HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

or maybe Mattson buys it, the boys ran it for 1 week lol, and Shiv backs out of Pierce bc Mattson makes her head of the waystar royco part of royjo

Every scene of SUCCESSION:

Kendall: What’s the play, the vibe? Marco Polo titfucking us around the Cape of Good Hope?

Shiv: I mean…sure, if your nose is sewn onto the back of your ballsack(scolding look)

Roman: (raises eyebrows)Looks like we’re takin a looong whiff of taint

— Kristi Yamaguccimane (@wapplehouse) April 24, 2023

they are not serious people

why was shiv being nice to tom when in their immediately precedent scene together she was at his throat? the only consequent thing that happened is the increased offer, but even in that scene she expected it to go through?

― sean gramophone, Monday, April 24, 2023 10:12 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

just spitballing but it seems like she likes to be the dominant one in their relationship. obv she was mad that he helped logan but also that made tom more powerful than her. then since logan died tom has been flailing but so has shiv, she doesn't really have much power right now either. but now she feels like her influence with matsson is what pushed the deal through, she's feeling powerful again, higher up than tom.

basically as long as she feels like she's higher up than tom, she feels more sympathetic towards him.

Excellent read

Maybe Shiv or even Tom on her behalf will end up orchestrating something with ATN like breaking a legit scandal that costs Mencken votes on election day, enough for him to lose and be tarnished. Shiv is then caught on whether to take the credit or deflect blame onto Tom but ends up feeling and/or acting like she alone decided the election. Something like that might be a fun outcome for her character but Mencken's lack of appearance so far this season suggests the election storyline isn't going to be that pivotal.

There at least four different outlets doing Succession recap power rankings, and three of them agree that Shiv is top dog among the sibs this week. (Vulture gives a slight edge to Roman, tho as much by accident as anything.)

https://hunterharris.substack.com/p/succession-power-rankings-hanna-barbera
https://www.theringer.com/succession/2023/4/25/23696454/succession-season-4-episode-5-power-rankings-matsson-shiv
https://www.avclub.com/succession-season-4-episode-5-power-rankings-1850369739
https://www.vulture.com/article/succession-kill-list-power-rankings-season-4-episode-5.html

Since the stuff about Braun came out his character is suddenly unfunny and cringe (“Norwegian wood…”)

Mencken's lack of appearance so far this season suggests the election storyline isn't going to be that pivotal.

really really hope this is true

like we don't even know who's running against mencken right? let's keep it that way

Apparently there is/was a movie version of Cat Person starring Nicholas Braun? You can't make this shit up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Person_(film)

Mattson's house was the same one they used in Ex Machina apparently

ah nice love that movie

Oooh yeah I meant to look that up! My wife guess it was that house.

i was wondering if it was the same house!

Roman finally became a man in this episode! It added 5bn to the deal and Kendall didn't entirely hate it. Proud of you lad

Kendall: What’s the play, the vibe? Marco Polo titfucking us around the Cape of Good Hope?

Early in the last episode Kendall says he is "balls deep" on something and it sounds so completely stupid and out of place. I kept mimicking him saying it throughout the rest of the episode.

It added 5bn to the deal

I think it added $5 to the per-share purchase price. No idea what that actually translates to in the fictitious valuation of the company, has anyone thrown around an actual dollar amount for the total deal? If so I don't remember.

you'd figure the election will get its own episode, given how much they've been teasing it in the script.

The table read of the pilot episode of “Succession” took place in Manhattan on November 8, 2016: Election Day. That evening, the cast and the rest of the team gathered at the home of Adam McKay—an executive producer of the show, and the director of the pilot—for a party that was expected to celebrate the victory of Hillary Clinton. Matthew Macfadyen, the British actor who plays Tom Wambsgans, told me, “We watched the results come in, and everyone wandered off into the night—good for storytelling, bad for humanity.” Armstrong’s most significant memory of the occasion was how quickly attendees accommodated to what initially seemed to be earth-shattering news. “It was such a shock—then five, ten minutes later, everyone’s living in a new reality,” he said. Even in calamity, he observed, many people are “quite oriented towards how it affects them, and what they will do next.”

inspired by this bit of timing, maybe

roman risking it all to trash matsson was very satisfying, bc he was right. as much as they all want to pose like "it's just business," matsson was definitely trying to use logan's death (and an artificial deadline) to push the deal to his advantage.

skarsgard is so good

Loved the “break the ice” breakfast with the division heads. Delicious cringe

Skarsgard's choice in roles seems like it's 80% "ooh, this could be fun" and I appreciate that

very good at playing charismatic, creepy weirdos

that seems to be the skarsgard family niche

nice to include representatives from both the skarsgard and culkin families

I got an instagram ad starring Kieran Culkin the other day for expensive sneakers

