HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

"this is water"

What a murky episode, douche levels have been turned up so much this season, great comments above... 'Greg window, minimised' was my fav quip, his eternal family position. Really loving Tom's story line, McFadyen bringing some beaut traumatised faces and gestures....he not going to end it all, is he?? His takedown of Kendall was some brutalised yet calm shizz. Roman as fashist sympathiser rather than just the joker, as mentioned above, is a great reminder about his character. Every time I see him now, I can't help think about the whole 'accelerating the space launch and causing a disaster' story he obviously, as a Roy, just completely moves on from without a second glance. I enjoy the lofty distance they occupy, away from all the 'real' carnage their business practices and personal whims create, it tells the story about the insulating effect of extreme wealth with such economy. Give 'em a break, eh,I mean, they've got presidents to choose...

I liked this Slate article:

The show has been stuck in low-stakes reshufflings for two and a half seasons now. The plot—will the Roys lose some control of their company?—is fundamentally and amusingly frivolous. Billionaires can’t meaningfully lose, so these shifts function as proxy battles for more interesting questions about ego and childhood trauma and hubris and mortality. The fate of Waystar–Royco, as a fictional corporate juggernaut, is little more than a MacGuffin.

But “What It Takes” introduces something Succession has (in its capacity as a sitcom, anyway) studiously avoided: stakes that extend beyond its hermetic corporate world.

Tiny, tiny, subatomic-sized violins: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/22/therapist-super-rich-succession-billionaires

Thanks for sharing. I can see how it could be hard to find sympathy for real-life versions of the Roys but I can honestly say that I can't think of a billionaire who I'd want to swap places with

I also can't think of a single character in the show whose life I would want. None of them seemed happy or satisfied with their lives, even before the legal problems

if someone is unhappy being a billionaire, it would be pretty easy for them to not be one anymore

I also can't think of a single character in the show whose life I would want. None of them seemed happy or satisfied with their lives, even before the legal problems

idk Adrien Brody's character seemed liked he had stuff pretty figured out

honestly, connor doesn't seem too troubled by his lot in life. he's a nationally-ridiculed buffoon, but he has no self awareness, so why should he care?

he did have to fly scheduled that one time

Stewie's also pretty self-satisfied

if someone is unhappy being a billionaire, it would be pretty easy for them to not be one anymore

Although I'm pretty sure that by the time you are a billionaire, you are surrounded by people with a vested interest in making sure you stay a billionaire, at all costs. Not to excuse the awfulness, but it's easy to see why this becomes such a vicious spiral of awfulness propped further by awful hangers-on.

https://www.gq.com/story/nicholas-braun-cousin-greg-succession-profile

Greg goes to Coney Island on a solo mish

Stewie's also pretty self-satisfied

― symsymsym, Wednesday, November 24, 2021 11:02 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

there hasn't been enough of him this season as far as i'm concerned

honestly, connor doesn't seem too troubled by his lot in life. he's a nationally-ridiculed buffoon, but he has no self awareness, so why should he care?

I wonder (but not to the extent that I want a bottle episode about it or anything) how much responsibility Willa feels for his decision to run for president. Wasn't it some offhand remark of hers about him doing nothing for a living that made him want to do it in the first place?

probably a little regret there

she really doesn’t seem to give a shit about her place in this as anything other than transactional, although her patience on the deal seems to be wearing thin

since it’s this show, she’ll linger indefinitely because no one ever really shrugs off their reins

in that vein, I fully expect Tom to try to negotiate with the feds, the family gets the case dropped, and he remains in his job knowing what he’s done and few being the wiser

I'm finally up to date with this and can open the thread. Let's see how strong your takes are

My personal Take is that there's an inside joke on the writing team to reference as many Shakespeare plays EXCEPT King Lear as possible

I also think they might end the entire thing with a King Lear quote. Works for me either way

