HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

(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”.

wtf Shiv is rocking a standard IPad in her phone meeting with Mattssonn rather than an iPad Pro

So what?

Addendum: the payoff was good

this was even more painful to watch than last week, multiple instant LOLs from me which probably means that the humour was a bit broader than usual?

enjoying the post-Logan freefall into madness

enjoying the post-Logan freefall into madness

well put. Karl barking at Kendall not to fuck it up and then joining in the praise after Kendall nails the landing of the fighter on the aircraft carrier. i think the Tom and Shiv stuff feels like a different show, not in a bad way. there was a lot of Shiv this episode, which was good, because the Two Idiots stuff we got was gold.

My wife and I played bitey after this episode. Would not recommend

big big shoes pic.twitter.com/33KGntuxX5

— mar | succession spoilers (@bettercallmarz) May 1, 2023

click through for big shoes

Interesting to compare Kendall's and Roman's leadership styles in this episode. Kendall is in another one of his delusional manic phases, but as long as he doesn't go too far off the deep end, that's legible as confidence visionary thinking to the investors. Roman, on the other hand, blusters his way through things with a sort of ironic detachment, which seems savvy when he doesn't actually have to solve any complex problems or take any accountability, but cruel and capricious when he does. Worse, he's crippled by self-awareness and insecurity (which is why Logan was always able to bring him back to his side). I liked the scene where Roman confesses that he fired Gerri, and Kendall is immediately able to spin it as a big-picture strategy; Roman can't operate in that mode because he's too aware of his limitations and failures.

horrifying to see what these piss babies can do when they have actual power

a lot of moments of Kendall and Roman trying to channel Logan in here

I'm still not sure if the oldheads thought Roman's performance was passable or if they're hoping he keeps acting like a big weirdo to make anything other than a Matsson takeover untenable

"at least he didn't rap"

yeah impossible to tell what was actually going on in that room where they were celebrating post speech, pretty cool

rip l to the og

i took it as "the buzz is up and so is the stock maybe" so they were all happy

there's a Jeremy Strong interview today in the New York Vulture, and suprise surprise, as soon as he got the script for this episode he asked wardrobe to make him a flight jacket

haa

i took it as "the buzz is up and so is the stock maybe" so they were all happy

― a (waterface), Monday, May 1, 2023 10:52 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

stock going up could threaten the deal tho, which is what kendalls trying to do

yah but the greys dont know that

that flight jacket scene though was all time

Great episode. The Shiv/Tom stuff was fantastic. Them doing the biting game at the party was something that totally made sense to me, for where they're at and how they were acting. the fact it was in a public place was kinda part of the kink factor right? Plus they're turned on by each other's brutal honesty and disrespect.

"if I cringe any harder I might become a fossil"

I like to think the plot point with the edited audio was stolen from Used Cars.

what a perfect way to see Logan again

Life-Plus is a great name. The positive response to it was the most credulity-straining thing about the episode, but whatever, they wanted to give Kendall a win. In his flight jacket.

i thought the Life plus was baloney too and no one would have bought it but then in the recaps this AM someone reminded me of Theranos, which, lol

Lol @ "minimize surprise, maximize satisfaction" as the slogan.

at first i assumed living+ would be another damned streaming service lol

it's also funny because it does feel like a natural pivot for succession-universe's fox news to pivot into full service retirement communities

The house onstage immediately felt like Kanye’s
second Donda concert.

I thought of that as well, just love the moments when these type of people just don't understand why their visions can't become immediate reality. "Like, you just do the clouds, right? And just build the house, simple masonry and plywood is good".

re post speech celebration they were prob just relieved he didnt fuck it up

To me the Living+ and the studio storylines are meta comments on the nature of having to produce your show on a streaming platform that's also turning into a generic hub for content 'for everyone' and tech encroachment on everything with Mattson's company. It also highlighted more of parallels between Matsson/Musk – meme producer, stock evaluations playing a hand in acquisitions and deals.

I think this is happening across the board in other shows. Like Barry and the plot on Sally's show being thrown around because of opaque metrics – and the use of director of Coda working on a MCU movie. Idk, both shows are closing somewhat rushing things, in the same platform that has been shifting and turning.

Karl was happy Ken didn't give any "numbers" as planned to really jack up the stock price and fuck the deal

Kendall literally deepfaked Logan to say the “doubling” thing that he was so upset about earlier

Also liked the mirroring of Kendall’s sadface/recovery at seeing Logan insult him again on video (“That’s a Valentine’s card”) with Roman replaying the fake microdick insult over and over again at the end.

yes, but he threw it to Karl for "specifics" and that felt like him giving into the threat. No real forecast.

Just "double the earnings of the Parks dept" from the Logan puppet.

It was kinda nice that the Logan fakery was confined to good old-fashioned audio editing with no discussion of deepfake training sets or whatever.

xp