“Because my Dad Told me To” …The line is given its persistent recall, and treatise precisely because of Strong’s delivery. It’s complex storytelling, that informs where he is at now, and predicts where he might end up. From the beginning of the scene Strong makes it clear Kendall is not into this, that he takes no pleasure in this. As the camera follows him along down the hallways and into the main room, he looks like he’s on the way to the gallows himself. As he informs the employees at Vaulter of their fate he says the words with no emphasis, with no emotion, but not the kind that implies a natural state of being unmoved by this, but one that implies an affected act of trying to portray himself as such. The kind that implies he’s going through the motions of feigning no emotion. He’s an avatar for his dad, doing it precisely because his dad told him to. He avoids eye contact, and when he does its not hard to see he’s steeling himself, holding steady, trying to appear as if he’s his father, but its clear he doesn’t have the callousness, nor the same relish in this as his father does - in his eyes, in his body language. The appendages, and orbitals are not dead, their just pretending to be. Which has kind of been Kendall’s through line this season..pretending to be dead, not as a strategy to win, but as a strategy not be beat upon anymore. Sarah Snook’s Shiv once remarked that her brother basically volleyed between loving and hating their father, and Kendall acknowledged the truth in that. Strong’s acting functions skillfully in service of that truth. When he utter’s the words “because my father told me to” there is a fierce loyalty that empowers the emotional production he’s putting on, but there is also not much love there, or at least thats my reading of the scene. Whatever yours is, its undeniable the driving power of the scene is Strongs’ ability to say less, be more.
