"Mass in Time of War"
Curious about the possibility of joining up with him, Shiv, Roman, and Connor arrive at Rava's home to meet with Kendall. Kendall offers for his siblings to join him and make a statement about their father being unfit to lead the company. However, the conversation devolves into sniping and bickering, as well as squabbling for who actually gets to lead the company, and the others leave Kendall on bitter terms.
Meanwhile, Marcia returns to Logan following their split, and drives a high amount of money out of his lawyers so Logan does not have to go through a bitter divorce in this difficult time. An overwhelmed Greg meets with Ewan, who gets him a lawyer of his choosing for a scheme of his own.
Roman and Shiv return to Logan's side; Logan offers Shiv a high-ranking position behind Gerri.
Tropes:
- A Good Name for a Rock Band: Roman points out how Rotten Cabal sounds like a good band name when Kendall uses it as a metaphor for their father and his cronies.
- Bitter Almonds: Logan gets wind of his scheming brood's meeting with Kendall and sends doughnuts to enrich their "tea party." Roman can't entirely discount this trope being in play.
- Dramatic Irony: Kendall and Shiv both consider Gerri's regency a slight against Roman. Roman, who engineered his ally and mentor's promotion in the first place, seems genuinely offended at Shiv's sneering in particular, perhaps due to her uncomfortable verbiage.
- The Man Behind the Man: Invoked by Logan, who offers Shiv the a high position. Shiv is skeptical, because she's well aware Logan needs the optics of women in power, but then Logan tells her she'll basically be running the show behind Gerri, whom he has inoffensively named interim CEO.
Shiv. And the heart of everything through this shitstorm, but wearing a full chemical and biological suit, going by the name... of Gerri Kellman.
- Men Are Generic, Women Are Special: Lampshaded by Kendall, who viciously tells Shiv that Logan's interest in her is only because she's the only daughter, and a woman taking the reins would look good in the wake of a controversial scandal. While he's not entirely wrong, the way he says it is cruel enough to completely turn Shiv off from backing him.
- Mirror Character: Shiv bitterly denies being like Kendall, but she anxiously calls herself nothing in a similar way that Logan has called him plenty of times, and he'd rather put on a Teflon coat like she does and babble about social justice instead of admitting how badly Logan hurt him when his siblings ask.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Shiv lambasts Kendall for his pride, but Kendall remarks that he's actually doing what she pretends to be doing (taking a progressive stance and going against their "old guard" father). Her expression implies there is some truth to his statement.
- Shiny New Australia: Kendall unveils his plan to take their media conglomerate ATN global and put the family members in charge of various divisions, comparing it to what happened after Alexander the Great's death.Kendall: Alexander's dead. I take Asia, you take Egypt, Shiv takes Europe, Con... the rest of the world.
- Sibling Team: Kendall tries to form one with his brothers and sister. Of course, the biggest point of contention is who would succeed their hypothetically ousted father as CEO.
- Titled After the Song: Titled after the classical music piece. The episode takes its name from Joseph Haydn's Missa in tempore belli (translated as "Mass in Time of War"), which was written as Austria prepared to face Napoleon. Thematically, Kendall is trying to rally his siblings against their powerful father.
- Trojan Horse: Invoked. Kendall gets in touch with Stewy following his break from Logan. Instead of joining up with him Stewy instead sends him a Trojan horse replica as a symbol.Kendall: Who's the Trojan horse here?
Jess: You want... you want me to look inside of it?
Kendall: It's mind games. Send it back.
