‘Succession’ Season 4 Episode 6 Recap: “Living+”

During his life, Logan Roy was a supremely confident man, who virtually never had to relinquish control in any situation. Rarely, though, he was required to do something outside his areas of expertise — parenting his children, for example, or a little light acting. It’s in the latter capacity that Logan returns to us from beyond the grave: Succession Season 4 Episode 6 (“Living+”) opens with Kendall, Jess, and Hugo watching the raw video of Logan promoting a new Waystar Royco product called Living+. The idea is to recreate the hospitality and features of the company’s cruise line in planned retirement communities around the country; Logan states that the venture will provide a “significant boost to our Parks division.” When Logan pauses, we hear the voice of a woman offscreen trying to direct him. She probably doesn’t know, as we do, that Logan had a Twinkly Old Man mode he could access for strategic reasons; she certainly knows he’s not bothering to sell his script on camera. She suggests that maybe when he says he’s “excited,” he could seem excited?

Logan is not receptive to feedback, lashing out at everyone in the studio and capping his tirade with “You’re as bad as my fucking idiot kids.” Hugo reflexively apologizes to his new boss, but Kendall is just faintly amused, calling this attack “a Valentine’s card,” and asking to watch it again. Maybe Kendall’s sick of all his own memories of Logan shitting on him and wants to mix it up?

Elsewhere, Shiv and Matsson’s jets happen to be parked next to each other on a tarmac when he calls her for a check-in, and even lets her dom him by acceding to her request that he come to her jet and not the other way around (and makes the walk barefoot, of course). He isn’t sure why Waystar Royco is still launching Living+ at Investor Day: this isn’t a product he intends to launch once he’s in charge; he’s not compelled by the idea of taking all the least appealing aspects of a cruise and subtracting the part where you actually move around in the world. Talking around the ask, he basically lets Shiv know he would make it worth her while to be his mole inside the organization — then also tells her how Roman (and, to a lesser extent, Kendall) threw a “totally unprofessional, totally dumb” mountaintop tantrum on him. Shiv, never breaking her smirk, dismisses Matsson, claiming she’s going to tell her brothers everything he said, but he doesn’t care: it’s nothing he wouldn’t say to their faces.

And then we’re in a conference room in an office on the Waystar Studios lot in Los Angeles. After Kendall heedlessly steals the seat Shiv’s already claimed (not subtle symbolism, but at least he kind of apologizes), he and Kendall resume trying to fuck the deal by repeating the story of the incident Matsson just recapped for Shiv — except in the Roy boys’ telling, the one having a “human Chernobyl” was Matsson, not Roman. Given this on top of Matsson’s other well-documented eccentricities, can they really recommend to the board that they sell to him? “Nobody minds a genius acting weird,” Gerri comments, and all the other Top Teamsters seem to agree. But after they’ve all filed out, Shiv confronts Roman and Kendall: it seems like she might have been able to see through this gambit even if Matsson hadn’t tipped her, since it’s what they used to do when they were kids, too (e.g. “Hey, Dad? Shiv spilled chocolate milk in the Range Rover”). She doesn’t buy that, if Matsson had flipped out the way they just claimed, they wouldn’t have mentioned it by now, even as “a bit of gossip.” Kendall tries to keep it up, but he folds first. When Shiv reminds them what their plan was, Kendall says he thinks they can maybe keep Waystar and Pierce — and the only reason they didn’t involve her in this scheme was to keep her clean. “Can we do the huggy thing?” Roman asks meekly.

They can, but these seem to have just a little less meaning each time.

Having expertly handled Shiv as far as each of them is concerned, Roman and Kendall split up. In the studio’s elegant executive dining room, Roman meets Joy Palmer (Annabeth Gish), the head of the movie studio. He’s sure this conversation will be easy, since he wants more hits, and he’s going to give her a couple billion dollars to deliver them. And while she would, of course, love to receive it, she also gingerly brings up the “rightward lean at ATN,” particularly its positive coverage of Mencken, and how it’s causing her difficulties as “talent” is wary of working on projects for ATN’s parent company. Roman calls Mencken “IP, just like anything,” and twits her for the hypocrisy of “the creative community” and its “values” given the horrifically segregated city they live in (not that New York is better, but still). When Joy doesn’t seem pacified, Roman starts icing over, accusing her of not taking him seriously because he isn’t his dad. “I’m sure you are where you are for a very good reason,” says Joy deliberately. “I could just fire you,” Roman shoots back. She laughs, but it’s not a joke: it takes the length of his next sentence for Roman to talk himself into firing her and stalking out. If Roman had been privy to the Ebba conversations in “Kill List,” he might not be so cavalier: Joy’s probably got stories she wouldn’t mind taking public, and hers would have celebrities in them.

