HBO's Succession - Season 2 and Beyond

We finished S2, which ends of a good cliffhanger that I found both surprising and ... exciting? It's still slow going for us, but we like having the show in our back pockets to dip into when we don't have anything else to watch.

The most unbingeable show since Oz, the Roys are all so revolting I'm not sure I can watch more than one a week.

clearly i’m a monster, i can happily binge this show like it’s my goddamn job lol

A new woman joined my badminton club last week who looks eerily like Shiv.

tell her i say hi

She'll just tell me to fuck off. I plan on stepping very lightly.

Kendall's (first?) attempted coup had a Jason Bourne vibe, just needed David Straitharn shouting about going mobile.

Dialing down Kieran Culkin's sadism from the first episode feels like the HBO version of Gossip Girl pretending that Chuck Bass isn't a rapist.

I didn’t realize Dasha is such a terrible actress.

Fun to browse this upcoming auction of Succession props and costumes.

If only Matsson's Needles mohair sweater was a size larger...

yeah love that

uhh the pants are a little long but otherwise you're tempting me on my upcoming wardrobe refresh

would be funny to dress completely in clothes from defunct tv shows

That same auction house had a good Frasier fit in their 80s Cheers auction.

The election and funeral episodes are the worst of the series.

Half agree--thought the funeral episode went on forever, but I liked the election episode.

mmm yes drama is terrible rmde

Funeral episode was great. election episode was even better imo.

It’s not very dramatic, though! The kids are all fools who will eventually be denied the one thing they care about. They don’t have the depth to make it interesting when they’re yelling at each other unless it’s funny and they all stopped being funny for the last few episodes.

Tom and Shiv on the balcony was a great scene, because Tom actually is a good dramatic character (and actor).

https://i.imgur.com/BY46GXu.gif

I don't think the kids are fools! They all (except Connor) change and develop throughout the four seasons -- becoming more self-reflective, developing their moral compasses -- even Roman! Ultimately they don't get their shit together, because the totality of their upbringing has been too traumatic -- but they do all experience interesting internal struggles. Drama!!! I don't see how it's possible to watch all four seasons and still think they're unthinking comedy idiots.

(In the same way that e.g. Mark and Jeremy from Peep Show never change.)

funeral episode is prob the most humanizing for everyone aside from their hangout in the last episode. makes sense ppl who watch this show thinking the mains are stupid depthless assholes wouldn’t like it i guess. but i think the kids have tremendous depth, an endless well just in their relationship with their dad. think about roman losing it at the podium constantly. he pre-grieved

They're idiots but I mean fools in the sense that there was never a way the series ends with any of them attaining their father's love or his power - or escaping it. That could make them doomed tragic figures, but they're ridiculous and that's played for laughs for 90% of the episodes. (And a good tragic figure has some dimensionality to them - some part that could bloom if they weren't doomed.)

I don't know about developing moral compasses - given the chance, Kendall and Roman revert directly to who they were in episode 1 (though Roman's a walking 4Chan meme instead of a guy who emotionally abuses the children of manual laborers). Given an inability to either change or win, their dramatic arcs are just flat. And they're dummies so when they were arguing in a conference room about Trump vs. Gore it was just a snooze.

(And a good tragic figure has some dimensionality to them - some part that could bloom if they weren't doomed.)

that’s the show tho!!!!

Seriously

I think they consistently show an ability to change and win, but self-sabotage gets in the way of the former, and cruel Thomas Hardyesque fate gets in the way of the latter.

I didn't find the last episode very satisfying - for me, it wasn't like something that organically clicked into place, it was more like Jesse Armstrong thinking "hmmm, unhappy ending, bittersweet ending or happy ending? let's go with unhappy". But that's about the sometimes heavy-handed plotting, not the characters/performances.

We're currently hovering somewhere in the third season. We just saw the shareholders meeting episode, which is as close as this show has come to "Veep."

Just finished the show. Nothing new to add but fuck what a ride. As ever, having this thread on hand to read after was total gold.

Goes without saying but gyac, ivy & vege otm all the way through.

:D

Thinking today about how *right* the ending was - how it grounded and gave legitimacy to the entire series. It *had* to be about character in the end, and particularly about the compulsion to repeat. In a weird way, it could have ended at almost any point because nothing is going to change. The whole is in every part. These people are trapped in a hell of traumatic relationships - to power, to parents, to each other - that anything other than a character-driven finale (and such a bleak one) would have been a lie.

otm

"I was reading Mies Van Der Rohe At Work by Peter Carter and there is a quote by Van Der Rohe where he says: "A Sugarbaker never gives in". I think about that a lot." (6)

(6) Mr. Strong is actually paraphrasing a line given by Delta Burke's character Suzanne Sugarbaker in the CBS television series Designing Women and written by series creator Susan Bloodworth-Thomason in the season 2 episode "High Rollers". The full quote as spoken by Ms. Burke is "A Sugarbaker will never give in."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/10/magazine/jeremy-strong-interview.html

I think he's pretty self aware when he talks about how empty he is--he's a walking Bartlett's dictionary of quotes. Good profile

Finally finished this. Objectively well written and acted, subjectively mostly good. Kind of like a cross between "Godfather Part II" and "Entourage."