Girls Gone Canon Cast - Succession S4E7: Tailgate Party+ ft. PoorQuentyn

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

Spoilers! Succession S4E7: Tailgate Party ft. PoorQuentyn from NotACastASOIAF NotACast Patreon | My Brother, My Captain, My Podcast Patreon | @PoorQuentyn GGC Patreon | @GirlsGoneCanon the motherfucking funny tweet about sadie sink  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The following music was used for this media project: Music: Modern Jazz Samba by Kevin MacLeod Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/4063-modern-jazz-samba License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Watches Sixth Session, Season 4, Episode 7, and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Watches Six Session, Season 4, Episode 7, Tailgate Party. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I'm another one of your hosts, Emmett. Welcome back. I don't know who I was when I titled this episode for our document, but I called it Season 5, which is wishful thinking. You wish. You wish. You and everyone else are just making it happen. I will miss it. I will miss it. And I'm starting to feel it as we hurdle towards the end.

Welcome back for those of you returning to our fourth. Oh my God. I guess so. Fourth succession episode together. Emmett, thank you so much for joining me. Before we get into a little housekeeping, can you tell everyone where they can find you online? so I'm Emmett also known as poor Quentin I host the not a cast podcast with our friend Manu aka nuclear bomb we go through a song of

ice and fire one chapter at a time we're doing it once every two weeks right now and for patrons on the other weeks I'm putting out episodes on Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. So you can check us out wherever you listen to your podcast, wherever you listen to Girls Gone Canon. And you can check out our Patreon at patreon.com slash notacast, A-S-O-I-A-F. And you can find me at Poor Quentin on Twitter. I am looking forward, little spoiler if you didn't listen last week, looking forward to the Manu and emmet star warsing to

come for us patrons we're gonna be kicking off the original uh original trilogy i just ran through the prequels we're gonna be kicking off the original movie talking about c-3po and rtd2 you know everyone's favorite protagonists basically you too see that's the thing i was wondering you know me or manu which one is the 3po which one's the R2 and I realized oh no we're both C3PO every podcast has to have two C3PO the worst of all possible worlds both 3PO's well we will link everywhere to find you below Emmett has been joining me as my co-host these past few weeks while Eliana has been Carmen Sandiego-ing across the universe and my god I come bearing news. If you don't listen to Girls Gone Canon outside of these few succession episodes,

ooh, do I have a treat for you. Coming up with Girls Gone Canon, we've been covering a Song of Ice and Fire POV by POV character. We are currently finished up with Victarion. And we're going into Erin Greyjoy next. Eliana is returning. Victarion for we're going into Aaron Greyjoy next. Eliana is returning. Victarion for patrons, the winds of winter, Patreon episode, Victarion one, we think, that will be out this month for you in that stranger tier and above. So if you are over at patreon.com slash girls gone canon, check that out. our patreon has been delayed for charging patrons until june

so if you are already a patron that will be coming out for you for free this month and june you'll start getting charged once more and really exciting we will be bringing aaron grayjoy up in june we will be beginning his, meaning we'll probably do a Forsaken episode, which Emmett here I know loves the Forsaken. My favorite thing on Earth or under it or above it. Or deep, deep within it. Deep, deep below it. Deep.

That will be for patrons in The Stranger here coming out in June, so keep your ears peeled for that. And we have been covering Sailor Moon Crystal. That coverage was delayed to come back up in June. We'll be back with season two of Crystal as we hurdle towards the new movie coming out there in June. And for patrons in the Thunder tier and above

that are on our Discord, our private Discord server, we will be having Patreon brunch slash happy hour next month like we do every month on may 27th at 3 p.m et that's 3 p.m eliana time hopefully so we hope to see you there thanks so much for your patience while we took this brief little break i hope you've been enjoying the succession episodes i have manipulated blackmailed cajoled forced Emmett to stay along to finish the ride. All of the above and more. Actually, I really didn't.

I didn't even guilt him that much. He finally came back and said, all right, all right. I can't, I can't, you know, ignore the people. They want me. Stockholm syndrome works on me just like it works on Greg. Am I Tom? Huh? Is there any good answer to that question?

Lots to ask. Lots to unpack. And we have three more episodes together to do that with. Perfect. So thanks for listening to us as we delve into the world of Succession. Of course, as we enter the tailgate party, sipping on our earthy wine, we will be talking about everything up till now. You you know up till tailgate party and tailgate party and speculation so if you haven't caught up with season four get out of here emmett i have

something so exciting we got our first piece of fan mail from the people they love us like i said the people the very people that you said you couldn't let down so so our first piece of mail that we've received in our succession podcast hi girl and emmet wait which one am i yes great job on the weekly succession coverage i'm still catching up with a bunch of stuff including last night's episode but i can't wait to listen thanks for the shout out about me being able to pull off the hat to one host and one host only. Who could this be from? I can't imagine. We had a mystery night.

I wanted to share a small thought I had. And maybe you've already discussed it or someone else. But I was thinking about the three siblings being united and it all falling apart. Especially Roman's name. It made me think of them as perhaps one of the triumvirates. Roman's name, it made me think of them as perhaps one of the triumvirates, and that maybe one of them, probably Kendall, will succeed in conquering and taking full control as dictator of Waystar Royco, like Julius Caesar, and then maybe be deposed like him, maybe even die, and maybe someone else will come in and shepherd a time of glory, like the Roman Empire, or whatever,

a time of glory like the Roman Empire or whatever as the Republic falls, which is more second triumvirate. And then this anonymous writer mentioned that maybe this disruptor in Rome could be, I don't know, Cousin Greg, like Octavian, right? That's okay. Okay. So this was just a random thought this reader had, this watcher had, and wanted to share, see if we had thoughts. And they also said, thanks for all you do, for the hard work you've been putting in the cast. I appreciate it immensely. Best, your loyal fan, Eliana. Who? I don't, I don't think, this is the first time right here.

Have we been introduced? Yeah, I don't know. I don't think we've met. Who is she? Nysifer, though. Oh, Eliana has caught up. She has listened to the last episode, and now she's watched, I think, the last episode as well. So I'm excited to hear what she has to think now.

But I think there's a lot in this episode that also points to that, right? One head, one crown. Absolutely. I think that structure of empire giving way to republic is something a lot of storytellers borrow from to kind of give their family sagas a little kind of historical backdrop. You see that with the godfather stories that Succession is often compared to.

And you go back from that, there's a great Italian movie called The Leopard that came out in the 60s that Coppola and Scorsese both draw from. That's this very beautiful kind of costume drama about the aristocracy in Sicily gradually realizing that the efforts to make Italy united into a republic are going to come to pass

and part of their privileges will have to pass away, but part of them will continue. And so, yeah, I definitely think that same kind of influences in the succession for sure. And I could definitely see Kendall playing the role of the conqueror to be. That's set up more and more in these episodes. And, you know, as far as Greg backstabbing him and taking over towards the end,

maybe we'll talk about this in the episode proper. I think Greg, maybe more than anyone, has been, his character has been the most impacted by not having another season. I feel like he could have used more of an on-ramp to whatever his final destiny is going to be. So, you know, we'll see if he plays that role or not. But if he does, I think it might feel a little bit foreshortened. What do you think? Yeah, I don't think that he's Bran the boy.

