Succession [spoilers]

[Durckad]

4 hours ago, Tyria said:

Oh, totally! Should have used an emoji or something... I agree with what you wrote, it was just so weird that you had to make a post at all emphasising that the show is fiction! 

Wait... what?

I thought Succession was a documentary, like Spinal Tap... and Highlander!

[Zorral]

Why yes. There are more than one valid take on this show, even among those who, you know, actually make it. 

“I take him as seriously as I take my own life,” he says of his character, Kendall Roy.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/13/on-succession-jeremy-strong-doesnt-get-the-joke

Quote

.... When I asked Strong about the rap that Kendall performs in Season 2, at a gala for his father—a top contender for Kendall’s most cringeworthy moment—he gave an unsmiling answer about Raskolnikov, referencing Kendall’s “monstrous pain.” Kieran Culkin told me, “After the first season, he said something to me like, ‘I’m worried that people might think that the show is a comedy.’ And I said, ‘I think the show is a comedy.’ He thought I was kidding.” Part of the appeal of “Succession” is its amalgam of drama and bone-dry satire. When I told Strong that I, too, thought of the show as a dark comedy, he looked at me with incomprehension and asked, “In the sense that, like, Chekhov is comedy?” No, I said, in the sense that it’s funny. “That’s exactly why we cast Jeremy in that role,” McKay told me. “Because he’s not playing it like a comedy. He’s playing it like he’s Hamlet.”  ....

 

[Ran]

Strong is super-Method and a bit weird. Definitely the guy to use as a guiding star.

[Mark Antony]

What an episode. The cringe when Roman sent the pic was insane levels. Had to pause it for a second.I predict Kendall will confess the waiter cover up to that podcast Comfry mentioned ? Seemed odd to mention that if it doesn’t come back into play. 

[RumHam]

Roman trying to explain to his dad why he sent him a dick pick 

[Nictarion]

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

Roman trying to explain to his dad why he sent him a dick pick 

When Roman tried to slink down into his chair I absolutely lost it. 

Also, I have to say, I felt a little bad for Tom in this one with the Shiv stuff. 

[sifth]

I loved the dinner scene between Kendall and Logan. The fact that he expected Kendall to poison him and used his own grandson as his taste tester, might be the most evil thing the guy has done on this show and that should say something; granted for me anyway, doing horrible things with children has always been a way to grind my gears.

[Relic]

6 hours ago, RumHam said:

Roman trying to explain to his dad why he sent him a dick pick 

"We probably invented the fucking words."

 

What an episode. Kendall's face in the pool really really looked like attempted suicide. 

[RumHam]

The whole sequence was great but I especially loved Roman's attempts to play it off as just something guys do to each other "hey, here's my dick!" submitted for your approval, dad. Just hilarious. 

It's funny that Kendall only is where he is because he was chosen to be the fall guy, and now apparently no fall guy is needed. 

 

[Ran]

Great episode. Brutal for a lot of characters -- Shiv with her mother, Tom with Shiv, that whole Roman debacle, and of course Kendall with Logan.

I'm not sure what to make of the final shot. I predicted already that maybe that was the way to go, but looking at the preview of the next episode I'm not sure that that is what's going to happen.

 

[Relic]

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

Great episode. Brutal for a lot of characters -- Shiv with her mother, Tom with Shiv, that whole Roman debacle, and of course Kendall with Logan.

I'm not sure what to make of the final shot. I predicted already that maybe that was the way to go, but looking at the preview of the next episode I'm not sure that that is what's going to happen.

 

I dont watch the previews for shows, in general, but I guess there is a shot of Kendall in it? 

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Relic said:

I dont watch the previews for shows, in general, but I guess there is a shot of Kendall in it? 

No, but there's a lot of activity that is just... not people acting as if their brother is dead. I know it's the Roys, but I think they'd be hard-pressed to have them be that callous.

My guess is 

Spoiler

Kendall almost drowned and there's questions about whether he was attempting suicide or not, but the show must go on and they can be in denial or callous about it being one more thing Kendall fucked up.

 

[Zorral]

If one thinks the show has hit the grim bottom of Roy brutality, there’s another episode that digs even deeper gashes of cruelty and callousness.

Quote

“Their vulnerabilities cannot be extracted from their acts of malevolence but are part of a vicious cycle of abuse that the Roy children absorb, mostly from Logan, and take it out on each other. Or whoever’s closest to them. Or a nation of millions.” Vulture (12/05)

Wash, rinse, repeat = second wedding in the family, such as it is, in the 3-season so far show.  In Italy, the second wife, Kendall, Roman and Shiv’s mom, to a dipshit Brit, whom she even knows is a dipshit.  Where, naturally, the Roy kid of the first wife, Connor, performs a political proposal to the hairy-head call girl, Willa. At the top of “don’t do” wedding etiquette lists is “never propose at a wedding”.

