Succession final season (spoilers)

[Durckad]

God, all of these characters are such detestable pieces of shit.

I'm going to miss them when the show is finally over...

[Clueless Northman]

It just hit me that I didn't notice any mention of Congress electoral results. It's like the American democracy is already dead to them, no matter what they claim. I'm going to assume it's a close call there as well with just a thin margin in favour of GOP.

 

As for Shiv and her pregnancy, 2 things:

- I suppose one of the reasons why even Tom is oblivious is because it's supposed to happen just a week after Shiv got her test results, in the show - results who came right after Logan's death, when his funerals are yet to happen there. Of course, in production / shooting timeline, it takes months, so we all can see the physical signs on Shiv (well, Snook actually). But that's probably not just the characters being blind and self-centered but also some attempt at internal chronological consistency.

- Like Zorral said, I fear for her outcome. Not for her life as such, but if they want to wrap up most of the key threads of this season (and of the show, since the pregnancy is a major point in the entire Shiv-Tom relationship), then they might well go for a miscarriage in the next episode or the final one - though that would be quite harsh to have her character go through so much, more than her siblings obviously.

[Darryk]

Shiv trying to cover after Kendal found out she lied about the phone call was hilarious.

[Zorral]

‘They’ve Taken a Toy and Broken It’ Director Andrij Parekh channeled the energy of Adam McKay’s 2016 Election Night party into “America Decides.”

https://www.vulture.com/article/succession-andrij-parekh-director-america-decides-explained.html#_ga=2.140307891.1840004797.1684253546-1211005673.1684253545

Quote

 

.... How did you approach the overall tone of the episode? It seems to have sparked some unpleasant flashbacks.

We shot the pilot for Succession in 2016 around election time. I think our second, third day of photography was the day after the election. We went to an Election Night party at Adam McKay’s apartment, and Jesse Armstrong and some of the actors were there. Adam would be getting these text messages about what was about to be announced 20 minutes before it came on the news. You had a sense. Then, of course, that party went from boisterous and fun to very quiet and people leaving without saying good-bye.

That was the feeling I was hoping to capture in this. What I noticed more and more in American-television election coverage, because of our two-party system, is that it gets broadcast like a sporting event. For many, it probably is sports: the way it looks, the way it feels, that it’s two teams and there’s a scoreboard and numbers. We’re running possibilities, blah blah blah. So it was creating this world at ATN where that feeling exists.

We had a couple of election advisers who worked on various networks telling us how things play out on Election Night. Everything from which states report when to what would happen if something in Milwaukee actually burned down. And there’s the briefing at the top of the episode where Darwin says that no one can tell the viewers what’s going to happen or we’ll lose our credibility. Then, immediately, Tom calls Kendall.  ....

.... So much of the series is about how information does and does not move between characters, but it’s also about how even the information they do learn can be read in multiple ways. It’s always ambiguous or in this conditional space. You’re caught in uncertainty all the time. 

That’s what makes it super-interesting for me. I’ll read the scripts, and we’ll block it, and suddenly you’re like, Oh wow. This is not what I thought it was going to be. Everyone has a point of view, and everyone has a different understanding of what’s happening.

It reminds me of the close-up on Shiv’s face in the boardroom after the election is called and Roman insists it’s not a big deal because nothing is really going to happen. Shiv says, “Things do happen, Rome,” and that close-up feels different from the show’s typical visual language. 

I wanted Shiv to feel very isolated in that moment. That, to me, was more about her communicating with the audience than with Roman. That’s why we isolated and filmed her in the back of the room having come in — away from where the main action is.

It’s rare for the show to communicate with the audience that directly. Was it in the script? Or was that something you figured out in rehearsal?

A lot of the show is shot, at least in this episode, on over-the-shoulder cameras. I wanted that moment to feel just a little bit different.

I kept looking at it and wondering if it was a real shift for Shiv, or if she’ll pull back on it. Is it a moment of clarity for her? 

I wouldn’t say “moment of clarity.” I think it’s more that she’s pointing out what her brothers have done. They’ve taken a toy and broken it, and it feels like they’re just going to go off and be fine. There are no consequences for them. Maybe it’ll be inconvenient for Kendall’s family to suddenly have a bodyguard all the time. But Roman is fine. Roman doesn’t think twice about it.

But for Shiv, it’s suddenly this new awareness. 

I think so.

I’m very curious about what happens in the finale. I had a dream that it does a time jump into the future and Shiv’s standing in a postapocalyptic landscape surveying the damage they’ve all done.

Or they all go to a Buddhist retreat, and they’ve given everything away. [Laughs.]

 

 

[kairparavel]

MC and I didn't finish the episode on Sunday so we restarted the whole thing last night. Two nights of election PTSD was a lot. It was inevitable for Roman to emerge as this particular POS but still sort of sad. 

[Zorral]

16 hours ago, kairparavel said:

wo nights of election PTSD was a lot.

I had to break up watching this too, between the body's recalled muscular terror and the simultaneous urge to vomit.

