Cinepals - SUCCESSION 4x8 "America Decides" Review & Discussion

Episode Date: March 16, 2024

Jaby Koay and Achara Kirk watch Season 4 episode 8 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 

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Funds in the cash account are swept to partner banks where they earn the variable API. Senna. Pals. Nearing the end of succession, the penultimate to the pen ultimate. This is episode eight of season four. What's going on? That's funky numbers? I'm sending you words, yeah? Let's get them out in the next 24. We're going to do a number on them.

We're going to fuck them so hard. We're going to fix this, yeah? Oh, my gosh. Can I come see the kids? They're asleep. Just, I know. I can't. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow.

I'll see you at the funeral. Okay. A long time ago, I watched a documentary by Michael Moore. And so I don't know how reliable Michael Moore's documentaries are. There have been instances I've seen holes pointed in his documentaries. And so, you know, take it with a grain of salt. But he did one covering the, you know, Al Gore versus George W. Bush election. First off, there was some funky stuff going on in Florida with counting and stuff like that.

Florida became the laughing stock for a while as a result. If I recall correctly, it was called kind of early. George Bush won. And people were confused because I think Al Gore got the popular vote or something like that. And because it was called on one huge news organization, other news organizations kind of felt compelled to follow suit. According to that, it's been a long time since I've watched it. So forgive me if I'm misremembering anything, for those of you who are old enough to be familiar with that history of things. Like, I don't know what this is sort of like attacking, if you will, news organizations in general or if it's sort of speaking to that time and history between Al Gore and George Bush or the, you know, the whole thing with Trump.

You know, it's obviously some kind of lightweight commentary on that stuff while also illustrating to us just the sheer power that these news organizations can have. And what's more frightening is like what is informing the decisions to point things in a particular direction. I am feeling this threatened by my sister who's lying to me. I'm going to make the election go this way. Something's so trivial and immature. You know what I mean? It's crazy. Honestly, this episode, I was just kind of like, okay, I'm really just trying to keep up.

I just barely got my head around this whole concept of the electoral college, which just seems like wild to me. It's like, why don't you just tally up the votes and like just go off of what's the most popular vote instead of being like each state has its own certain number of electoral college votes or whatever. And that's what we go off of in the end. The popular vote in theory should be enough. But the issue is that certain states have more people than other states. And so things are structured in such a way to give each state a certain amount of power so that it doesn't have too much power over other states.

That's why you have the electoral college. I see. Yeah. I guess I just come from places where we don't really have this whole thing of like states governing themselves and stuff like that. It's complicated and strange.

I have historically voted Democrat, just to be clear about that. I did notice after Trump won all the Democrats in the news organizations talking about how this electoral college thing is antiquated. And I'm like, y'all weren't saying any. Think about that before when Obama won.

Like, no one said anything about this when the Democrats are winning. It's only when the Republicans are winning that Democrats start coming out and droves say, hey, this whole thing is antiquated and should go, like the way of the dinosaur. So what does this mean for Tom then? His reputation's on the line for calling it prematurely. Is he in any danger of, like, going to jail or anything like that? He wouldn't go to jail. He could get fined, I suppose, or his reputation's on the line, you know.

But I don't think, I don't think he could, you can't go to jail. or something like that. He narrowly escaped going to prison for the cruises stuff. And then now it's like, oh, here he is, again, Tom Wumscans. He's the scapegoat of the family. If it can be demonstrated that he is in bed with certain politicians. Yeah. And that was informing his motivation to call the election early in that politician's favor.

Sure, you know, he can go to jail or something like that. Like, I'm sure that some kind of ramification like that could be pursued. Based on the conversation we were seeing, Tom was following orders from the top down, but he is the one that will get all the shit. The decisions that are being made are being made like emotionally, even like with Kendall and then at the very end with Shiv coming out and being like, we're going to fuck them. You know, like, we're going to get ahead of this. Now I'm like, oh my God, what's she going to do? For a fleeting moment, I actually forgot. It wasn't really the country's best interest at heart that she was fighting for.

For a fleeting moment, I forgot about her whole deal that she had of why she was. was fighting for the Democratic. True, true. But I think she really is concerned about that as well. You know, because she was in politics. Before she got into the whole family business, like politics was her thing. I understand, but she lied. I don't know.

