HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

this will sound very whatever, and everyone is prob aware of this now already but:
strong hasn’t formed that many oblique opinions ~about~ the character of ken because he was trying very hard to think ~as~ the character, so for example in a weird way he totally thought ken was the best choice for the job because thet was what ken believed

so he’s kinda shattered by the finale himself too

it’s a lot

but he’s so fucking great

Yep I love him. Greatest expressions in the whole show.

My favorite Kendall expression is when he thinks someone is trying to play him and he just stares at them with this half-smile, like he's trying to mind-fuck them. It's a good example of a low key ken try-hard thing.

Now I'm having fun imagining him taking the Jon Hamm post-Mad Men career route and only doing the broadest of comedy roles.

My favourite Kendall Roy faces, in no particular order:

A lifetime of suffering
https://media.tenor.com/RJnIIG2XuSYAAAAC/kendallroy-succession.gif

I promised myself I wasn’t going to cry
https://64.media.tumblr.com/4e6eb0e8192771ff57d096dfa68dd84e/780fac89e31d549c-a1/s540x810/092b449ebc7e2c79bb30d1bded64ec4a42bd5c45.gif

thinking about smoking horse again
https://media0.giphy.com/media/fQx9bHb2IQLRbSojSJ/giphy.gif

And so on

acting with his face eggs

Maybe I missed it but who did Kendall call to get confirmation re: shiv being boxed out by Mattson? "If it's true don't say anything" or whatever.

Greg?

Greg called him and then Kendall hung up and called someone else right?

i assumed ebba

she's the one who's been leaking matsson's secrets to kendall for the past few eps

it was karolina or whoever it was that was drafting the press release?

I was going to take a guess it was ebba but didn't know if anyone was IDed as the source

It had to be Ebba because he knew Shiv had been removed from the press release - and I think they got a copy of the draft release right? Ebba would have been the one with that document.

All true. But the article doesn’t point out that the brilliant cast is made up completely with theater veterans - all extraordinary - and expert at sustaining long dialogue heavy scenes through multiple takes, keeping them alive, playful, and intense. https://t.co/dqm5yw8blX

— Robert Falls (@RobertFalls) May 31, 2023

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-05-30/papa-eldercare-startup-faces-abuse-claims-by-seniors-caregivers

>> https://archive.is/el0u7

trigger warnings

Took me a second to get why that's in the Succession thread, but ah Living-Plus. Well Logan did say it would be like cruise ships on land, and we know what happened on the cruise ships.

I watched the finale last night:

I think Mattson and Mencken are doing a deal - Mattson's call to Shiv about a US CEO implied M + M had a subsequent discussion - that cuts out all of the Roy children.

Now I am thinking Tom is going to be the Amercian CEO and Greg will be his hatchet man. This fits in with the theme of this season, that the Roy children are "not serious people" and would be the choice that inflicts maximum damage on the children. They've always treated Tom as a bit of a joke. The M + M marriage also continues this seasons theme of the undue influence of tech/social media on politics where the show's 2020 stands in for our 2016.

There is only a single episode left, correct?

― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Tuesday, May 23, 2023 7:26 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Mostly otm, though the show wasn't really concerned with politics beyond a few isolated moments and background radiation. I thought the show did a great job of making Tom's rise seem plausible. He played the game well, always choosing the right horses to back at the right time - Shiv, then Logan, then Mattson.

Yet, the finale (and final season) was all about the three main Roy children having to internalize that their Father was right - they "are not serious people".

Roman is the least confident of the three, least believes his own shit, so he's the first to realize it. The funeral made it apparent. "He fucked it". It's not going to be him. He also is the first to realize, in the scenes at their mother's place, that it's not going to be any of them. He goes along with Kendall's play, but it's half-hearted as shown by his half-hearted "No" vote at the board meeting. That look on his face in his final scene in the bar is relief - he remembers he is rich af. He's going to be the happiest of the three in the future.

Shiv had a hell of a ride this episode. It's both harder and easier for her to accept it's not going to be her. It's Tom, someone who she mostly considered beneath her, so it is devastating. But she has had to fight against the misogyny of her father, brothers, and the business world, so she's used to it not being her on some level. It was always unattainable for her. She might be the most pragmatic of the three. I don't think Shiv chooses Tom > Kendall - I think these were two separate, late, and impulsive decisions. The Kendall decision is based on the sibling rivalry dynamic and her realization that Kendall doesn't have it, will never have it. The Tom decision is very last minute. When Tom says he has a car coming in 20 minutes right after the deal signing/celebration, she shakes her head "No." She must have reconsidered. Maybe it's a last play. Maybe it's her going back to Tom at another weak point in her life. The punches she's taken were stronger than the ones Roman had to take. I don't know that she's going to be happy, but she's used to settling in her relationship with Tom and at least she's settling for a (temporary) winner now, not a loser.

