Succession final season (spoilers)

[DaveSumm]

Oh man I forgot how funny this show is. If only it were some niche show that nobody else watched so you could mine it for insults to use … “You look tired, and your face is giving me a headache”. I was in stitches the second Greg hesitantly approached Logan, on the brink of losing a $10 billion deal and he feels he needs to let him know he fingered his girlfriend.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Well, that was brutal. Didn't think I would feel that sad for Connor. And of course Kendall is Kendall and Roman is Roman. That said, it begins to make more sense as to why this show will end after this season: since the characters can't escape their patterns, it has to end before it becomes too repetitive

 

[Heartofice]

I haven't seen the newest episode yet but I did feel in that first one that I was suffering from corporate takeover deals fatigue a bit. This happened in the 3rd season as well as there was just so much wrangling over who buys what and it started to feel like the show was repeating itself.

The writing is as smart and fun as ever but I have a niggling feeling the show might run out of steam if it doesn't do something big this season. It kind of feels like every character has had his or her arc and are at their endpoint. I'm interested to know where they take Kendall's plot for instance, he just seems to have been shoved into the background now.

[Ran]

14 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I have a niggling feeling the show might run out of steam if it doesn't do something big this season.

This is the last season of the show, so I think they agree with you, and I suspect they mean to go out with a bang.

[Cas Stark]

Presumably, the 'succession' will be determined, but since on some level its a show about how people keep repeating the same patterns again and again I wouldn't be hugely surprised if it was some kind of reset back to season 1.  Is this this last really great show on TV?  I don't know right now what compares to this level of writing?

  Logan Roy is obviously an asshole, but he's also totally right, even if it is his fault, that his children are not serious people.  They think they are, because his money gives them power and options, but the reality is, they're not serious.  They're not him.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Cas Stark

[DaveSumm]

4 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Logan Roy is obviously an asshole, but he's also totally right, even if it is his fault, that his children are not serious people.  They think they are, because his money gives them power and options, but the reality is, they're not serious.  They're not him.

Considering all the horrendous things he’s said to his kids, that was one of the coldest lines he’s delivered. Because he didn’t even care enough to be angry about, he wasn’t lashing out. It was just a blunt measure of their acumen; they aren’t serious figures. 

[Ran]

Honestly, the way they conduct themselves, they genuinely aren't. But, who is, exactly? Is Logan even a serious figure? We've seen him jerk his kids around simply because he can. Where is his own discipline? I mean... his indulging Kelly's desire to be a news anchor? And then thinking that when he foists on Tom (who devolves it to Greg) the brush off for Kelly, thinking somehow they would make sure he wasn't hit by the blowback, who was he kidding? 

I think it's probably the case that none of them are really serious figures anymore. They're right, Logan is past his prime and is fucking things up and is no longer a serious person. He's right, they've never hit their prime and never will, they aren't serious people, but he created them to be these unserious people who just blab buzzwords at one another and think they're titans of industry because they were born Roys. Connor may be the most well-balanced of all of them, and he's a complete dolt.

(They should have made Logan sing karaoke, though, before entertaining business talk. If they're going to be unserious, be unserious.)

[RumHam]

I often forget the opening scene of the series was Logan confused, pissing on his own rug. 

For what it's worth at least early in season one, Shiv came off as a serious person. When she was working for not-Bernie Sanders. Even now she's more serious than her brothers? Kendall has always been hilariously out of touch. His idea for 24/7 coverage of "what's happening in africa" was great. Roman has gotten a bit more serious as the show went on, but he's still Roman. Kendall kinda seems like he's in "I would have killed myself, but I'm curious to see where this is going" mode. 

I really felt for Hugo during the laptop scene. That was great. 

So what happens when the deal falls through and they don't have the $10 billion they just promised Nan?

[Cas Stark]

11 minutes ago, RumHam said:

I often forget the opening scene of the series was Logan confused, pissing on his own rug. 

For what it's worth at least early in season one, Shiv came off as a serious person. When she was working for not-Bernie Sanders. Even now she's more serious than her brothers? Kendall has always been hilariously out of touch. His idea for 24/7 coverage of "what's happening in africa" was great. Roman has gotten a bit more serious as the show went on, but he's still Roman. Kendall kinda seems like he's in "I would have killed myself, but I'm curious to see where this is going" mode. 

I really felt for Hugo during the laptop scene. That was great. 

So what happens when the deal falls through and they don't have the $10 billion they just promised Nan?

She did, she also came off as the 'nicest' of the siblings and possibly the smartest also.  I don't realy see that anymore.  Her instincts and her ideas are almost as bad as Kendall's.  That leaves wisecracking Roman, who I sometimes think is one of those slow reveals...he starts off as the least serious, least smart seeming and over time....it turns out that initial take was a mistake.  He may not be John but he's no Ringo.  He's the only Roy sibling who can read a room at all.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Cas Stark

[Ran]

Shiv is constantly vacillating about what she wants. She went behind Kendall's and Roman's back to push Sandy's deal for reasons I can't fully grasp, and seems to entirely underrate the risk of pushing Matsson away.