There was a moment that she had with Kendall. And it's like, the show is full of these instances where it's like, it could go that way and it could be better. And instead, it's going this way some more. It's the carrot on the stick for the. audience in a really f*** up way. It's so mean. It's like bludgeoning the audience's heart. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because he constantly gives you this glimmer of hope. Like it could go a different direction that was like actually good. And then it goes this way again. It's almost like

if Aronovsky made a TV show, this is it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because it keeps going down this path that you don't want it to go down. And like this is so true to life. That's the most frightening part of it These news organizations have so much power. And it's even worse today than it was years ago because of the echo chamber that is the internet between Google and Facebook and Instagram and all the, what do you call it, crafted ads and whatever that's generated to, you know, fit your data. Social media is more powerful now than the news organizations. But I mean, all of the news organizations are on social media as well. But that's how important it is for them to be on X. I'm sure.

I'm sure there's a lot of people watching this or listening to this that have family members like myself that have the Fox News logo burned into their TV from having it on so frequently. That level of addiction and tuned into this political dialogue is new. That didn't always used to be the case. It's poison. It's such a toxic level of conversation that we're at now. It's not even conversation. It's just like I get like I said the echo chamber. Right.

Yeah. It's poison. Poisoned to the dialogue we could be having, and it's just getting worse. That's what's scary. Well, yeah, and you see that as well in the episode where they're kind of like, are you going to report on this? Mencken's supporters or whatever had been burning stuff. They're like, er, maybe, I don't know. Seems like this is a dialogue that's been going on since the 70s.

I'm basing that strictly on the existence of a film I'm aware of called Network, which is a film everybody should see. I think it was from the 70s. Think of succession condensed into like a two-hour film. I really like this episode a lot. It was a little bit lost in the first 15 minutes. Yeah. But I was like, I feel like if I just keep going, I'll be okay. And that was pretty much the case.

It's like, it just took me a second to get my sea legs with the episode. Yeah, because it is, it is just like so much political stuff, which a lot of the time, that's not really something that I enjoy. Ultimately, it goes back to, like, the family and the stuff that's going on and, like, how it's all affecting everything. I think we have to be careful when we say things like that. Politics is, like, boring and it's frustrating and it's annoying and it's like, what can I do? Like, you know what I mean? I get all the feelings that people have around politics, but I think it's important to have some modicum of understanding

just to, like, be able to kind of participate in that dialogue so you have some semblance of an idea because oftentimes what happens is there is an effect on the people, on the world, and people complain, it's like, why? And it's like, did you vote, though? I know you can't vote in this country. Yeah, I'm not allowed. But like, a lot of people will get frustrated with the situation at large,

but, like, what are you actually doing? It brings you into a whole different dialogue because this can splinter into a million. in different directions of like, well, what can you do? Just because I don't normally like kind of getting too deep into politics because it does. It just overwhelms me and it just makes me feel terrible. And like, why would I do that to myself all the time? Of course, yes, be informed.

Know what's going on or whatever. Of course I believe that you should vote. That's not what I'm suggesting. Okay. Well, I just wanted to make that clear. I just kind of went off into a different direction, a bigger direction. It's twofold, right? And it's two different things.

We'll get frustrated about. things, but it's like, what are you actually doing about it? That's one half, but the other half is what can you do about it? It's so overwhelming just to be a person today. Let me take it away from this, and let's just talk about being an actor today. Back in the day, you took acting lessons, you went on auditions. That was that. Now you have to have a PR person. You have to have a social media thing. There's like so much more you have to do as an actor just to be able to get shit jobs. So much has gone non-union and the union jobs have like dwindled. You know what I mean? It's like, it's such a crazy time to be an actor. It used to be that you

you could do three commercials a year and you would have enough money to buy a house. Now you do three commercials a year. You might be lucky if that gets you rent. Right. You know, it's like, it's just a different landscape. I'm making that akin to the political stuff. It's like it's so overwhelming. And I feel like things used to seem at least simpler and you're able to digest it.

But now there's just so much going on in the world. It's impossible to keep up with it all. So it's like, on the one hand, what are you doing about it? On the other hand, do you have the bandwidth to do anything about it and not just feel steamrolled by everything happening in the world. I really like the scene between Shiv and Tom. There is like stuff being said. It used to be buried down and now it's just coming up to the surface.