Skarsgard's choice in roles seems like it's 80% "ooh, this could be fun" and I appreciate that

very good at playing charismatic, creepy weirdos

― mh, Wednesday, April 26, 2023 8:51 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

that seems to be the skarsgard family niche

― na (NA), Wednesday, April 26, 2023 8:52 AM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm gonna insist on taking this as a Hemlock Grove reference

😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/4yv9DAc1Up

— Out of Context Succession (@SuccessionOOC) April 24, 2023

Roman finally became a man in this episode! It added 5bn to the deal and Kendall didn't entirely hate it. Proud of you lad

― imago, Tuesday, April 25, 2023 4:30 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Kendall: What’s the play, the vibe? Marco Polo titfucking us around the Cape of Good Hope?
Early in the last episode Kendall says he is "balls deep" on something and it sounds so completely stupid and out of place. I kept mimicking him saying it throughout the rest of the episode.

― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Tuesday, April 25, 2023 6:03 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

It added 5bn to the deal

I think it added $5 to the per-share purchase price. No idea what that actually translates to in the fictitious valuation of the company, has anyone thrown around an actual dollar amount for the total deal? If so I don't remember.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, April 25, 2023 6:35 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Roman didn't add anything to the share price, Shiv did. She told Mattson if he offered more money, the brothers would do the deal, and she was right and Mattson listened. How do we know this, because the two people Shiv told Mattson were needed, Carolina and Geri, were not on the kill list!

The brothers just emotionally stumbled and bumbled into Mattson and Shiv's deal.

If Mattson is going to have Shiv run Waystar/Royco post-deal and Kendall and Roman get wind of it, they will absolutely try to tank the deal rather than let her run their dad's company.

I don't see any avenues they have for tanking the deal since the rest of the board is going to go for it. But Matsson offering Shiv something would be pretty funny. (And smart even. Definitely of the three she's the one you'd want.)

I haven't looked at their governing docs or anything (lol), but my sense is shares of Kendall + Roman + Stewy + wheelchair dude and daughter might be enough. Not saying it would successful, but Kendall and Roman will absolutely try.

kendall/rome getting the higher offer kind of felt like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWBLYRzuDsI

the ft actually tried to untangle the voting/ownership structure https://www.ft.com/content/a7ce31e0-06f0-4986-9eb9-f4322a40ffc3 xp

FYI the $5 mattson added is a ~3% gain ($5 / $187). and since it’s half stock half cash he only had to put up $2.50 per share more, not $5. it’s not a big deal imo

the ft actually tried to untangle the voting/ownership structure https://www.ft.com/content/a7ce31e0-06f0-4986-9eb9-f4322a40ffc3 xp

lol, nice, that's a fun rundown.

(Just an aside that Skarsgard is showing up soon in Eric LaRue, Michael Shannon's directing debut.)

i learned recently that alexander skarsgard's first role in a u.s. movie was as one of the model roommates in zoolander
https://hips.hearstapps.com/ell.h-cdn.co/assets/16/53/1451852335-giphy-4.gif

<3 <3

The last thing I saw him in before this was 'as himself' in leopard-print underpants in that episode of Atlanta where Van was French

I like to think they are all the same character actually

Yeah Askars is great, you can tell he’s having a lot of fun with the role

He was so goddamned funny in the story about the blood. I burst out laughing at the TV

The show does so much exceptionally well, and then they do something like place the Tom/Shiv scene in the middle of a investors' party on a night where those two would not act that way. Anyway, this ep had a few moments like that that strained credulity. But, yeah, still very caught up in it.

Felt like Shiv & Tom cut through (bit through?) the ambiguities, fragile psyches, and ulterior motives in their relationship. Even if the biting scene was weirdly placed. Maybe they are in a solid place for now? And Ken is all alone in the immensity of the ocean but seemed pretty peaceful after the torrent of BS he spewed at the investor day presentation.

Oh god this episode is painful

I hate these kids

I thought it was great, the scene where Roman is trying to deflate Kendall but doesn’t do so enough to cancel the launch, and then he goes out and pulls it off surprisingly?

Other things that jumped out:
- Matsson barefoot on the tarmac
- Kendall walking out to Harder Than You Think
- The deep discomfort/vulnerability of all the Shiv/Tom scenes, also Tom earnestly insisting at the end “I can’t help it if find strategy sexy, really I do”
- approve of continuing marginal Greg involvement
- the Logan deepfake at the end, Roman doesn’t even deepfake him saying “I love you” or something cos it’s not realistic

Oh god now it’s Greg’s turn. Has an episode ever been so painful? Sorry I’ll get off this thread now.

To be clear, I’m not yet saying it’s a bad episode. I’m live posting this 60% through. It’s just…..hard to watch how terrible they’re being this episode

Last bit of live posting: wtf Shiv is rocking a standard IPad in her phone meeting with Mattssonn rather than an iPad Pro. And lol at “guys guys… it’s not the clouds it’s not the clouds at all… i say it Berlin”.