You know what I mean? He wishes. He wishes he was Bran the boy. Maybe that's how it felt. And, again, our brains are broken, right? Like, the entire nation, the entire globe. Like, we watch this fucking media and we rot our brains are broken, right? Like the entire nation, the entire globe, like we watch this fucking media and we rot our brains out. And we think that, you know, like Shiv's baby is going to end up like birthed with two heads

and then be a secret Targaryen or I don't know what we think it is. But a lot of people. I love it. No notes. Oh my God. That's what you wish would happen. It's true. I think a lot of people do come at it sometimes with the crazy theory,

myself included. Like there are some moments where I'm like, wait, what if it's not that show? It's fun to come at things with the mindset of like Game of Thrones or some of these other really complex, you know, like whodunits in media. But it's increasingly becoming not that kind of show to me, right? Every time I try to theorize something crazy, I always get shot down. So I stopped doing that. And I just enjoy it for what it is. I don't think that Greg will play maybe like a I'm the king of the castle kind of role now. But and again, yeah, you're right, we should probably get into it. But he in this episode, he showed his value a lot more than Tom, for example, in this episode and said, here's what I'm capable of. And it's Oh, you know, ruining a bunch of people's lives and feeling no remorse about it,

which is exactly what every executive wants to hear. His major skill set going forward. What an asset. Yeah. Smiley faced hatchet man. Yeah, that works. He played to anyone tonight, right? He played to anyone's fiddle on this episode he played. He was like, Mattson, I'll dance your dance. Kendall, I'll dance your dance where we watch tom try to do it and his comes off inauthentic and uh groping you know searching too earnest over eager just wants to be their bitch where greg is like oh no i'm great at what i do and i can do it for you for a price i could see an ending where kendall is triumphant but empty and greg is poised to take over at some point and just kind of left that suggested.

That could be interesting. I would like that. I do think that there's some sort of, we're seeing the endgame. We're in the endgame now. Right of succession. I'm sorry I said that. Can't even get through it. We are in the endgame though.

We're starting to see some of these plots form. There's only three more episodes for shit to get shaken up and episode eight you know i hear episode eight's got the crazy shit jesse armstrong has said in interviews that there's shocking stuff that goes down uh but but there's a few plot threads i'm starting to see where they're going and i'm starting to understand the character motivations and know that like there's not a lot some of these things can be dealt with in three days or four days an episode and a half an hour and a half yeah is the shocking thing justin kirk showing up is that what's going to be shocking about episode eight i am on the floor i am sobbing i'm throwing up that he finally did it biggest plot twist logan dying never but justin kirk that is less

expected than logan dying that's the whole mond Monday conversation afterwards is just him showing up. Yeah. Tune in next week for episode 8 where we talk about Justin Kirk for one hour. At least. At least. Let's jump into the episodes. I felt that maybe I showed too much favoritism

last episode by having Shiv be the final big one to talk about for 8 hours. So i've put her first i'm gonna be much more fair much more fair a gracious queen here benevolent as she would want yes as a girl boss herself she a fellow girl failure oh it was anything as bad as this episode when it came to like shiv tom how awful i was sitting on this couch going they're they're back they're so back they're so fucking back it's so happening and then I'm like no they're not back oh god oh god no oh god turn turn the car oh my god as a Shiv Tom anti-shipper it's nice to be right no uh it was

perfect I think they um the two of them at some of the show's strongest moments they become the dramatic core of it because it's the relationship we focus on the most with someone who's not technically a Roy. And that awareness is kind of what they're circling around without ever directly saying out loud in this episode, even though they say directly a lot of things to each other in this episode. But what Shib is trying to say is you're not one of us. You're not family. And what Tom is trying to express is everything I've done, good and bad, has left me with the fact that I'm not family to you. And there's kind of no negotiating that once they break it down to that level. But they find a lot of, you know, what makes it so great when there's so much fun for the actors is they find so many great ways of not saying that at each other. Loudly, aggressively, politely, nicely, and then not.

Yeah, I love that when they finally had it out, was you know like a real fight should be like you know where you can't fucking you're not gonna formulate a fucking manipulative argument when you're standing outside and you're like you have a house full of guests some of the most politically affluent guests and you're finally having it out about your huge relationship problems that have been brewing for years like it's uh damn you know like damn that that's an emotional moment you're not gonna have eloquency in everything that you say or cover every topic, which is so real. And I think it hurts the most because we get to see all these intimate scenes of them at

the front of the episode. Like when I say Shiv and Tom are so back, that was backed up by a lot of evidence. I meant, first of all, so I'd like you to back down like the sex texts, like they were texting each other about fucking for hours. You know, he was very happy about that sex in the beginning of the episode. That's very true. And as we all know, talking a lot about sex means everything must be going really well. Well, listen, no, but I mean...

I'm teasing, I'm teasing. No, it's true. They have, there's a lot that keeps them together, and that's what makes it so hard when they split apart. Yeah, the intimacy that they start showing too you have these scenes of them kind of implying like this is their thing that they before elections one of the things they used to love before logan roy came back into their lives and fucking ruined it one of the things they loved doing was watching the rasmussen polling charts he says to her you know like he shows up he's like oh rasmussen polling charts, he says to her, you know, like he shows up, he's like, oh, Rasmussen, let's, let's get our poll on. And that's what he's talking about. This is their

thing. They make a nice ritual, right? When it comes to when it comes to the election, that's what they were both interested in, whether they agreed or not. And they kind of started like this little intimate, slow return to their life of like like what if we could go back to this uh that paradise that we had going before we realized that we're up inside and we don't want to deal with it and in a way their life before logan really returned back into it and then it comes down to what i thought was such a sad part of tom trying to poke fun and trying to make a sweet joke about the relationship the scorpion and the frog parable, right? It's Russian in origin, and it basically means that vicious people hurt people, even if it's not in their own interests. The scorpion gets on the frog. The frog says, how do I know you're not gonna hurt me? Well, okay, sure, maybe you won't,

because then I drown, you drown, we both die. And the scorpion fucking does it anyway, halfway through the fucking ride, just cause, you know, he's like halfway through, he's like, yeah, maybe we should both die because I'm petty spaghetti. There's other versions of this, right? There's like the, what the tortoise and the hare is kind of similar to the fox and the hare. I feel like it's a very translated fable across all different languages. This one specifically is Russian in origin, but, you know, vicious people hurt people, even when it's not in their interests to hurt the person, it's just their nature. And him getting her a scorpion and saying, ah, it's scorpion and scorpion, you know, I hurt you, you hurt me, we die. So sad, like that little

faith, that little break of hope. Heartbreaking, right? Like, oh, that's, she played it off. She wasn't hurt hurt, but she said oh thanks tom that's a sweet thing to say about our relationship you can't have two scorpions just like i said we can't have two c-3po's you can't neither one of them is the frog at that point and that's definitely what tom is trying to get across that they're kind of they're locked into that relationship with each other and yeah it's that same kind of passive aggression that we saw when he was when he first revealed that he was keeping track of how fertile she was and he was like getting all agitated like no it's something nice it's something nice and you're ruining it and it

