What It Takes (Succession)
The episode follows the Roys traveling to a conservative political conference in Richmond, Virginia to choose a suitable presidential candidate in the upcoming election, while Kendall prepares to testify against his father.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Roys attend the Future Freedom Summit, a conservative political donor event in Richmond, Virginia, in search of a viable presidential candidate in the upcoming election in light of the current President choosing to step down.
At the convention, Roman is surprised to learn from an attendee that his mother Caroline is marrying British CEO Peter Munion, and that the family have been invited to their wedding in Tuscany; he and Shiv call Kendall to inform him of the news.
In the suite, Roman suggests to Logan that Mencken's candidacy will earn ATN the advertising revenue Waystar needs to fend off Big Tech and acquire streaming giant GoJo.
Several critics inferred that the episode's title is derived from Richard Ben Cramer's book What It Takes: The Way to the White House, a seminal text on American politics that recounts the 1988 United States presidential election.
Critics frequently compared the character to Jordan Peterson,[4][5][6][7] while also finding similarities to other controversial right-wing figures such as Josh Hawley,[5] Stefan Molyneux, Alex Jones, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
[7] Other notable guest stars in the episode include Stephen Root (who has appeared in numerous prior HBO series) as Ron Petkus, the lecherous organizer of the Future Freedom Summit; Reed Birney as Vice President Dave Boyer (Birney also played Vice President Donald Blythe in House of Cards); Mark Linn-Baker, reprising his role from "Tern Haven" as Maxim Pierce; and Yul Vazquez as Congressman Rick Salgado, a moderate Republican whose character drew comparisons to Marco Rubio.
Club gave the episode an A, calling it "an absolute tornado of an hour, full of the pointedly cruel, quiveringly pathetic, and amusingly melodramatic stuff that makes Succession great."
Hadadi wrote that the episode excelled at showing how the Roys' "ensconced toxicity spreads outward, how it enacts and enables, in all ways big and small," and particularly praised Macfadyen's "phenomenal" performance as Tom, describing it as "a deeply empathetic mix of resigned and curious, resentful and dismissive, polite and aggressive" and likening his scenes with Kendall to a "tennis match.
[3] Ben Travers of IndieWire reserved praise for Tom's character development, writing that Macfadyen was "in peak form," and described Kirk's guest performance as "devilishly charismatic."
In a review of the season overall, Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the political element of the Roys' story comes across as "a little more on-the-nose than [his] preferred version of Succession," feeling that the series "thrives when it's bathing in Trump-adjacent waters."
Angie Han, who co-authored the review, agreed, writing, "The discussions the characters have on the show feel a bit behind the times, like they're only now coming around to the lessons that we in the real world have been grappling with for four or five years already."
