HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

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.

I’m replaying the entire birthday party scenario, the backdrop of Kendall trying to be the corporate whistleblower who is doing good, and how he completely made it about his internal dialogue and not about how he wants to be perceived in the public eye

We’re only a short period down the line from his speech about how he feels terrible for the victims of his family’s company, and he’s planning on being crucified on stage?! Jesus christ man, hold on to the plot for more than five minutes

just the most insane, self-centered petty shit. and his way of making the party about his life is a treehouse, newspaper covers dissing his siblings, and a mini wu-tang. he’s got nothing

one of the last shots revealing that he’s at hudson yards, and he’s staring down at that godawful sculpture that people keeping jumping off of… dark stuff

the fuckin chalice, the show maybe hates kendall too much this is getting obscene

the high concept society party, all the stupidity and insecurity motivating it, just brutally rendered

tom/greg interactions have strong aggressive homo-erotic vibes, a real “it’s rush week at ATN and I’m hazing you for the fraternity” feeling

tom just going ballistic because greg is having a good night (not even good, just not terrible) and he’s not

like I can’t tell if Greg being younger and taller is driving this weird alpha male peacocking or what the fuck the deal is. never understood this whole scene

saddest moment might be Ken's claim to the GoJo acquisition as "his idea". everyone else implies it's a very obvious idea widely discussed in pop finance media.