was that same kind of dynamic here but a little more pointed because there's yeah there's no way tom sent you know pulled that out not knowing what her reaction would be and it was pointed on his part deliberately so to try to get under her skin. Yeah, started off the episode with a frustrating bang for both of them. Well, many frustrating bangs, it sounds like. He called himself a father sexmas when he was bringing her the food like a butler. It was adorable. Yeah, like that was, that's what I mean. Like they were like, they had this routine of intimacy. They had a little snuggly, like, here's our food snack. We snack we'll talk about politics and hey you better go to work today like they're in normal like the front of the episode was them trying to act like a fucking normal family and the end of

the episode was definitely the Munsters you know it was like everything has fallen apart and we can't pretend to be normal anymore yeah there's that play acting aspect of it like the way Tom talks about sex to shiv always has just the the unmistakable thing for me that the acting aspect of it. Like the way Tom talks about sex to Shiv always has just the unmistakable thing for me, the sheen of just someone who is just grateful. And there's nothing quite as unsexy as gratitude. So that's just always in the aura of like, he's trying to be tough and swaggering, but he's always just like,

thank you for allowing me to. And that's just, you know, what does she she do with that too is that just the level of contempt that starts to set in and you can see that kind of just around the edges i think of even their more uh domestic moments and it's interesting in this that then nate shows up in this episode and you think at first like this is going to be the source this is going to be the the spark that blows the two of them apart and he almost kind of ends up a red herring because his presence doesn't help, but they actually managed to, you know,

when they're talking about it to each other, get over it pretty quickly. Like Tom says, fine. It's not even you running it and moves on quickly, but it's just more the slow accumulation of indignities and deprivations that wear on him over the course of the day, over the course of the party and his life.

I add up on him more than, yeah. And Nate at this point is like, were you were 10 problems ago buddy we've we've developed new new uh phobias since you i will say though he let it go under his skin for fucking sure i mean that was the set off right like that was the first thing i was like oh fuck this fucking party are you shitting me shiv like you're inviting the guy that you fucked you cheated on me with because your family says you have to you couldn't have a backbone for me and that's really what everything as you say accumulates that's what it feels like to him that there was no backbone little little does he know

there was backbone you know when she threw her brother into the water and said please don't fucking ruin my husband's life daddy like. Like, you sold yourself out and you didn't have to. He'll never know. And then, yeah, and then Tom just kind of, I love watching him just blow it with Mattson. And Mattson's like, so what kind of manager are you? And Tom just gives the worst possible answer you can give, which is, which one do you want me to be?

Which, again, it's just like, that's not, it's the kissing up instinct that he always has with shit. It's like, that's not actually what they want to hear. You know, there's any number of different pitches you could have given, but both, I guess, is the only wrong answer you could go with there. And it's just so obviously servile, as she says about him later. And in a way, you know, it's obviously a guy like Madsen wants to be kissed up to, but he wants you to do it in such a way that he doesn't feel like that's what's happening.

So he can still feel cool. And tom just doesn't let you feel cool like it's too it embarrasses you with with him like it did with logan clearly did with kendall whenever tom talked to him and whenever tom identifies the powerful person in the room it's just it's just too obvious and he's never known how to dial that down which is just funny that's such a great point that's like what turns everyone off about him is his subserviency he won't do it himself or grow a backbone himself like he's always coming up with dumb little phrases like he's doffing his cap to whatever you know his little awkward in between interstitial phrases to get him through the process of subjugating his will to another. Matthew McFadden does an incredible

job, but it's all these like little ways that he's off that, uh, yeah, slow burn to disaster. It's kind of like when I use filler words in the podcast and I remove them in post, it's like his filler as he tries to not be British, maybe. No, I'm just kidding. Honestly, it helps. It helps the performance. It only adds to the awkwardness that is Tom Wong's Gans. It is. I mean, it it's honestly it's one of the fucking most amazing performances and this was a stellar episode for Tom Shiv like love them or hate them anti or pro Emmett anti or pro I I mean it was just an emotional bout for them and Tom so like on rewatch the first time we watched it I was like cringing I was like Shiv oh no how did you fall this far this isn't looking good for you tom's right but then i rewatched it in order to find

a defense for shiv roy no i'm just kidding uh i rewatched it and i will say tom blows it first because he's in his own head about everything after nate shows up after the fight from the morning after he's like oh maybe giving my wife a scorpion and saying you know you kill me you know you kill me i kill you ha ha maybe that wasn't romantic i guess scorpion you give me scorpion i give you scorpion you give me scorpion like maybe that wasn't romantic apparently um but he blows it first and no she's not supportive necessarily but there's a way that she and kendall throughout the entire evening are smoothing things right like could have also mentioned that inviting nate is a play to make your company not look like Nazis, right? Like, that's the big play. Everything that Shiv went around the room with Tom and did,

he would say something like, oh, yeah, I'm the bigot, you know, I'm the bigot spigot turning on the TV for your old folks and putting them in prisons, you know, like, that's like, he would say something like that, and she would immediately buffer it to soften it. And the problem is Tom is the figurehead of a notoriously fucked up mega billion corporation that mistreats women, mistreats queer people, mistreats people of color, mistreats, um, mistreats queer people, mistreats people of color, mistreats, um, oh, you know, anyone, racist, supports Nazis, like, that is what the company is. And the part of the company that is especially that part is what Tom is the boss of. And so this party, this party, while it was about obviously keeping the tradition of the political tailgate, and as we'll get into the cosplay of America that comes into that, and all the performance and the the raiment that you have

to have for it, but the whole party was also a statement of like trying to show we're doing things different than dad in some ways, and we're we're trying to soften our image, and as we get into the candle of it all, we'll see why, obviously, that he wanted Nate there. He wanted Nate there as a reaching across the aisle party move. We're trying to show, you know, we have centrists. We have a couple libs. Centrist ghouls is what they go with, yeah. I mean, I think there's the more instrumental move there, too, also that they want Nate's help with the regulatory push against Madsen, I think, is their big motive for pulling him there is the knowledge that he can maybe work an end run around them since he has connections in that regard.

Which, yeah, but it's the business and the personal for Shiv and Tom. I think the border's been pretty fluid there for a while, so you can't break them down too easily. Of course, Shiv was unsupportive, right? Like, this was the part of her family that she ran from, right? The raven head hanging out at your dad's apartment in the last couple episodes. Like the fact that she's like, oh, this is kind of crazy. We need to drop ATN because everything it stands for is everything

I ran from, from my father my whole life with him, what I used against him. Like I'll go be a Democrat and ruin your life, dad. Like maybe, yeah, your hick conservative husband as you call him later embodies everything that you're like afraid of and hate about your family and you married that and you pushed him into that role and said this is what you get and now you hate that and hate him and hate everything he stands for that's interesting because i feel like i feel like with shiv and tom i feel like what she did is she married her mother basically in male form because tom doesn't really remind me whenever tom pretends to be conservative i just don't believe it like i don't he's not like no one would buy him as a red meat truck driving

republican male like no he's again he's english like it comes through like he feels he feels like he belongs in castles with tea parties and he's very fancy and he like he likes his nice things as he's confessed many times it's just it's so transparently an act and I think that's what Shiv really can't stand about him ultimately is that just all of this is still is still such a such a put on and such a performance um I think what you know what it leads to her back to him why she's so unhappy with it is because she feels the same is true about herself that i don't think i don't think shiv has super strong convictions of her own to anchor her to politically and i think she

is looking for that looking to try to create that on her own without her dad and i think tom is just like yeah a constant kind of frustration and mill around her neck And I think Tom is just like, yeah, a constant kind of frustration and mill around her neck. I do think in a way that like her teenage rebellion slash college rebellion was that she was like, fuck my dad. Fuck what he stands for. You know, like, OK, that's the family thing. She really did like journalism. We see a PGN, right, that she actually like really respects PGN.

