"Heirs" season 4 episode 6: Who wants to live forever? - Walla! culture

Trailer "Heirs" season 4 episode 6 (HBO)

Column Chapter 4.01 |

Chapter 4.02 |

Chapter 4.03 |

Chapter 4.04 |

Chapter 4.05

One of the most quoted rulings in history belongs to American Supreme Justice Peter Stewart, in the case of Jacoblis v. Ohio in 1964.

Nico Jacoblis was the manager of a movie theater in Cleveland and was convicted of two counts of "possession of obscene material" for showing the movie "Beloved", which depicted an affair between a young woman and a student in Paris and included graphic scenes.

The hearing that reached the Supreme Court sought to overturn Jacobils' conviction in lower courts, and to protect his right to screen the film under the First Amendment to the Constitution (freedom of speech).

In the verdict, Stewart stated that "it's hard to define pornography, but I'll know what it is when I come across it."

This vague definition is also true for writing.

It is very difficult to define quality writing, mainly because it is possible to argue endlessly about what quality is.

What is certain is that the day before what is increasingly becoming a strike in the television industry due to the unwillingness to reward screenwriters, it is enough to watch an episode of "Heirs"

What makes "The Heirs" such a well-written series is the elusive sense of certainty about the future, which every time is dropped anew because we've been conditioned to believe that what was will be.

The reason for this feeling is that "Heirs" took the time to build patterns and behaviors that seem natural to us.

She made us know her characters the way we know family members or close friends, people whose future behavior we can predict because of the amount of information we have about their past.

"Digital Zoo", the sixth episode of the season, was built on these foundations.

He is not satisfied with just our feeling that Kendall is once again about to crash big with his megalomaniacal Torah initiative, but produces echoes from the past that strengthen it and our confidence in it.

All signs point to Kendall crashing again.

"Heirs" season 4 episode 6 (Photo: HBO)

Just like in "Kendall Rap", Shiv and Roman sit in the audience cringe but also can't take their eyes off the Big Brother train wreck on stage.

As with the birthday party from the previous season, Kendall's plans and requests to produce a spectacle end in a miserable smoke screen (or smoke spray).

Shiv mentions "that twinkle in the eyes" that is so familiar to us from previous crashes.

All of these are built up so methodically, supposedly as an integral part of the plot, but actually as a tool to make the twist feel truly surprising.

Each series can kill off a main character or pull out a random deus ex machina to undermine the plot.

The point is that surprise is much more rewarding than shock, it produces a much more satisfying feeling of appreciation.

And when you examine this season, you find that it happens continuously, episode after episode, and is built on the same method of anticipation and breaking it.

In the first episode of the season, the natural expectation is that Roy's children will lose to Logan in the fight for Pierce, because the balance of power in this fight has always been lopsided.

In the second episode, the expectation is that Logan will humiliate his children at karaoke, go wild and rage, but he gives them a "mic drop" of disappointment and leaves.

Logan's death was on the face of it a play on shock, but not really.

It is also built on the same foundations of past familiarity that makes us anticipate the future: the shrewd businessman before another huge deal, dies on his way to the plane from threats and directs his gaze towards the next big goal.

Logan's death in itself isn't a big surprise given what "Heirs" has been aiming for all along, to a certain extent it's almost expected.

But quality writing knows how to integrate this moment into a pattern that we were not ready for.

The same is true of the negotiations with Matheson, which was constantly built on the expectation that the children would fail. Their success was the twist.

This is true of Greg and Tom's "slave rebellion" from the end of last season, two characters from whom we have learned to give up and defeat, and it is true of the way Kendall conducted himself at the press conference that closed the second season - and in this episode as well.

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The trouble makers.

"Heirs" season 4 episode 6 (Photo: HBO)

In the world of multi-billionaires, every material thing loses its meaning.

When you are at the top of Maslow's pyramid of needs, the only self-fulfillment left is to simply exist forever.

This dream may sound far-fetched, but it is most common among the top millennials, and especially among the big managers of huge corporations.

Jeff Bezos established a laboratory with estimated costs in the billions and recruited some of the world's most respected scientists to research ways to delay aging.

Another company, Calico, owned by Google, is developing technology that claims nothing less than "solving death."

Peter Thiel, the world-renowned high-tech entrepreneur, invests his money in a series of startups that intend to prolong life and eradicate a significant portion of existing diseases.

These are just a few examples.

This is also why the huge push for a healthy lifestyle and the use of technologies such as pressure chambers is being pushed so hard from the top of the high-tech industry.

This was an episode that long stung this fear/fantasy of death, and it also explains Kendall's success in selling it as a product.

He begins with a voice and face from the other world, Logan himself in a shoot for a new product launch of Wistar's cruise and parks division.

Grumpy and impatient as usual, he scolds the production people for being "as useless as my armed idiot children".

Kendall receives the insults like a "Valentine's Day greeting card."

He probably knew much harder.

The relationship between him and Logan is so complex, love-hate-admiration-fear, which have been mixed all his life with each other, leading almost every step he takes.

