For years, politics murmured in the background. Subrogation like air, it gets higher and softer and then higher again. But as the series neared its finale, the show’s electoral arc began to rumble.
Political intrigues and sinister election reports began to turn into domestic strife, like rainwater from an unwanted leak. Connor, Kendall, Shiv and Roman Roy try to bear the fruit of this latest business deal while digesting their father’s sudden death. Meanwhile, Connor is running for president and can spoil the successor Roman has specially chosen for Daddy Roy before his death. Ominous news of a possible rebellion began to play in the background.
Only a handful of episodes left, some of them finicky Subrogation-The presidents determined that the show would most likely end in an Election Day finale. But how does the Roys really relate to politics, and how might this subplot affect the ending of the series?
Despite Subrogation There were never deputies in suits, politics was always on the mind. Still, in the moments where the fourth and final season of the series is more focused on selection, it can feel like bringing the background noise to the fore while grasping the resonance where it is not needed.
Logan and his family have long embraced their civic duty as American oligarchs; We’ve seen the Roy chief make shady deals with senators in the woods, and last season he even had to choose the Republican nominee for president. (The deciding factor? Which one was willing to get him a bottle of Coke.) At the same time, Logan never seemed to respect politicians more than anyone else; he often called the incumbent president “Grape”, who called him for advice.
When ATN avoids consequences during congressional hearings, Subrogation It confirmed what many viewers already knew: The Roys and their lots, lots of money are basically above the law. The outcome of this choice will affect them as much as a sudden downpour and for more or less a long time.
But this season the election began to absorb more oxygen. On Sunday, Roman urged Connor to step down from the presidential race and urge his supporters to support candidate Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk), whom Logan baptized last season with the endorsement of his news company, ATN.
Last year’s episode in which Logan chose between the presidential candidates was one of the most devastating for Shiv. It seems like little coincidence that both he and Connor – two boys who knew Logan would never choose them as their successors – tried to exert influence outside of his world through politics.
But while the right-wing convention scene embraced Connor and his silly ideas, Shiv, the only person in the family with real political expertise, languished alongside his silly siblings while their father ignored his insights. Developing the most obnoxious persona to get away from his disgust for his family, Roman is locked into the obnoxious Mencken, chosen by Logan at the behest of his young girlfriend, instead of the more moderate candidate Shiv wanted him to choose.
However, in the end, Shiv posed for a photo next to Mencken at the end of the episode because his father said so. It was the perfect example of her inner bonds – the pain of a young girl whose father never took her as seriously as her brothers and now longs for her father’s strength and approval too much to choose a different path.
There’s a scar in each Subrogation the politics of the character; As Roman gravitates towards anyone who might make him look ugly enough to hang out with the rest of his family, Kendall impersonates her fathers and tries to break side deals while keeping her distance in public. And as we all know, Connor, whose mother was admitted to a mental institution as a child, causing Logan to leave him to live with “maniacal pie” for weeks, “was interested in politics at a very young age.”
Then again, haven’t we known this for a while? Logan’s death was a brilliant use of frustration, and now the election may do something similar to reveal how little a single race like this is in the worlds of these ultra-rich nepo babies. For the most part, however, the election feels like something more on the Roy kids’ plate, with the GoJo deal and boardroom intrigues and planned grieving periods—which takes a little more time than it should tell us (so there’s very little we haven’t inferred ourselves so far).
Subrogation It excels when it draws parallels between the personal and the systemic. Logan’s vile, exploitative impulses have affected his corporate family (and country) as much as his biological relatives. Roman’s siblings watched their father abuse him and spent their childhood locking him up like a dog; Logan’s subordinates have watched him harass his colleagues and have spent their careers using each other as standoffs and playing games like Boar on the Floor.
What does this period of change at Waystar Royco say about America and vice versa? If politics doesn’t really determine the fate of the Roy children, what does this choice mean for them? And if that means nothing, what does this nihilism say about them or us? as clear as Subrogation Although he has established the relationship of his characters with their work from the beginning, the same cannot be said for his politics, which feels more sketchy than lived.
It’s still too early to guess where Subrogation may receive its final film-length installment. Kendall and her siblings may spend the rest of their lives re-enacting their father’s evil, or one of them (or even a few?!) may have a glimpse of insight that inspires them to change direction. If nothing else, the election could be a kind of test for the brothers, who are now running a media company and it’s just the right time to use their power. Now that they’re out of their father’s shadow, what kind of decisions will they make?
Kendall shared a very “Kendall” observation with her siblings shortly after their father’s death – an observation that hints at their shared involvement with politics as part of the “game” their father played throughout their lives.
“Everything we say and do today goes into memories, the damn congressional record,” Kendall said. “It comes up at board meetings, it gets into SEC files. … We are quite prone to misinterpretation. So whatever we do today will always be what we did the day our father died.”
The Roys survive in part by avoiding any self-awareness; That’s why she thinks Kendall is a good father, no matter how much Rava begs her to call her children. However, Kendall thinks that despite everything she knows about her father, until now she still wants to be strong like her father. That’s why she’s trying to distract her brothers from the succession game, and that’s why she tried to strike a “Logan Roy”-like deal with Nate (Ashley Zuckerman) on Sunday’s episode.
But to play the game the way their fathers did means to move human feelings of grief and shame from the past, through and through, and instead become something else—either superhuman or animalistic. With such a desperate need to be seen as “good”, is Kendall really ready to be that kind of monster? If so, he’ll have to give up his worries about “misinterpreting”. Then again, there may be another way. As Nate told him on Sunday, “I’m not Gil and you’re not Logan. This is a good thing.”
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