Succession Season 4 Episode 2 Recap/Evaluation: “Rehearsal”

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Succession, Season 4 Episode 2, “Rehearsal.”]

“I need to know that we’re killing the opposition; slitting their throats,” Logan Roy (Brian Cox) yells from the bullpen of ATN, riling up his model of a crew (learn: white folks in businesswear). “You’re fucking pirates.”

This week’s episode of Succession picks up shortly after the tight, simmering introduction final week’s premiere introduced us, upping the ante in a number of methods. Even so, this season feels prefer it’s nonetheless on the on-ramp — we’re clearly gearing up for greater occasions, and the restraint exhibited by Jesse Armstrong and firm in “Rehearsal” is spectacular. This isn’t to say that something we’ve seen to date has been boring; how might or not it’s, with the consistency of one-liners and head-spinning insults? However these first two entries into Season 4, Succession‘s final dance, have felt like groundwork being laid.

The title of the episode refers back to the rehearsal dinner for the approaching marriage ceremony between Connor (Alan Ruck) and Willa (Justine Lupe), the latter of whom is visibly panicking on the dedication she’s imagined to be making when morning comes. In the meantime, Shiv (Sarah Snook), Kendall (Jeremy Robust), and Roman (Kieran Culkin) are too caught up in their very own escapades and unending want to win a spherical with their father to correctly help Connor on Wedding ceremony Eve. Willa is likely to be a runaway bride, and Connor simply needs to sing karaoke, however the focus stays on Sandy, Stewie, comparables, and everybody’s subsequent strikes.

Sure, Episode 2 grants us an always-welcome look by Arian Moayed’s Stewie, whose vitality with Kendall may very well be studied and unpacked in an essay all its personal. Each time the friendship/bromance/rivalry falters or cracks, we get a glimpse of the actual emotions everybody on this universe works so arduous to masks. The best way Stewie pleads for Kendall to listen to him out with an impassioned utterance of his title? Theatrics! Drama! Emotion!

In the meantime, Tom and Greg are busy dealing with Logan’s choice to spend extra time at ATN going ahead, together with the subplot of Logan’s assistant, Kerry (Zoe Winters), being given a shot at a internet hosting gig (to some fairly disastrous outcomes). These executives like to deflect and dodge, and finally, it someway turns into Greg’s duty to let Kerry know that she gained’t be transferring ahead within the function. Whereas the main target group he fabricated in a panic may not be actual, I’d personally like to see what notes on “arms being improper for tv” would seem like.

Succession (HBO)