HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

one point that is perhaps obvious on the face of it in the trump era is that logan's character doesn't mind being hated or attacked, he just can't stand losing or, worse, being irrelevant. from that perspective, a messy public hearing over stewardship of the company is like oh i dunno an impeachment trial of sorts

i think the point of the rhea character was to just hammer home why the successor had to be a roy--rhea had every superficial qualification, but she didn't have the ruthlessness

eh, i think the point of the rhea character is that they had holly hunter. which is not to say i don't get why you would want to hang on to holly hunter! I'm kinda sad they seem to have let Cherry Jones go! But the build-up of her going from well-written secondary character to aspiring to the throne and fucking logan then speedily becoming ceo and self-deposing with no real impact to the story at large seems like smoke and mirrors to bide time until we can get to the real story. she became "no real person involved" and that's not clever conceptual metaphor so much as just lazily considered storytelling.
Again, though: I love this show! But it's so good that when the quality dips a bit that glares all the brighter for it.

I thought it was interesting that Brian Cox said that he and Holly Hunter decided that their characters didn't actually sleep together.

Do you think Marcia will come back to Logan?
I hope it will happen. He clearly loves Marcia. There’s this idea that he had this affair with Rhea, but I’m not sure that happened. Both Holly [Hunter] and I felt that hadn’t actually happened, that it was more in the minds of the kids. He does ask her to stay the night, but that was because he had plenty of rooms. His sell-by date on that sort of thing is near. The kids thinking they were having an affair was more them projecting.

That’s fascinating. The general consensus seems to be that Rhea and Logan were having an affair.
Of course people think that! That tells you more about those people than what actually happened. [Laughs.] That’s the giveaway. That’s frailty in human nature, I’m afraid.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/succession-season-2-finale-brian-cox.html

the show certainly implied the fuck out of it! either way it suggests rhea as a toy for logan to bat around and that's not something the show needs more of.

idk, the show intentionally kept that ambiguous. i think that it's an interesting part of the show's dna to keep some important details lingering under the surface, but not explicit. it's clear that the roy kids suffered some serious emotional (and probably physical?) abuse at the hands of both parents, but the show and the characters never quite spell out exactly what happened (aside from jokey things about roman enjoying getting locked up in a cage).

well logan does hit his grown son so that's a hint

Roman's sincere "are you ok?" to Kendall after the announcement felt rooted in that too

I kind of stopped counting, but how many times in the show does it seem like Logan is sundowning? The closet shoe pissing happens a couple times, he seems confused multiple times in later evening scenes or when jet lagged, and seems to be making more choices midday on purpose

yeah i feel like a lot of those indicators were early season 1 -- and i at the time remember thinking it was gonna be a different arc & type of plot that it ultimately ended up being

i think brian cox said in that interview originally they were going to kill off logan at the end of s1

Interesting article here that talks about the Logan mastermind theory:

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/10/16/20915933/succession-season-2-finale-twist-logan-kendall-this-is-not-for-tears

And has an incidental paragraph that explains the utility of Holly Hunter’s character

i think the show intentionally leaves it in the no-mans-land between 'logan hatched a plot' & 'logan smiled for some quotidian reason'; logan was obviously proud, he was obviously pleased w the outcome on at least one level, he hoped it would happen but knew kendall had to figure it out for himself...not sure how *conscious* it was of a "plot" by him, the word "plot" implies that he was really trying to set it in motion when i think the truth is probably somewhere closer to 'intuited it could happen'

'created the possibility for it to happen if his son was who he hoped he was'

agreed on all counts

right, but he's also been trying in his own nasty way to inspire kendall to be a killer his whole life. it wasn't part of a calculated plan, just logan doing what he always does.

Kendall Roy what's on your awesome headphones while you plan to kill you father

https://robbreportedit.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/3.jpg

north american scum!

just finished this last night after marathoning all weekend . Great fucking show!!!

uh yeah he was playing that when he took them off xp

i know, was mostly commenting that it was a hilariously appropriate choice

i think he's listening to 'a christmas fucking miracle' by run the jewels

Tom eating Logan's chicken was awesome btw

fuck so many amazing scenes in this show though

and yet i feel like hardly anyone knows about it

it's awfully popular!

i'm sure i just slept on it myself but no one i know irl watches it

It's extremely difficult to get people irl to watch it ime

my mom binged the first season in two days

it's awfully popular!

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses)

Yeah to me it seems to have penetrated the collective cultural consciousness with startling speed - people irl are throwing around the character names without first referencing the show they're from already.

this show is so good

so many hard to watch scenes tho.

kendall's rap :s

at least once a week i find myself morosely thinking "L to the OG...."

haha.

finished season 2 last night. wow.

“look it’s a succession”- me pointing to a helicopter flying over nyc

— Catherine Cohen (@catcohen) October 18, 2019

tru

i was in the financial district of my city last week during the day on friday and i was seeing the dudes in their vests and stuff and just feeling like i was surrounded by succession people

saw that James Murdoch, of the News Corp Murdochs, is supporting Buttigieg and I had a big Succession moment

kendall says he's voting buttigieg, actually votes for trump

This show is incredible. Wasn’t even aware of its existence until two weeks ago. I’m not deeply clued into the TV landscape, but are people watching this? Visibility seems shamefully out of proportion to the quality of it.

That weekend retreat at the Pierce compound was maybe one of the best episodes of television I’ve seen. Penultimate Season 2 ep in DC, particularly Shiv talking the woman out of testifying, was some gut-level primal horror.

Really impressed by the entire execution of this. Doing a lot of things and doing them all very well.

I haven’t read this read this thread yet, watching the final season 2 ep now.

Finished S2 yesterday : great season, even better than S1, and that final ep was amazing.
so many great moments over the season but a few higlights come to mind : the Pierce/Roy families interactions, Roman and the hostages situation, Ken's rap, Ken's speech during the Senate hearing, Shiv's conversation with the witness...
And Tom & Greg are such a great comedy duo !
I agree that the whole Rhea situation was not satisfying (how it started, how she got so fast to the top, how she left...).
Marcia's "conversation" with her was great though.
Also, some of Logan's decisions over the season didn't seem very logical/convincing considering his charachter.
Sad to have to wait for such a long time until the next season...

Rhea was qualified to become the CEO and could easily have been given the job in the timeframe of the series (there's like a month between each episode maybe?) And totally within her rights to walk away at the clusterfuck she'd inherited.

did she fuck Logan though ?

brian cox says no, the characters shiv and roman say yes.

he urinated on her shoes

. I’m not deeply clued into the TV landscape, but are people watching this?

Everyone who works in media is.

SOLD.

WeWork, the TV series, based on WeWork, the book*, written by me and @maureenmfarrell

*Forthcoming!https://t.co/wOUP8fZHoi

— Eliot Brown (@eliotwb) December 11, 2019

heh yeah let's do this

as long as neumann has no input and gets no money, i'm in

Brian Cox. Cookie Monster. Two titans finally meet to discuss business....and cookies. #Sesame50 pic.twitter.com/l6zOiK6iPP

— Mashable (@mashable) November 15, 2019