SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you haven’t watched “The Disruption,” the third episode of “Succession” Season 3.
It took two full episodes to unpack the immediate aftermath of Kendall’s Season 2 press conference bombshell, making “The Disruption” the first new episode to feel…well, new. Now that the Roys and their assorted hangers-on have gotten some sleep and new perspectives, the game of “who’s going to emerge from the smoldering ashes of Waystar Royco in one piece?” is officially afoot. Written by Ted Cohen and Georgia Pritchett, “Disruption” is a meaty, tantalizing episode deliberately staged to set up the rest of the season. (Lest we forget: the third episode of Season 2 was the explosive “Hunting,” a.k.a. “boar on the floor.”)
To be candid: Picking any winners from this episode proved a tough task. Most everyone on this show is currently in free fall, grasping desperately at anything that might keep them from splatting flat on the ground. Logan (Brian Cox) is stubbornly ignoring the feds knocking at his door, Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Shiv (Sarah Snook) trade shocking deathblows, and Roman (Kieran Culkin) remains caught in the crossfire. Alliances that seemed assured in the previous episode are anything but in this one. Even the unflappable Gerri (J. Smith Cameron) proves thoroughly flapped in “The Disruption,” especially as she realizes that Logan only installed her as CEO to do his increasingly unhinged bidding.
There are plenty of moments that will get dissected and meme’d within an inch of their lives over the coming week (“Good Tweet, Bad Tweet;” Ziwe appearing as a caustic late night host; television’s wildest Nirvana needle drop maybe ever). For now, though, here’s who rose, and who fell, in “The Disruption,” the third episode of “Succession” Season 3.