Your stock is either on the rise or it’s plummeting; that’s how this Succession column works. However, this may be the first time that all the central characters feel like they’re going down. Between being publicly embarrassed courtesy of a Nirvana track, cowering in a closet at the comedy show you chose to subject yourself to, or getting ready for a raid from the FBI, the Roy family is up against it this week. Succession isn’t a happy-go-lucky show to begin with, but “The Disruption” feels like a particularly dark installment. If image is the family business, then business is in the shitter, folks. Follow along as we track the many L’s accumulated by the Roy clan in Succession season 3 episode 3, “The Disruption.” Just don’t leave any patina behind.
Connor Roy
Connor is like chili sauce or hip-hop icon Flavor Flav; he’s great in small doses. Connor’s efficiency rating this year has been off the charts. We love when a bench player knows their role. Connor has yet another good week by refusing to go along with Shiv’s dirty laundry letter, which may have been the final straw in getting the FBI to formally raid Waystar. Further than that, he’s the one that took Roman fishing in Montana, which Roman cites as one of his few happy memories of his dad from childhood. That’s extremely depressing for Roman, but how sweet of Con! I also need to see the photo of Connor with a ponytail IMMEDIATELY.
Tom Wambsgans
Ok, so Tom gets some friendly advice that should everything in the cruise scandal leak, he’ll likely be going to prison. That’s certainly not good, and probably even has Tom thinking about taking a cyanide pill for real, not just using it as a joke to intimidate Greg. Tom is at the center of this shitstorm and slowly starting to realize that he may be locked in a no-win situation. That said, Tom’s thought process is that if he’s going down anyway, maybe he could offer himself up as a sacrificial lamb to Logan and know that once he’s released, he’d be set in Logan’s good graces for life. The boss appreciates the gesture but is still very confident that no one is going to prison. He probably scored major points with Logan, seemingly a first for Tom, but who knows if the empire will stand long enough for Tom to cash in. Also, Tom is looking outside the company for legal representation, which is likely a smart move for him.
Going Down
Logan Roy
Well, the wolves have officially entered this messed-up hen house, and they’ll find plenty to eat. The FBI arrived at Waystar at the end of the episode, despite Logan’s efforts to get senior White House aide Michelle-Anne Vanderhoven to help him out. The President and Logan are strangely tied together; the President needs positive, but fair coverage from Logan’s network, and Logan needs the DOJ to stay put. However, the President is worried that his close ties to such a noxious person may be working against him. Logan thought that some face time with Michelle-Anne would help remind the President of their symbiotic relationship, but it has the opposite effect. Logan can claim all that he wants that there are no skeletons in his closet, but his closet is cavernous and has been shared by many bad actors. Logan thinks that the law is just people and that people are politics, and so since he can manage people, he’ll be able to weasel his way out of this one, but the walls are really starting to collapse. Shiv may be firmly in his camp, something that Logan has been worried about since episode 1, but his daughter’s support won’t matter if the DOJ formally presses charges. The angry hog at the state fair may just end up on a spit. Kendall is truly a man without a country. His sweaty compulsion to be seen as cool is one of the worst things about him, and we’re talking about a coke-addicted, murder-adjacent billionaire. He has the hubris to scream “HURT ME” at Sophie Iwobi’s writers, but when material leaks that will definitely, you know, hurt him, he cowers in their server room like the scared child that he really is. Yes, Shiv tells the world that Kendall is a drug-addicted, misogynistic, dead-beat dad with delusions of grandeur. That should really sit well with the blogosphere or whatever audience Kendall is concerned with courting.
Siobhan Roy
Shiv has dug her feet into the ground on the side of Team Logan, and now it looks like she may be going down with the ship. Her move to paint Kendall as an unreliable fuck-up likely has backfired, and at a corporate all-hands meeting to address all the tension and allegations about Waystar and the cruise scandal, she’s drowned out by Nirvana’s “Rape Me” which, ouch, what a terrible look. Shiv is always taking one step forward and two steps back. She’s supposed to be the nice one, but not even Roman will touch the hatchet job she performs on Kendall. At what point will Shiv continue to compromise her values until she realizes she has none left?
