HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

cmon, a rabbi can totally eat a bagel

This tale of Jeremy Strong’s student efforts to bring Al Pacino to his college campus is an insta-classic https://t.co/jpICwRzjLY pic.twitter.com/JAVS5eWARg

— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) December 5, 2021

Good long profile of Strong linked there ^^:

At the audition, Strong, his shoes tied tight, read a scene between Kendall and the C.E.O. of a startup that he’s trying to acquire. Armstrong was skeptical. He asked Strong to “loosen the language,” and the scene transformed. “It was about, like, Beastie Boys-ing it up,” Strong recalled. “I was missing the patois of bro-speak.” By the end of the day, he had the part.

i’ve always found it a little disquieting that the reason he is so good at being Kendall is because he’s giving 100% of himself

dude goes so deep it’s scary

lmao

When I asked Strong about the rap that Kendall performs in Season 2, at a gala for his father—a top contender for Kendall’s most cringeworthy moment—he gave an unsmiling answer about Raskolnikov, referencing Kendall’s “monstrous pain.” Kieran Culkin told me, “After the first season, he said something to me like, ‘I’m worried that people might think that the show is a comedy.’ And I said, ‘I think the show is a comedy.’ He thought I was kidding.” Part of the appeal of “Succession” is its amalgam of drama and bone-dry satire. When I told Strong that I, too, thought of the show as a dark comedy, he looked at me with incomprehension and asked, “In the sense that, like, Chekhov is comedy?” No, I said, in the sense that it’s funny. “That’s exactly why we cast Jeremy in that role,” McKay told me. “Because he’s not playing it like a comedy. He’s playing it like he’s Hamlet.”

v good profile wow

dude is intensity in ten cities

It's not a comedy.

Something's not a comedy just because it's funny!

Wow, he sounds absolutely intolerable. Of course, there's always the possibility that the writer hated him and cut out all the parts about him being a non-maniac who someone was able to marry and live with.

That’s amazing.

Also this is pitch black satirical comedy thrown in with classical drama, no need to split hairs, the weirdness is dude being seemingly obliviousness to a core, kinda THE core, of the thing.

I borked that, but yeah.

He didn't sound intolerable to me but I am sort of into really weird people who are really good at something, especially something I don't understand how it's done at all, he's like the free solo guy

So the ending tonight…

If that’s the end of the guy, those final words and their delivery got me choked up.

Whatever could you be referring to

seems like we’re really overcomplicating this. ~Kendall Roy~ is definitively not a player in a comedy, and Jeremy Strong is committed to the role.

Interviews I’ve heard/read of fellow actors on the show have been very “Yeeeah. Jeremy has his methods and is very committed to the role. He’s a great actor. Can we talk about something else?”

well that's very likely a moot point now!

in this episode my skeleton indeed left my body and may never return

I’m still screaming #SuccessionHBO pic.twitter.com/IXNTfg5QTy

— layla (@h7ney) December 6, 2021

really didn't think anything was going to top tom and shiv's pillow talk but chips kept getting stacked higher and higher

there were like multiple escalations

shiv & scary poppins
tom & shiv
logan & kendall
rory & logan
shiv & jerry
kendall + kendall

im so stressed out

Feel bad for the chefs constantly making meals that end after 0 to 1 bites

it is the most infuriating aspect of a show that apparently feeds entirely on my infuriation

i bet that mozzarella was fucking amazing
wasting it on iverson
FUCK

those final words and their delivery got me choked up.

wait what were they

Episode spoiler so: The dick pic thing was amazing. They set it up, of course -- the exchange with Gerri early on was basically Chekhov's dick pic, but because we're so used to the perverse Roman-Gerri thing it didn't register as a warning bell. And it is of course totally in character for Roman to fuck up unnecessarily at a moment of triumph. One thing I like about the show is that all of the characters' faults and flaws are so clear and consistent that it's never surprising when they manage to screw themselves.

xp

i think it was just "okay, buddy". to his kid saying he was going inside.

Culkin's physical performance after that mis-sent pic was A+ perfect, tweet above otm.

Also loved Roman trying to have a conversation/negotiation with an even wilder wildcard than he is (Mattson).

i think we just have to accept that there are going to be spoilers here

i hope kendall isn't dead, it's hard for me to imagine what the show would be without that character. maybe he'll be in a coma to parallel logan in s1

one thing that i find mildly confusing is that i guess we're supposed to assume that kendall and naomi have been drugging it up all season, but we never actually see them doing any drugs, right? and it's never explicitly discussed. and he seems fucked up but he's also dealing with a bunch of crazy life stuff.

was Kendall ever really alive tho

^^^

Was thinking of "he's got to be dead" moments in past HBO shows: Sopranos S5 or so, True Detective S2...

I guess I just have a little trouble imagining even these sociopaths charging forward with a huge, glitzy wedding in the immediate wake of the death of one of the bride's children, but who knows.

if hes not dead then it better be something real cool

Kendall’s fine I have no idea what anyone is talking about.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FF78DrXXwAArgQ1?format=jpg&name=medium

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/946/559/443

lol

I loved shiv's discussion with Gerri, in the beginning I literally couldn't tell if she was about to get her to keep quiet to protect the family and firm, or if she was giving her an ultimatum to get Gerri to torpedo roman...it was clear quickly, but the beginning my head was spinning.

Yep, it moves so quickly, and Gerri's first answer ("I don't recall") was perfect.

The way Shiv overlays "good at this" and "bad at this" in every scene is so, so painfully real

i found the ending of the ep pretty upsetting! and i'm not usually impacted by tv shows/movies that way. obv the kendall situation, but also the shiv/gerri discussion and roman's blooper. obv roman is disgusting but that feeling of realizing oh shit i just sent that text/email to the wrong person is very relatable and made my stomach drop.

Gerri holding the cards and refusing to bow to Shiv’s coercion was such a power move. She’s just so much better at this

yeah

I don't think Kendall's dead, but it allows anything from him being totally fine to some kind of emergency.

Though it would be kind of hilarious if Kendall died right when the magazine piece came out. Killed by the New Yorker!

I guess I just have a little trouble imagining even these sociopaths charging forward with a huge, glitzy wedding [show hidden text], but who knows.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, December 6, 2021 10:01 AM (forty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I thought perhaps the rest of the family wouldn't know about it yet...but I'm not sure about the timeline. Is the wedding the day after the final scenes (Milan + pool)?

kendall and shiv are always demanding applause classic rich kid problem makes them untrustworthy

Kendall isn't dead. It does seem that Logan wants him to be, though. Otherwise it's risky to kick Ken this hard while he's down, knowing he has a card to play that would take them both down.