‘Succession’ Episode 8 Recap: Thighs Wide Shut

Succession should find a way to set every episode in the most aggressively obnoxious places possible. That’s the lesson I’m drawing from “Prague,” its eighth episode, which does not take place in Prague at all. Rather, it’s set almost entirely in the faux-grimy confines of a subterranean/off-the-grid warehouse-party quasi-orgy for the rich and…well, the rich. At the behest of Stewy, the sleazy private-equity guy who wormed his way into the company on Kendall’s behalf and then kicked his old friend to the curb when it suited him, Roman has selected this environment, known as Rhomboid (“New York’s hottest club is Rhomboid,” I can hear Stefon saying even now), for his simpering future brother-in-law Tom’s bachelor party. “Is it cool, or is it, like, total fucking bullshit?” Roman asks as they enter. “Who knows!” One thing’s for sure: It gives the collection of assembled dickheads invited to the party their best opportunity yet to be shady and shitty in very funny ways.

For Tom, played by the magnificent Matthew Macfadyen, this mostly means enthusing with uncomfortable manic glee over his free pass from his fiancee Shiv to get up to some shenanigans. After abandoning his childhood friends (they’re not on the guest list), he spends the evening alternately shouting over the music to various in-laws about “splooge” and worrying about whether Shiv also has a free pass (if he only knew!). Mercifully, his exploits, if they happened at all, are reported to us rather than shown. Suffice it to say that by the end, the entire family has congratulated him on “swallowing your own load.” Just the kind of impression you want to make on the people you’ll be seeing at Christmas every year!

Tom takes a break from asking everyone if it’s okay to get a handjob long enough to torment Cousin Greg, who gets bullied by Ken into doing his first lines of coke in order to fulfill paterfamilias Logan Roy’s order to protect Ken at all costs. (If Greg didn’t do the lines, Ken would, so you see his hands were quite tied.) How much coke does he do? “I hope you don’t die!” Tom yells at him cheerfully. “If you do, your heart is gonna be pumping so hard it’ll probably bring you back to life!” Later, after the load-swallowing incident, Tom tells Greg “I’m having the time of my life.” “Sounds nightmarish,” Greg replies with uncharacteristic candor, as he waits miserably for a car to bring him home.

While those two goofies are doing their usual thing, Kendall, Roman, and Stewy are wheeling and dealing with Sandy Furness, Logan’s arch-rival and Stewy’s secret backer. Ken makes an arrangment to help his erstwhile allies engineer a hostile takeover rather than continue to buy their way in piecemeal — but Roman, who’s increasingly furious with his drugged-up brother for a childhood game involving getting locked in a dog cage, has no idea, and simply thinks Sandy is a business opportunity waiting to be seized. Their cringey back-and-forth (sample quote: “I never made you eat dog food”) is great cover for the actual plot movement going on underneath, a trick the show has had a hard time mastering.

Kendall’s journey in this episode is an interesting one. He starts off trying to make the best of his newfound free agency, working with Frank to go into business with an startup that brings the work of starving student artists to wealthy buyers — or as Ken puts it, “You buy a painting, jack up the price, sell it to some Morgan Stanley sex pest, and you and me and the student all get rich.” He thinks he’s charmed his way into the deal, until he learns from the startup’s founder that she feels partnering with a Roy, any Roy, would make her “Mrs. Hitler.”

Between this setback, the copious cocaine, the tussle with Roman, the revelation that Stewy was sleeping with the enemy all along, and a final piece of the puzzle courtesy of molly-addled brother Conner — Logan enjoyed the dog-cage game Ken and Roman played because, like a legit dogfight, it showed him Roman was weaker and thus could be sent away to military school — Ken makes a full-fledged heel turn. He encourages Sandy to mount an overt attack. He big-dogs Roman physically on their way out the door. He tells Frank to spread destructive personal rumors about the women behind the art startup as retribution. He acquires a distinctly Imperial swagger. Like I’ve said before, he’s the only real character on this thing, and thus is this the only real character development we’ve seen.

Unfortunately, Shiv’s storyline still lands with a thud directly in the path of any progress the show might otherwise make, however. It’s not Sarah Snook’s fault; you can see the actor trying her best to invest the character with a spark of life, and her tics when she hears something she disagrees with — a little narrowing of the eyes, a little twitching of the head, a tight smile of sardonic disbelief — are among the show’s most memorable physical trademarks.

No, it’s the writing, which gives Shiv short shrift every bit as much as Logan has within the story itself. For one thing, she is of course not at the party, and her material is much less entertaining as a result. But moreover, Shiv is a void of a person, and while so is pretty much everyone else on the show, she’s not given good enough jokes to make up for it.

I’ve already talked about how her emptiness, and that of her illicit bf Nate, sinks their sex scenes, but it makes her look like a doofus professionally too. After all, Shiv is a political consultant who worries about the candidate she’s backing making it “sound like we have an agenda,” which is a goofy thing even for an avowed centrist to say. And she is an avowed centrist, just marking off the days till she can get her new candidate, Bernie Bogosian or whatever, to “pivot to the center.” She sounds equal parts boring and ignorant.

In the meantime, she marches the guy into the lion’s den for an interview on her dad’s Fox-like news network, telling him not to attack the place but apparently leaving him wholly unprepared for the attacks that will be leveled on him in turn — extremely nasty stuff implying he contributed to his wife’ suicide and is himself too unstable to serve. Ripping off his mic and storming off the set may come across as evidence in favor of that theory, or may make him seem like a hero to his base, but who knows.

And in Shiv’s, case who cares? For her the issue is where this leaves her with her dad, who engineered the attack, tries to buy her off with a transparently bogus line about always thinking she was the smartest of his kids (she points out both Ken and Roman got a shot at the brass ring before she did), and then threatening to go after her, too.

This confrontation is shot in the golden Gordon Willis glow of a dimly lit restaurant, with Shiv and Logan’s faces framed against swathes of shadow, like they’re gangsters having one last unsuccessful sitdown before going to the mattresses. Which would be fine, if it were the self-conscious tough guy posturing of Kendall and his ilk. Here it’s played with a straight face and it’s corny as hell. It puts me in mind of Roman’s assessment of Rhomboid, which I think is worth applying to the show as a whole: Is it cool, or is it, like, total fucking bullshit? Who knows!

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.

Watch Succession Episode 8 ("Prague") on HBO Go