tw for mentions of sa there’s something so perfect about this episode. even the whole joke and repetition of tom swallowing his own load has fucking meaning. the entire dog pound scene changed how i felt abt roman entirely, roman is so incredibly caught in between the family’s web of lies that he continuously feels like he has to prove his own truth, but because of how fucked the family is, he doesn’t even trust his own judgement. his entire relationship with sex, and how he acts so hypersexual yet withdraws when it comes to sex that may actually involve emotional connection + the implication that he might’ve been sa’ed as a kid, whether it was while he was still in the house where him & kendall ‘played’ the dog pound game or after (especially considering roman mentioning he used to wet the bed at one point). even beyond that, roman continuously doubts his own intelligence and opinions because throughout his childhood, he’s been taught to doubt what he knows as true. and this even carries onto how connor and kendall viewed his participation in the game as him enjoying it, and when roman states that it hurt him so much that he was eventually sent off to military school, connor says “you wanted to go to military school!” be so serious rn what is the likelihood that a kid as young as roman was would want to go to military school. logan has literally warped their perception of that “childhood” game and how each of them viewed it so much that it probably was a game taken too far and logan manipulated their competitiveness to his advantage. moving on, how kendall, connor, and roman each individually viewed the game is also so symbolic to how the entire game of succession has been playing out throughout the season. connor says that logan saw it as two dogs “fighting”, and when the weaker one lost, he’d discard of it or ‘send it away’ (ie: sending roman away to st andrews) and then “everyone knows the hierarchy”. this is exactly what logan did, when he saw that there was a clear competition between kendall and roman, he intended to cultivate a more sadistic or powerful behavior within kendall and have him fight against another dog. once roman started giving in and playing the role of a dog in the cage, he was deemed the weaker dog and sent away. logan then continues to try and mold kendall into his successor, while roman continues to show his weakness compared to kendall. connor seems to be on the outside, observing (like he always claims to do) as he is throughout this season, knowing that this is a common game the family has been playing for years. what’s interesting though is that currently in the season, kendall has failed to prove his authority, and been undermined in numerous circumstances + failed to kick logan off as ceo, so he’s been discarded. now, he’s attempting to mold roman into a powerful asset of the company. what’s interesting is that shiv isn’t involved in this conversation nor mentioned in the dog pound game— and as for succeeding the company, she claims that she’s not interested. but because logan sees both kendall and roman as weaker dogs, he’s also willing to test shiv and her potential as she seems to be bulldozing through her political career and thinks she’s attempting to take him down in terms of optics. this episode is just overall so well done and easily made me love the show even more