Like it's just all being kind of pointed at in a very strong and aggressive way between the two of them. For her to say finally, like it caught us off guard that she's pregnant. Like I didn't know she was going to pull out that card. What's so much more surprising is that Tom didn't take the bait. He's just so jaded by her in all of her moves. move? Yeah. Is it a power move? Are you, are you with me? I'm like, what? That was the other half of the unexpected in that scene. It was wild. You don't feel like I attacked you, do you? I wasn't saying like, you're a problem. I'm saying a lot of people say they don't like politics, so they don't

bother with it, including myself. I'm guilty of the same thing. I often don't participate in it myself. I just try to have like a tiny understanding of what the hell's happening, and then I pull my head out. The voting thing, right, in Wisconsin that they kept talking about. There was this whole dialogue with Trump and it went on for a really long time about fake votes and like dead people voting because oh yeah I remember that you know like the because people's votes were being manipulated et cetera there isn't like a whole lot of data to really support that conversation but that was a narrative that kept going around because Trump kept pushing it right at least that's my dumb little pedestrian understanding of things I actually liked that that was a huge

focal point in the episode this whole Wisconsin thing because I thought that was actually quite interesting. It's like, okay, if this voting thing burn down for a lot of mail-in ballots, like, what do you do? I don't know. I guess it's like, okay, we have to move on or whatever. In that case, doesn't that just fuel people who want the vote to go a certain way to just be like, all right, why don't we just burn all of the voting centers or burn all of the vans that contain ballots? You know, like what's stopping people from doing that going forward if nothing is done? What's scary about that instance is like, The show never bothers to tell you who did that, right?

It's just a thing that happened. We suspect that it is Mencken's supporters. But we don't actually know. Sure. Okay, yes. Well, that's kind of what they were alleging or saying. The scary part is both sides can say it was the other side. And the way that that guy took what Roman gave him as a talking point was frightening.

Because like the easy go-to thing is something kind of like Hitler-ish. You know what I mean? Are you talking about like the Ravenhead guy? Yeah. The way he was like, they're going to come into your homes and blah, blah, blah, and talk about this. It's just the idea of creating this sense of things being this fascist state. They're trying to control you and blah, blah, blah. The easy word is they're creating fear.

They're fearmongering. And that makes me afraid how the news organizations can fearmonger and, like, actually have effect. I think that's ultimately what I'm trying to articulate. Yeah, it is. It's gross to watch because you know there are people who are watching that in their living rooms and just going like, yeah, getting like really riled up about it. Now, what the show hasn't touched on, this gets to be on the scope of the show now, and it's just like, now it's just real stuff. I've heard that people right now on their phones are just as willing to listen to some random person talking out of their living room, like we're doing now. Yes.

As they are a professional well-lit, produced news thing. It's the same to the end user now. Especially when it comes to those more raw news reports, like, say, TikTok videos and stuff that are coming from people. who are on the ground in Gaza or something like that. That's a little different, but yes. There's more inclination to believe that, rather than a lot of what is being shown to us in the media. Yes, I agree with you.

I guess it's different than what you're saying is people, people are treating, like, just random people who have opinions on social media as, like, political pundits or something. The problem is we've got a history of people who are supposed to be informed and educated, giving us information and educating us, but they're actually manipulating us. Exactly.

And so when you have that, so much, then people start turning to other things, like the pedestrian person who just got a thought. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And that's actually frightening because people can be swayed and it's just chaos. Yeah, but then I guess the question is like, where do you get your information from? How do you know? Like, what is a reputable news source? So my simple rule is I will watch something from the left and I'll watch something from the right and I'll see where that Venn diagram is of truth. That's how I do it. Sometimes YouTube recommends me Fox stuff or what, uh, right wing stuff.

And I'm like, all right, fine, I'll watch it. And then I'll watch the left wing stuff just as easily. And just see what seems to make sense. And that's how I make up my mind. I don't often watch the guy on the couch. It is like exhausting, though, sometimes to watch stuff like that. Because it's like, you feel so much the agenda from both sides. Absolutely.

And it's just like, okay, I have to have the energy to sit through and watch this so that I can extract whatever. small amount of truth is hidden in there. It feels tiring. Okay, when you're first learning how to ride a bike, it's probably quite exhausting. You do it enough. You're like, okay, it's second nature. You don't even think about it, right? Driving stick. Same thing. Manual transmission, right? So I feel like with the new stuff, it's kind of the same muscle. At first, it's exhausting. And then after a while, you're like, okay, that's bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Okay, that seems like a motorcom of truth. That's sort of how I look at it, you know, both left and right. Because everyone's got an agenda of some kind. They're all trying to sell you, you know, microwave meals. You guys, thanks. Thanks so much. I'm Jabby Kui. This is Achara Kirk. Peace out.