HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

cocaine and mania have some similarities

i can watch a full hour of them being horrible bastards to each other and everyone else and still think “oh my precious beautiful evil terrible embarrassing children”

haha otm.

I also liked how it underlined how absolutely apolitical they are all at this point, now that they're really trying to run a global corporation.

xp I agree that Kendall is extremely high on life rn

tfw youre making your own cocaine with your mind

I guess I read Shiv saying to Roman "he's got that gleam in his eye" as "he's back on coke right?"

i think she meant just hes having business visions, hes going on a ceo walkabout

brad otm - i found Tom weirdly endearing in this episode? mcfadyen is so terrific at shifting gears from mocking or cunning into genuinely tender or playful, love it so much.

Feel like there have been so many scenes this season where he's deliberately harnessing/weaponizing his own sincere pain in attempts to get back into Shiv's good graces, it's brutal.

Yes

Tom is always endearing when he's with Shiv but it doesn't make him any less pathetic

He works it out by being terrible to everyone else, that's his therapy

i guess i find him actually expressing himself honestly to shiv incredibly unpathetic compared to what their relationship was when it actually existed where he was like this inert puppy dog who would perform any trick to please the shiv/daddy axis and who took all of his suppressed aggressions out on his subordinates like they were shoes in a closet

simultaneously i think he was a genuinely supportive and caring and open husband to shiv at times and shiv is far too closed off to receive this kind of love or begin to think she deserves it. and yet again i think tom ultimately could not, could never do the thing shiv needed most (kill her dad with his bare hands). anyway i have been on the verge of writing an essay about tom/shiv since this season started

Agree with all that but I feel like he is still an inert puppy dog and still shitty to other people, but like, I think he actually enjoys the humiliation, like this is actually The Zone where he thrives

there's a lot of the Tom/Shiv dynamic that's implied through their interactions with others

I'd read that essay

shiv/daddy axis a colossal turn of phrase

I think he actually enjoys the humiliation, like this is actually The Zone where he thrives

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, May 2, 2023 11:03 AM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

eating shit is an underrated skill in getting and keeping power, everyone thinks the big boys just throw their weight around all day but really they all have to eat a lot of shit too

tfw youre making your own cocaine with your mind

― lag∞n, Tuesday, May 2, 2023 3:41 PM (forty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"mind cocaine" is such a Kendall idea I love it.

"We're snorting ideas!"

hell yeah lol

the way kendall's CEO mania rhymes with his coke addiction sets him apart from roman and shiv, he does have a kind of bravery they lack in that he's willing to ride the edge of self-destruction and toy with l'appel du vide while his siblings are restrained by self-preservation. doubling the imaginary numbers, playing at pitching eternal life... his inner addict shifted to gambling and he's on the insane high of being at the precipice of an impossible win and certain eventual defeat. he wades into the sublime indifference of the ocean while roman soaks in his inadequacy

part of what makes jeremy strong's performance so good is he's got that glimmer of sad self-awareness even as he's being the most ridiculous dickhead

guys... that's not the clouds at all

do you think the clouds were just put together by a stage team or some sort of contracted artist installation that someone made a decent living off of?

I was imagining it was some conference gig where someone who did installation art made it and Ken is insisting his team just knock it out and rip it off in 24 hours

"everybody say thank you for the new rule, Ken"

part of what makes jeremy strong's performance so good is he's got that glimmer of sad self-awareness even as he's being the most ridiculous dickhead

feel like i could write a whole essay about his performance of Kendall walking into buildings with sunglasses on

we're gonna have to make a succession zine at this point

Title: Wambsgans Humiliation Zone

Kendall's thing is when anyone puts up a stop sign while he's in the middle of this high, he doesn't get pissed off or yells, he briefly and quietly retreats inward. like the clouds thing, or when Roman tells him maybe he shouldn't do the presentation. it's just a brilliant performance choice, this sad, beaten down kid emerging.

also idk but i think part of what makes the show compelling is the fact that these are people who are damaged in very human and touching ways, the awfulness is a symptom of the disease of their upbringing and their struggles with it, still trying to impress their awful and now-dead dad, chasing favor they'll never earn. i don't marvel at their pathetic-ness or evil, i want them to make it out of there somehow. a lesser show would just be a bit more gleeful at the prospect of their downfall, or reveling in sociopathic power grabs. it's a better show because while there's comedy to be mined from their amateurish endeavors and awkward interactions, it's ultimately not wholly mocking them or funneling them towards their deserved comeuppance. that's why for all its humor, it's a tragedy.

think Tom and Shiv have arrived at a weirdly better place than at any time during the show. He's not being pathetic with her, it could be argued they're being pathetic with each other but i think the dynamic is more complex than that. for one she is appreciating his current attitude.

re Tom/Shiv, the best part of their dynamic now is that they have seen & viscerally experienced each other’s power to hurt the other

before there were power plays and each had their own version of carrot/stick

but they’ve now seen each other at their full power, and at their lowest…and in a way it has made them really ~see~ the other unadorned, as they are, without (much) artifice for the first time

and it’s like a whole new relationship dynamic, like hera & zeus (but also lol def NOT that bc its a terrible analogy but i cant think of two others rn)

even the way they look at each other when the other is not looking is new

like now when tom reaches for shiv’s arm after winning bitey and tends to her, it’s real and not performative but there’s something so dark and sad beneath it which is we HAVE to truly hurt each other to show that we are capable of love/able to be loved

^^^ great run of posts here

i only started watching this show a few weeks before season four premiered and i gotta say it's the best tv show ever

it really is

Kendall's thing is when anyone puts up a stop sign while he's in the middle of this high, he doesn't get pissed off or yells, he briefly and quietly retreats inward. like the clouds thing, or when Roman tells him maybe he shouldn't do the presentation. it's just a brilliant performance choice, this sad, beaten down kid emerging.

