HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

yeah it was tremendous

they had to! it’s in the name of the show

I said that to my wife at the start of the season, he had to die somewhere in it if just to manifest the title of the show. I didn't expect it so early but I think it's good timing, gives plenty of time to let everybody's stories play out.

And yeah, the whole cast was so good. Even down to the guy who plays Colin, with just a little moment by the car at the end.

xp Was not so sold on the kids in this ep but structurally speaking, the death now, while it took me totally by surprise, is in retrospect clearly the right way to do it, leaving a decent amount of show to actually be about the, you know, succession. Having the death at the end would be too neat, having it not happen at all would be a copout, having a big lead-up to it would I think have been too much like what's come before.

I was worried they'd do some drawn-out coma deal, I'm glad they made it neat and clean. I was sure he wasn't going to just pop back up, because the series started with him almost dying, doing it again would have felt cheap.

i just watched their post show interview thing and they said they filmed the whole boat part all in one go they were really just running around the boat doing everything in order without setting up for each shot and whatnot pretty cool

totally a good move, but i will miss the old bear. every week i always think who's the most fucked--in a way this fucks so many people, kids included. it was pretty heavy too--which was fine, but I appreciated the humor in Kendall's line, "We’ll get a funeral off the rack... We can do Reagan’s with tweaks.”

and yeah how they shot it was cool--seems like the rest of the season will be total chaos

I want it to be "war between the kids and the seasoned professionals" but I fear it's going to be way too much about the presidential election and ATN, which is where the show has been least strong

i have faith they'll land the series in a great way--was such a powerful episode and all the actors are at the top of their game

also what if Kerry is pregnant ;)

you mean chuckles the clown??

i just watched their post show interview thing and they said they filmed the whole boat part all in one go they were really just running around the boat doing everything in order without setting up for each shot and whatnot pretty cool

― lag∞n, Sunday, April 9, 2023 10:16 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

the filming did seem pretty grueling, basically filming the same 30 minute one-act play on a boat for days on end

This was so great, Jeremy Strong’s stricken face when they get the call first. The way the siblings know each other well enough to immediately know what’s up. Connor…being Connor with his almost deserted wedding. Found his whiplash reactions the most touching. Roman probably went onto the plane to try to get Logan’s phone, right?

great, great, incredible episode

also, this is dumb but Kerry’s hilarious bizarre reaction made me think for a moment that he WAS alive & this was going to be a whole misunderstanding farce “oh he was revived & now karl frank karolina & tom dont know he’s alive & are going to be drafting statements& press conference behind the closed door of the pland thinking he’s dead until they land”

but no

also the endless chest compressions was so morbidly funny but also part of me was like maybe THAT killed him

Her reaction made me think maybe they'd been having sex in the bathroom or something and she thought she killed him, or maybe it was just meant to reinforce her inability to intentionally express gravitas.

yeah she came off as the most alienated from being a human of anyone which is stiff competition

karolina kind of just didnt care but i dont think she had a long history with logan

i saw Karolina just leaning into her role as a coping mechanism idk

that logic of being busy, doing something, is better than sitting with the loss

The speed with which the siblings pushed both Kerry and Greg out of any conversation…

I think Kerry was either thinking about a windfall she was about to come into, or she was in shock/disbelief that she’d just lost her chance at a windfall

Yeah there was no explicit discussion about "what's in the will" but surely that's on people's minds. The kids are I guess taken care of because they already own company stock, but people like Kerry and Colin and who knows who else (Greg?) are surely up in the air.

Surely!

I watched S1 and the first couple of episodes of S2 and then noped out, but when S4 started airing I decided to keep up with the show via spoilery review-site recaps and this thread, and I gotta say it's a lot of fun, keeping my back turned to the stage and watching everyone else who is watching the stage.

^ha, I did the same thing. but i'm watching S4 and it's fantastic. the recaps miss the comedy elements and the incredible acting.

Less humor obv but lots of good lines nonetheless. Kerry is hilarious.

“it looks like she caught a foul ball at yankee stadium”

Having this happen offscreen and arrive in the episode suddenly via phone calls and uncertainty and all that, it felt a lot more palpably real than just showing him keeling over.

I feel like a lot of recappers miss the nuances of the show (and other shows too but here I notice it more) and they just consistently misread scenes and characters, and their musings on what might happen are informed by shit that doesn’t apply to this show.

