‘Succession’ Season 2, Episode 2 ‘Vaulter’ Review: Severed Ties

Succession moves forward with the proxy war. Now that the Roy family is complete, the battle for Waystar-Royco’s survival begins. This time, however, is when things start to get dirty. Having to manage multiple companies is a lot of work to have, but luckily, the Roys can manage. When one company underperforms, the Roys must weigh whether or not this company is worth kept operational.

On Sunday’s episode of Succession, Logan Roy (Brian Cox) has Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin), and Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) check on Vaulter. Meanwhile, Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfayden) and Greg Hirsch (Nicholas Braun) have their first day at ATN. Behind all this, Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook) prepares herself to take on the challenge of being Waystar-Royco’s future CEO.

What is thy bidding, my Master?

Peter Kramer/HBO

Vaulter is a digital media company and one of Kendall’s prized acquisitions. It generally is a lifestyle sort of website and Kendall thought of it as the future for Waystar-Royco. Now, however, Vaulter is underperforming to Logan’s standards, so he sends out his boys to check on it. When they come back to report to Logan, they present him two choices: let Kendall find a way to fix the problem or do things Roman’s way: gut it. Logan did not see Vaulter the way Kendall does, so yeah, they decided to gut it.

No one expected Kendall to act with such cruelty. He decided to work in the shadows, showing Vaulter’s staff that he wants to make things work both for them and Waystar-Royco. With that, Kendall decided to take the best parts of the operation elsewhere and fire everyone else. Lawrence Yee (Rob Yang) could do nothing but scream at Kendall as the rest of his staff prepare to leave in under fifteen minutes. Vaulter’s closure mirrors a situation not uncommon today. With so many people having access to the internet, it is easy for anyone with the means to put up a lifestyle website. This relative ease to create one also bears the same levels as to the website’s survival. Sadly, Vaulter did not make it.

Greg Army Knife

Peter Kramer/HBO

For most of the episode, the Roys mainly used Greg the way one uses a Swiss Army Knife. At work, Tom made Greg put his principles aside since he did not wish to work in a news agency. After Tom got spooked by ATN’s Editor-in-Chief, Cyd Peach (Jeannie Berlin), he had Greg work on finding a way to lessen the payroll. True enough, Greg does find a solution. ATN still runs on analog systems, so digitizing it would cut costs both in terms of workforce and operation costs. Tom takes credit for this during a dinner with Shiv, Roman, and Tabitha (Caitlin Fitzgerald).

With Greg starting work deep in the city, he is on the lookout for a place to stay. It seemed too good to be true when Kendall gave him an apartment unit for free. Greg’s hunch was right. Later that night, Kendall had Greg organize a party at his new place. He drunkenly refused Greg’s request to move the party to his apartment instead. It seems as if Kendall needed someone to take care of the unit without paying them. After all, he did buy four other rooms in the same apartment, so there is that.

Idiocy

Peter Kramer/HBO

It is funny to see Roman being the sensible one. When Kendall saw Vaulter as fixable, Roman saw the truth: Vaulter was an overcompensated blog ran by idealist slackers. The worst part was that their ideas were not even that good, as Kendall collected. Most of what they did involve gossiping about celebrities and doing weird hipster shit. Thankfully, lapdog Kendall had the drive to do whatever Logan told him to do.

With the proxy war on-going, Logan decided to have Roman on board. Logan knows that Roman has excellent ideas that could prove useful in the fight. Perhaps what ticked Roman off was when Logan had Kendall join them, too. It was already too much to have to be co-COOs with Kendall. Such actions are obviously plain stupid. No one can ever really read Logan’s mind, so at this point, Roman admits at how he almost feels bad for Kendall. At least, on Roman’s point of view, he merely has to go through watching Kendall live out his last days of relevance.

The Choice

Peter Kramer/HBO

Shiv knew better than to trust Logan completely, but she did have to make a choice. Before Logan’s offer, Shiv worked for Presidential Candidate Gil Eavis (Eric Bogosian) along with her ex-lover Nate Sofrelli (Ashley Zuckerman). At some point during Gil’s campaign, he would have to choose a Chief of Staff. Gil decided to offer the position to Shiv. Maybe Shiv did not want to Gil and Nate to miss her when she leaves, so she decided to quit in the most asshole way possible. It was either that or had them think that she is going to work with her brother, Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) who also announced his presidential bid.

Tom was also under the rug when it comes to Shiv’s real plan as the next CEO — having the offer sent to her modified their first plan, which was to have Tom be the next CEO. Indeed, Tom’s love for Shiv blindsides him. Tom truly wanted the position, but he would perhaps have to make do with being Shiv’s ‘First Gentleman.’

‘Succession’ Season 2, Episode 2 ‘Vaulter’ Final Verdict

The Roys continue their trademark savagery in Succession. Well, it is not entirely savagery, but rather selfishness and betrayal. Roman and Tom want to be CEO but will have no chance in it as Shiv wants and will have the title. Kendall’s lifespan as part of the company comes to a short end, but he is at least putting in a little effort. Still, with the Roys inbound, the proxy war will inevitably end shortly.

Succession continues Sunday, August 25th with ‘Safe Room’ at 9/8c on HBO.