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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't think it was a coincidence that the show cuts from Roman cracking jokes at Nan's house to Logan demanding that his minions lighten the mood and make jokes at his expense.

Logan misses Roman and he misses having people around willing to make fun of him, challenge him, and put him down. He misses having people around who share his sense of entitlement and firm belief that they are better than everyone else for no other reason than because they are Roys and this is their company.

Logan likes the chase. He loves winning but only if it's a fight. He's now surrounded by people who will roll over for him and tell him what he wants to hear, and he also knows that he could fire any of them at any time and they'd be out of his life forever. Not so for his kids (except Connor, who is pointless, and Logan knows this).

His kids are basically the only people in his life who don't treat him reverently and who sometimes act like they are his equals. Kerry is kind of playacting at this now but... she was his assistant. And he could drop her in an heartbeat. She's disposable.

I think Logan is actually thrilled that the kids are going to battle with him because it's a dynamic he enjoys and when the do something worthy of battling with Logan Roy by scuttling this deal, he's doubly thrilled because it creates a challenge for him to conquer AND it appeals to his ego that the only people who could actually give him a run for his money are his own children.

But the problem with this dynamic is that it only works when he's at odds with his kids. Every time he tries to bring one or more of them into the fold and become partners, it doesn't work. He gets paranoid/suspicious that they are trying to push him out (which to some degree they always are), plus when they are playing on the same team, they often start to become suck ups too (Shiv, in particular, is the worst about this, but Kendall does it too, and even Roman gets solicitous when he's in his dad's pocket).

I mean, they are toxic and terrible so what do you expect? Healthy family dynamics?

One reason I like this show is that despite hating everyone (except Geri) and the world it represents, I think there are some brutal truths in there about a lot of family dynamics. I'm not from some wealthy billionaire family but I've seen stuff like this play out in my family on a smaller scale, with the challenge of creating functional relationships between a patriarch who is both proud and resentful of being the one who pulled the family into a higher economic level, and kids who have been conditioned to need his praise and approval but have also come to resent the fact that they need it. Sometimes this show hits really close to home for me.[/quote]

+1. Lot of interesting commentary out there about how this show unravels the effects of inter generational childhood trauma. Logan was abused (we’ve seen the marks on his back) and couldn’t form anything approaching a healthy relationship with his kids.  And the kids also had their moms abandon them and now they are adults who let Logan hit their own kids (Kendall), hit them and then laugh it off (Roman) and be all sorts of emotionally and verbally abusive. In turn, none of them are able to form healthy relationships with their kids or spouses.  The kids are awful. But they have only ever lived in an awful, abusive family. So, they play act at being human. It’s an interesting part of the show for me. [/quote]

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