(I would have called this episode “In mourning,”)
There’s a second period of time after the initial shock of someone’s death, and then all the preparations that have to happen to bury someone honorably (please re-read The Iliad to see how the ancient world understood love and death — it is basically the Trojan war happened at all,) when you finally get to the emptiness phase. And that’s how this episode felt, which probably makes it a brilliant piece of writing. And this time it was Roman who stepped up and used all the power he had to express that emptiness. Perhaps it is because he is as empty as his cousin Greg, who thinks he’s growing in power, but is still nothing but a weirdo. Or perhaps he really felt some actual love for his horrible father.
In this episode, I think the writers purposely distracted the viewers from Kendall (Ken Doll). But they did say in their post episode interview that they opened the series with Kendall driving to work, and in this episode, they open with him driving to work. In this episode, Roman got to vent his spleen, but Kendall, I still think, is fighting the fight that was established by the title. At this point, I just hope that he doesn’t turn into Trump. But that’s a definite possibility.
By the by, I found a strange video on Youtube of celebrity commercials, which included one that TFG did. And the commercial, filmed 30 years ago maybe, shows him fucking everything up. I think it was for a Wendy’s Hamburger. Yes America. Re-elect this idiot. You’ve made so many great choices these days.