Over to Kendall, ruining different people’s lives. The auditorium stage from which he’ll be launching Living+ at Investor Day is fine, but could they build him a Living+ house to walk through, “nothing crazy,” but also could clouds appear above it? Designer Denny attempts to get Kendall to see reason — “This is for tomorrow?” — but before anyone can push back harder, Kendall issues a new rule: “No one can say no. ‘Yes, Kendall, thank you, Kendall, for the cool new rule.'” We don’t hear any of these WR staffers say things were better when the old man would just berate them without expecting them to like it, but that’s certainly the vibe.

But “surprise stage house” is only one insane idea Kendall’s had today: the next is “unbelievable growth,” seeming not to see the problem inherent in the phrase itself. (I can’t say that these brainstorms are coke-fueled, since we haven’t actually seen Kendall using it; I can say that they feel coke-y.) If they could drive their stock price up past Matsson’s apparent ceiling of $192, he wouldn’t be able to afford the company and the deal would fall apart — and he thinks he could make it happen if they could get a tech valuation for Living+. Greg hesitantly mentions that it might be hard arguing that houses are tech, since “we’ve had houses for a while now.” But it’s not the houses: it’s some vague language in the pitch deck about “longevity” that Kendall wants to run with into Theranos territory. Roman agrees that adding death-defying claims to their product could be a major differentiator, on top of which he finds the idea of life ending kind of tacky: “Death just feels very one-size-fits-all.”

And right on cue, Gerri arrives to kill him, because Joy’s already retained outside counsel over a termination Roman executed outside of all corporate procedure, which he can’t do. Roman quickly goes from “I can because I did” to “I didn’t fire her, I said that she was fired to her, that’s all” but that they could just move her to some other cushy job or production deal or something, adding that it’s something Logan would have done. Gerri says Roman’s not Logan. “I’m what’s left,” Roman replies. And while they’re at it, Gerri hauling him out of meetings and questioning his great decisions is “disrespectful”; Roman needs her to believe he’s as good at this job as Logan was. After a long pause, Gerri makes a lawyerly request for clarification: “Say it or believe it?” That’s not what Roman wants to hear, and quickly talks himself into firing Gerri too. 

That’s one too many decisions for this co-CEO not to have told his partner about, so Roman returns to Kendall to tell him about having fired Joy. Kendall immediately supports this “baller” move, and when Roman says that Gerri objected and he fired her too. Kendall reminds us all that Gerri is Shiv’s godmother, but quickly arrives at “why not?” Roman thinks it’s “too big,” but “too big” doesn’t exist in Kendall’s new “unbelievable growth” mindset, and he predicts the coverage they’ll get in the business press: “Dynamic Waystar Duo Shake Up Their Leadership Team, grumble quote grumble quote, caveat: some are saying these two young Turks might just have what it takes to turn things around.” Given how many white-collar criminals have made the cover of Forbes, Kendall’s probably dead on.

Speaking of white-collar criminals: there’s a brief interlude of Greg with a video editor, demanding that he change the old Logan footage so “a significant boost” becomes “double the earnings”…

…which apparently comes straight from the (co-)top: cut to Kendall with a finance staffer named Pete, essentially asking him to make up a bunch of outlandish projections to present the next day while Pete begs to talk to Karl before committing himself: “The thing is, numbers aren’t just numbers. They’re numbers.” Kendall’s not trying to hear that — he is, after all, the guy who bid himself up half a billion dollars just to “end the conversation” with Pierce — so Pete pretends to be confident that any of this will hold up once analysts look at it. (And, again: Adam Neumann got pretty far acting like numbers were just numbers, not numbers, so the analysts might not be the guardrails Pete hopes.)

