2019 at 11:09 PM, ProudMary said:

I was very surprised that Shiv quit/pushed Gil to the point of firing her. I really thought she was going to play both sides for as long as possible especially since she told no one that Gil had basically given her the WH Chief of Staff position should he win the election. It seemed the smart move and I honestly thought she (like many of us here) was wary of Logan even giving up power and was looking to protect herself. This will not end well for Shiv.

I do hope the writers let us in on why Shiv is with Tom at all, let alone why she married him. She doesn't love him; most of the time I don't even think she likes him. For Tom it makes sense. Shiv's his meal ticket. There's a big piece of the puzzle that we're missing and I'm hoping they don't hold out from us much longer.

Kendall seemed ticked off that the convenience store attendant didn't take his eyes off the television he was watching while ringing up Kendall's purchase. I think he stole the batteries on his way out as a way of saying, "How dare he treat me that way?" just to put the guy in his place, so to speak. 

Did we know that Roman was in a relationship with Tabitha? That seemed to be out of the blue to me. I didn't know who she was until she made the "You might want to swallow something for that throat" crack to Tom. Her comment and Tom's reaction told me who she was, but I was still surprised that she's Roman's (evidently live-in) girlfriend. 

Off topic: Kieran Culkin often reminds me of a young Robert Downey, Jr. I see a resemblance in certain mannerisms and facial expressions 

Yes! I’ve thought that about RDJr since the first episode!!!!!! 

[Ellaria]

wrong thread

Edited December 13, 2019 by Ellaria Sand
Wrong episode

[Jordan Baker]

I'm catching up on Succession, thanks to HBO's free month. The one thing that really stood out for me in this episode was the woman in charge of ATN. I was trying to place her, and all I could think of is that she sounded like Jeannie Berlin.

A quick Google search told me that's indeed who it was. 

If you've never seen "The Heartbreak Kid" (the original, from the '70s), I'd highly recommend you watch it. JB gives an outstanding performance.  

I thought she was good here, too. although I was a bit worried about her. She almost looks as though she's had a stroke. 

And it's interesting that the Roger Ailes character is played by a woman.

 

 

[TV Anonymous]

I know that this is supposedly a drama-comedy with a liberal amount of artistic license, but was it legal what Kendall did? All accumulated vacations would not be paid off? Vacation days are entitlement, just like salary. Denying employees their vacation payment is equal with withholding payment, IMO. 

[aghst]

Trying to re-watch season 2 before the new season.

When it aired, it seemed to be a lot about how crushed Kendall was, how he was trying to get life back.

But at least through the first two episodes, the other arc is about the siblings jockeying for the keys to the kingdom.

You have Logan asking them about what he should do, sell to Sandy and Stewy, because tech is going to make newspapers obsolete, or try to retain control but to convince the board, he'd have to tell him who will succeed him.

So he has them one after the other come in and pitch him.  You have Roman being so thirsty for it while Shiv tries to play it cool.  She does admit she'd be interested but tells Tom that she doesn't really know if she wants it.

By the second episode, she tells Gil to fuck off so she's giving up her career, her identity outside the family that she had worked hard to establish.  Then she tells Logan she's in (for taking over Waystar) but Logan tells her he will be in touch.

This whole dance is very Game of Thrones and King Lear.  Everyone wants to get theirs when the King is gone, not just the siblings but all the distant hangers on.  Greg is just trying to get a decent place to live in and Ken gives him a huge apartment to use but only if he hosts party so Ken can try to hoover up pussy when he's not doing park coke and stealing batteries from convenience stores for no reason.

[KittyQ]

On 8/19/2019 at 10:17 AM, RealReality said:

.

My question is why she decided to bring it up at this point. Obviously, they recognized each other before, so what was to gain by revisiting that night?

[Macbeth1966]

   I think Shiv just proved she is just as messed and entitled as her brothers.  Because I believe Logan was really going to try to bring her in to be CEO.  He offered her the same training, I believe, he gave Kendall and was in the middle of with Roman (Frank was overseeing him)during the pilot.  

When she countered back with saying Roman is COO.  What's her training?  To run a company like Waystar you need some training.  She's not taking into account that even though Kendall tried to overthrow his father on at least 2 occasions - Logan is still relying on him to be his henchman.  Otherwise it would just be Roman. He has no other choice.  So he was really looking to her to take this on. He doesn't want Kendall to have it. 

And Logan knows Roman doesn't have the chops.  Roman has some social skills - he sussed out the  very important news that Vaulter employees were about to unionize. But digging down in paperwork and analyzing figures is beyond him.

As for Kendall - as masterful as he was to pare down Vaulter and get rid of all the fat - he failed at finding that Vaulter was just a Potemkin Village when he bought it for Waystar.  That's a massive failure.  And Logan noticed.

And Shiv, at the end, telling her father she was ready to work, doesn't even know that she had already blown her opportunity.

 

Edited June 11, 2023 by Macbeth1966

[sistermagpie]

14 minutes ago, Macbeth1966 said:

Because I believe Logan was really going to try to bring her in to be CEO.  He offered her the same training, I believe, he gave Kendall and was in the middle of with Roman (Frank was overseeing him)during the pilot.  

He was never going to bring her in to be CEO. That's his MO, to dangle it and not give it up, because he was never going to give it up, period. It's only manipulation and control.

Edited June 11, 2023 by sistermagpie

[Macbeth1966]

30 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

He was never going to bring her in to be CEO. That's his MO, to dangle it and not give it up, because he was never going to give it up, period. It's only manipulation and control.

That is definitely his MO.  But given his age and health problems - I believe he wanted to have a successor in place when he died.  He wanted to keep Waystar in the family.   That's his legacy.  And he was looking towards Shiv, as both Roman and Kendall, were not fit to lead.  And Shiv was going to have a long training.

I believe he was sincere in that moment.  Because he was trying to find an alternative to just selling the business.

 

[quirkygal]

On 8/19/2019 at 11:03 AM, CouchTater said:

Marcia did not look happy when Logan ordered her to go unplug Alexa.  LOL

I figured Marcia was using the Alexa to listen in on her hubby and he just let her know the jig is up.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by quirkygal
thought that applied to a different episode