And she's like, that's like a real company. Like, you can't buy them because they're a real company that actually do things like we just tell fake stories all the time like she understands the the elaboration of the news you know like that like oh ATN is a little nut nut compared to PGN at least is somewhat a real place with a real institution of real people and I do think that's something for her that like it's a strong pull at the two sides of her that she left home and was like, I don't need my dad. I don't need his money or his name. I'll make it my own, even though obviously, she needed that name to make it on her own. That's what people wanted her for. That's what they hired her for. They were like, Oh, Shiv Roy wants to revolt against daddy. Great. But I do think that there's two sides of her with Tom with that, right? Like

part of him is the husband that is too weak and subservient to do anything but then the other part of him is like but yet he runs ATN and he puts his legs on people like human benches and chairs you know and well whether it's an act or not he still upholds the evil in some ways so whether morally she really gives a shit about that or not, I don't know, but she seems to give a little shit about it. I think she gives a shit about being seen as that way. I think that Shiv's made concern because I think behind the scenes she proves very willing to excuse misdeeds done to women and how the way she handles Jerry after the thing with Roman.

I think Shiv is, I think she's into respectability politics is the term for it, I think. I think she's into being seen as a nice person. And I think that matters more to her than pretty much anything. And that is something I think she and Tom both have in common with their mom. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people also are like that, to be fair. Not just Shiv Roy. I mean, just like that's a thing for a lot of centrists.

You know what I mean? That's what I think she stands in for. Yeah. I think that she has a lot of those centrist opinions of those centrist ghouls at the centrist ghoul party. So then Tom tries to, I love the bit where he tries to create scarcity with the wine when he's panicking over what to do about the wine. Trying to like, let's hold a couple bottles back. Let's pretend. Let's pretend there's not enough.'s his that's his way of creating buzz and then he just he just he just falls apart once once he gets tired and gets maybe a little drunk he just starts

yelling to everyone to get out and i love he's just on the verge of just of just screaming at them still trying to pretend it's a little polite i'm just i'm just bushwhacked but he's just basically falling out the door a mood that he's so tired the whole episode and finally breaks like when i don't have sleep i feel that i break at a certain point the beginning of the episode you could tell he was feeling it you could see that he wasn't on it uh hell i'd even say with greg shit canning everybody i don't think tom had it in him to do it i think he was so exhausted he just didn't have it in himself to break all those people and send his little hitman greg in it's rough well again it's like he like he said i uh i can't do this anymore i'll just cry

doing it which is a very nice thing to say but that i like that we we see him say that we don't see him crying we just see him saying that he did cry because that's that's like and right after that off camera he mimes me like he he makes a fake crying noise to greg like that's that's, like, right after that, off camera, he mimes, like, he makes a fake crying noise to Greg. Like, that's ultimately what his emotions get kind of reduced to in this position. It's just something you can use as a taunt for the next guy down the line. Yeah. And them having it out is great. The dialogue here is amazing.

I loved, there's a great argument going on on Reddit about how people were like, won't people know they're fighting out there? And someone else being like, if you live that high up in a building, especially in like New York, you're not going to hear shit. The wind, I guess, you know, the wind, as we've heard of it. It buffers the conversation and you can't really make out words. It gets lost out there. So great, interesting Reddit conversation I read. I was like, oh, that's a great thought. I never would have cared about. out there so great interesting reddit conversation i read i was like oh that's a great thought i

never would have cared about there's yeah he's uh when he's describing her as like he she talks about the position she's in and he just he doesn't he finds it hard to take seriously that she's honestly under threat like he he says you're you're tough as hell you figured out you do whatever you wherever you can you'll adapt to survive and she's like you're projecting because that's honestly you and that's a great moment because they realize oh we have that in common and that's kind of a problem that we both have that in common because then there's no tender mercy spot that we can share together because we're both hard as nails the scorpion exactly we're both we're both made of of shiny shiny venomous pointy bits. And there's nothing to nurture here.

Again, like you and I were saying earlier, it's so sad because it's like such a realistic fight that they don't get everything out. They hold back. They don't even give everything. They just give like some things. And I'm not saying they have time, you know, to give everything in that moment.

They probably need a few more nights of fights. I could watch a few episodes of that. But'm like you guys you could just communicate what if you talked about the things you wanted then we wouldn't have drama i know i know we wouldn't have the prestigious drama show drama comedy black drama comedy succession i love when he he says some line that sounds very practiced and rehearsed because everything he says uh feels like that and she was like oh did you read that in the book? And he said, you're too fucking transparent to find in a book. Which I love because he's finally, finally not making sense a little bit and finally angry enough that, like, that really doesn't make any sense at all.

But it expresses his emotion so perfectly that you're just, what's wrong with you isn't something I needed to look up or memorize. It's just staring me in the face and I've never been able to articulate it properly until now. Like he says, I've given you endless, endless approval and doesn't fill you because you're broken. Which I think, again, like everything Shiv and Tom say to each other is true, but also true of him. Like it's also true that nothing, all the people he's kissing up to,

none of them, even if they wanted to give him what he wants, they're not capable of it, because what he wants would come from inside, ideally, and he's worried that he's missing it. And he makes that hand motion that just says broken, like he's snapping a puppy's neck. It's a very visceral little hand motion that just says, yeah, you're a broken vessel. Whatever light can be put in you, it's just going to run out and be meaningless, which is a hell of a thing to say and i think it was unfortunately true of both of them yeah it's funny that uh not only that line is beautiful i love that dialogue and then right before when he he says i'm sorry that he didn't approve of you like you didn't get his approval and i'm sorry almost as if for a moment he was holding it over her that, you know, he did.

Which is why she attacks back later and she's like, well, you took away the last six months of my life with my dad. Which, yes and no. Obviously, as a human being, you could have come to terms and maybe fixed your relationship instead of scheming and gone back to your husband and dad. No one knew it was the last six months of his life at the time. That's the problem with, you know. Yeah. When someone dies is then everything immediately becomes the last time you did x and that's something that everyone takes out on each other in the aftermath but you don't know until it's over and he he kind of lauds it over

you know that you didn't get his approval and i'm sorry for that okay i'm sorry that he didn't approve of you but you know she she chose to kill kendall over him she went to her dad with every inch of her youngest girl like certifications that she's like i the youngest daughter am here to ask my one favor and i know i'm gonna regret it because i don't want to kill my brother but please just don't kill my husband like i owe him that i owe him something and i don't know how to fix this chasm is really what it means. And if they had just again communicated maybe a little bit. I mean, maybe he would know maybe he would know what she did for him there. And that's why she gets so emotional, right? Because when she says like, you know, I'm fucking my family for this. It's not the first time she's fucking

her family in hopes for Tom, you know, like, what is ailing her in the position he's in? She did this to herself in a way she didn't know that by doing this. That's what it was. But then he further does it to himself, right? Like with this in mind, he offers himself as a sacrifice to Logan and puts himself like you're saying about his personality, he's like, well, Logan, please, please, please, let me just be your servant. And he didn't even have to. Well, if there's one thing the siblings can all agree on, it's fuck Tom. It's what they all have in common at one point.