Then it’s the next day, and Shiv and Matsson are having another unofficial strategy chat — this one witnessed by Tom, whom we’ll get to below. Matsson doesn’t want the hassle of unwinding real estate development after the deal goes through, so can Shiv stop it? Well, she’s not going to “drop stage weights on people’s heads” (much as she may want to)…

…but she does stop by the auditorium just in time for Kendall to be disappointed by the stage magic Denny’s been able to throw together in less than 24 hours and scrap it all. But he’s buoyed when he checks in with Roman about “the words” (aka the presentation script). When Roman asks where the new numbers came from…

…Kendall gleefully taps his temple. Roman’s already getting alarmed when Shiv leans in and comments that Kendall’s “got that gleam in his eye.” Between his manner and the made-up numbers, should they maybe pull the plug on the presentation? Kendall could just say anything and Roman would be implicated. Plus they both know Kendall cracks under pressure. They should protect him.

Attendees arrive, filing in past posters for old Waystar Studios hits like Doderick And Friends, built around the studio’s own Mickey Mouse-esque dog mascot (famously seen, in theme park costume form, on Greg, and having puke spray out its eyes, in the series premiere). Roman finds Kendall in his dressing room, already wearing a deeply embarrassing flight jacket covered in patches of Waystar Royco’s various brands — he had a matching one made for Roman to wear during their presentation! About which: he just got even bigger projections for the Living+ development in Colorado, and adds, “It’s enough to make you lose faith in capitalism, like, you can say anything.” Roman’s actually not going to wear his jacket, because he thinks they should not do it, or at least postpone. The degree to which Kendall starts immediately spiraling is reflected by his turning in a tiny circle, causing Roman to start backpedaling: the idea is OF COURSE great, but he doesn’t think he can sell Kendall’s vision. He repeats the suggestion of a rain check, but then Kendall gets called to the stage and it’s too late.

…but not too late for Karl to warn Kendall that the new numbers are wild. When Kendall curtly reminds Karl that Kendall outranks him, Karl scoffs at the idea that Kendall would fire his CFO “a week” into the job: “You’d be fucking toast. You have my dick in your hand, Ken, but I’ve got yours in mine.” Furthermore, if Kendall tries to scapegoat him for any of this, “I’ll fucking squeal.” Damn, Karl, why wait?!

Shiv already said that Kendall cracks under pressure, and we know it’s true. Okay, an argument could be made that he rose to the occasion for “L To The O.G.,” but an even stronger argument could be made that he cracked when he had the idea in the first place. Since then, we saw him seize the mic for his big protest at the shareholders meeting in “Retired Janitors Of Idaho” and forget to have anything meaningful prepared, and abandon his big performance in “Too Much Birthday.” But this is literally the biggest stage he’s ever had, and he…starts poorly: “Big shoes. Big, big shoes. Big, big shoes! Big, big shoes.” Roman, in a VIP box, is duly horrified: “Big shoes. Big hat. Big nervous breakdown.” After not just referring to the fact that he’s reading a script but thanking the prompter, Kendall reminds everyone that the last time he did something like this, he was disrupting a meeting: “Now I’m CEO.” Not sure this is an angle that investors are going to find comforting, but go off!

Next, Kendall thanks the members of the extended Waystar Royco family for their support during these tough days: “It means a lot. Isn’t that right, Dad?” As his siblings and the entire Top Team groan in secondhand embarrassment, the Logan from the video steps onto the screen behind Kendall. After video Logan tells Kendall to get on with it, he does: vaguely referring to the world being “tough, and getting tougher,” the appeal of Living+ is that it’s safe; it only surveils residents a little, in ways they’ll like; it will give them access to the studio’s many film and TV properties (and a claim that stars and directors will visit developments and with “rough cuts” of their movies should get a much louder snort from this audience of Hollywood sickos). What if Kendall said it would last forever? “Now we’re leaving planet earth,” murmurs Shiv. Kendall confesses that he can’t quite promise eternity, but alludes to relationships the company has with pharma, claiming residents will get the kind of medical care only billionaires do now. Guessing there isn’t a budget for this in the deck, though!

It’s at this point that Shiv steps out to take a call from an irritated Matsson, who remains unconvinced by the idea of warehousing the elderly in camps. Shiv knows Kendall’s on a “bullshit unicycle, but maybe someone could put a stick in the spokes?”

