After setting up the stage enough for the audience with its previous two episodes, HBO’s Rooster is back with its third episode, titled White Whale. The episode opens, and we see Greg alone in his Florida home on his last day there, tossing coins in a jar. The imagery blatantly points to how lonesome he has been since his divorce. 

The scene then quickly shifts to Katie driving him to his house, provided by the college. She asks him about his last day in Florida, and Greg, in his usual fashion, tries to lie his way out of it, but gets caught. Afterwards, while settling in his new home, Greg tries to subtly ask Katie to move in with him, and in reply, she tries to politely tell her dad that she does not want him to constantly interfere in her life.

The father-daughter dynamic here comes in full swing with Greg wanting to be closer to her daughter and Katie trying to push him away. The rest of the episode is filled with such moments, but first, it is Greg’s first day at college.

  Greg is ready for his first day at Ludlow College, and the very first person he meets on his way is his neighbor, Professor Dylan. In his efforts to avoid the awkwardness between them, he brings up her friend, whom he replaced and got the job, which is not the thing one would want to mention when trying to have a pleasant conversation. However, Dylan says she is not mad, and they walk together to the college, but as soon as she sees Walter, she confronts him for giving her friend's job to Greg.

Walter, in his deadpan, straight-faced manner, stands by his decision and unintentionally mocks her friend for not writing anything famous or heard of. Sensing some more hostility from Dylan, he takes Greg and flees the scene. While showing him his office, Walter attempts to invite Greg to a hockey match, which Greg gently brushes off, still worried about Dylan’s resentment for stealing her friend’s job.

Well, this was just the tip of the iceberg; the real ordeal of what is Greg’s first day at college starts here on. 

Audiences have been watching Steve Carell as Greg for two episodes now and have become familiar with his personality traits. So, it was quite inevitable from the start for Greg to mess up his first impression on the students. The first misfortune that befalls Greg before his class is that his new shoes cause him to slip and tumble down a slope on campus. Covered in dirt with a bleeding knee, he drags himself to class. 

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As anyone should be, the students are also curious about the state of their new professor. But Greg does not delve too deep into that and starts with introductions. He mispells his name on the board as “Grg,” that too with a permanent marker, and calls Ronni - the same student who keeps head-butting Greg with her woke questions or intellectually informed but irrelevant opinions - his "white whale" (a literary reference from a famous book that ironically he has not even read).   

He finds himself in front of a disciplinary committee for his comments that allegedly alluded to body shaming, somehow. In order to explain himself, he says something borderline inappropriate, which does not exactly help his case. But Dean Riggs lets him off with a verbal warning this time. They have a quick chat after the meeting, and Riggs ends up inviting him to his house for drinks, which Greg gladly accepts.

This little gesture of friendship adds a glimmer of hope to a rather dull day Greg was having. However, the day is not over yet, and Greg’s life does not seem to give him any reprieve so easily.  

There is an office feud going on between Dylan and Riggs, and the latter tries to take revenge by moving the free speech zone right in front of her office to cause a commotion. Dylan confronts him, and while she is ridiculing him for his petty behaviour and insolent tactics, Riggs is having a heart attack. Dylan thinks it is some kind of mockery on his part and does not pay him much attention. 

It turned out to be serious, and Riggs was hospitalized. Riddled with guilt, she goes to Walter, who informs her that Riggs will be fine. But he uses her guilt against her to push the Dean of Faculty position on her, which she does not want to accept. She is under the impression that Walter is doing this simply to get her for her behavior earlier this morning. Anyhow, she does not have a choice, and her guilt for the incident makes her give in and accept the job.               

Elsewhere, Greg is stoked for his drinking session with Riggs, only to find his wife hurrying off to the hospital and handing him the car keys to drive. He has no choice but to tag along now, even if he does not know either of them that well. His wife somehow thinks that Greg is a good friend of her husband, while the reality is that he does not even know Riggs’ first name. Still, he stays the night at the hospital with them just out of the compulsion of the assumption that he and Riggs are good pals. 

While all these things happened with Greg on his very first day as a professor, there were some subplots going on simultaneously.

Archie’s story was also going along with the events of Greg’s first day. Archie, who has now moved in with Sunny and her roommate, Mo (who clearly hates Archie, and it is hilarious), is going through some trouble, mostly because of Sunny’s quest to find an advisor. Sunny wants to get an internship before her pregnancy starts to show, and in order to do that, she needs to find an advisor first. Her first choice is Walter, but Archie stops her, fearing Walter's reputation as the biggest gossip on the campus. 

He tries to send her in Dean Riggs’ direction, but he declines, and before he can convince him, he has a heart attack. Archie seems to be lost in between, navigating his lingering feelings for Katie and his obligation to Sunny. He constantly finds himself making things right with everybody. For example, in the disciplinary meeting against Greg, he tries to help him by convincing everyone that Greg should be forgiven for his mistake, as everyone makes mistakes. A noble effort, but in vain, as Greg still hates him for what he did to Katie.

At the end of the day, Archie seemed lost all throughout failing at all the fronts, but the episode has not finished yet, and there are still a lot of things to unfold.

Greg got late for the class on his second day, having been at the hospital the whole night. He got in right before everyone was ready to leave. Seeing his plans and preparations failing in front of his eyes, he takes Katie’s advice from earlier in the episode to just let loose and kick the ball around. He did exactly that and, in a moment of vulnerability, got the class to interact with him. But this victory was also short-lived, as he slipped while attempting to high-five a female student, and his hands ended up where they should not have been.

It was time for another disciplinary meeting, but this time Dylan was heading it. He again failed miserably defending himself, but was let off with another warning. Dylan seemed to be having her hands full with the new responsibility enforced upon her, but the upside of it is that Katie might get her suspension lifted earlier. Anyhow, things are back to square one with the class situation for Greg, and he does not seem to be finding his bearings at the college.

Taking a step back and continuing with Archie’s storyline, he did manage to do something right, at least for Sunny. He talks to Walter about giving Sunny a chance to be his mentee and, without much effort, gets him to be on board with the idea, given Sunny and Walter’s shared interests in sauna, diet, and fitness. 

For Archie, the episode brings a sense of victory, at least regarding Sunny, but we cannot say the same for Greg. 

To make matters worse, Katie bails on their plan to watch the hockey match together, insinuating that the only reason he accepted the writer-in-residence gig was to lurk around her life a little longer. But she is unaware of the selfless motive behind taking the position, which he was not even interested in. He gets a chance to vent to Dylan about everything and admits that he just wants to go home. 

The episode ultimately ends with Greg watching TV all alone in his house, tossing coins in the same jar shown at the start of the episode. Unlike the events of episode 2, which end on a slightly chipper note, the third episode brings more gravitas to Greg’s character and story and adds several layers to it emotionally. The space between the father-daughter relationship here is again getting bigger, with Katie adamant about keeping things the way they are. What Greg’s next step would be is a question for the next episode.

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Do you think Greg will be able to surmount the distance between him and Katie anytime soon? Share your thoughts in the comments.