In some cases he explains them as revenge, in others as a tribute, but they are always connected to that figure, the one that haunted him all his life and molded him to the dimensions she needed.

And here now, after her death, he can finally do it back to her.

"Living+" (a witty jab at the tendency of so many "high-tech" products to add a plus to themselves, as if thereby redefining themselves) is in itself an old-world product.

An attempt by the failed division, not to mention the criminal one, to reinvent itself by copying its activity model from the sea to the land.

In other words: they are opening a community for the elderly.

Here too, the theme of life and death that accompanies the entire episode continues, the last way to extort money from those who have been the company's profitable customers for decades, is to build them a fancy nursing home.

Close security, a content package that consists of Wistar's entertainment properties and maintaining the illusion that they are still separate in status from all the other popular ones.

And yet, according to Greg, this is real estate, a field that has been with us for a very long time, how do you turn it into high-tech?

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Understands very quickly where her brothers are rowing.

"Heirs" season 4 episode 6 (Photo: HBO)

Matheson, naturally, is very unenthusiastic about the idea.

Like the rest of the Wistar people, he also makes his way to Los Angeles for the company's investor day, and tries to strengthen the alliance with Shiv that was born in a conversation in Norway.

This is the first time this season that we experienced a time jump of several days.

A week has passed since Logan's death, the job approval processes between the Gojo team and the Wistar team are going on successfully, but the Swede is not satisfied that "those who guard the store" are trying to establish facts on the ground for him.

Shiv enjoys the new status of his confidant, as a response to the feeling of betrayal that is constantly pricking her on the part of Roman and Kendall.

The flirtation with Matheson was meant to allow her to keep her options open, according to Tom, but no less than to give her back the sense of control she so longs for.

After easily figuring out the source of the leaks coming out of Wistar about "Logan's last and shaky days" and the "bad atmosphere in the negotiations in Norway" that were kept from her, and hearing from Matson a much more reliable version of what happened on the mountaintop than her brother's, she quickly realizes where Roman and Kendall row. "Boys, you're not good at this… you're trying to screw up the deal," she snaps at them. This is the first shift in the balance of power within this trio in an episode out of three in total. At first Roman and Kendall are still one front against the hurt Shiv who looks on from the sidelines, But Kendall's behavior will move Roman to her side out of a desire to get away from Kendall's potential crash.The scene is also structured so that Kendall (after stealing Shiv's place) and Roman are scolded by Shiv who is sitting at the head of the table.

Into the vacuum and this feeling of loneliness of Shiv, entered Tom who built the move consistently throughout this season.

Every time he proves himself to be someone she can trust.

The kiss between them in the conference room, where Shiv takes time to cry, is the height of the vulnerability she allows herself to express towards him - and this time he doesn't use it to his advantage either.

Their relationship is so much fun to watch as they grow closer to each other, playing "bites" as teenage lovesicks in the midst of a glittery, suit-filled gala event.

Finding time to sneak in and sleep like a couple at the beginning of their journey.

To some extent they are indeed there.

After years of hiding inside his shell, Tom opens up.

Perhaps the only character in "Heirs" who underwent some kind of development.

He presents Shiv with a much more cold, calculating and egotistical side, one that she appreciates and is attracted to much more than the loyal and weak man he was before.

Twice he manages to undermine her game with him.

For the first time when he apologizes to her at the event - while she is still engaged in the biting games between them - and forces her to unconvincingly fend him off as having "barely scratched the surface".

It then happens in the room when he confesses that he wants her back.

The close-up on Shiv indicates that she is very interested in this step, but she forcibly stops herself.

"You shouldn't have betrayed me."

Here comes one of the most beautiful dialogues in the series, all about the illusion of love and money.

Tom, who is truly in love with Shiv, admits that he loves his career, money, suits and watches just as much.

"I like beautiful things," he says, "and if you think it's superficial, why don't you give up everything you have for love...come live with me in a trailer park."

Shiv's reaction is again to escape to the worlds of her control, where love is a weakness, but under the surface it is this materialism that strengthens them.

It dulls the need to admit the weakness of love,

Wanting to be next to each other just because they are there.

A protective sheath that allows you to cover the scars and heal the relationship.

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manages to undermine Shiv.

"Heirs" season 4 episode 6 (Photo: HBO)

Roman is in a real free fall.

The outburst about Matheson in Norway was an expression of his inability to fence off the grief for Logan, suppress and ignore it.

It seems that all the insults he throws at the Swedes behind their backs for instability and disintegration are ways of describing himself.

In the past the ways to vent frustration were in complicated relationships or Dick-Fix to Jerry, now they come with a lot of power and very little responsibility.

The meeting with Joy, the director of Wistar Studios, tests and quickly breaks his shaky patience.

She disdainfully dismisses his desire to get to the bottom of the problems at "Kallispitron", and instead chooses to preach to him about ATN's right-wing leanings that harm the studio's values.

Logan probably wouldn't get this lecture.

"I'm sure you're in your place for a good reason" is already turning the knife on all the open wounds - and Joy is respectfully sent to the human resources department.

The confrontation with Jerry plays on even more painful scars.

