HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

I dreamed last night that it leaked that tonight’s episode was to be a “clips episode”

hahaha

lol that would be amazing

"remember... when you went... full nut nut?"

"i remember!"

It's interesting that Succession and Barry are ending on the same night. If I were the HBO galaxybrain I might have tried to spread out the finales over two weeks. Do they have something big starting June 4th?

It's because the qualifying period for Emmy consideration ends on May 31.

IIRC, it used to be that as long as the majority of the episodes aired before the deadline, then the series could qualify. But they changed it this year so that all of them have to air before the deadline.

“he couldn’t fit an entire woman in his head”

many such lines tonight — and wow was I glad to see Cromwell bust his way up there — but that one hit

i’m guessing this last bit might have the Matsson/Mencken meeting of the minds?

did Connor just say “pan-Habsburg, american-led, EU alternative?”

this might be close to peak Conhead hour

"You would never have dared not to come to his funeral when he was alive." Lmao

Loved how it opened and closed with poor Roman — at the start imagining himself delivering an amazing speech and launching his solo career, and at the end beaten and kicked and run over by a mob.

Also I'd say the idea of Greg ending up in charge suddenly seems much more plausible.

"sometimes the people who love you also fuck you" -- some of the best lines in this show come off at first like paradoxes but when you think about them are in fact just literal statements of truth

me, thinking i was ready to see roman's inevitable breakdown in this episode: "oh, it's ok, i pre-grieved"

when Roman was up there, I squirmed like crazy. I kicked the air. I groaned. That was tough.

Caroline rallying the wives and mistresses and Marcia taking Kerry’s hand and her reaction was my favorite moment of the series

The first mistress apparently played by Brian Cox's wife.

(Yesterday I learned that Brian Cox’s son played young Watson in Young Sherlock Holmes, a movie I saw a dozen times in VHS when I was nine)

i don't understand what Matsson was referring to when he told shiv it's a yes? an off camera conversation with mencken?

(good episode btw. caroline is the best.)

Yeah, presumably a follow-up conversation with Mencken. But notice what he said the "yes" was to — approval of the deal with "an American CEO." Shiv's face shows she thinks that means her, but I bet you 1,000 shares of Waystar it's not. Because Logan's kids never get what they want, it's an iron rule of the show.

Yeah that's what I assumed, a follow-up with Mencken indicating that he's amenable to their proposal.

xp Greg's moment is coming

I've never totally bought into the "Greg as king" theory because it seemed like it would be hard to get from where Greg is to there — certainly as long as Logan was in the picture. But yeah, now the clockwork feels like it's going in his direction.

Greg doesn't seem capable of speaking on a stage

Greg can barely hold a real conversation together

not to be THAT GUY but the vibes have felt off last two episodes. I really thought Roman was going to die when he stepped into that crowd and kinda felt like something had been snatched away when he emerged ok. It just felt like it was building to something big and then nothing happened.

Still have high hopes for next week, but this week was a little too long also

Or maybe the deal goes through but with Kendall as CEO, reigning in hell under Mattson?

xp

I feel you but Roman dying would have been too melodramatic, it was shocking enough to see him dip into the real, uninsulated world

Greg would be the perfect Matsson puppet, not Shiv

Greg has no charisma and is not loyal

Kendall will make a play for sure, but I don't think anyone wants to deal with him. He at least accurately assessed the situation at the end of the episode, in re who had whose dick in their hands.

gonna say the same thing about greg's chances. I don't believe it, def too ridiculous, but they have spent enough time showing Greg trying to ingratiate himself to both Mencken and Mattson and that's one way for the fan favorite ending of Greg succeeding to make sense...Mencken and Mattson agreeing that Kendell and Shiv are both too big for their boots.

my big prediction is that none of the main characters are going to die in the finale. everyone seems obsessed with one of them killing themselves (usually ken) but i don't think it's going to happen. seems more like a cliched tv show thing than a succession thing. similar feelings about greg taking over. it's going to end with all of them being fucked but not in a big dramatic way.

james cromwell is such a great fucking actor.

if it ends with a big dramatic death i'm going to be at least mildly disappointed. if it ends with greg taking over i'm going to be very disappointed because that's just dumb and out of bounds with reality within the show.

xp that was a good hard take that he gave

they have spent enough time showing Greg trying to ingratiate himself to both Mencken and Mattson

Yeah Greg has been this persistent plot point all season, trying to find a way in — with Tom, the siblings, the Swedes — and always just bouncing off. But it has been a recurring theme that is going to pay off somehow in the last episode. And we're seeing each of the sibs' plots and plans derail and implode. Maybe Greg's not the CEO, but I still think he ends up higher in the hierarchy than the rest of them. (As Tom's boss, lol.)

My feeling is that Matsson gets in bed with Mencken, screws Shiv and appoints someone else as CEO (Gerri, for example), Greg is the only family member to retain a Waystar job, and if anybody dies it’ll be Tom

That said I’ve been pretty much wrong about everything so far

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/recode-media/id1080467174?i=1000613973724

Succession — the HBO drama about a Murdoch-ish family of media moguls — feels authentic thanks, in part, to consultant Merissa Marr. Marr covered the Murdochs and other media titans for years at The Wall Street Journal, and she’s worked with the creative team behind Succession since the beginning. Vox’s Peter Kafka talks to Marr about Succession’s obsession with getting tiny details about Big Media just right; which non-Murdoch moguls influence the show’s depiction of the Roy clan; what happens when art and reality clash — and, of course, some Elon Matsson talk.

Roman sure won that funeral

(the only person to cry properly...maybe he even did lol)

Listened to the show's official podcast (the Kara Swisher one) last week for the first time and enjoyed it more than expected. It focused on how the show researched and created the election-night events.

This week's ep (haven't listened yet) features an interview with the show's consultant on funeral planning.

For a second there I thought it might be somehow advantageous for the kids to show human emotion at Logan's funeral (when they were all comforting Roman/strategizing), silly me

xp

yeah I thought Roman may have won some compassion outside the company core - then the President elect mockingly called him a cry baby :o

And we learned that the video of him crying at the funeral was leaked and going viral, welp

Carl's innocence protest ha ha 'what, it's circulating!'

Greg is so fucking craven, I hate all the characters to a degree but perhaps him most of all.

Roman’s breakdown reminded me of Frank TJ Mackey’s in Magnolia.

Caroline’s “oh” when she first looks at Shiv is perfect.

lol @ Caroline introducing her to Logan’s former mistress at the same time as trying to spite Marcia.

Ewan’s speech was great.

loved every moment of his speech

Also no shit the fascist withdrew his verbal promise, fucking idiots

+1 hating Greg more than anyone else, he is repulsive

(Reading upthread about cousin Greg being a fan favourite)

If cousin Greg has 10000 haters I’m one of them,
If cousin Greg has 10 haters I’m one of them,
If cousin Greg has no haters I’m dead.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FwviYRGWAAAkHdC?format=jpg&name=large

Also, loved Jess telling Kendall she literally couldn’t anymore.