We’re just going to come right out and say it: Roman, Roman, Roman!!! In a move that can only be described as catastrophically mortifying, our kinky baby Roy sent a photograph of his own dick to his father Logan this week and potentially set fire to a massive business deal that would change Waystar Royco’s trajectory forever.
Amid the Roy children jet-setting to Italy to partake in festivities surrounding their mother’s wedding to The Crown’s Tommy Lascelles, Roman spent the better part of this week trying to negotiate with the eccentric, Elon Musk-ian founder of streaming network GoJo to lock in a merger. It was definitely unexpected — to say the least — that his ongoing obsession with Gerri Kellman would be a potential boner-killer for the merger and even for Gerri herself.
Outside of dicks and deals, this week revealed Kendall to somehow continue to be in free fall. After his disastrous birthday party last week, he got shuffled off to the sidelines by his mother at her own wedding and had a face off with his father. Logan ultimately admitted that he has no intention, despite his birthday card to Kendall saying otherwise, to buy Kendall out and essentially wants to keep the wounded puppy around in case he needs something to kick. We’ve seen Logan’s truly evil side many times throughout the series, but his reminding to Kendall about the cater waiter he killed in this moment feels particularly gutting. The last moment of the episode shows what appears to be a passed out Kendall on a pool raft. It’s unclear if he’s simply snoozing or inhaling water and potentially on the verge of dying. Either way, it’s an ominous moment.
Further subplots this week included developments within the ever-crumbling marriage of Shiv and Tom, as well as Greg attempting to become Casanova. Shiv really lived up to her hellish nickname when she told Tom, as part of their chaotic and manipulative foreplay, that she doesn’t think he’s good enough for her and that she doesn’t love him; she later gaslit him when he pressed her on the sentiments, saying: “I don’t love you, but I do love you.” As for Greg, who has really mastered the look of being absolutely bewildered, he’s apparently over attempting to woo Comfry and has set his sights on a contessa. Frankly, he’d probably be successful IRL. He may sound like a moron sometimes, but he’s 6'7 and related to billionaires. You do the math.
Our winners and losers this week:
Jenna’s take:
Winner: Truly, everyone had a terrible week except Peter Munion — the Roy matriarch’s husband-to-be. He seemed to have a shit-eating grin the whole time during the pre-nuptial events in Tuscany and, as per Mommie Dearest, he doesn’t even have to sign a prenup. I’d be pretty happy too!!!
Loser: Roman and Gerri. This flirtationship has always been bizarre and raunchy in the best ways so to see it blow up like a literal volcano is shocking. I, perhaps naively, never expected the dynamic to end, even though it always put both parties in very compromising positions. I have never felt more second-hand cringe in my entire life nor have I ever screamed, “NO. OH MY GOD, NO.” louder at my TV than I did when Logan opened the text. Just horrifying. Deceased. Sign Roman’s DNR right now. Roman deserves the L, without a shadow of a doubt, but I’m sad to include Gerri here as a loser. I know she’s not blameless in her pseudo-dalliance with Roman, but Logan and Shiv are already gunning for her in the wake of textgate, and it feels so unfair. Also: Fuck Logan for calling Gerri “a million years old.”
Ashley’s take:
Winner: Shiv, I guess. I was really starting to think Shiv was Having Some Realizations that she would need to divest herself away from Waystar Royco. Well, looks like I fucking played myself, because here’s Shiv in full sociopath mode, attempting to girlboss her way to the top yet again. Of course, this is the same woman who, last season, convinced a woman not to testify against Waystar’s history of violence against women. So, again, I really did play myself because there’s no reason I should be shocked by the fact that Shiv spent the last ten minutes of this episode using Gerri’s sexual harassment against her in a craven power grab.
Shiv’s conversation with her mother, Caroline, was really something. Caroline was clearly always a cold maternal figure, and she has done little to convince anyone of anything to the contrary. But Caroline’s observations, though indulgent, are often spot on. The fact that Caroline pretty much said that even as a child, Shiv cruel customer… and then us seeing Shiv repeatedly tell her husband, Tom, that she didn’t “love him love him”… how does it feel like I’m seeing her for the first time when evidence of Shiv’s cruelty was here all along. But maybe that’s the point, maybe we, as viewers, are supposed to feel just as manipulated by Shiv from week to week as the people in her life. One week we hate her, another week she does one tiny thing to show that maybe there’s a moral compass in there somewhere, and then the next it’s gone. I’m overwhelmed!
Loser: …Kendall? I mean, is he dead???