I love that last episode she was like, no, don't kill him, I kind of love him again. And then this episode she's like, murder him. Fucking murder him where he stands. And, you know, I love Bedtime for Bonzos. Bedtime for Bonzos. That was Total Breakdown, Total Shit Show. Not too dissimilar from Kendall at his birthday, right?

When he had his, I have to go to bed because I'm sad and I miss my home. His breakdown. But Tom's was a little more manic and a little more, ha ha ha ha. I'm literally breaking apart. Yeah, much higher pitched. More like nails on a chalkboard with him. As opposed to Kendall's like sad, slow, crumbling inward. Yeah, he knows how to put on a chalkboard with him as opposed to Kendall's like sad, slow, crumbling inward. Yeah. He knows how to put on a show kind of funny beforehand. Right. When she was like, just like 40 minutes,

you know, say goodbye to everyone with me. 45 minutes. Oh, she got her 45 minutes outside. Didn't she? God damn it. But his performance as he came inside, incredible, uh, akin to the chicken scene, right. Where he takes Logan's chicken in a way it's that same like moment that comes over him like i'm gonna eat your fucking chicken here it was i'm gonna go to the fuck to the bed uh it's real me hours i i was yelling and i do want to come back as we close out the the pro and anti tom shivers in the room. There was something there was something very dark in a way of Tom telling Shiv, who is carrying his child, and he doesn't know it yet. Still, still, my God, will he know last episode? Who knows?

Something so horrifying of him leveraging against her saying, I don't think you're a good person to have children with when obviously a oops. And B, as you mentioned, this is the same man that became a human period tracker app and was, you know, Tom luteal phase wamsgans checking when Shiv was ovulating in order to fuck her to get her pregnant, to use that as leverage that she won't leave him while he's in jail. Top tier insanity and hypocrisy. Top tier, top tier hypocrisy and insanity from Tom on that one. Utter horror of it all, misogyny of it all. And I don't know, though, coming back to that.

I mean, if Tom could get M mpreg with greg maybe he would so maybe it's not misogynistic but that would be the true love child tom and greg child that's that's too powerful for this world you gotta banish that one beyond the stars i think i saw some tweet you know that girl that was in the taylor swift video the the redhead chick sadie sink that's been in some stuff she's an actress. Yeah. Some tweet of like it's some sort of years in the future. Sadie Sink is playing Shiv Tom's kid. Blah, blah, blah. It's a very funny tweet. I'll have to link

it for you all. You gotta go look at it. I did cackle a little bit. I did. I bookmarked it, so we'll find it. Alright, so Mattson versus the world in this episode. He was, him and his crew stirring up trouble all across. Wow. Someone save Ebba. Someone help that girl. Holy shit. Will someone help Ebba? I am like watching this, watching the

harassment, watching the bullying, watching all of it from Mattson to her and how brazenly that he's bullying her. Like for someone who definitely has some pretty high level, like I could release this bullshit upon you with lawyers and shit and create a big stir and ruin your company, not just for the harassment and the blood bank, but like, for your business practices. Obviously, she's using that leverage, but it was a little it was a little he's very brazen like bold uh there's this kind of i think it was cut they didn't tell us all of it but matson was being cruel to her and saying a lot of cruel stuff in the last few episodes but she apparently carolina's actress in an interview mentioned she was in a mental health facility for six months and there there's a line that did make it where Caroline was like,

how does someone take six months off? And how can you do that? And we all chalked it up to European, you know, health care. They go out to the fjords and they go health caring. But no, she was in a mental health facility, a spa, if you're Selina Meyer, for like six months, probably because of Mattson and the harassment in the job and what she's dealing with. That's rough.

That's like, he's a sick dude when you keep that in mind. Like, he doesn't give a shit. He's like, yeah, everyone harass Abba. That's good. It's the well-done sense of hostility that's just on the verge of being open and kind of spills over a couple times. But it's interesting to watch how much they feel the need to hold back.

But he does mock her directly in front of Shiv, and he has that way of putting it that she has sort of tenure because we mingled. Which is just such a delightful way of putting it. Mingled is a whole universe of hostility and pain behind that cute little word there. And it's, yeah, like she has, he resents her for the power that he feels that she has, but only because of the position that he put her in, which is now her fault. So that's a wonderful game he plays with himself there. And yeah, yeah, when Neba just says, I don't love parties. I related to that pretty hard. Probably shouldn't be in comms.

Probably shouldn't be in PR at that point. But I feel that. She might have liked parties before. Shit. And yeah, Manson walks in literally interrupting the moment of silence that Ken was holding on behalf of their father. Which is just perfect because that's what he's doing on the whole legacy. And their whole narrative of themselves is interrupting and sliding himself in. And yeah, there's just no privacy in that kind of

room at that point any intimacy is shattered and any conversation that ken has to have with him is just over the heads of a dozen other people that they know we're listening and yeah this is the we learn we learn start to learn a little more about about madsen and his his his bullshit subscriber numbers in india and it turns out he's he's a fraud just like logan with the when kendall as soon as kendall got the crown and he learned that his dad had billions in debt this ticking time bomb hovering over his head and Madsen's got the same thing and as he says he really he needs the deal to happen quickly so that his his bullshit numbers are just part of the churn and just part of the the kind of the overall media hype that uh ushers him into atn so that's that's what he needs from them and shiv

has to just basically kind of hold his hand and walk him through that whole process and i love part of the pleasure the last couple episodes is watching shiv and watching sarah snook navigate both sides of the coin there where she has to call matt some quickly and quietly on her own and then feign just ignorance and outrage when he shows up like who could possibly have seen this coming yeah definitely coming back to a lot of season two, a lot of PGN and Pierce acquisitions at that time. Honestly, she's kind of the Rhea to Logan right now, right in the same situation where Rhea is like, Oh, shit's blowing up at way start. Do I stay or do I go? Shiv has landed herself in her own little Rhea position. And the India numbers were making fun of Disney Plus once

more. I love that two weeks in a row. I really respect it because they had the hot star Disney Plus thing go down with their numbers, which was pretty similar. Shitting on Disney is such a great thing this season. And something about Shiv and her feigning ignorance so smoothly and totally lying so easily to her brothers. Every episode, I'm like, you are on thin ice. You are going to get caught, girl. You need to stop. And the dynamics of her getting caught, like it has to happen.

