LogFAQs > #973789151

Bartzyx posted...

I couldn't disagree more. He's nothing like Logan. He's the classic case of "failing upward" by ingratiating himself with those in power. Everyone knows he's incompetent but he managed to win by being a "yes" man and sycophant. Greg is the opposite side of the coinalso an incompetent outsider but instead attempted to gain power by being duplicitous/treacherous. Neither of them would have had any chance of success without their connections, but Greg played it wrong and ended up right back where he started.

I didn't say he was "like" Logan, just that he was a self-made man in the vein of Logan, which is demonstrated by the ATN numbers really being curated under his watch, even with the devil's pact with Menken nonwithstanding. For me, the epiphany was in Ewan's not-so-eulogy, where he talks about how haunted Logan was by the death of his sister. Then, by the end of the penultimate episode, we're learning the same is true for Tom in regards to witnessing Logan's death, as well. There's a certain drive to both men, and while I think the show goes to great pains to show that Tom doesn't necessarily know how to play the sycophant game without being ham-handed, he's honest about that. At the same time, he has Logan's viciousness on full display in especially the early seasons towards Greg. It returns in full force upon his annointment however; immediately, there's decisiveness, and the same inscrutability as he marches Hugo off to summon his own executioner at the end. Tom isn't Logan - never has been - but he is the only one who has been grinding away at the company. He wants it more than anyone else; Shiv and Kendall are sweeping back into Waystar at the start of the show, Roman is Roman, but Tom? Tom may well be the only person who values Waystar in the way that Logan had in his younger days. Unfortunately, he ISN'T Logan. That's the entire point. He's as best as Logan's legacy can get - which is someone who rose to prominence from nothing, in the way that Logan did. Though Tom's rise isn't meteoric or ingenious in any way; it's through grinding away and never biting that hand that feeds you. In the end, that's something that the siblings could never really learn to accomplish (among their many other flaws).