My other take is that S3E5 (last-but-one) is the best episode yet

My other other take is that somehow Greg is the one I hate the most. Gramps otm

I saw chatter on twitter last week that people were worried Tom might take his own life. That might be the only thing that would stop me watching the show. Tom is, by such a distance, my MVP.

yeah Tom's plight stopped being funny and started tugging the heart strings in that last episode, particularly his agreement with Greg and him telling Kendall where to go.

he's a rat up a pipe, all right. so do we reckon ken sent shiv the photo?

that would be the kind of cruel needling that the state of the relationship between Shiv and Kendall has reached

yeah i bet he totally did

thinking tom is going to off himself feels like a fundamental misunderstanding of what this show is

Yeah, it's tonally incorrect

yeah this is the Most Stressful Comedy

THAT SAID they have darkly hinted at Kendall's suicidal thoughts before

I just can’t feel that bad about any of them, including Tom, going to white collar federal prison

Oh no, minimum security lock-up? If their news station is anything like the real world analogues, they’ve railroaded a bunch of less guilty people in the public eye a million times

all of the “this is what prison is like” dialogue consists of the jokes that people who never see themselves as criminal tell to differentiate themselves from those people

Tom would more likely botch a suicide attempt and have to hide/explain a shiner to everyone at some big event.

od on laxatives

prison brownies

At this point (s3 e4) feels like I’m watching old person entourage

Nice use of Spacemen 3!

I didn't think that would at all fit into Kendall's conception of what "only bangers" meant though! (It does mine but KR and I occupy distinct cultural positions.)

brutal episode

Anyway, yeah, this episode was absolutely top-form -- I love when the camera pulls back after Roman pushes Kendall and you're just vividly shown that EVERYBODY CAN SEE how fucked-up and weird these people are -- part of the genius of the show is the way it lets you collaborate with the characters in forgetting that fact, when you're with them in their sealed-off-from-humanity boardroom settings -- and then there are these *moments* where you get a glimpse of what everybody outside the room sees. Nobody at Kendall's party thinks Kendall is cool. Nobody but Logan Roy's children think Logan Roy is a god. They think he's a very rich man who hates his kids and stinks of his own piss!

love this:

Kendall: well who’s NOT here
Roman: Your dad
Shiv: Your mom
Connor: Your wife & kids

also i am not a billionaire but i think i have been lowlevel ken vibes at every birthday party i’ve ever hosted

Exclusive footage of me being a super chill party host #Succession pic.twitter.com/ft1a54IYg6

— ho-ho-holly 🎄 (@hollylottie88) November 29, 2021

I like thinking Shiv was clubbing in London late-90s studying abroad while Kendall was into Wu-Tang.

So how do we take Naomi's attachment to Kendall? She seems too smart and self-aware for him, and she has her own family money, right? She's not just hanging around for the trappings of wealth. Does she actually like him or just feel bad for him or what?

she identifies with him, and he’s probably the only person in the world who can approximate her life circumstances (black sheep addict in super rich legacy media family)

Yeah, that was obviously their original connection. And I guess maybe she’s isolated herself from other friends etc because of her past issues and so forth. Just seems like more a pity thing than anything else at this point. Though also maybe it helps her to focus on someone even more dysfunctional than herself.

I liked how the super cringe performance stuff (the song, flying harness, cross, etc lol) was just a fake-out to torture the viewer, in light of his daddy rap of yore.

youre never going to top L to the OG, its better this way

Though also maybe it helps her to focus on someone even more dysfunctional than herself.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, November 29, 2021 10:26 AM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes, saving him means that she too can be saved, and so forth

I just started into this a couple of weeks ago from the beginning. For some reason I keep dozing off before the end. Which is not great.. I enjoy what I'm catching so it is a pain.
Interesting reading that it was started by somebody who came from Peep Show which means it is a really dark comedy presumably. Balance of comedy and drama seems to be a lot more to the drama though I guess it is a study of pathos and people's own self estimation and pretension and fun things like that.

Quite good but wish I could stop falling asleep and then having to try to get my player to rewind properly.