We return to stage in time for Kendall to say that even though Logan was conservative in his projections, he had big hopes for Living+, and plays the “double the earnings” tape that everyone on the Top Team knows is doctored. “It’s really well edited,” Greg notes. Kendall admits that he can’t promise Living+ residents will gain “decades” of life, but as to whether even the prospect is worth paying for, Kendall says that if someone could have offered him just one more year with Logan, “that would be priceless.” If the stock price just spiked, it’s the extremely authentic break in Kendall’s voice that did it. The Top Team is in the midst of celebrating generally positive buzz when Hugo yelps at a tweet from Matsson: “Doderick macht frei.”

LESS OF A STICK IN THE SPOKES THAN JUST HITTING THEM WITH A BAZOOKA, DUDE

But there’s apparently no way to tell Kendall about this before he opens the floor to questions, and obviously the first one is about…this. His response? “Well, I’m not gonna fave it.” BAD START. But Kendall fairly smoothly says that, as everyone knows, this deal’s in the offing, he respects what Matsson’s built, and that while Kendall wouldn’t have said that (uh, doy) and is sorry for offense Matsson caused, he is “very European,” and once they complete the deal, Matsson will be tweeting something very different. As Shiv secretly calls Matsson off, Kendall says that “we don’t always come across as we intend” on social media — and hey, Living+ is kind of like social media, but better: “It’s physical social media in the real world.” It’s so sad that Kendall can’t summon the word “community” because he’s never experienced it.

But……………..somehow it all worked! They’re seeing some movement on the stock price! Matsson deleted the tweet! Kendall’s the big hero and Shiv and Roman look like they want to barf!

The co-CEOs experience the episode dénouement very differently. In the back of his chauffeured car, Roman receives a text from Kendall with a deepfake video of Logan saying Roman has a micro-dick and “always gets it wrong.” Tragically starved for any kind of contact with his father, even profane, cruel, and entirely inauthentic, Roman plays it several times. (What a treat for his driver.)

And in Malibu, Kendall draws a “1” in the wet sand with his foot before wading into the ocean. Unlike the last time we saw Kendall taking a swim…

…this time Kendall stays face up.

Margin Calls

• Cable Broadcast News: After “the huggy thing” with Roman and Kendall, Shiv steps into a conference room her assistant has booked and cries; when Tom interrupts her, we learn not only that she’s started scheduling her grief over Logan (…and/or another loss she’s experienced? It’s still unclear whether she remains pregnant), but that she sets a timer to limit her indulgence. She has no interest in the news business, and yet it’s very Jane Craig of her. (Shiv probably also hates always thinking she’s the smartest person in the room.)
• The Tom & Shiv reunion is only a motion away: Shiv and Tom’s post-Norway rapprochement continues, as he keeps trying to speak to her frankly and she keeps trying to laugh it off but actually seeming moved. They compare notes on who fucked which up worse, and who had a gnarlier dating history before they met each other. They discuss the election night party Logan always threw, and whether Tom should keep up the tradition. He admits that he betrayed her because he always wanted money and feared that if she got rid of him, he’d have nothing. But, most importantly for Tom’s longevity in the family and for his beloved creature comforts, Shiv reads him in on her back channel conversations with Matsson. Watch this space!
• Bitey: I realize that rich people are generally depraved and that anyone who’s worked for the Roys in any capacity has seen things we can’t even imagine and just have to keep it moving rather than pointlessly quit in protest. But I think once you see a media company heiress and her semi-estranged husband “playing Bitey” — literally biting down on each other’s arms to see who’ll give in first — in the middle of a cocktail party, you have to just give it all up and go get a job dealing blackjack on a riverboat.

Television Without Pity, Fametracker, and Previously.TV co-founder Tara Ariano has had bylines in The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Vulture, Slate, Salon, Mel Magazine, Collider, and The Awl, among others. She co-hosts the podcasts Extra Hot Great, Again With This (a compulsively detailed episode-by-episode breakdown of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place), Listen To Sassy, and The Sweet Smell Of Succession. She’s also the co-author, with Sarah D. Bunting, of A Very Special 90210 Book: 93 Absolutely Essential Episodes From TV’s Most Notorious Zip Code (Abrams 2020). She lives in Austin.