HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

Alan Ruck being 10 years younger than Brian Cox is breaking my brain

If you enjoy Harriet Walter being a total cow of a mother she's also doing that in "This Is Going To Hurt" on BBC.

If you enjoy Harriet Walter being a total cow of a mother she's also doing that in "This Is Going To Hurt" on BBC.

also The Last Duel

after avoiding this show for three years i watched an episode on the plane that i thought was S1E1 but was really S3E1 lol

so of course i had to go back and binge the first two seasons in like 4 days.

it really is as great as everybody says it is. i’m about to start S3 properly now so stopped reading this thread several hundred posts ago. before i go i just want to remind you of the way roman describes himself in S1: “i look like a matador and everyone wants to fuck me”

oh just one more thing, i swear

tom was reminding me of an 80s supporting actor, like somebody from police academy, it’s uncanny, and finally i realised no - i was thinking of beverley hills cop 2. he has HUGE judge reinhold energy. HUGE!

whoa you are not wrong

otm

haha what
but yeah actually
mock trial with tom wambsgans

Well I know the actor for his own past roles. Ripper st and Spys and things.

the british lineage “peeps” out sometimes in the writing - “sand pit” instead of “sandbox”. raya says “toodle pip” at one point. ironically, but still, it would never occur to an american. a couple of times logan says “my son was ‘across’ that”. granted he’s from scotland but that’s modern office speak he would not have picked up in govan, or wherever he’s supposed to have grown up. kendall says “you’re a twat” to shiv. i wonder what americans make of this stuff. does it sound like exotic rich-person-speak? or it just goes by so fast it slides by? i mean i’m a shameless transatlantician so it suits me fine. but it does stick out to me a little.

the other thing that rings a little wrong about this show, and i know a little about this because my path did briefly intersect with wildly rich people in new york for a couple of years after college, is that none of them were nearly as clever and witty and articulate as the roys are. which is fine, for the record. if they didn’t deploy their sour aggression with such dexterity and aplomb the show would be worth far less. but sort of connected with that, everywhere they go and stay is immaculately tasteful, with excellent lighting. the rich people i knew had no taste. terrible artwork or no artwork. bright overhead lighting. bad cable routing. i realise that “lifestyle porn” is a big draw to the show for a lot of people but i actually think in this case it would make the show stronger to show how tacky and shitty rich people can live.

“i see your thing. it’s good. you’re kinda like a peppy fun-gun set to “milf”, with a lean-in woman-y branding thing that works well with the fitbit moron whatever-people”

children of Brits might come out with some bits of britspeak. Not much excuse for Rhea though.

yeah americans prob wouldnt say any of that stuff but also i did not notice lol

the other thing that rings a little wrong about this show, and i know a little about this because my path did briefly intersect with wildly rich people in new york for a couple of years after college, is that none of them were nearly as clever and witty and articulate as the roys are

I have that feeling even more with Billions, having been an editor for some financial places. If someone there said "Well, you know what Thoreau / Judas Priest / Kennedy says..." the person they're talking to would just stare back blankly.

But, hey, colorful writing is half the entertainment on these shows.

yeah its showbiz mate that old razzle dazzle

Just finished S1--this is the only thread...I mostly hated the first five episodes--between Kendall, Tom, and Greg, I'd never seen so much Method Stammering--but the sixth, the non-confidence vote, was good, the family therapy episode was even better, and overall it eventually drew me in. Near the end of the season finale, I really liked the way they kept the camera on Kendall after he found his way back to the wedding party.

and i just finished s3. what can you say, everybody just nails it

this write-up is pretty good:
https://www.vox.com/culture/22831645/succession-finale-season-3-recap-review-all-the-bells-say-kendall-roman-shiv-tom

it seems like logan was ready to bring roman in and cut out ken and shiv, but it may have only seemed that way, as part of a plot to turn them against each other once he saw they were uniting (with roman being the traditionally weak link) - although by that point he already knew he didn’t need them… so who knows

anyway by the end i was pretty much hating our everyman greg and wanted him to fall flat on his fucking face

yeah, agree that it was great the show didn't lean too much into Greg being this one dimensional comedic light relief but showed his lower stakes yet equally loathsome grifting and scheming. He drifts between a relatable witness to all drama for the viewer early on and being his own brand of untrustworthy, ego driven slimeball. He is family, after all.

Sorry, I'm always going to be behind (and trying to avert my eyes from posts related to later episodes)...In the S2 season opener, Kendall's "I saw their plan, and my Dad's plan is better" mantra made me think of "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life" from The Manchurian Candidate.

children of Brits might come out with some bits of britspeak. Not much excuse for Rhea though.

