Cinepals - SUCCESSION 4x10 "With Open Eyes" Reaction & Review!

Episode Date: March 24, 2024

Jaby Koay and Achara Kirk watch Season 4 episode 9 of HBO Max 'Succession.' Stunning performances all around from Brian Cox, Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, Jeremy Strong, Matthew Macfadyen and Nicholas Braun.    You can see our cutdown reaction on https://www.YouTube.com/@Cinepals or join our Patreon for access to the uncut reaction https://www.Patreon.com/JabyKoay   Social Media ~JABY KOAY~ Instagram: @TheCinepals, @JabyKoay   ~ACHARA KIRK~ Twitter & Instagram: @AcharaKirk 

Senna. Pals. We are here! Oh, my goodness. The final episode, finally. Finery, finery, made it to the final episode. Let's do it. There's a lot there underneath the surface.

I'm, like, actually really worried about Kendall. Yeah, that's right. Stay close. Oh. What? Well, the opening is always a shot of the dad from behind. In the classic Shakespearean sense of things, or I guess, you know, old plays, you generally had a comedy or a tragedy. What's the difference between the two, right?

Comedy is a happy ending and a tragedy is a sad ending. Yeah. What is a comedy but a drama with jokes? This is definitely a tragedy. And that was very clearly demonstrated from the beginning of the show. Didn't feel good at the end, but it was thought-provoking. Yeah. And all along the way, it's always kind of tragic how things don't work out in the way that is more ideal. You know, the ideal thing is the family comes together. The show just does this the entire time. And it almost doesn't even feel like it's over because the beats that were played in this final episode have been played throughout. And it's just like this poetic repeat of the same thing until the death. It's like this hyper toxic relationship shared amongst the family all the way through and through to the end. Her pivoting at the last second, like I know. knew something had to come to get in the way because that moment of them being happy could not

last. Yeah. It's just like the show doesn't set you up that way. Just like, you know, in terms of the rhythm of things, you knew something else had to come to blow it all to pieces. And her pivoting at the last second, it's like, okay, yeah, that makes sense because she's got Tom and she knew she could get Tom. She wins because she's queen at the end of the day. Yeah, but like queen of what? Queen of the empire. Queen of a puppet king whose main purpose there is to be a an empty vessel and be a puppet for Lucas to use. I don't think Tom is actually an empty vessel though. I think that...

Right, but that's, in theory, that's what he wanted. In theory, that's what he wanted. But you could see Tom being king. Like, the way he just walked in, his sense of like observing everything, deciding who would stay and who would go. Sure. Tom is not a pushover. Yeah, Tom is a grown-up, Greg.

Yeah. And I think that in a very subtle way, they illustrated to us over the course of this season, Tom has gotten stronger. And he's willing to not take shit And he's willing to push back And he's willing to fight And he's willing to get in the mud

His keeping Greg was not actually surprising to me I could see that coming Posturing for a moment going Mm-hmm mm-hmm Oh, go just kidding You're still in You know Yeah, you're still in

You're too much fun Maybe it is what you said Where he sees himself in Greg Yeah When you've betrayed someone like that And they still keep you on I would suppose Maybe there is more of a sense

Of you know Now you really have to be loyal because I kept your job. Tom holds all the cards. Greg has to be his bitch for the rest of his life, probably. Of all the characters in the show, Tom is the one that is the least offensive of everybody.

He's the one that I hated the least. He's the one that if I had to pick someone to root for, it would have been him. I'm actually glad in the end that he won. Because even though he's not the central character, he is the one that I would have championed. He got the most shit of everybody. He stood by Shiv.

He was the most traditionally good person of everyone in the show, even though he's awful too. Yeah, no, I wonder, okay, I don't really play chess very well, but is there a move where you can do something if the porn reaches the end of the tape, of the board, then it can turn into... It turns into a queen, I believe. Right.

So it's almost like Tom's Rise, where he started out. He's just like a porn. He's a nothing. He's not a rich guy from her. a rich family he literally makes it all the way to the end he gets promoted to like a more powerful player and he won in the end you know with with regards to shiv that was another long running battle through the show there was this constant back and forth of who was going to pin you know yeah simba or nala she chose wisely with ken on top ken is really they're all self-serving

the thing about tom that makes him different is while he is self-serving he is all also so in love with Shiv and he does care about her and whatever she would ask for, he would fight to take care of her. I don't know. Sure. It's left open-ended and there's left, it's left for interpretation. And I feel like you could do a spin-off show with the crew they've got left there. There's so much drama to milk if they wanted to.

