HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

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

im sure ive said this a number of times but nothing has ever happened on the show the perceived power is meaningless, logan dying is the only real event

provoking you to think of the kids as victims while showing you that theyre definitively not

they are definitely victims, just victims with an incredible amount of power over nearly everyone in the world. i think the guiding theme behind succession is how these deep-seated personal issues become everybody's problem when you give them an unimaginable amount of money.

so yes, they're victims, but if you feel bad for them, you're the sucker

Connor probably is the healthiest somehow, his romantic relationship is weird and on some levels vv fake but she also actually seems to genuinely like him on some other levels.

his relationship w/Logan was healthier too, in the relative sense. Logan always seemed more dismissive and exasperated by him rather than outright contemptuous and in constant battle. and Connor clearly handled his passing a lot better, but he had learned to live without him already.

i think the guiding theme behind succession is how these deep-seated personal issues become everybody's problem when you give them an unimaginable amount of money.

― ludicrously capacious bag (voodoo chili), Tuesday, May 2, 2023 2:08 PM (nine seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk they never show the everyone whos problems theyve become obvs theyre implied but its almost always offscreen

i feel bad for the succession kids! they are trapped in hell

i do feel bad for them. i think the pull of the show is having some empathy for their situation, bc you can see exactly how it fucks them up every step of the way. and of course absolute power corrupts, unimaginable wealth corrupts. it doesn't make them, as currently presented, good people. the tragedy is maybe they could have been at one point (the slim hope is someday maybe they could be but...seems unlikely right)

actually the one time the show felt a bit out of character was the very last scene of the very first episode, taking us away from the corridors of Roy power and into the home of the family who was working at their softball game, the million dollar bet kid watching TV etc. but it did give a sense of where the creators are coming from; those people don't care about anyone but themselves.

theyre in hell voluntarily

one thing i really like about this show is that its not just a character study, not just a black box where the social stuff is incidental, i have on occasion intersected with the super wealthy and theres something that they just absolute nailed there, kendalls performance particularly, its not just a set for a psychological drama its trying to depict a real thing

theyre in hell voluntarily

― lag∞n, Tuesday, May 2, 2023 11:16 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

and they've also been surrounded by this hell for their entire lives, and it is thus their entire lives, and i don't think they have a conception of life without it idk, not even shiv who clearly(? maybe i'm wrong) attempted to defect

idk they never show the everyone whos problems theyve become obvs theyre implied but its almost always offscreen

Oh yeah, maybe nothing really happens or changes in the eye of the hurricane, but we know that these machinations are rippling out to become the rest of the world's problems.

it's like an abusive relationship, obviously you can just leave... but can you??? xp

"like"

Shiv was in one-foot-out-the-door defection/rebellious mode at the beginning of the show but then as soon as the power play long game started in earnest she was back in.

def, but i also wonder about that "bad place" she was in when she met tom

im sorry the kids are a sell for me i dont like them theyre not serious

its not just a set for a psychological drama its trying to depict a real thing

― lag∞n, Tuesday, May 2, 2023 2:20 PM (0 seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

but in a very stylized way where everyone talks like a high end insult comic, pretty cool

def, but i also wonder about that "bad place" she was in when she met tom

im sorry the kids are a sell for me i dont like them theyre not serious

― lag∞n, Tuesday, May 2, 2023 1:24 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

logan is right, they're not serious (logan...lagoon...hmm...), but their wealth makes it so people have to take them seriously. that's a big problem.

the poor numbers guy, he really was trying to warn Kendall

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.

this, also whomever said Kendall gets quieter/goes inward instead of getting louder was otm

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/may/02/succession-20-greatest-characters-ranked

Stewy below the likes of Hugo and Kerry is ridiculous