Kendall, you sweet dumb boy. His pitch to the board was basically, "I'm Kendall Roy" and in the sibling argument just after, his argument is the same: "I'm the eldest boy!" His desperate lurching at anything - denying his one moment of truth about the accident - just shows that he is the one most bound to the idea of being Logan's successor. It's in his blood, which means he has the hardest time accepting it's not going to be him. He likely never will. He will continue to waste his money the rest of his life trying to prove it could have been him. Good thing for him he's so rich it will never hurt him.

just realised this morning that shiv and rome whipped up a literal poisoned chalice for ken. this was probably obvious to others.

meal fit for a king seemed like a call back to games they played in their childhood like boar on the floor

meant to add: that final shot with Kendall was so great - he has his father's bag man, but he has no use for him. Kendall isn't serious enough for anyone to want to do anything to him.

Yeah, my reaction during the kitchen scene was “You don’t want to drink that the night before a board meeting.”

I still can't fathom the mentality of "sure, I'll just nip down to Barbados the night before the most important board meeting ever". What if there's a storm or your plane won't start and you can't get back? Haven't these people seen The Devil Wears Prada?

I guess that's super-rich people for you.

think my favorite thing about the boardroom meeting was that if Kendall had pre-arranged the seats so that shiv would have voted earlier, she'd have much less leverage. logan would have taken that into consideration.

everything about that meeting showed how bad Ken could be. The cockiness especially.

I still can't fathom the mentality of "sure, I'll just nip down to Barbados the night before the most important board meeting ever". What if there's a storm or your plane won't start and you can't get back?

yeah you'd think Kendall would have learned his lesson after that happened to him in the first season

'I still can't fathom the mentality of "sure, I'll just nip down to Barbados the night before the most important board meeting ever"."

it's like a 5 hour flight, I can't even figure out how they got there so quickly even with private jets.

wait til you see how fast they figure out long distance travel in Westeros without even engines!

Who has a better story than Ken the Broken

lol armstrong got so sick of all the bad shiv theories that he couldnt hold back

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fxi5opeaQAEQ3TY?format=jpg&name=large

her brother who is basically the nastiest most awful person when he's not getting his way, what did he call shiv on election night, "fucking filth" or something?

it was perfectly evident it wasn't some calculated move just based on her performance when she made the decision

I'm starting to feel like people with the "worse finale than Game of Thrones" takes should maybe stick with something more up their alley, like Paw Patrol.

going to have to tap the "not getting the ending you personally wanted does not automatically make it a bad ending" sign more and more frequently

it does if your method of watching television is rooting for characters like they're sports teams!

inspired by this one I saw last night:

The Succession Finale is worse than the Game of Thrones Finale is one respect. GOT had already been trash for at least two seasons. Succession was at the height of its powers before the Finale, leading to great disappointment.

— NYCTaper (@nyctaper) June 2, 2023

I'm glad the guy does a great job of taping and sharing live performances but uh not going to him for media take

for the record, this is his justification:

Plot holes all over the place. The fake GoJo Asian numbers were not even discussed, which is bizarre in a half-stock deal. The Ebba stuff was forgotten. No appearance by either candidate or any discussion of the election fight. There’s a bunch more.

— NYCTaper (@nyctaper) June 2, 2023

i can't believe we didn't get any more Jimenez scenes, truly what the fans have been clamoring for since his appearance several episodes back.

it's as if the show wasn't actually about the things that the trio of main characters weren't focused on anymore

trash ass Rashomon just making me watch the same scene four times in a row, dumb as hell bro

idk how we got to prosumer tv culture but it is truly the worst

they want formula they think thats how it should be

This show is closest to sopranos in how it wasn't holding anyone's hand and guiding them narratively, it followed the characters down their paths and focused on the information that was important to them at any given moment. No more ebba stuff because the kids didn't need that anymore, they didn't care about her any more than Mattson did. No more gojo numbers because it didn't work as a tool anymore, and it had already shifted the numbers on the board at that point. No more candidates because the kids were just trying to get the company and politics wasn't their focus, esp now that Mencken was going to let the sale go thru. Plus we heard just enough about it in the background, Mencken maybe being in trouble in Wisconsin, and willa's reaction to shiv's comment with respect to that giving us just enough and all we needed to know. Why do so many people need things explained to them.

Not even explained but they just want closure on every narrative thread.

These are the people the Star Wars universe depends on.

i dont like this show cause it didnt give me what i want is obviously a baby opinion but its taken to a whole other level when people decide the show is formally bad because it hasnt given them what they wanted, there are all these youtube videos of guys explaining how to tell a story the right way, talking about what are the stakes

and people consume this media as if theyre screenwriters when theyre actually screen watchers, they do want to know how the sausage gets made

It's not a puzzle-box narrative. The only answer the show has implicitly promised its audience is who succeeds Logan. And the finale did that. The rest (at least far as the GoJo deal goes) doesn't matter.

yeah. succession had a purity of storytelling that is unfamiliar to like a whole generation of these goobers

The type of people who wanted the Scooby-Doo ending for zodiac

Guess they shouldn't have cut this scene after all:

JIMINEZ opens the Waystar Royco board room, interrupting the vote:

JIMINEZ: "Hey guys, so glad that tough election fight is over and resolved. Phew! Anyway, my good friend Ebba just sent over some updated GoJo numbers for their Asia market and everything is all clear. Glad to have those threads all tied up!"

JIMINEZ winks at the camera and EXITS as "Curb Your Enthusiasm Theme" plays

do y’all want to be exposed to the worst succession finale take