#did i really just write gerri meta. ok fuck yeah

[brookheimer]

i honestly can’t believe (i sorta can but also don’t?) that gerri is leaving waystar royco. like she fought so so hard and kinda enjoyed being interim-CEO? was roman truly the last straw or are we missing something? i know this is her divorce revenge dress era but i believe gerri could survive so much more

no i feel you honestly — i mean, gerri was waystar royco and vice versa. it’s hard to imagine waystar without her or her without waystar. but i think that’s kinda the point in some ways. i mean, i’m not sure how permanent the decision to leave is going to be given this is the They’re Doing The Thing They Said They Weren’t Going To Do?! show but i wouldn’t be surprised or upset if it is final. i actually kind of like it, maybe. you are completely right that gerri could survive so much more, and honestly, i think that has been her mindset for years — i can survive this, i can survive far worse than this. that’s a big part of why she’s stayed even during these horrific past few months, i think: she knows she can deal, she knows she can weather it, she knows she can survive it. but… just because you can survive something doesn’t mean you have to.

i think that’s what roman’s firing shifted for gerri — it wasn’t that this particular action of his was beyond the pale and she just couldn’t deal with it any longer, but that gerri was suddenly faced with a waystar-less future for the first time in decades and she realized…. holy fuck, why AM i still here? why DO i put up with this? am i staying just to prove that i’m capable of staying, and if so, how does that benefit me at all? is it a sunk cost fallacy thing, and if so, isn’t it called a fallacy for a reason? what am i actually getting out of this? how does this serve my interests?

at least that’s my read — it’s not just that the firing was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but also served as a lightbulb moment that made gerri realize that just because she CAN weather it doesn’t mean she SHOULD. it was a reality check on a multitude of fronts — if after all this time she still held out some hope for a business partnership with roman, for the potential she knows was there to unearth itself once more, then the firing functioned as a rude awakening, making her realize what logan did long ago: these are not serious people. and even more importantly, it forced her to think about a life outside of waystar, something i assume she genuinely has not thought about in… i don’t even know, 30 years? waystar was an immovable aspect of her identity until suddenly it wasn’t, and being forced to look out into a waystar-less future made her realize “wait, why the fuck AM i putting up with this?” logan is gone. the company is spiraling downwards. it’s crisis after crisis. no one respects or listens to her. waystar is headed towards fascism and ruin and humiliation. meanwhile…. she could make millions upon millions, do whatever the fuck she wanted (if she wanted to keep working, she could get hired quite literally anywhere with her record), control her own narrative and go out with a bang, and on top of all that, not be tied to a sinking ship steered by a captain who psychosexually loves/hates/misses/avoids her and makes her life hell. she realized roman would never be the person she wanted him to be, but even more than that, why did it matter to her in the first place? everything that kept her at waystar is going going gone. she does not need waystar. waystar needs her.

so the question isn’t really “couldn’t she survive this?” in my opinion — it’s “why would she?” how does it serve her interests? and…. well, it doesn’t. staying at waystar after realizing that would be breaking the number one rule of being gerri kellman: only do what serves your interests. and now that waystar and her interests no longer align, what would she stay for, sentimentality? no. fuck that. she’s going to buy an island and become ceo of some other news conglomerate and drink her martinis in fucking peace because gerri does what’s best for her and god knows that isn’t waystar anymore — and, frankly, it hasn’t been for a long time. she was just so busy surviving, so GOOD at surviving, that maybe she forgot she didn’t need to.