Season 2, Episode 7: ‘Return’

Logan Roy has an odd vocabulary tic, which pops up whenever he is faced with his company’s latest scandal. “What’s the protein?” he’ll ask. He used those words last week, while skimming through New York magazine’s Brightstar Cruises exposé. He says it again this week, during a flight to London, while he, Kendall, Roman and Rhea Jarrell rip apart a memo Siobhan wrote to clarify her “dinosaur purge” Argestes comments. Again, Logan asks if anyone can find “the protein.” Is anything Shiv wrote worthy of his attention?

Logan has a high bar for “protein.” He has already argued that the cruise scandal isn’t “real” because his enemies will latch onto any opportunity for performative outrage. He is also unconvinced that Shiv really cares about the culture at Waystar — perhaps because he thinks his daughter’s convictions, like his own, are more strategic than deeply held. (Later, when Shiv finally gets a face-to-face meeting with her dad, she says, “I know you haven’t always been happy with my words, but we can discuss it,” which is like a prelude to that old line, “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them, I have others.”)

Because of his stubborn refusal to take blame for anything, Logan barely flinches when he wakes up in London to tabloid headlines that implicate him in the death of the young man Kendall drove into a lake. His rivals’ newspapers claim the kid was “Bullied to Death” while in the Roys’ employ. Logan won’t acknowledge fault, but he does let his lawyers talk him into visiting the young man’s family.

“I suppose everyone has to apologize for everything nowadays,” he grumbles.

In the end, he is glad he makes the trip because it reminds him that for all his billions, he is still — in his own mind — a man of the people. He can relate to the dead man’s parents because they’re the target audience for Waystar’s programming, which he describes as “some decent TV” and “news that doesn’t talk down to them.”