"Safe Room"
"Executive business!"
"God. This is a nightmare. Why couldn't I be the one caught in a lockdown with a maniac?"
— Connor
At Waystar Royco, the Roys — including Shiv, present as something of a "first day" — are covertly meeting with Rhea Jarrell, the CEO of Pierce Media Group. She gives an emphatic "fuck off" to the bid. Meanwhile, Tom is tasked with dealing with Mark Ravenhead, a controversial younger anchor at ATN who is suspected of being a fascist and Nazi supporter. Before these plots can proceed further, the family is shuttered off to various rooms as a gunshot was heard in the building.
Stuck in the safe room with Rhea, the Roys manage to get her to agree to a potential sale, but they'll need to win over the family. In another room, Greg admits to Tom that he wants to move to a different department; Tom reacts violently and begins pelting him with water bottles. Later, Greg blackmails Tom with his proof of the cruises scandal and gets what he wants. The "shooter" turns out to have been a suicide.
Also, Roman is in Florida for his first day of management training, and somewhat befriends a fellow trainee named Brian. Connor is tasked with giving a eulogy for the late "Uncle Mo", a deceased executive who had spoken to the biographer aiming to write about Logan. He initially sees the high-powered funeral as something of a campaign fundraiser, but Willa, realizing the controversial types who have turned up, talks him out of it and writes a completely generic speech.
Tropes in this episode:
- The Alcoholic: Shiv teases that she’s excited to get hammered every morning with champagne at work.
- Alliterative Name: Roman's terrible on-the-spot alias, Ron Rockstone.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
- During the evacuation, Logan immediately asks about Kendall's whereabouts.
- Tom completely freaks out when he realizes he doesn't know where Shiv is and immediately calls her.
- Upon hearing about an incident at ATN, Roman's first question is if his dad's okay.
- Bad Boss: Not that Logan needs any more notoriety; but he gets a bunch when the identity of the shooter is revealed at the end. The employee who shot himself at his desk had been making complaints to HR of workplace bullying, no one had taken them seriously, and Logan himself thinks it's the employee's own failings which caused this to happen. What a guy!
- Being Watched: The episode opens on CCTV footage of Kendall walking up to the roof, implying that Logan and the old guard know full well what he’s doing.
- "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Invoked. Greg blackmails Tom with the evidence he had destroyed in Season 1, citing he kept some to avoid being charged with evidence tampering, but insists he's not blackmailing Tom.
- Book Ends: The episode opens with Kendall on a skyscraper balcony looking out at New York, almost like he's contemplating jumping. When he climbs up there at the end, he finds that tall glass panes have been installed, preventing any jump.
- Call-Back: In part of management training, Roman has to dress up like a giant turkey, a character in his hated movie from season one.
- Captain Obvious: When Connor is put in the difficult position of eulogizing a serial sexual offender, Willa helps him edit his speech so that he only states neutral and obvious facts, such as that he was a man, he is no longer alive, and his widow is sad.
- Casual Kink: Roman gets off to Gerri's string of Dehumanizing Insults and she's quite willing to indulge him.
- Creepy Uncle: There's a reason Lester's nickname is "Uncle Mo"— molester — and Connor, who had known him since childhood, evidently has this view of him.Connor: Old Mr. Fiddlesticks. Uncle Meat Hands. Dad wouldn’t let us in the pool with him. But, you know, the guys of that generation—it was a different time.
- Dirty Coward: After a gunshot is heard at the ATN building and Tom is warned of a possible shooter, he flees to what he believes is a Panic Room, shoving some employees on his path, arguing that he's a Executive.
- Driven to Suicide: An employee kills himself at his desk (offscreen) in the second season, prompting an evacuation. In the same episode, Kendall appears to be flirting with the idea as he stands on the building's roof, but at the end of the episode is barred from the possibility when the company erects barriers to prevent another suicide.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Shiv posits the theory that Logan and Kendall's tight new accord is due to the latter blackmailing the former.
- Every Man Has His Price: The Pierces are disinterested in selling, but when Kendall and Logan bump up the offer to a comfy $24 billion, she concedes that they could use that money.Shiv: Is he allowed to just say numbers?
- Facial Dialogue: When Kendall asks her for a hug, Shiv’s face goes from incredulous and disbelieving to eyes full of love and concern as she realises he’s crying on her shoulder.
- Foreshadowing: In the beginning, it’s clearly not the first time that Kendall has gone to the roof and longingly looked over the ledge, but he uses the space to contact Rhea, because it’s either kill himself or be useful.
- Innocently Insensitive: Tom really loses it when Greg compares wanting to try out other departments to an "open relationship". It's clear that Tom hates the open relationship his wife Shiv has maneuvered them into, and is taking it out on Greg.
- Odd Friendship: Roman hits it off with a quirky, unglamourous, but insightful "normo" during management training and decides to fast-track him at Waystar HQ.
- Parental Favouritism: Logan is genuinely worried about Kendall being suicidal, but he also makes sure to rub it in Shiv’s face that he’s ignoring her (and her business pitches that aren’t just throwing numbers at Rhea) for her brother.
- Parental Incest: Tom carries on the ick in Incest Subtext, making an awkward joke about Shiv and Logan “finally admitting they’re into each other”.
- Pet the Dog: Logan repeatedly looks to the absent Kendall's safety during the suspected shooting.
- Plausible Deniability: When Shiv hates Ravenhead for being a fascist, Tom tries to defend him with the fact that Logan likes him, and any nazi-ism happened a long while ago, so it can be spun it as such. Later, when being interviewed by Tom, Ravenhead claims his dog's name is spelled differently from Hitler's dog, Blondie, that he merely skimmed through ''Mein Kampf" and that he's just interested in the historical period due to the tragedy suffered by Europe, citing the numbers of Germans, Russians and Poles that perished in it (without mentioning Jews or Romani).
- Security Cling: Kendall clings onto Shiv for dear life as he lets out choked sobs on her shoulder.
- Shout-Out: One of the more direct lines to The Celebration as Kendall admits that if dad didn’t need him, he doesn’t know what he would even be for. Jeremy Strong also played a mentally ill older brother hugging his sister and sobbing on her shoulder in 2012’s See Girl Run.
- So Proud of You: Far from indignant, Tom is giddy with pride when Greg reveals his Blackmail material.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Another source of anxiety for Kendall, who confides to Shiv that once his usefulness to their father has ended, he fears that Logan's postponed vengeance will destroy what's left of him.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Greg manages to successfully blackmail Tom, who remarks with admiration that Greg has become a slime ball. Greg is not happy to hear this.
