The story begins with a rare moment of near unanimity at Waystar. Logan has come up with a bold tactic to halt the potential takeover of the company. He wants to buy Pierce Global Media — ostensibly the CNN of the “Succession” universe — and become “too big to swallow.” His executives all tell him to his face that they’re gung-ho. Privately, they’re panicking.

Well, most of them are, anyway. It’s hard to get a read on Kendall. He seems to flinch when his dad announces the move; but he’s also in a nihilistic place, and it’s possible he just wants to watch Waystar burn, with himself trapped inside. Roman, meanwhile, seems genuinely to approve of this plan because it involves stirring up public outrage and potentially firing thousands of Pierce employees. But even Roman shows flashes of fear, perhaps because he knows a $20 billion acquisition involves more moving pieces than a glib underachiever like him could understand.

As for Tom — who also doesn’t seem to grasp the finer points of the deal — he just wants to be a team player. But he has Shiv in his ear, ordering him to stand up to his fellow execs and his father-in-law. (“People would do well to know there’s going to be a new sheriff in town,” she says. “Rally the resistance, deputy.”)

Shiv’s objections are twofold. First, she thinks integrating all of P.G.M.’s pieces into Waystar will take too long given that she is expecting to be in charge long before the fallout from the deal is over. But also, as Tabitha points out to Roman, P.G.M. is “like, the actual news.” Shiv wonders how she’ll stay informed if Waystar owns most of the media. She says the only outlets left that cover the basic facts of the world’s daily affairs (like “Who went where?” and “Who wore a hat?”) are “The Times, The Post, editors at Pierce and a couple hundred angry young women on Twitter.”

Unfortunately, Logan hasn’t invited his daughter to Hungary, so she can’t confront him. Instead, she’s stuck managing Connor, who is preparing to enter “the ideas primary” stage of his run for president by releasing an Instagram video rant wherein he declares his intention to stop paying taxes. (“Do you think he knows what a jail is?” Tabitha asks. “He literally only knows it from Monopoly,” Roman replies.) Logan needs Shiv to stall this Connor situation, telling her to let him know that he shouldn’t “go shining about tax.” (“We have arrangements,” he says, ominously.)