“Fuck you Tom.”
With startling suddenness the two words tumbled out – first by Shiva, then by Kendall, then by Roman. Tom calls a good night to a pre-election “tailgate party” that is so brutal the party goers take it as a joke. or, perhaps, based on the buzz that’s been going around all night, they take His like a joke. While Tom may have made an impression on Shiva—and the word is actually “may,” depending on whether you believe, as he does, that she’ll be “okay”—the pivot to another theme is intriguing. Literally quick. The siblings close the book on Tom, the man who’s been in their inner circle for the entire run of the show, and now it’s time to briefly talk about their father’s funeral arrangements. And which of them will deliver the awesome eulogy. The party goes on without Tom. He was always co-hosting it at the discretion of the Roy family.
After Logan’s death, Tom and Shiv seem to have healed their relationship, but now we can see that all the pain and betrayal that soured their marriage was only put on hold for a while. Shiva had no one else who could recognize his grief and sympathize with him. And Tom, who lost his weak spot in Waystar (or the Gojo version of Waystar) when Logan died, is still stuck with his career, which is mostly in Shiva’s hands. There’s a lot to sort out in their relationship, but the big question has always been how much of it is genuine emotion and how much is transactional. Does Tom love Shiva? There is a lot of evidence to this effect. Is Tom a “conservative hick” from a “effortless and parochial” family who loves getting rich and seeks Shiva as a ladder to success? There is also a lot of evidence to that effect.
Before the “Tailgate Party” Turns into Lesser Drinking Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – Partly because Tom and Shiv can’t get their hands on potable alcohol – the table is set for a miserable night. Though the two have renewed a vigorous sex life, Tom offers Shiva the curious presence of a scorpion encased in glass, intended to reflect on past betrayals (“I love you, but you kill me, and I kill you.” am,” he explains), but more suggestively symbolizes his nature. That would be the frog that she stung after crossing the river. The gift is an insult, but it is also a bit of foreshadowing as Shiva intends to be very stingy at the party and her husband will not be unaffected. It’s almost worse that Tom isn’t the target as collateral damage. His ambitions get him down.
Despite signs that Kendall’s Living + Gambit worked, it still hasn’t cooled Mattson’s desire to gobble up Waystar, though he doesn’t intend to rub elbows at the tailgate party. (“She doesn’t want to be swimming around my dad’s pre-election crap brained AOL-era legacy media putrid stuffed mushroom fuckfest,” Shiv reports.) But Kendall and Roman are busy creating a new reason to crush the deal. There are: their political connections to pound GoJo with regulations on matters such as their aggressive algorithms to use and data-mining practices. But the CE-Brothers don’t realize that Shiva has been meeting with Mattson behind their backs, so they learn about the plan and trick Mattson by encouraging him to come to the party and introducing him to the elite. Encourages and works to counter it. Who can decide their future.
Tom can see this whole nightmare unfolding right in front of him. For one, Shiva has agreed to his brothers’ request to invite his ex Nate to the party as Nate’s ear is four points ahead in the election polls and can assist him with his regulatory scheme. Even though he can understand why Shiva invited him for political reasons, this is a clear example of him putting his ambitions ahead of his feelings. Things take a turn for the worse for Tom when Mattson arrives walking in fashionably late for his father amid Kendall’s “moment of silence”. Shiva introduces Mattson to Nate, suggesting that the ATN operated by Mattson be responsible for their candidacy. He would make a “major leadership change” at the helm of the network.
So begins the nightly gossip that circulates side-by-side with sliders held together by American flag toothpicks and fries cleverly seasoned with sea salt. Tom tries to salvage his career by offering his services, although Mattson may prefer to be a “hands-on” type or an “overview man”, but the Swede sees right through him. He jokes to Shiva, “Hey, I’m about to take a shit in your husband’s mouth, and I’m pretty sure he’s going to tell me what it tastes like. Coq Au Vin, You could argue that Tom only played a losing hand. He betrayed Shiva to his father under the unwarranted belief that Logan Roy was immortal, and is now completely out of allies, despite his temporary pact with Shiva. fuck you tom. Without him the world would go on spinning.