She has to somehow get caught up in between it all and have it all revealed. I feel that coming. I don't know if it's going to be Tom or Roman or Ken or Tom sells her out maybe because he knows what's happening. The ultimate move, you know, to win. And to me, I'm starting to think it has to come down to her and Ken having a blowout over it, however it comes out. Because Ken doesn't know that she condemned him to death in season two. He doesn't know. He doesn't know about the yacht and that she went to dad and said,

kill Ken, keep Tom, take care of him. That's, that's going to be something that could possibly break all three of them apart. Obviously, Ken isn't really interested in unity and campfires and kumbaya and bonding right now, as we see, right? Like he has his own plots thickening behind the scenes. But I'm sure he could leverage that for that purpose of breaking further apart. I mean, there's one of the heads of the dragon knocked off, right? Easy. And Tom is kind of giving Greg his advice on how to break into that little crowd that he tells him to go with Madsen instead of the dumpster brothers, which as he calls Ken and Roman. So that's the, those are your two flavors of brothers at this point is dumpster disgusting. You gotta, whichever, whichever poison you prefer.

Yeah, their paths are diverging there, right? He's like, wait, no, I'm sticking Mattson train. And Greg's like, I'm going the bro bros. What are you talking about? And even it's great because they're having that little conversation about stabbing Ken and Roman in the back for Mattson. And then Ken also sends Greg in to talk to Mattson. And Greg, you know, he squirms his warm little way into the inner circle. And yeah, he shows off his one skill, which is as a hatchet man,

which we saw earlier in the episode, the ease with which he fired hundreds of people reading from a script. And yeah, that could be setting up something for him that he has to maybe fire someone big or is put in that position again in the last couple episodes. There's that chilling little moment when Matson points to Mithgrin and is like, not a good person. It's like, well, that's recruitment right right there that's the kind of people he needs it's uh interesting how easy it is for him to assimilate into these groups right it

reminded me of the election episode last season where he's being hoisted in the chair as people like yeah fuck greenpeace go greg um he knows how to play to that very well he showed value he showed more value than Tom did, and that he's someone that has no conscience morally, where, as you pointed out, Tom does, like he wants to have no conscience, but his heart bleeds. Most of the time, there's something about even just the dynamic in Matson's company, right? Like Oscar, Oscar was so open mouthed while drunk and high, he didn't give a shit. None of them gave a shit. Like he was openly rude to Greg. Last episode, in the last couple episodes, right, it was veiled underneath like, oh, that's just how we speak. And we're speaking in our foreign

language. And don't worry, we're not making fun of you, you inbred Habsburg. We're not making fun of you. But now it's just open. It's just out there and raw and mean and you can see kind of greg somehow some something that greg actually is really strong at is that he seems to ignore that he doesn't care what people think of him even though he obviously hears it he cuts straight through it hatchet man cuts through it every time he hatchets it and he kind of comes out good in this episode it's good to have a rat fucker we learn well like mattson says these people act like they're complicated but they're really not which is i think you could say about everyone on the show uh is that it just runs on money and gossip it's just like the high society kind of social circle you'd see in something like

edith wharton it runs on the same rules and it's all just uh language and rhetoric giving way to kind of the the action buried like daggers underneath and uh so she pulls mattson aside to to make kind of her ask for for uh for betraying her brothers in this way or for you know doing what she thinks is best for them without their knowledge uh she says i need a very very very prominent role three varies as mattson says that's that's uh That's all you want. And so, yeah, AKA just basically put me in charge of ATM, which is what she wants from him, which is what they all are now ultimately deciding they want, the siblings.

They're just, they're scrappling for that family jewel that Logan left behind, his favorite thing. They all want it. And there's a great little moment I love when Madsen is weaseling out of giving her a concrete offer when he says can I think about it and she says no and then he says well can we circle back and then she says sure and I'm like those those mean the same thing can I think about it and can I circle back are the same thing but it's again it's just a delicate negotiation to get me out of the room and away from this conversation which is uh is all he needs but like as with

previous scenes with Madsen'smanship he just kind of falls apart in a very kind of childish like i got caught stealing cookies kind of way when he's pressed about the subs fraud and he's like oh yeah that's a thing that i should look into someone should do something that's a pretty big thing that he's leaving out and truth behold as we think about the past few episodes we should have known better why else was he pressing the deal further and further and further and I think honestly once they learn it right Kendall learns it like that's that's good that's a great thing he learned because he knew how to spot it right away he's like oh yeah that makes sense that's exactly what dad did huh

your numbers man almost literally unbelievable I love that at the beginning like you said he had to play on that game like we're in front of people we can't make our little jokes but by the end he found a way to harness it grab it turn it public and make everybody pay attention and not necessarily condemn him or damn mattson but really really well done spin that we'll talk about soon. And I mean, Matt, since just Logan and Shiv, same thing Logan did, she's just going to be number four son. It's all you're left with.

And yeah. And then we, uh, speaking, speaking of being at the bottom of the heap, we have Roman, uh, still,

still desperately looking for an organizing principle. It's just desperately looking for a hole to fuck on a wall. Yeah. You know, for some sort of spark to enjoy something. He, I love this part of the episode, right? Because as we get towards the mid end of the episode, it all spirals downward in a row. It all gets very bad.

And Roman and Jerry, we should have known that was, ooh, that was a tense but wonderful scene. J. Smith Cameron killed that scene. That was like, I was happy because I feel like we've been missing out on some good Jerry this season. Gotten some great Frank moments and Carl moments, but I wanted some Jerry. Jerry. R.I.P. Rip. Rip. I love

that she laid down the law. She said you're going to read from my slides. I get to tell the narrative. If you even stray from my narrative, it's over and I get lawyers involved. And, you know, basically saying it's going to be a really expensive way to say sorry for what you did. And it'll make you think about it. It looks like, um, I feel as if Ebba and Jerry, there were some huge parallels in their scenes, right? As we get the Roman and Ken

talking to Ebba and then the Jerry parallels and some parallels in them scenes, right? As we get the Roman and Ken talking to Ebba and then the Jerry parallels and some parallels in them that you realize Ebba says she's out in February. She's holding out. She's just waiting to get the fuck out of there in February and to be away from him. Jerry, she's not going to sue. In fact, she's like, fine, whatever. I'll get my bag and get out. She says it's going to take a lot of money. I would like a lot of money to make this go away. They're in very similar positions. Even going back to Jerry in the episode where Roman fires her, right? Her whispering to herself, I'm good at my job because she knows she was.

And Abba could have been good at her job too had she not worked in a horrific harassment environment every single day that bred anxiety and made her go to take care of her mental health for six months. anxiety and made her go to take care of her mental health for six months. Yeah, it was really loud that the way that Logan and Roman treat people and the other siblings as well. And of course, the way that Mattson treats people is not dissimilar. They're very similar companies. And the later with the big takeaway from Roman for the episode in terms of what's coming next is that he volunteers to take on the funeral job. I wonder if that might have, the Jerry conversation might have

motivated him in that regard, if he's going to give us a public meltdown in his speech for dad, that might be coming. And I love that when that, when that job, when they're talking about it at Les Georges and they talk about who's going to be running the funeral for dad and Ken offers himself, he says, I'm easy, which like Ken ken that's the one thing no one would ever use to describe you you what you are not easy in in any any context at all whatsoever uh and i love that both he and roman are kind of in the early scenes in this episode are just kind of talking like each other like they say the same line a couple times when they're talking to people and they're just these little little nervous left and right brains remains of logan trying to both trying to fulfill his image and neither one of them feel unhappy about it.