― omar little, Tuesday, May 2, 2023 12:19 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah love that, hes so used to losing hes a loser but he wakes up every day resilient ready to paint new thought pictures, its rare to see artistry on tv

roman is spiraling, he seems to be taking logan's death harder than anyone, he really always was a daddy's boy

The clouds they ended up showing him just looked like some kind of dry ice, like you'd have with any big concert. A funny thing is that if he had gone forward with it, they probably would have looked like smoke coming out of the house.

When he said he wanted clouds like the ones he'd seen in Berlin, I thought of the Schaubuhne, the amazing experimental theater with a seemingly bottomless design budget. And then after googling that + clouds, found Kendall's dream clouds.

xpost - it's part of what gives Kendall his Kanye energy.

Roman is so unable to deal w confrontation, he has to escape any room he's in where he just said something/did something awful. when he has to face things and articulate things he has an issue with in a serious way he can barely get it out.

even his casual insults he's gotta throw over his shoulder in passing, already out the door. one of the reasons he gets weird and nervous around Gerri is because Gerri is fearless and corners him on his bullshit, and makes him say things directly.

you've got these great actors at the core of the show who are unafraid to play characters whose primary qualities with respect to their self-destructive natures are a deep sadness and fear and lack of confidence. i have seen so many lesser shows that completely avoid trying to connect with those qualities and just immerse the viewer in the glamorous power shit. which here seems to frequently fade into the background, and every one of the frequent parties has this empty vibe. not like a glorification of the dissolute or debauched, having your cake and eating it too. there's just a lot of truly empty vibes.

otm, love that analysis

booming posts omar

one of the writers was on a podcast recently talking about how much she tries to avoid twitter discussion of the show, giving as an example that she is aware that there are succession fans who stan certain characters and want them to “win”

such a weird way to watch this show :/
like i get it but it’s such a surface way of engaging with material that’s so rich, dramatically speaking

on one instagram account yesterday i was seeing how so many people were cheering on Kendall for making his big pitch, and i just think some people don't know how to watch TV or movies without getting it completely wrong. lots of the recappers get this show dead wrong too, they're so obsessed with the power stuff, who's coming out on top. the show is not about who will take the iron throne, it's about these kids dealing w/deep trauma.

it's a testament to the show that it's also one of the most genuinely funny things ever along with all of this really rich serious material.

When he said he wanted clouds like the ones he'd seen in Berlin, I thought of the Schaubuhne, the amazing experimental theater with a seemingly bottomless design budget. And then after googling that + clouds, found Kendall's dream clouds.

I thought of these clouds and just assumed he was getting the city wrong.

Can never hear anyone say "big shoes" again.

i was worried he was going off the Howard Hughes "way of the future" deep end for a second there

top. the show is not about who will take the iron throne, it's about these kids dealing w/deep trauma.

Oh wow, trishyb, I'm sure that's it! And definitely does look like what they attempted to replicate on short notice.

LOL

the kids had shitty childhood but they are definitively not dealing with it, and while its def a big part of the show i dont think thats really what its about or at least not entirely

Of course they’re dealing with it. They’re not dealing with it well. They’re dealing with it by developing drug problems/scheduling their crying/being unable to express conflict in a normal way.

im skeptical of trauma narrative and analysis it just feel reductive, biopic material, tho obvs yeah their relationship to their bad dad is extremely central, but theyre their own guys out here being terrible oligarchs too

the power grab stuff isn't the backstory exactly, it's just really informed by everything the kids are going through, every step of the way and with every relationship they have. which is why the show is such a deep well imo. so in that sense it's not exclusively about the trauma, but it's also infiltrating everywhere in their lives.

they're not automated bots, at the mercy of a pre programmed algorithm their dad activated obv

logan had a seemingly extreme rough childhood, and you could say then his various abuses of his children is the continuation of the circle of abuse, which on some level it absolutely is, but also the show is always kind of messing with you provoking you to think of the kids as victims while showing you that theyre definitively not, theres a lot of that sort of thing going on like on the other hand making you want their comeuppance which will never come because theyre untouchable

rubbing it in our faces that were all so habituated to consuming various familiar slop, and we deserve it lol

watching everyone jockey for power is definitely a large part of the show's entertainment value, even if the interpersonal stuff and the traumatic subtext is what elevates the show above its peers. i can't imagine having a real rooting interest for any of these goons, but i enjoy some of those power rankings (hunter harris's are the best) because these arbitrarily shifting dynamics are very important to the characters themselves