HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

"is the compound above ground?!" an incredible moment

that whole scene where connor is negotiating his ambassadorship was amazing

my prediction is that greg is going to have a major downfall of some kind. the show obviously believes that power corrupts, and greg is the one character who started with absolutely no power and has gained power and become more evil through the show. so probably at the end he's going to be in an even higher position of power but there will also be some evidence of his future destruction, idk. i don't really like trying to guess what's going to happen.

when matsson said “I’m about to take a shit in your husband’s mouth and I’m pretty sure he’s gonna tell me it tastes like coq au vin," the closed captions had it as "coconut."

greg's going to fire tom

that would make sense. but the show has done a good job of avoiding the obvious moves so far, so i hope to be surprised. like i guess this was the election episode? i wonder if we'll see mencken again at all (though i noticed that justin kirk was in the closing credits, maybe just because his image was on the election map at the party)

ha i heard it as coconut

i watched the preview and next week looks like it's all in the ATN studios and is during election eve

shiv's instinct for self-immolation right when she's on the cusp of getting everything she wants is truly something to behold. she has mattson in the palm of her hand, he tells her she can have "anything".. does she say "keep tom at ATN and give me 80 zillion dollars?" fuck no, a) she literally never thinks about tom and b) that would be too easy. she says something like "i'm shit hot and i'm ready to go". okay tom cruise. suddenly the mood shifts. mattson's like, who is this dingdong. she had him. she had him right. there!

she’s not as smart as she thinks she is

Oh right...was she implying that she wants executive-level position in that moment? And it seemed like that's not what he was planning on. That's how I took that scene anyway. But why else would she have been working as his agent this whole time, just because she wanted the deal to go through?

Pretty sure Justin Kirk was in the "this season on Succession" preview at the end of episode 1.

i think the issue is that she is not asking for anything specific. it kind of seems like she doesn't know what she wants.

compare with gerri who was very specific about what she wants and what the consequences will be if she doesn't get it

Agreed. I think he might have been amenable to a specific pitch or negotiation, but that's not what she gave him, which makes him doubt her usefulness.

Good point, that has been the whole theme of her character after all.

xp

I read it as she wants to be his number two. She would really like to be CEO, because the brothers wouldn't let her do that, but I guess Mattson is going to do that? She did say "I've got the name..." It hadn't occurred to me that this was him saying "I won't fire your husband if you just ask me not to."

well he said she could ask for anything, he put the ball in her court, and she had... nothing. betraying her brothers for nothing!

shiv doesnt understand how the business works and everyones been telling her that the whole time and she doesnt listen

I don't know that Shiv yet has the leverage to get what she wants from Mattson. She's keeping him in the game. She's done enough already to save Tom's neck, but that's not what she's after. If she took it, Mattson would have something over her. Instead she's holding out for more, and it's fucked her relationship with Tom.

I think she's perhaps fucking up her life, but I'm not certain she doesn't know what she wants and how to get it. Maybe.

She'll tell Mattson what she wants the moment they both know she can deliver or fuck the deal.

are ever going to hear from matt or just his son?!

I've been matssoned

tom is a bona-fide idiot if he didn't clock that mattson would lose him in a heartbeat the second ATN was back in the deal

pretty big swing from last week when he was asking shiv if she'd run away with him to a trailer park for love. this week he's ready to blow it all up between them just because he had to eat shit at a party

he was sleepy tho

also embarrassed by the bad wine

oh tom-paws

shiv doesnt understand how the business works and everyones been telling her that the whole time and she doesnt listen

― lag∞n, Tuesday, May 9, 2023 11:42 AM (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

god, i know! she's such a maroon. also i resent tom for momentarily making me feel bad for her with the brutal dig at her capacity to mother. ALTHOUGH IT WAS ACCURATE.

i hate Shiv, guys.

My partner was saying last night that the least believable thing in the show for her is that Shiv ever would have gone for Tom in the first place (or that his naked obsequiousness would actually appeal to anyone in a position of power).

Hmm, I don't know. I'm trying imagine Nate playing bitey or having the wit to send the kind of text that Tom does. He can be pretty funny sometimes, in a way that Shiv appreciates (ie, sarky and unkind).

anytime they’re making fun of ppl together at a party/wedding i completely understand why they’re together

He can be pretty funny sometimes, in a way that Shiv appreciates (ie, sarky and unkind).

Yeah I have no problem buying it, although interestingly they have made gestures at explaining it this season (multiple references to them meeting when Shiv was "at her lowest ebb", etc).

Google glass not the best example, but there are cases, as in theranos, where the tech or idea is fundamentally snake oil. Billions and belief cannot make such cases "our future".

― Enumerated funks of Walsh, Joe. (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, May 8, 2023 11:50 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

yes but you're getting caught up in a parallel example, 'our future' isn't what kendall needs 'living+' to be, he needs it to be a thing people *believe* will be our future, and he successfully convinces them of it. The question is one of persuasion, not of some kind of concrete or 'authentic' business. He needs to convince people to invest in his vision for the company, and if he does, they will fund it

my take is Tom is bad at office politics but exceptionally good at his job. he's been trying to be the kind husband for Shiv, which means he takes a beating from her, and then takes it out on Greg and others.

he definitely nailed Shiv but he obviously doesn't feel good about it. i think he's been under no illusions lately, he's been hopeful but also knows her feelings.

i think it's hard to predict this show, this isn't something like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, where it's some kind of feel-bad TV, worst-case scenario for everyone. i think there's something very human about the show's treatment of the characters, there's a lot of empathy and true feeling despite the cold-heartedness of the setting. again i think a lesser show would go all in on the glee over the luxuriant wealth and cruelty, and the score-settling, and the comeuppances.

wanted to add that Tom is clearly a smart guy and a clever guy, though awkward in the icier corporate environs (which sometimes involve his home life obv)

tom is weird in that I can never tell when he's being sincere or not. he never actually seems sincere.

it's tough because the actor is clearly an intelligent, sensitive person who listens and tom is written as being quite often an absolute cunt

that writer i mentioned earlier said matthew macfayden is a "gentleman actor" which at first i took to mean that he was independently wealthy or something but she explained that she meant that if there was an issue like the camera has to be where he's standing or whatever, he'd always accommodate it, work around it, rather than give out about it

my take is Tom is bad at office politics but exceptionally good at his job.

Wait, Tom is only good at office politics, and doesn't do anything in his job.

none of them do anything its one of the nice lil running jokes, first episode cousin greg gets fired from an entry level job at one of their theme parks, since then its been smooth sailing at the highest levels of the company

i should have added a maybe, i think he's smart and i don't sense nepotism would get him to that level, though maybe it has kept him there during trying times, with an assist from a well-executed bit of duplicity. i guess during that blowup Shiv backhandedly complimented him on being a survivor, after he did the same for her, so maybe that is his real skill....

i think Greg winding up on top is a bit too "Daenerys will become a villain", which is to say obvious and maybe dumb. i don't think this show is dumb.

feel like greg's gonna get shitcanned in the penultimate episode

then the last episode is the three kids playing raquetball for 90 minutes

speculating on the pre show timeline seems like tom prob got to some exec level pre shiv but marrying her got him in the room while the big man does his deals

not sure if he was head of cruises before they got together or not

didn't he take over from some old guy

yeah the nice guy who told him about the bad documents

we need a real psycho ending like Kendall at that press conference "Today my father's reign ends" and tearing up documents

not psycho just dramatic and ridiculous but also sad much like Kendall

she’s not as smart as she thinks she is

Wasn't that exactly how Rhea described her back in season 2?