did Kendall decide to jump ship? After the finale’s twist ending, I went back and rewatched the last 20-30 minutes of “This Is Not of Tears,” partly just to revisit Tom stripping the meat off a chicken bone, partly to scour Jeremy Strong’s performance for its hidden layers. Strong has played Kendall so sensitively all season that even during his cryptic, Shakespearean final conversation with Logan Roy , his bruised emotional expressions weren’t a tell.
Was it early in the episode, when Naomi Pierce —evicted, inhospitably, from the hotel-sized Roy yacht—reminded Kendall that his father only loves him when he’s broken? Was it later, when Logan shrugged off the collateral damage of Kendall’s addiction as an “NRPI,” “no real person involved”? Was it as late as the plane back to New York, which gave Greg and Kendall a chance for a long talk? My guess is that Kendall didn’t know exactly what he was going to do until he finished talking to Logan and...
At the same time, this Kendall is electrifying. Everybody lies so much in this world that it’s strange to hear Kendall tell the truth about what Logan Roy is really like—to add, too, that his father might be accountable to some higher authority for his behavior. The press conference at the end of the episode mirrors the awkward remote interview from the season premiere, marking Kendall’s arc from puppet to rebel, from bait to shark.
The show’s holding out on us about Kendall’s decision—and without more information, we don’t really know if this is a good move for him. The twist stops the plot from moving forward, with a few days left before the next shareholder meeting—setting up a wild season three, I’m sure, once showrunner and the rest of the show’s writers get to work on it. Kendall is finally asserting himself, but he’s doing so by engaging his father’s rapacious killer instinct—and matching it with one of his own.
Undoubtedly we’re meant to be left with a sense of ambiguity—it is a cliffhanger, after all. But it would be easier to feel optimistic about this ending if Logan, watching from the yacht, had not cracked a wry grin at the end of the conference. Maybe he’s impressed with his second son. And maybe, in turning his abused kid into a traitor, he’s getting exactly what he wanted.
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