Some spoilers below for anyone who wasn't watching Succession’s latest episode, “Rehearsal,” so be warned!
Wowzers to the wowzers, the Roy family managed to actually pull off a full family conflict in Episode 402 that wasn’t entirely dominated by Logan’s gravely hollering. But for all that I was engaged by watching the generational argument that went down within a private room of a karaoke bar, I think the installment’s true V.I.P. was Zoë Winters’ Kerry. Logan’s second banana delivered a magnificently below-average audition video for an anchor spot at ATN, with Nicholas Braun’s Greg having to step in to dash her expectations in a hilarious early attempt at managerial-ish duties for the put-upon cousin. What’s more, Braun and the writers were amusingly successful at temporarily burrowing into the actress’ brain with their Kerry critiques.
Kerry’s video was definitely a hit with the show’s other characters, from Kendall and Roman watching it on repeat to Hugo and Gerri laughing about it in the Waystar offices. And when talking to Variety about prepping for it, she discussed watching footage of Laura Ingraham and Tomi Lahren and tweaking things to make the audition Kerry’s all on her own. As well, Winters explained why the audition was such a blight for her within this batch of narcissists, and how an Anton Chekov play informed Kerry’s most uncomfortable on-screen move. In her words:
What’s so painful about Kerry in this episode is that with the Roys, one of the worst things you can do is to try and to fail. It’s all about winning, and Kerry does not win at this. I thought about Nina in The Seagull when she realizes she was a bad actor because she didn’t know what to do with her hands. That became a big part of it is. I just didn’t know what to do with my hands.
Indeed, Kerry's decisions for what to do with her arms went against normal human instincts, and she just kind of put them out there in the best ways. Naturally, the takes that were used in the episode were viewed by the writers who then crafted Greg's critique-infused meeting with Kerry, in which he was very clearly fibbing about a "focus group" being the source of the comments.
According to Zoë Winters, Greg's comment about her arm-hang was enough to make her slightly self-conscious about things, despite being completely aware that his particular assessment was crafted specifically for laughs. Here's how she put it:
They say in Succession that the writers are really watching and observing and taking things from actors, and using what we bring. So when he suddenly had this monologue about how my arms hang, I knew it was just them being funny, but I definitely thought for maybe a day and a half, 'How do my arms hang? Are they seeing something here about the way my arms hang?'
It'd have been one thing if Braun's performance showcased Greg being highly straightforward and non-stammering when telling Kerry about her arms. But the fact that he was so uncomfortable about getting that judgmental information out there may have given it enough of an air of uncomfortable realism that the actress mentally stored the comment aside for needless validation later on. It's a similar situation, at least tangentially, to Quinta Brunson's character on Abbott Elementary getting made fun of for being short, or to Kaitlin Olson's Dee on It's Always Sunny for constantly being told she looks like a bird. It's all in good fun, but not everyone is fully able to keep things separate, and sometimes it takes a day and a half to realize there's nothing actually wrong with one's arms.
What about your arms, Greg? And your face. WHAT ABOUT YOUR FACE, GREG?!?
It's been fun to watch Zoë Winters get ever more comfortable in the role of Kerry in the early days of Season 4, and it's a shame that Succession will be ending after the next eight episodes, since there's no doubt a whole lot that can be explored with that character within the Waystar pipeline. The rest of the cast has been pretty outspoken about saying goodbye to the HBO hit, and Winters will hopefully share more of her thoughts on the endgame as the weeks go by.
While Kerry may not be destined for primetime cable news, it looks like Kieran Culkin’s Roman has tap-danced his way right back into Logan’s favor, despite his supposed bond of trust with Kendall and Shiv. That doesn’t bode well for any hopes the character might have of making it through the season without getting his ass handed to him. Whether or not it means he’s truly a goner, which is a theory I’m still nursing on, we’ll have to wait and see. But if he does end up biting the big one, I would want to see Kerry be the one to announce and analyze the news for an ATN special report.
Succession is available to stream win an HBO Max subscription, with new episodes dropping every Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. ET, and head to our 2023 TV premiere schedule to see what'll be taking over when the Roy family has been ousted for good.