[Heartofice]

I also had to stop the latest episode halfway through, the election bottle episode nature of it made it really tough to get through even if the writing was totally on point.

By the end it really exploded though and you can really see how Roman lead the company.. probably to complete disaster. His entire model seems to be ‘what would dad do’ but only through the lens of ‘dad was a monster’

[sifth]

I couldn’t give this episode my full attention. Pretty sure I played a game on my phone as it aired. I hate things related to election night. I did some work and played some games on my phone, while watching it.

Edited May 18, 2023 by sifth

[Gaston de Foix]

I dragged myself through the episode on Monday.  The memory of spending 2016 election night in the office: sad, depressed, and growing increasingly terrified will never quite leave me. 

Interesting article, that I think gets a lot of things right: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/05/18/greg-succession-hbo-nicholas-braun/

What I think it gets wrong:

(i) Greg was never not a jaded meaningless trust fund kid at the start he was working a shitty, dead end job, getting high and getting humiliated.  He was, as much as possible, a normal kind of perspective on the Roys.  

(ii) Economically, being disinherited by his grandfather has cost him much more financially than whatever the perks of sucking up to the Roys.  I know he's suing Greenpeace or whatever, but Greg doing this to become rich doesn't make sense.  Greg doing this to become a Roy (i.e., a cut-throat, ruthless, jaded shark who has learnt how to thrive in these waters) makes all the sense in the world.  Succession is not a show about money; we've known from season 1 whether Shiv or Roman or Kendall succeeds Logan, the others will continue to remain billionaires.  Succession is a show about power; understanding it, acquiring it wielding it, and being stained by it.  

[Veltigar]

Watching this series is profoundly weird to me. It has some of the best dialogue I have ever seen, but everything else about it (regardless of quality) provokes such deep feelings of disgust. It boils my blood to see these characters go about their idiotic business.

So it's kind of like a hate watch for me, but I understand that the acting, the dialogue, etc. are all top notch. I also have no idea how it is going to end. Part of me wishes them to loose the empire and their money, as that is what justice would demand. The realist in me however, understands that this is not going to happen. I think the most likely outcome for them is to lose their relevance, but remain rich. That would sting for the characters, but it is not the punishments these assholes deserve, so for me it would be unsatisfying as a viewer.

EDIT: A third very unlikely possibility is a scenario where (one of) the Roy siblings somehow end up on top. Or that we jump forward 30 years and that it turns out that Logan Wambsgans is the true successor of the empire.

It's really a testament of their skill that the show's writers can create these mixed emotions and that I feel so compelled to keep on watching despite of it.

 

 

Edited May 20, 2023 by Veltigar

[Slurktan]

how funny would it be if it ended with the new president starting a nuclear war?

[Gaston de Foix]

21 hours ago, Slurktan said:

how funny would it be if it ended with the new president starting a nuclear war?

I think, as an intermediate step, we would have a Charlottesville like situation in the next episode.  30 hours to go till episode 9. 

[Zorral]

Caroline takes one look at Shiv and knows, whereas all this time none of the men around Shiv ever noticed anything, other than Rome's idle speculation that Shiv's eating a lot.  I'd laffed but, really, with other stuff concerning what the men on this show (and in the country) think about women, it's not funny at all.

 

[RumHam]

Loved the part with the wives and mistresses. That little bit of kindness from Marcia was great. 

The idea that Greg was going to stop his grandfather from doing anything was hilariously misguided. Nice to finally get the story of what happned with Logan's sister Rose. And to see Greg's mom agian. Frank seems like the rare decent person in the company.

God Culkin was good. I liked how after he's back in his seat he tries to explain away basic human emotion as being dehydrated, and then is visibly angry with himself. 

[Zorral]

I give awards to the show for that shot of Cousin Greg, coat flapping, Citibiking to the church from ATN since streets were gridlocked.  It was so perfectly a Greg solution, and a smart one. Then he gets himself the casket wheelman in Tom's place, which is also the perfect Greg kind of luck move; followed by the perfect Greg bad social-professional moves in the wrong place at the wrong time, dorking it up for all.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Amazing episode

[sifth]

Rather funny how I've watched this entire show, despite hating nearly every character on it. I don't know how that's possible, or if I could ever do it again.

[Cas Stark]

That's part of what makes it great. It's uncompromising.  While all of the characters have their vulnerabilities and their moments, no one is going to 'learn lessons' and emerge a changed person or a good person let alone a typical hero protagonist.  They have remained terrible, sad people, nobody exhibiting any growth at all.  Okay, maybe Cousin Greg has gotten a little more savvy, but in return the whole soul thing. 

[Relic]

Again, fucking incredible. The writing and acting on this remains unmatched. Ken's speech was touching in its way but also extremely cynical and pompous. A microcosm of the shit-show we're living in.  

That was by far the longest episode to date. One more to go, and it's going to be movie length, at about 90 minutes. 

Edited May 22, 2023 by Relic

[Relic]

opps

Edited May 22, 2023 by Relic