Yeah, I love the connection between them this season is very false in a way. Like they're both just lying to each other and amping each other up constantly, even though they both know the other is doing stupid shit and they don't care enough to like say anything about it. I guess not like shit and time, but in a negative way. Right. They're're mega mega hyping they're negging each other that way where roman and kendall roman and kendall are just like yeah man you keep destroying your life yeah man you keep destroying our life yeah man keep destroying the company you too man we're doing it we're doing a great job man it's uh it's an interesting dynamic and kendall is in uh Kendall is in fine form.

What was his line? We watch history, we make history, and one day we become it. Talking about his dad, but also thinking about himself at that point. Yeah, it's a very, like, he's in a power vacuum, right? Kendall is like, oh, I'm in a power vacuum, and I'm going to seize control. And when he does his little speech there, oh, man. He is, he's killing it these last two little speech there, oh man, he is, he's killing it these last two episodes.

When he's on, he's on. He's got that, like, yeah, that little Euron speech where he says, I am the wave to Mattson at one point. He's, you know, those delusions of grandeur and messianic thinking that Shiv has talked about with him in the past definitely surge up here. And it's such a great contrast with that persona

versus the bullshit, passive weasel response to rob it when she brings up the harassment of sophie like he not only tries to turn it on her but pretends that's not what he's doing he's like where were you not that i'm accusing you of anything and it's just like of course she immediately flips out because what's so enraging about that is that he's not even giving you anything to push back against because he's not he always wants plausible deniability so he can act like he's not the aggressor in the situation and then he gets super defensive about his own motivations being called into question and he's all you know he's he's saying the same things that uh that logan used to say when you know i broke my back for my kids or whatever

this ken says in this episode it's the same shtick logan always used as this very transparent just blanket justification i did it all for my kids and that's that's meaningful enough to me family therapy right everything i listen i don't want to talk about this i can't get into it all i can't get into it all i can't get into it all but that's what ken's saying now and this after he was so outraged about logan and roman having his kids followed in the previous season but the difference was that ken in season three was the the knight errant outsider and he could afford to uh to talk shit about everything that was going on within the machine, and now he wants it again. He wants ATN,

and he ultimately, I think, does care more about that than he does his own kids, which I think is what they're all struggling with in their own way. The Royce is that they love power more than they love anybody else. And, of course, Ken decides as soon as he comes up with his new master plan, he's going to go to Frank with it because that's always worked so well.

Remember back in season one when they had to do the bear hug early because Ken blabbed to Frank. He told the grandfather clock, as the story called Frank. And Frank, of course, immediately sold him out. But Ken can't help it because Frank's always been his actual dad and his one confidant he can go to when he can't go to anyone else. His little alternate family structure he set up with Frank and Stewie. And Nate, it seems like, you know, they have something of a friendship.

Yeah. From back in the day. And I think worse off is that there's no Logan to stop him. I think that might be the worst part of this, right? Like season one, you know, you had the the entire coup, then you have the bear hug, then you have the killing the kid. Anyways, man's laughter, but you had Logan to stop it. Logan caught in his tracks. It was it's like playing Hades. You know, I love that game. And every time you get there and your dad kills you and you're like, oh, back to the start. Here we go.

I mean, no Logan to stop Kendall. Could be worse. Kendall could achieve it. He might just win. He might get his Megamind Corporation because he's looking at it and he's looking at the numbers and he's seeing, I could win. I could fix this. I could win. It just takes giving everything up.

One head, one crown, he says to Frank. One god, one king, one realm. One god, one crown, he says to Frank. But yet, one god, one king, one realm. One god, one king. But yeah, you know, 20 minutes ago, 30 minutes ago in this episode, Kendall was saying to Rava, everything I'm doing is for the kids. This is all for our family, for our life, for everything we have and are. What's the fucking truth, Ken? And as we kind of talk about Kendall's plot, we get into the politics of it all. Coming back to the kids, like you said, in the last episode, we had Joy and Hollywood saying, you know, the politics aren't working. This is affecting us in our day to day. This is affecting the people

that want to work here or don't want to work here. It's a bad environment. Morale's shit. No one really likes that. We are, you know, pro-nazi on every screen right now and like we're supposed to just eat it up and perform and love it under that and now we have the kids we see how it actually is affecting day-to-day real life ken's children probably other children right and shiv on the playground we come back to where she told a woman you know well maybe you don't want to go against these guys because they'll ruin your life. True or not. Then she found out her dad was doing the same thing, sending goons after the kids.

And she was actually kind of horrified. She realized, oh, that's what we're doing. A moment of clarity. I think the kids being used as weapons or being used as leverage is such a great theme in this episode when it comes to back to Tom, you know, tracking Shiv's period and tracking her ovulation or to Shiv, who has still not been able to find the words to say I'm fucking pregnant and to Tom not thinking she should have kids with him. And Kendall, oh God, Kendall with his kids that he is absentee father for doing something for the greater good isn't that fucking great when it

doesn't help your family or the people that you pretend to love right that doesn't help your kids i uh i think ken has an important choice to make here and we know what he's gonna make well in true form i put my second favorite as our last conversation, right? And that's, I put my second favorite girl. I mean, my second favorite kid, Connor O'Connor, who was interested in politics from a very young age. Let's talk about the politics of it all, right? Because one of the biggest parts of this episode was, this is a fucking tailgate party for elections and polling, right?

This is election night. It's ritualistic. This is an American cosplay. You know, there's food that's super American, but also super fancy and prepared by servants that have made it beautiful and carnival little games, right? Like my mom likes to do these little kind of like fun games at Christmas. We call them reindeer games. And it's always like, you know, you got to you put the snow bobble on a thing and you balance it. And if you win and you don't lose, you get some lottery tickets or whatever. That's that's her version of a cute little, you know, Christmas fun game. But they have little pin the tail on the pole shit going on. Lots of little side circus games. This is their Super Bowl, right? Like this is their big party, their big Super Bowl that they prepared for.

They're putting on the best elbows to rub. But also it's a game. Like, holy shit, this entire party is a joke. It was a huge joke where they're all just rich and laughing and playing little carnival games about who might rule tomorrow and rubbing elbows and networking. And it was kind of like surreal in a way. Like this is the election process. Yeah, and they're making fun of it all from the inside

that, you know, when Ken has the line that we're going to tell everyone at ATN that they're going to take your guns and make them transgender, all your guns are going to be ladies. Or when Tom's doing the exaggerated foul news demon thing with the guy from one of the more democratically inclined people at the party.

