Succession final season (spoilers)

[Relic]

6 hours ago, Secretary of Eumenes said:

And bully for Marcia.

Marcia is a character that took a strange turn in season 2. Ive wondered if they originally had a different arc for her. She was set up to be this mysterious figure with a past that was hidden from even Shiv's investigators. She knows about Ken killing the waiter (and so does her son) and there were moments when she seemed to be playing a game (Logan even comments about that by saying something like "She's playing her own games"). And then she just...gets replaced and is shopping in Milan forever. 

Could just be the the showrunners commenting on how quickly people like Logan replace those in their lives once they dont have a use for them, but I'm not convinced. 

[RumHam]

Not to defend Kendall, but I often see people suggest that he "killed a kid" and I just don't get it. The kid grabbed the steering wheel and forced the car into the water. Kendall's reaction was terrible, but I don't see how he killed the kid. 

[Winterfell is Burning]

7 hours ago, Relic said:

Marcia is a character that took a strange turn in season 2. Ive wondered if they originally had a different arc for her. She was set up to be this mysterious figure with a past that was hidden from even Shiv's investigators. She knows about Ken killing the waiter (and so does her son) and there were moments when she seemed to be playing a game (Logan even comments about that by saying something like "She's playing her own games"). And then she just...gets replaced and is shopping in Milan forever. 

Could just be the the showrunners commenting on how quickly people like Logan replace those in their lives once they dont have a use for them, but I'm not convinced. 

An even more drastic version of this happened with the Vaulter guy

[Gaston de Foix]

7 hours ago, Relic said:

Marcia is a character that took a strange turn in season 2. Ive wondered if they originally had a different arc for her. She was set up to be this mysterious figure with a past that was hidden from even Shiv's investigators. She knows about Ken killing the waiter (and so does her son) and there were moments when she seemed to be playing a game (Logan even comments about that by saying something like "She's playing her own games"). And then she just...gets replaced and is shopping in Milan forever. 

Could just be the the showrunners commenting on how quickly people like Logan replace those in their lives once they dont have a use for them, but I'm not convinced. 

Does anyone recall what happened SE1EP1 in terms of giving Marcia rights? Remember that piece of paper that Kendall signed without getting legal advice (to Logan's disappointment) ?

Maybe she (and her son) are a the hidden allies Mattson was discussing in his convo with Shiv.  It would be neat if this Chekhov's gun has been sitting on the mantle all this while. 

[Gaston de Foix]

7 hours ago, RumHam said:

Not to defend Kendall, but I often see people suggest that he "killed a kid" and I just don't get it. The kid grabbed the steering wheel and forced the car into the water. Kendall's reaction was terrible, but I don't see how he killed the kid. 

It was more the cover-up than the crime IMHO. 

We, the audience, know what happened with certainty and can absolve Kendall partly of the blame.  But the cover-up and failure to explain lead people to imagine worse horrors (like Ted Kennedy and Chappaquidick).  I do wonder whether this will resurface at this point.  And, as has astutely been pointed out, Marcia and her son know.  They can blackmail Kendall.  

[Jace, Extat]

Also, I think a lot of Kendall's own guilt comes from the fact that the kid wouldn't have been in the car on that road if not for him. 

[Zorral]

All along what we see on the screen is what we get.  Thus it feels doubtful that there is any Marcia plotting going on with Matsson, doesn't it?

[RumHam]

4 hours ago, Secretary of Eumenes said:

Also, I think a lot of Kendall's own guilt comes from the fact that the kid wouldn't have been in the car on that road if not for him. 

Yeah, he's right to have guilt. Just a lot of people seem to oversimplify that into "kendall killed a kid." 

[Zorral]

The writer of Succession speaks about Tom and Greg.

Tom, the interloper, is like an organism that has found a precarious but rewarding perch above some deep oceanic vent and adapted itself to conditions perfectly. He is not pleased at all to see a similar creature scuttling along hoping to share the same cramped evolutionary niche.

Quote

 

.... Greg and Tom came fast, too. Tom from two roots. One was thinking about the sort of lunks I’ve occasionally seen powerful women choose as partners. Plausible, manly men with big watches and a soothing affable manner. That mixed with the deadly courtier, a more 18th-century figure, minutely attuned to shifts in power and influence, an invisible deadly gas that occurs in certain confined places and rises to kill anyone unwise enough not to take precautions. A hanger-on sustained by some Fitzgeraldian illusions about the world, a sense that perhaps the rich really are different from us and a romantic ambition to make it in New York City.

Greg, I guess, was a distant relative of the sort of political adviser I had myself briefly been. Gormless, clueless, out of place and gauche. But not without an eye for a deal. And, I hope, a little more wheedling and insinuating than I ever was.

The charge between these two semi-outsiders struck me from the start as toxic and comic. Tom, the interloper, is like an organism that has found a precarious but rewarding perch above some deep oceanic vent and adapted itself to conditions perfectly. He is not pleased at all to see a similar creature scuttling along hoping to share the same cramped evolutionary niche. That first half-bullying, half-provocative exchange they share in the outfield at a softball game in the pilot landed them right in the middle of a stew they’ve been cooking in ever since.  ....