Yet the extraordinary scene on the balcony between Tom and Shiva brings a series of pains to the table, and it is perhaps most extraordinary because everything they say about each other is true. Tom’s marriage proposal sends Shiva to his lowest ebb. He needed her DNA because he was thirsty for power. She was strangely optimistic about the prospect of him going to prison, but she actually presented herself as a decadent being because of her necessary servitude. He loves her and she may be incapable of loving, which is a sad part of the Roy DNA, at least among those not achieving fringe candidacies in Alaska. Sarah Snook and Matthew McFadden deliver the bullet points of this crumbling marriage with a whole lot of emotion as Tom and Shiv finally and roughly tell each other everything they wanted to say. It turns out that the sex was as hot as their marriage was a volcano.
Then again, betrayal is family business. The alliance between Shiva and his brothers is crumbling into many rifts behind the scenes, predicting disaster for all three of them. The fact that GoJo’s subscription numbers in India could skyrocket gives Kendall and Roman an opportunity to dissuade the board from approving the deal, apart from whether they’ve been successful in deceiving regulators on Mattson. (On that front, Kendall’s heavy-handed promise to Nate that ATN will go easy on his candidate during his first 100 days is pretty much a bribe for Nate to accept. “I don’t feel comfortable with the tenor of this conversation.) , ” he says.) Shiva is aiding Matson behind his brothers’ backs, but he is extremely reticent about promising her any reward for his loyalty—which is more proof that Shiva is not as intelligent as she thinks he is.
And then, in a final blow, Kendall lures Frank away with an offer to go “reverse viking” on Matson and force Waystar to usurp a weakened Gojo, taking the company from the empire his father built. Will make it big For some reason, Frank is never too distracted by the legacy of Kendall’s epic failure, but he does have concerns about Roman and Shiva and what kind of place they will have in this new, bigger WayStar. “I love them, but I’m not in love with them,” replied Kendall coldly. “One head, one crown.”
fuck you tom? Fuck everyone.
• Kendall’s immense insecurities come to the fore during an absurd pre-credits exchange with Rava, who has called her after an incident where his daughter was hit by a guy in a Ravenhead shirt. (“Why was she out on the street?” Kendall asks as Rava drops her off on set death wish movie.) He wants to make sure his ex knows he’s big and important now, doing big things on “six continents”. All she wants is to call her daughter every once in a while.
• Greg is getting comfortable doing Tom’s dirty work, probably because firing 100 silent people on Zoom is infinitely easier than the ordeal of telling Kerry she’s not quite ready for primetime. The Zoom firings also underscore how layoffs can happen in the modern world. Here’s a fun round-up of some of the worst, topped by a company that sent employees a text instructing them to call a number that fired them via automated message.
• The wall street journal Not mentioned by name, but the show’s allusions to paper owner Rupert Murdoch referencing “Journal op-ed ogres” seem like a hint in that direction. “Come on,” says Ken. “They’re not all crypto-fascist right-wing nut jobs. We also have some venture capital dames and centrist ghouls. Dad’s ideological spectrum was wide.” In fact.
• Connor negotiating an ambassadorship for himself in exchange for dropping out at the last minute is a fun little thread in the episode. The first offered Mogadishu, Somalia, Connor Balcks (“a little bit car bomb-y”) and makes for an ambitious antagonist, like South Korea, or just plain, like North Korea. (“You don’t know. No one knows. I might open it up like Nixon did China.”) When Connor finally settled on Oman as a good option, he was worried about the sultan’s oppressive hold on the country. concerns have to be addressed. “Airport? We’ll be fine,” he assured her.
• The abba factor is really intriguing. She is clearly pitiful and has all kinds of dirt on Mattson, but she is unable to control herself and sees him as a threat. For all the talk about fake numbers and regulatory hurdles in India, Ebba has the power to blow up the GoJo himself.
• Still totally hilarious that the Connor of the Pierce family, Maxim Pierce, is serving as Connor’s chief advisor. Two rich moonlight on the city! And a nice role for Mark Lynn-Baker, previously immortalized as Larry Appleton. perfect Strangers,
• Really enjoying Oscar, who doesn’t even wait a moment before attacking Greg for trying to hang out with the Gojo team. “Fucking hanger! Fucking Dingleberry!
• Roman’s rapid firing at Gerry turns out to be just as big a mistake as you’d predict as he has a gallery of pictures of his cock as leverage and isn’t interested in his attempts to return it. “I could get you there,” says Gerry, who must have once sincerely considered Roman a protégé. “But no.”
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