They don't even need to have the deal fall through for them to be in trouble. If Roman pulls out because dear old Dad woos him back to ATN, that's an added hole in their financing as well, I'd expect. Maybe their partners are okay adding more in to have a bigger chunk of the pie, but...

I was also a bit surprised about the sum being spoken of. Unless I'm mistaken, they'd said it'd be worth $100 million to them if Matsson gave them a better deal? That's all? It seemed weird.  In the previous episode, we were told they could "liquidate their five percents". I presume they have a collective 20% (when Connor is added in) of the 36% of Waystar that Logan has, or basically they own 7.2% between them (probably a little less, I believe in a previous season Kendall sold a portion of his share to Stewy). That must be worth billions, I'm not sure why an extra $100 million is worth the risk of blowing up the deal.

@Cas Stark Yeah, Roman is the one who increasingly seems like he's the one who actually cares the most about how to go forward, and is not focused on just screwing over Logan. He wants to step out from the shadow in a way that neither Shiv nor Kendall seem capable of envisioning.

[RumHam]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

She went behind Kendall's and Roman's back to push Sandy's deal for reasons I can't fully grasp

I think she's just anxious about maintaining her lifestyle in the face of spending $10 billion and what she now suspects will be a costly divorce. 

I don't remember if they had a pre-nup or not, I feel like they did at least talk about it in season one. 

[Cas Stark]

I wasn't sure if they meant an extra $100M each, which even if it was, is still a huge risk for not that much reward when we are in the realm of multiple billions.  $100M in total, is almost too stupid to be believable, even knowing the real reason they want to kill the deal is fuck with their father like he has fucked with them their whole lives.

[Clueless Northman]

7 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

he's also totally right, even if it is his fault, that his children are not serious people.  They think they are, because his money gives them power and options, but the reality is, they're not serious.  They're not him.

He was a complete jerk and what I'm going to state is also a failure at parenting on his part, but I've felt since Season 2 that the non-Roy-related people in the company (Gerry, Frank and a few others) are most probably the only ones truly able to run it without crashing and burning it, once Logan is out.

 

19 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

That said, it begins to make more sense as to why this show will end after this season: since the characters can't escape their patterns, it has to end before it becomes too repetitive

When Logan gave his big speech to his Fox News minions, I was nearly expecting him to have another heart attack, considering how loud and boisterous he went. I still expect the show to end with him basically incapacitated or dying this way, whatever mess he and his kids come up with in the next 7 episodes.

[Jace, Extat]

Still workin my way through season 2 of my rewatch. Good show. Great, even. Not the BEST show. But it's pretty fucking great. 

HBO makes good stuff. 

[Cas Stark]

16 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

He was a complete jerk and what I'm going to state is also a failure at parenting on his part, but I've felt since Season 2 that the non-Roy-related people in the company (Gerry, Frank and a few others) are most probably the only ones truly able to run it without crashing and burning it, once Logan is out.

[snipped]

Yes, but that makes sense.  Logan would have good people around him to manage the businesses, otherwise he wouldn't have become a powerful billionaire in the first place.  I don't know if the family dynamic is that different from real life, where the original entrepreneur is rarely able to instill the same XX of traits that led him/her to be a trail blazer. Second generations are usually dilettante duds.  Logan Roy has to tried to make his children ruthless, because he thinks he is ruthless/successful due to his hard scrabble upbringing.  But poverty and mind games since you were a child are not in the same ball park.  Thus, by his own actions, he has created the group of unserious heirs who are not fit to run his empire.  An own goal of epic proportions.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Is a lot like Tywin: treat your children like garbage is a bad method of making them fit to take over from you. I wonder if one of them will shoot Logan in the privy with a crossbow.

[Aemon Stark]

Haven't watched tonight, but Kendall feels whole and seasoned now. He is, contrary to what Logan thinks, perhaps now a serious person. 

14 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

My favorite characters, not that anyone really cares, are Gerri and Karolina, because I feel very close to them, professionally.

I love Gerri. You know even if she leaves the company she's walking away with an exceptional severance package (is she still CEO of Waystar?). 

And Karolina is my crush. Glad to see her back at last. 

[Cas Stark]

Kendall could come out on top, but he is not a serious person and will run whatever is left of the company into the ground.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Well, we're finally 

Spoiler

justifying the title of the show.  The least funny episode, for obvious reasons, but the one that changes everything.

 

[Trebla]

That was one of the best and shocking episodes of TV ever!

Spoiler

By not showing his face for several minutes while doing compressions, they really had me wondering at first if this was just Logan fucking with the kids or trying to get Roman to fly to Sweden instead of going to Connor's wedding. Poor Connor. The first words out of his mouth when they told him were: "He never liked me"

The immediate change of power dynamics when he passed was some damn good black comedy: Kerry gets immediately frozen out and Gerri climbs right back up the staircase after just getting kicked down by Logan. I honestly didn't see this coming even though there was at least one bit of foreshadowing: Logan's talk with his bodyguard about death. It reminded me of the last season of the Sopranos when Tony talked about what happens when you died.

Great writing. They set up the final season as Logan vs The Kids but now it's a free-for-all.