― symsymsym, Friday, February 18, 2022 1:44 PM (three days ago)

I can attest that this is true, especially when it comes to insults and especially within the family. So "twat" makes sense, "sand pit" not so much. Not sure if it was the writing or Hunter or both, but I found Rhea an ill-fitting character in general—it may well have been her southern-ness didn't really work with the dialogue.

i really identified with tom.as monstrous of a bully as he is to everyone beneath his station, tom's unbelievably sweet with shiv and it feels real. i've been in relationships where i felt out of my league, out of my depth, where it seemed like something was wanted of me that i couldn't provide, like a certain callousness or coolness that just wasn't in my bag of tricks. when he finally just yells I'M NOT A HIPPIE at her i was like oh man i feel you tom.

In one way--one way only--Logan reminds me of Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights. Taylor: "Alright, now go on, get the hell out of my office." Logan: "Alright, now go on, fuck off."

i’m not sure what it says about me that the two shows i have binged this hard in recent memory are SUCCESSION and SQUID GAME. both about horrible people being horrible to each other.

'boar on the floor' certainly seems like a game you'd play in england's public schools, or is that off base?

did they mention where the kids went to school/university?

Joe Posnanski on the baseball lockout:

What I did not see coming was that the owners would simply refuse to engage until the threat of losing Opening Day was very real. That’s on me: I simply had not watched enough episodes of “Succession” back then.

"It's complicated. It was a different time."
"It wasn’t a time before they invented laws."

Lol

There are so many incredible lines that go by in the blink of an eye

Watched the big Roy-Pierce get-together last night--thought it was the high point of the series so far, especially the climactic showdown between the patriarch and the matriarch (I've seen Cherry Jones in many films, not sure if there's one thing in particular I associate her with).

watched that whole dinner from behind my fingers

when they reboot succession in 2035, i hope cherry jones gets to play the matriarch roy

The big who's-taking-the-fall? dinner near the end of S2 was a comic highlight: "Greg sprinkles," and especially Logan's reaction when Connor offers himself as the secret power behind the family's reign of terror. Also liked the trace of a smile in the last shot of Logan after Kendall's press conference, the implicit admiration for the fact that he was wrong, Kendall's a killer.

I'm not sure that you can chronicle all these horrible people and then expect a scene like Tom airing his anger and misgivings to Shiv about the marriage to be as emotional as it aspires to be.

the tom/shiv scenes are probably my favourite scenes tbh

I think they're great together when they're funny, I'm just not sure you can suddenly turn their marriage into a source of great tragedy.

their marriage is farcical and pathetic like pretty much everything else in the show. but despite their exalted social status a lot of the dynamics are p relatable imo

Two episodes into S3. I always look forward to Connor's weirdness--Greg's weirdness seems a little studied, whereas Connor strikes me as a original creation.

One thing I'm starting to find a little repetitive--and I know how silly this sounds, seeing as it's the premise of the whole show--are these critical moments where Logan has to pick his successor. It feels like the fourth time around already, but every time, all the kids start speculating in earnest on who it will be. If this were a Seinfeld episode, someone would speak up and say "Haven't we had this conversation before?"

Pretty much the only knock I'd put on this excellent show is that it goes in circles a bit, so I feel your point there. Silicon Valley, another HBO show, also had that exact problem, and after a while it was hard to feel there were any stakes. Succession hasn't gotten there yet for me, but if it spins long enough, I can see it losing emotional stake

Though on the issue of Logan picking his successor, he has vested interest in NOT picking someone, and instead letting everyone fight against each other

yeah the groundhog day aspect of that is part of the point i think

I think I just want them to push back more, and in S2, they do: when Logan offers Shiv a newly created post as President, she kind of rolls her eyes and asks if that means mascot.

Not sure if Holly Hunter will be back, but, as always, she was great (she reminded me a bit of Patricia Clarkson on House of Cards, this shadowy intermediary). And I hope Marcia's role is expanded from here on out; her absence for a couple of episodes hurt.

And, uh, obviously Kendall pushes back.

no steaks on succession? i beg to differ

(i searched for a picture of them eating steak but couldnt find one)

Boars--rare, like an aristocrat.

the show is good but what couldve made it really great is if when they were playing boar on the floor logan said "the winner of this game will be the successor" and the successor then entered into a series of intrigues which were resolved by seasons end, and in the next season there are more intrigues

ive written a treatment for a serialized reimagining of antonionis red desert that works in a similar way

A show focused entirely on Romulas's sex life, that's the spin-off the world is waiting for.

I have a title: My So-Called Sex Life.