I read this Brian Cox postmortem interview and enjoyed the harsh but fair zing at Game of Thrones.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/arts/television/brian-cox-succession.html

it felt a lot more palpably real than just showing him keeling over

Yeah, the confused and initially inconclusive reports, the difficulty in getting reliable information, the slow acceptance of it at different rates by different people — felt like how a sudden death actually happens (albeit not typically on a private jet).

Don't know if it's been said elsewhere already, but one reason the episode was a surprise is that Rupert Murdoch is still alive.

very different in tone and scope, but i couldn't stop thinking of "the body" from buffy the vampire slayer.

this one did a better job of making it feel like an actual episode of the show, as opposed to a (great) very special episode

Oh yeah, good comparison.

it was pretty heavy too--which was fine, but I appreciated the humor in Kendall's line, "We’ll get a funeral off the rack... We can do Reagan’s with tweaks.”

Yeah, for once the Sky ad breaks on Irish television were welcome. I found this very hard going and quite emotional for the first half hour. I also can't stop thinking about poor Connor left on his own eating Victoria sponge for a week. What a vivid and odd detail to add to an already extremely rich episode.

I also really liked how Karolina, Frank, and Gerry were able to turn into competent businesspeople immediately without having some cranky old git barking at them every ten seconds. If I was the kids, I would leave them to it from now on and just take the money. They have nothing to prove any more. There's nobody around to be disappointed in them now.

Yeah, the confused and initially inconclusive reports,

I did find this slightly annoying, I must confess. We had a sudden family death last year that involved a last-minute dash to the hospital and ICU and machines being turned off and all that scary stuff, and at no point was it hard to get a coherent rundown of events from anyone involved. I sometimes think they strive so hard for non-stagey dialogue in this programme that they go too far in the opposite direction.

To be fair in this case he wasn't in a hospital, he was on a plane with a bunch of nonmedical people.

Having this happen offscreen and arrive in the episode suddenly via phone calls and uncertainty and all that, it felt a lot more palpably real than just showing him keeling over.

The post-episode interview with cast & showrunners addressed this specifically, it was intentional and I think they pulled it off to great effect as well.

they never could reach that airplane medicine expert that kendall wanted

To be fair in this case he wasn't in a hospital, he was on a plane with a bunch of nonmedical people.

I didn't mean the medical people. I meant flatmates, family, those people. But I am obviously in the minority in feeling they overdid it.

part of it is tom's people-pleasing and word salad. he sometimes avoids finishing his sentences inc case they offend anyone. of course, he's always crystal clear when speaking to greg or another underling lol

It also emphasized their distrust/contempt for experts in the room who they hadn't vetted. The "I want to speak with the pilot" moment was so good.

gregging

kendall trying to force events/people to bend to his need for control was really fascinating & grimly funny

also roman’s consoling words to his dad, you’re still the king (i think?) and you’ll win, the competition verbiage feels at once lacking but also a sad reminder that this is what roman believes his dad needs to hear to rally, this IS roman’s version of tenderness with his dad because there isn’t any other kind

also with all three of them, ken, rom, and shiv all separately capturing the brief moment in initial grief where the world just falls away from under your feet like nonono/ this isn’t happening/wait stop
etc

he’s fucking heavily delayed

but can we all agree that the most upsetting moment of the episode was "loony cake"
followed by connor's first reaction to the news being "he never liked me"

connor went full f the family this season

The "I want to speak with the pilot" moment was so good.

Yes, that was very Kendally.

loony cake bleak af, go on and have your deserted wedding

everyone was good but sarah snook was mvp imo

The "I want to speak with the pilot" moment was so good.

Yes, that was very Kendally.

― trishyb, Monday, April 10, 2023 2:17 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it also recalled the part in the pilot (maybe second episode) where kendall huffily asks "is this the best part of the hospital??"

Do we think the caterers actually created a Victoria sponge wedding cake for Connor, or does he just think of any sandwich cake as "loony cake"?

sad we will never hear logan tell anyone to FUCK OWFF again
unless maybe he made a video will?

xpost my guess is the latter

Some other parts I liked:

- Connor getting distressed about the inadequacy of his cake and complaining about its exposed innards
- how Tom calls Shiv twice cos he knows she’d want to be there and she thinks it’s just fuckery and hangs up
- also the way they hug after the statement
- all the Greg/pig metaphors
- the whole Roman and Gerri scene and extreme discomfort, Roman fucks it up horribly ofc but despite that you see a split second of Gerri’s lip quiver before she puts her face back on again
- “That’s the question, are you a cunt? So give me a buzz”

Connor really dodged a psychological bullet not having to face Logan snubbing his wedding (since Logan would evidently have rather died than dropped by).

no, connor doesn't need love, remember?