Or when they call Frank General Franco that almost made me spit out my drink. Or yeah, what Kendall says, you know, we're all going to stay friends. So that's the ultimate outcome of this event for any of them. There's not going to be any consequences. And we're all going to stay in the same little club. Yeah, those flirtations with that racism and making it a joke, like we want to put everyone into concentration camp, obviously. But at the end of the day, we're all best buddies who reach across the aisle and hold hands. That was kind of like coming off so loudly back and forth. And it's so fake. How do

you react to people that like some of the people in the very room might hate your existence and want you dead, you know, like, oh, but it's cute. It's fun. It's fine. It was very wonderful in gauche. Very wonderful. Like, oh, this is very tacky. I called Conor being a spoiler. That definitely seems to be what they're setting up here, is that Conor's going to make it just impossible for Mencken to win. They're worried enough about him to call him and try to get him to drop out,

offering him the lowest hanging fruit in terms of embassies. But yeah, I think that's what they're setting up for is connor to to just barely get the democrats over the line by being a spoiler for the republicans i love him not pulling you know like i was like don't pull out connor don't do that don't do it stay in for democracy to give yourself something to write a book about like like willis was saying and yeah i love i also love that we got to see uh connor's little pet pierce i wish he popped up more often the guy with the mutton chops and the handlebar mustache that looks like he should be running a telegram operation in Deadwood or something. He just has the kind of like 19th century face. And yeah, Connor is at least the one who's checking in on dad, visiting his grave, if nothing else, than to just enjoy his absence, which Connor seems to be getting out of it.

I love Shiv's line when she hears that Connor is visiting the grave. She says, just any change? How's he doing? Any improvement in dad's position? And yeah, I love how excited he is about his numbers going up in Alaska. We got four, five, six percent. But that's Alaska, so that's still like 12 people. Dozens of us.

Dozens. I love his pet Pierce. Yes, his Pierce match is such a great friendship and in a way it's kind of like it's very innocently cute right not to be a weirdo but it is kind of cute he's just his pet they start off at the very front together

at that party just arguing and then by the end of that party they become inseparable BFFs I mean and the guy has some good taste like he actually balances Connor out a lot in a way and i love that that is like the microcosm of what the party fake is about it's like oh yes we all reach across the aisle to one another but those two actually do and they like speak and they like discuss what they agree and disagree on and they like somehow they make it work you know i'm like

maybe everyone like tom and greg is so tired and that's wired. Connor and his Pierce friend is wired. And Willa, I loved Willa's support of Connor. And she made a great point. Like he could use this then to go on press tours and to write books and to make his own income about an experience that he actually had. Although it was achieved with millions of his father's money that he didn't do anything for, but he had this experience, right? And now his siblings are here to take that away from him and make him leverage it and give it all up for quote-unquote the family, quote-unquote the business that doesn't let him in, quote-unquote, you know, like it's a little,

it's hard to watch. It does feel bad. Like Willa said to him last episode, don't let them talk down to you. Don't let them make fun of you. I love that she defends him and that somehow in the middle of all these fucked up relationships, we see relationships for the rich and famous are obviously agreements of power, balance and imbalance and money imbalance and balance across the relationship. Negotiating your wants, your goals and how much it's going to cost for that to be a lifestyle for you both. Negotiating your living wage, Willa's love and support for Connor, however driven by fiscal nature it is, is kind of fantastic in a way between good and bad and horrifying and kind. Like she sees him and supports him more than his own family has in this entire show. And that's

kind of what comes through the most is that with the right shiny title, you'll concede and sell yourself and let yourself get eaten. This right here, where Roman comes to Connor and says, will you please just fucking answer Mencken's people's calls and give up? You know, he really wants you to drop. We might get some some movement if you do. I mean, that's what politics is. That's really what this party's all about. You'll let yourself get eaten. You'll sell yourself. That's the game.

When you're a third-party pick here, you're negotiating yourself into a position. If you shoot big enough and hope it sticks, you might fall to a decent position in the end. I mean, Connor's playing the game. And meanwhile, Nate is smelling failure on the wind with the other brothers after he has his little combo with Mat Matson about the Failsons, as Matson just openly calls them at this point. And yeah, hearing about leadership changes at ATN, he starts he starts backing out of the room real quick, which he's he's a pretty good weathervane since he represents a lot of higher ups in politics that they're they're not they're not buying what Ken is selling. And I think Ken runs into the same problem that Tom does, where he's just a little too obvious about it, and he's a little too clear.

He wants to just use regulation as a blunt object against Matson, and there's just not really much in it for Nate's side of things there. Yeah, and it's not lost on me that Nate shows up to this party and sees Shiv, sees the company that they're all keeping at this party, the people the Roys keep company with, Kendall as well, that this hasn't changed. None of this has changed. Matson mocking Ebba, cruelly showing up, being post-ironic, politically incorrect all the time. The exact things that Gil and Nate detested in the car with Shiv, right? None of this has changed because the Roys won't change. Waystar Royco will not change. They are symptomatic of a disease lingering on the edge.

If you get too close and you get the disease, you get pulled into a terminal death because you're not a Roy and they are. And Ken just offers in the face of that just a reset of the dialogue. That's what he wants to offer Nate. And I don't think really have any of them have any idea on what they actually want to do. Like Logan said that to Ken, what do you want to do? And he just said, do good things. And I think if think if you you know gave shiv truth serum i don't think

she'd be able to come up with any much anything more descriptive than that either and it just traces back to the fight over sophia that they just want to assume assume the greater good and assume we're doing this for a cause but it's it's it's pretty clear to everyone else that there's no cause but them at this point. Yeah. It's hard at the end of the day when the Roys continue to be themselves. Every week. Couldn't have said it better than that. Every week, I think they'll change, Emmett.

And every week, we come back here, and they have not changed. Shiv and Tom are not back together. Holy shit. So not back together. Never again. Emmett, thank you so much for joining me for another episode of watching succession thank you for having me of course can you please once more tell everyone where the fuck to find you online or to fuck the fuck off so once again i am emmett also known as poor quentin i host the not a cast podcast with our friend manu aka nuclear bomb

we're going through a song of ice and fire and also a star wars and lord of the rings episodes we do for patrons so you can find us wherever you listen to you uh your podcast wherever you listen to girls gone canon you can find us on spotify you can find us on podbean you can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts and you can check out our patreon at patreon.com slash not a cast a s o i a f and you can find me at Port Quentin on Twitter. Thanks so much again and of course if you are listening you

should make sure you're subscribed to us on a podcast platform near you. Whichever your favorite is, we're on it. And if you want to check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash girlsgonecanon. That is where you will find all of our episodes including special bonus episodes that are available for our patrons in the Stranger tier, the $5 tier and above.

Our Patreon will be resuming charging next month. If you sign up now, you will get charged. I will not refund you that money. I am telling you, I am warning you, don't do it till June. But if you sign up in June, you could possibly have access to bonus episodes if you join the stranger tier or join the thunder tier and above and you'll have lifetime access for our private discord server, however long the life of that server is. And however long the life of you being good is, you know, like don't be a jerk, but you can live there forever. We do brunches slash happy hours every month. This coming month in May is going to be

May 27th, 3 p.m. ET. That's Eliana time for those of you listening in. And we hope that you will join us at happy hour slash brunch. We'll be back next week for episode eight for the big election and for Justin Kirk. I have been one of your hosts, Chloe. And I have been another one of your hosts, Emmett. We are eagerly awaiting you, Justin Kirk. Eagerly. Goodbye.