Gads, Shiv is an awful.  After her mother tells her she wasn’t cut-out to be a mother, then congratulates her daughter for not making the same mistake, Shiv gets manic – did she take some more of what she took at Kendall’s BD party? about taking over Waystar and having a baby. The revealing, extra-awful sundress suggests she is already pregnant, but probably not - she's just been spending too many days in bed snacking. Then Shiv attempts to intimidate Gerri about Roman sending her pics of his dick, as a big move to get Roman out of the succession picture. You can see why Gerri’s so successful. Gerri is not moved, despite Shiv attempting to put the shiv into her, as stepping stone to ridding herself of Roman. Unlike Shiv, no manic responses from Gerri, just continuing to do the job.

As predicted Roman went down – over a dick pick he insisted on sending to Gerri, during the massively important board meet re GoJo, but accidentally sends it to Logan, as the GoJo deal as he says it was originally made goes south, due to Matsson changing his mind, and wanting merger, not buy out. Logan goes ballistic, but it’s Gerri’s age that he brings up as making this so inappropriate, Roman a laughing stock – whereas, of course, all season people have been assuming Logan’s porking his assistant Kerry, who is at least 50 years younger than he is.

Logan, per expectation, now nixing his 2 bil buy-out of Kendall from Waystar, speaking perhaps the only honest words in the whole season to any of his kids, “Maybe I want to keep you close.” Shades of, say, o the Ottomans from mid-empire, when even the kids turn on the sultan-emperor dad, as Selim did with Bayazid, and take over the throne.

Ends with Kendall face down in the swimming pool, looking like an overdose/suicide from something or other, though we know of course, the odds are he will be discovered in time for him to be back next week, for the season’s final episode. But metaphorically, even before, but particularly ever since the kid who did suck water at Shiv’s wedding, Kendall has been drowning, so to speak over his head, because he's convinced he's not as evil as Logan.

The other honesty is Matsson’s declaration that he wants only the best of the best.  But like an online dating app, he keeps swiping, knowing the best of the best is still out there, eluding him, so about now the only thrill left is destruction – blow up Waystar with his damned company, fail in the most spectacular failure of all. That’s who these people are. One suspects then, that Roman sending his dick pic to Logan was unconsciously intentional. He can’t handle success/succession and he knows it; also, just for swipe. LULZ.

Poison is the motif of this episode, which, appropriately, takes place in Italy, historically noted from the days of Rome, through the Renaissance, for notable poisonings, performed for political gain, and for revenge.

Stalking, sexual harassment for which the woman harassed is threatened with punishment by another woman, and possible overdose/suicide are just fucking, playing it for the laffs.  Especially comical is a guy going down right in his kids’ faces.
 

[RumHam]

I forgot about Connor and WIlla until you mentioned them, I really thought he was going to break up with her for his political "career." I was wondering last season why she supported his running for president given that it would surely come out. But maybe the journalist was just being friendly! I'm not sure how them getting married fixes that issue either. "Sorry I woke you up to ask again" their relationship is so sad, and yet also maybe somehow the healthiest one on the show.

 

[Winterfell is Burning]

"Gerri is a million years old"- says, without a hint of irony, a man old enough to be her father and who's (probably) fucking someone old enough to be her daughter.

 

[Trebla]

This episode was easily the evilest we've seen from Logan Roy. The complete and utter humiliation of Kendall when Kendall had finally given up and wanted out. I'm wondering, if Kendall does almost die by accident or not, how Logan responds to it. The first thought would be the "idiot can't even do that right" reaction that would fit right in with how Logan has been this season.

But I can't help but think of the season 1 finale when the two reconciled after Logan covered up the fatal accident. "You're my boy. You're my number one boy." 

I guess we might see just how big a monster Logan Roy really is.

[Mark Antony]

9 hours ago, Zorral said:

The revealing, extra-awful sundress suggests she is already pregnant, but probably not - she's just been spending too many days in bed snacking. .

Fuckin slander ya ask me

[Derfel Cadarn]

Greg’s being a dick. He’s finally going out with Kendall’s PA, punching above his weight as everyone tells him, and he starts trying to hit on the contessa

[Ran]

8 hours ago, Mark Antony said:

Fuckin slander ya ask me

Agreed, honestly. Some real body shaming going on under the guise of fashion critique.

[Mark Antony]

4 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Greg’s being a dick. He’s finally going out with Kendall’s PA, punching above his weight as everyone tells him, and he starts trying to hit on the contessa

I can’t be the only who thinks Greg isn’t punching above his weight at all. Kinda roll my eyes every time someone says that on the show. Comfry is good looking for sure but not out of Greg’s league or anything imo