Yeah. But probably best to leave it where it's at. Yeah, just leave it where it's at. There is this inclination to continue mining for drama in shows long after they should have ended. May as well just end on a high note how you intended. Leave it at that. It's a great story that they have made here and like a very intense journey

that they've taken the audience on over these four seasons. The sweet picking Tom was highly unexpected for me. That's the one surprise in the entire show, in this entire season that caught me off guard. He was constantly humming and hoeing, like scared that he was going to get fired. Yeah. And I didn't see coming that at that dinner table,

because all I could think in that moment, I think I was so fixated, I was projecting. I was, I was fixated on, I hate the position Tom is in right now. I hate that feeling of like, the other side of this table is someone so much more powerful. Right. You have to like find a way to kiss their ass. It's a disgusting, uncomfortable feeling. And I was so hyper-focused on that.

I didn't see coming that the Swede was going to pick him as CEO. Yeah, I mean, I definitely saw it coming that he wasn't going to keep Shiv, especially in her behavior where she, I think she felt it too. where she's kind of like, I'm so nervous, I'm so nervous. I just want this so badly. This is my understanding of Lucas's character, right? Like, he is kind of capricious and all of that. Like, you can't really predict what he's going to do.

He'll just change his mind on a whim. I don't know, maybe he was kind of put off by her... Aggressiveness? Yeah, her desperation. I had a sense that she was going to get screwed. Maybe also because she's constantly being screwed throughout the show, like men keep promising her things or people keep promising her things and saying, like,

oh, yeah, I'm going to make you the CEO. I'm going to make you the CEO. She goes really excited. And then they take it away from her at the last second. Because, I mean, and maybe rightfully so, because she doesn't have the chops to back it up, even though she is an extremely intelligent woman. And she really did help Lucas navigate the waters

towards getting that deal. But as this show shows, it's like, you can't trust. anyone. Literally everyone is a shark and they will eat you at the first available opportunity. Shiv is one of those characters who actually does help immensely to a given situation.

She helps launch things forward and gets no credit for it repeatedly throughout the show. There are themes that are established and they just keep coming back. And that's both a cool thing in the show and a negative, I would feel.

Because in some ways the show lacked surprise because because it keeps doing the thing you feel like it's supposed to do. How many times were you genuinely surprised throughout this season? It's all been captured on video. It's all been captured. I think I was just more surprised or maybe not surprised, but like shocked at the level of cruelty and vehemence

that the family were leveling at each other. It's not surprising because that's how they relate to each other. They always go for the jugular. But I think it just shocks me every time when they go there because it's like, oh my God, you went there. But maybe that is just so realistic because sometimes when you're in an argument with your family, you know all of the insecurities and the deepest, darkest secrets.

When it's time to win, then you play those cards. You play the card on Kendall about like how his kids are not like his bloodline. And that's like a sensitive topic for him. And it just unhinges him. You know, like the things that they say to each other, I'm like, oh, that's so cruel. But maybe very realistic. Yeah, well, the scene in that adjacent room felt real A-F. I mean, and that's one of the big positives about the show is just like, oftentimes the dialogue, even if you don't know what they're talking about, it feels very real.

I've had fights with my little sister that were akin to that. So, yeah, it feels real. The way that Kendall completely fell apart in that room and turned into the most complete and total desperate, individual. He looked so much like a little boy just like, please, mommy, buy me this toy. That's what I kept seeing in his face. And that's the thing that he does best with this character is he just has this sort of hung dog look to him. Yeah. You know? And I mean, you bringing up the whole like kid wanting the toy, it ties back into the thing where he's like, no, but dad told me that I would have it when I was seven years old. Yeah. And it's like, okay, kind of a messed up thing maybe to say to a seven year old and put that pressure on them. or maybe it was just, you know, his dad thought, oh, that's a nice thing that you say, like, you're going to inherit this kingdom someday, son. But, yeah, it gives him a sense of entitlement that he's had.

And maybe he's just never really had to work as hard as anyone else to really be qualified. Although, you know, saying that, he has put in the time and everything. And so maybe out of the three, he is the most qualified, but you got to go with the best person, maybe. But what do I know? Like, I don't run a business like that. He's only qualified in the sense of optics. Right.

He's not genuinely qualified. But that's why you have a team. It was interesting to see where he came from mentally and spiritually with the fact that, you know, he was partly responsible for someone's death. The way it was weaponized against him, it's like, that's exactly like, why did you divulge that? That's so crazy to me that you shared that information. I know it was like weighing on you. Yeah. But that's the sort of shit where you're like, we're a family, right?

Like, I'm supposed to be able to be vulnerable with you. Like, you're not supposed to take the things that I tell you in confidence in a moment when I am falling apart. You're not supposed to take those things and weaponize them against me. You can use anything else, anything else in the plethora of shit that I, you know, that we've shared throughout the years. But, like, that stuff, those were hard-hitting things. I would really like love the deleted scene or whatever or just a little bit more insight into what led up to Shiv having that moment of post-nut clarity. Whatever it is, like she just had some kind of clarity that was not shown up to that point.

