HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

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?

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

― xheugy eddy (D-40), Tuesday, May 9, 2023 10:12 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I agree on what Ken needs right now, but you gave the parallel to AI and our future, and that's where I disagree.

I don't date men but I would rate Tom as the most dateable man among the marriageable-age male characters on this show

low bar

Predicting this show is kind of like predicting where Veep ends up -- who even remembers? When it's all done, we'll rewatch Kendall's birthday and the wedding episodes rather than see it all as clues leading to the finish.

At this point, Tom feels very much like the kind of high-level executive who says a few words at a meeting once in a while, and leaves the rest of us office workers resenting that he's paid more than us combined without doing much.

Veep ended with Richard, the socially-awkward character who was a total policy wonk, escalating from a whimsical moment where he was named mayor of a small town (the previous mayor was a hog iirc) to governor of Iowa and then US president

I remember this for reasons (I wish he was actually the governor of Iowa)

yeah the final flash forward of veep was an excellent punchline for the show

Given that the show is 'Succession' the ending feels a little more important than the political purgatory in Veep, but I guess we'll see (I liked Veep's ending too).

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

― nate woolls, Tuesday, May 9, 2023 11:14 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes i was directly quoting! rhea was right

but i mean every kid is kind of a reflection of some aspect of logan, just heavily degraded bc of years of abuse and subversion on his part. shiv is his tendency to play both sides to his advantage while remaining (at least on the surface) aloof. she is just goddamn terrible at it and everyone hates her

(this is incidentally why i love shiv) (also it's not a race but every time roman implied that she's way more fucked up than he is i was like "he's right")

(kendall is logan's ability to bluff his way through/into epic deals) (roman is his ability to be a completely unprofessional piece of shit to the people he works with to like pull the rug out from them and remind them who's big dick of fuck country)

when Shiv again said "you don't deserve me" to Tom I couldn't help want him to say "...you're right, I don't" and mic drop

(he does tho)

more importantly where was MONDALE

What all three of them lack is Logan's biggest weapon — confidence. He never doubted himself, even when he changed his mind. At any given point, he was always sure he was right and everyone else was a bunch of idiots. The kids all sort imitate different versions of the way he acted or reacted, but none of them actually has any self-confidence because they grew up with a dad who always made them feel like they were ... a bunch of idiots.

idk if it’s just down to confidence, but logan didn’t grow up insulated in a bubble of privilege so i assume a lot of his confidence/braggadocio developed as a necessity of survival, a hardness that set in early and protected him both from failure and intimacy; his attempts to cultivate the same instinct in his children, in an environment where there are no stakes bc they will survive no matter what, idk it just destroyed them and now they can’t do anything. (well i kinda think ken has finally figured something out in this last season maybe but it will ultimately just ruin his stupid life even more even if he thinks it’s winning)

it's true about the confidence, the siblings change their minds after like 2 seconds of advice from one of the others

Yeah, they never seem sure of anything and they're as likely (or more likely) to talk themselves into bad ideas as good ones.

The most confident one is obv Connor; misguided as he is, he believes in himself (and also has someone who encourages him to believe in himself.)

Not nearly as crippled by the need for approval

maybe so but it took connor about 2 seconds to swap his 3, 4, 5% in alaska for a compound in oman, and then another two seconds for willa to talk him out of it

he learned a long time ago he wasn't going to get Logan's approval, although he keeps attempting to chart his way to notoriety and accomplishment and definitely had his moments of "hey dad, isn't this cool?"

big conn-head here, i will forever be haunted by the first thing connor said after he learned his dad died: "he never even liked me"

tfw you're the result of the marriage your dad pretends didn't happen

he's as loopy as the rest but in a more benign way now that logan is gone. what does he say? "it's comforting how much he's not there"?