 

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/may/27/jesse-armstrong-on-the-roots-of-succession-bum-rush-trump-presidency

[Gaston de Foix]

 

Good edit, if somewhat weirdly Kendall-focussed and Shiv-erasing. 

Compelling television can be called timeless only if it sticks the ending.  Shows that showed sustained and brilliant storytelling, like GOT, effed it up and are going to always be discussed with an asterisk.  It's not the show-runners were oblivious of this fact.  I remember reading Dan and David post-season 6 or 7 talking about how Breaking Bad was a model for how to end.  It's not easy.  

In a few hours, we will know whether Succession is a great tv show, or simply a flash-in-the-pan that suited its times.  Are you excited?

[Aemon Stark]

So excited. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow to watch (too late over in Canada's weirdo half hour time zone). 

[Zorral]

Well.  Didn't see that coming in that way, that's for sure.

Spoiler

Nobody died. Disappoint.  What kinda Lear is this, hmmmmmm? 

 

[RumHam]

In a general sense I don't think it could have ended any other way

Spoiler

Than the kids fucking each other over and all ending up miserable. Really solid finale, I thought. Nice to see Logan again. Connor's teapot thing was great. The special cheese. Their mother in general. 

I don't think it'll go down as one of the greatest finales ever or anything, but it was a really good ending for the show. Even vaulter guy came back into play, barely!

 

[sifth]

Well that was an ending, lol

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Madame deVenoge said:

I think it was a solid ending.

it was not a “they f—-cked it up” like the GoT ending. It was plausible, made sense.

Lots of backstabbings. Will say more tomorrow.

 

[Ran]

Very good ending. 

Spoiler

Shiv lives up to her name, and as predicted, she chooses to feel like a loser for the rest of her life while clinging to Tom. That car ride was disturbingly perfect in laying out the sea-change of the dynamic between them. Am I wrong in recalling that S1 featured a reverse of this, Tom pining to be able to hold Shiv's hand and her relenting or some such? Their relatonship was always fucked up.

Greg is going to be Gregging for Tom in the afterlife at this stage, down in whatever hell is reserved for CEOs and their flunkies. He's not really looking to be at a higher level as I expected, but he'll be kept around to be kicked in the pants whenever Tom wants, and he'll thank Tom for it.

Connor's bit was briefer than I would have liked, but fair enough.

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by Ran

[Relic]

On 4/17/2023 at 8:13 PM, Relic said:

Spoiler

Kendall is going to flame out, obviously.

Shiv and Tom come out on top, whatever that is. 

Greg - no idea. But everyone hates Greg, and he's been pretty horrible. Back to the parks throwing up out of Goofy's eyeholes?

 

Well, that was something. Going to have to watch it again in a couple of days. In terms of predictions, I guess i nailed two of them, i think? 

[Relic]

This is a pantheon show for me, probably ahead of the Sopranos, and behind The Wire. 

[Mark Antony]

It’s a top 10 for me but I’d have it behind Sopranos for sure.

Logan would have been proud of the way Sjiv broke Kendall  

[Zorral]

Regarding speculation as to whether or not Succession would/could/did stick the landing --

Spoiler

From the beginning it was clear these three Roy sibs were incapable of sticking the landing of succeeding to the kingdom, while the fourth one was never even on the plane, essentially by Connor’s own decision. Whether it is because the siblings have versions of attention disorders or their trauma, or because their trauma gave them attention disorder, they were always distracted by something else at the most important moments, as well as in unimportant ones, for that matter. Seriously, Shiv? Only now you object to Kendall running Waystar/Royco because he involved in someone’s death that daddy covered up? Talk about coming out of nowhere ... another way of repeating what their father told them: "You are not serious people."

They are unserious people because Logan made sure they weren't.  In every fiber of his being he expected to be king forever despite his own serious side knowing that wasn't possible. Everyone dies. Period. However, above all things he did not ever want to have his place being taken by one or all of his own children, so Saturn devoured the children he had to flaunt his virility to his rivals, w/o ever taking them seriously as anything but markers of his misogynist, patriarchal, monarchy.

Logan indeed would prefer the ghoulish succession partnership of nordic vampire Matsson (recall his blood bricks), a nazi POTUS, and the bucket of slime that is Tom. Though many others did, and they were right, I gave it little thought really, but if I’d made a list he’d have been at the bottom of who shall be The One! Of course, in ‘reality’ Tom isn’t actually The One either, which is a big reason Matsson picked him, as well as for the misogynist lolz of shiving Shiv in this particular fashion. Gads these men hate and fear women.

Buckle up America -- we are in for it in ways we unserious scions of the USA cannot fathom, much less imagine happening here, to us! -- even though we are all traumatized by the non-stop threats to our well-being and, for so many of us, even our lives, after years of what we've had here in D.C. and state houses across the land. 

This final season has me speculating whether or not a USian showrunner would have had the vision and guts to be this stark and unrelenting in presenting such a realistic view of where we are in the USA -- and globally, for that matter.  Television and fiction story structure have conditioned generations into believing at the last minute the cavalry will arrive.  There is no cavalry to arrive.  What US person would have the guts to put that on tv?

Edited May 29, 2023 by Zorral