And so it kind of felt out of left field a little bit. Yeah. I'm like, when when did that happen? Exactly. It happened so quickly. It's like was a phone call made? Or did she just come to that, realize? herself and be like, you know what, I don't, I don't want to play second, third fiddle to my

brothers anymore, you know? Well, I guess it wouldn't be an HBO show without leaving you in a space where you've got questions. Yeah, I mean, that's good though, because like, you can kind of fill in the blanks a little bit based on what you know about the characters, how they've made decisions before. She's, she lost. They all, all the kids lost. It was a very interesting, candid conversation between, uh, uh, the swede and Tom where he's like, you know, he won, wants Shiv. She cannot do anything she did before to Tom. No. He's got the power now. He's got the power. Like if she steps out of line, all right, well, here's the divorce papers, you know, good luck.

She wants to stay in proximity of power. And so the only way to do that is to be good, is to be good to Tom. So he's the only, he's the one that won in the end. That's like, that's really crazy to think about because he was begging for, like, the, the shit pieces, the leftovers at the very beginning. The humiliation that that man has had to go. through at the expense of this family and like how he's always been made to feel like he's a bit of an outsider and less than and less than yeah like it's kind of awful and even the way shiv was talking about him with Lucas where she's just like well yeah these are his strong points but also these are his negative so like whatever either way I don't care let him work or fire him like I really don't give a shit you know it she wasn't supportive of him in the room when he's not in the room. And that's always been the case with her. You know what's funny is like, we started this conversation out with the notion that this is a tragedy.

And I'm realizing that it's actually not as much of a tragedy as I had initially thought at the beginning of this conversation. This is actually more of a Hollywood ending because Tom won. The underdog wins. The underdog wins. The bad guys lost. We were just following the bad guys. Maybe that's the story all along.

It's like, but then also, maybe it is. kind of a tragedy because when you get in that position, you will become a bad guy, you know? Yeah. Sooner or later, I mean, already, Tom's well on his way. Yeah. He's done some bad shit. So, like, yeah, no one is actually good, like you always said. Yeah, no one's good in the show, but Tom is the least offensive.

He's like, again, if I had to pick someone to root for it to like actually come out on top, it would be him because none of the kids deserve it. They're all spoiled brats. They are all spoiled brats. Yeah, and so it's not surprising that they didn't get it. I mean, at this point, we followed them for so long that, yeah, you know, I feel like I can sympathize and feel disappointment with them, but also look at it from a different angle and just be like, yeah, you're entitled brats who didn't really deserve it anyway, so. I would have rooted for Kendall if in that closet scene with Frank? Frank.

If in that scene in the closet at Tom and Schiff's place, you know, the dialogue was different, I would have rooted for him. The thing is, he exemplified his selfishness once more. You know, he's like, it's me, it's me, you know, fuck them, it's me. Like, once again, he was speaking that rhetoric. It's like, dude. And so if he had said something different in confidence, like, I need to lead this, but I still want to take care of my family, something along the lines of that. I would have rooted for him, you know, in the end. But like, this whole thing of him being CEO, oh, you got this, you got this.

It's like, yeah, but at the end of the day, it still feels like yourself serving, you know? Yeah, but I think that's the thing. It's like this family has never been a unit. They've always been ready to tear each other apart. And they're all very selfish and just thinking about what's best for them, you know? So here's my question to you and to the audience. If it had worked out where Shiv had voted in his favor and, you know, everything was cool and beachy

and Shiv got a thing and Roman got a thing and they were all working in cohesion with one another, all winning as it were. Would that have been a satisfying ending? Probably not. I don't think that that's the show that we had leading up to it. Do you know what I mean?

Do you think they have an alternate ending? An alternate ending they shot? They must have like 20 endings that they shot. And then they're like, yeah, we'll go with this one. This one makes the most sense. Yeah. I feel like they're had had to have been alternate endings that they prepared. You get to the end of the road and you're like, you're experiencing, what's his name, Robert Frost,

the road less traveled? Yeah. It's like, okay, you feel a sense of indecisiveness. It's like, how do you conclude this story that has been so strong? I wouldn't imagine that the writers were like pulling their hair out, kind of going like, how do we end it? Because they played the card in episode three that we thought they would have saved until like much later in the season,

which is Logan's death. A lot of people would probably say this. That's probably like the best episode. That was incredible what they did to just be like, so this guy that we've been building up who's like this kind of scary character, the scary king character, he just dies early on in the season.

Now where do we take it? They're like, okay, you know, there's going to be a lot of like back and forth up and down changing of teams and whatnot until at the end. It's like they don't win. They lose it all. Their dad dies.

and they lose the kingdom. Screw you. Goodbye. Well, that was quite the journey. It was. There were some really great moments in the episodes as well. Like, I liked all of the stuff with the siblings when they came to visit their mom and just kind of their interactions. It was really fun to watch.

It's all fleeting. Yeah. It's all fleeting. The happiness is fleeting in this. It is. The happiness is just an illusion. We didn't realize we weren't watching the protagonist most of the time. time. So you guys, thanks so much for hanging with us. I'm Jabby Kui. This is

Achara Cook. Peace out.