Roman is aware that the photos he sent to Jerry were the moment she became toxic to Logan, after years as his confidant.

The fact that she was the one who received the photos did not clear her of the feeling that she was at least involved in the mishap (not an unfounded claim. Remember, Jerry enjoyed being the dominant one in the relationship with Roman).

Then came her first dismissal by Roman, and everything together connects with the feeling of inferiority he always felt towards her.

After all, Jerry had been there since he was a kid, leading processes and building the company, while he enjoyed his privileged pedigree and the knowledge that someone would always be there to clean up after him.

The fact that she allows herself to continue scolding him even now, when in his own eyes he is finally above her in the hierarchy, hurts like he would not dare to admit.

"Joey has a lot of friends," states Jerry, "and you're a weak monarch in a dangerous transitional period."

All the stories Roman told himself about becoming a serious businessman are shattered.

"I need you to believe that I can be as good as my father, can you do it?", seemingly Roman's command, but to Jerry it sounds like a plea.

A credit from her means perhaps more to him than any other person.

"You don't treat me with enough respect, and that's a problem."

Jerry refuses to give him this gesture.

She feels that encouraging him will only lead to more unjustified use of force.

And ironically, it is precisely this decision that leads her to her second dismissal within a week.

It is not clear whether this time they are more serious or final than the first ones, certainly in view of Roman's own indecision.

But it is Kendall who presents him with the vision he would so much like to believe in: two young sons are shaking up the old and outdated company of their domineering father, and sweeping the markets and analysts with them into the belief that they can reinvent it.

This is an illusion that supposedly casts a meaning of strategy on all the withdrawals from the hip, the caprices, the indecision and the improvisations.

Roman wants to believe this illusion to calm his nagging conscience, but then he sees the numbers that Kendall is cooking - and decides to escape for his life.

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A real free fall.

"Heirs" season 4 episode 6 (Photo: HBO)

After the attempt to undermine the old guard's confidence in the deal failed, Kendall remained committed to the idea of ​​bringing her down.

He decides to use "Living+" to inflate the value of the company, hoping to bring it to costs that will not allow Matson to complete its purchase.

The transformation of concrete structures into a "technological product" allows him to build mountains of financial bullshit around him, in a way that is very reminiscent of completely real high-tech ventures.

"It can make you lose faith in capitalism," he boasts to Roman, "you can just say anything."

This ability to create reality and make others believe in it has always been Logan's great strength.

The problem is, Kendall isn't his father, and at least initially he seems headed for a resounding crash.

Stuttering about "big shoes", having a "conversation" with his father's hologram.

Shiv convinces Roman ahead of time to leave Kendall alone on stage, clad in his flight suit with the Wistar missile insignia on his chest, ready to explode with a bang for all to see.

But the cringe turns into one when Kendall starts pressing the "eternal life" fantasy.

Suddenly he sounds like Steve Jobs promising to make the world a better place just by launching a product.

It cleverly combines safety and entertainment with access to advanced and life-extending medical care, which preserves the illusion of continued existence without a clear expiration date.

10, 20, 30 maybe 50 years.

who knows?

The very contemplation of this touches the fundamental fears and hopes of the analysts.

"If I could have one more year with my father, to say the unsaid - that would be priceless," Kendall delivers the final blow.

Completes the fantasy in a way that is both cynical and touching.

And to give himself Logan's credibility and prestige, he enlists the help of a determined Greg to engineer Logan's stored footage, to get approval from the afterlife for the plan to stay in this world.

Perhaps for the first time in his life, Logan lines up with him, says what he wants him to say.

All it took was editing software.

Shiv sees her plan to crush Kendall go up in flames and ignites Matheson's unhealthy instincts for provocation.

"The Dodrick liberates," he tweets in a meme that mixes the theme park's mascot (played by Greg in the first episode), the "Living+" logo and the words on the entrance gate to Auschwitz, hinting in a "very European" way that Wistar is building concentration camps for the elderly.

Instead of panicking and stuttering on stage, Kendall smells the pressure of the Swede as he did in the video call in the second episode.

In a smart bear hug, he tells about "if and when" the deal will be completed, and about the respect he has for Matheson despite his unstable character.

He also apologizes on his behalf for the injury, thus fulfilling all those false warnings he tried to treat him in the conversation with the board of directors.

The deletion of the tweet (always a guilty plea) only reinforces Matheson's glorious folding.

And while Kendall celebrates a victory, the alliance between Roy's children finally falls apart.

The third and final change in the balance of power in this episode.

Roman drives home alone, listening over and over to the edited version of Logan sent by Kendall, in which he humiliates him in a way that has become for Roman the closest thing to love from his father.

Shiv reunites with Tom, and Kendall goes to the beach, draws the number one on the sand that marks both his status and the number of people who can celebrate there with him.

The combination of Kendall and water is a recurring motif in "The Heirs": the accident in season one, the blank stare in the bathtub at the start of season two, the face-down drowning in the pool.

Here the case is reversed: Kendall is immersed in water as a new person.

A new episode of "Heirs" is broadcast every Monday next to the United States, Bis Hot and Cellcom TV.

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