The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Succession' Hall of Fame: “Nobody Is Ever Missing”

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

Bill Simmons is joined by Joanna Robinson and Derek Thompson to discuss the Season 1 finale of 'Succession.' They analyze how this finale established the tone as the show came into its own and set the stakes for the series to come. Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Joanna Robinson, Derek Thompson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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All right, it's the Prestige TV podcast. My name is Bill Simmons. I'm here with Joanna Robinson and Derek Thompson from the plain English podcast. Joanna's on the Ringerverse. We're going to talk Succession Hall of Fame last episode, Season 1, episode 10. This won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.

This is maybe the most rewatchable Succession episode we've had. This has the biggest twist. This dips in a chapiquitic. Basically, everything you need to know about the shows in this episode. Derek, what do you love about this episode the most in the context of the series? I want to go back a little bit and say that my relationship with Succession really begins with a 2008 movie co-written by Jesse Armstrong called In the Loop. And In The Loop is this dark, dark, dark, dark comedy about the British government's

relationship with the run-up to the Iraq War. And there's this character called Malcolm Tucker, who's the head of communication for the British government, who is like the most eloquently vile and profane character I can recall in any film. Like every single line of Malcolm Tucker is this perfect, awe-inspiring invective. And when Succession started, I thought we were going to get the Murdox as laid as a bunch of Malcolm Tucker's, that it was going to be this powerful family hating on each other with just one perfectly scalding, hilarious put down after another.

And I really felt like, can you touch this on this? with the earlier pod that you guys did on on season one episode six, it took them a while to figure out what the show was. Like, I remember in the first few episodes, you've got Kendall Roy, this Hamlety figure who actually like can't fucking talk. Like he can't, he's a bad talker. He's the most like mealy-mouthed character on TV. And if you have the closed captioning on, like every other word that he says is uh-huh or a or some kind of stammering. And I realized, I think the show took a while to figure out. These characters aren't Malcolm Tucker. These characters are richy-rich nepo babies who think they're Malcolm Tucker. And that dynamic of people who think they're so

much smarter than they actually are took a while to really, I think, figure out for the show, especially as compared with Logan Roy, who's like this awe-inspiring, like, Hannibal Lectery figure who just cannot be defeated by anything that the world throws his way. And this episode, the finale of season one, it was just the perfect. explication of, the perfect coming together of all of these things. The fact that this family, these children are pathetic. They can't send up a satellite

into space. They can't sort of operationalize a bear hug letter, a corporate takeover. And it was just so unbelievably thrilling to see everything come together in such a perfect way. What do you got, Joanna? Yeah, well, I just want to, yes, and some things I want to say that

I love that their patheticness is also so destructive for all three Connors' his own thing out in the desert, right? But like for our three core boy kids... You're right, you're right. I believe. I see the vision. But I think, you know, they're just smashing things left and right.

These kids, a crash launch, utterly breaking Tom's heart on his wedding night or, you know, what Kendall does. So I think having space for all of something that you and Chris and Sean were talking about when you're doing the previous Hall of Fame episode was, idea that, like, you could have an episode of Mad Men and only, and it's a great mood piece, and then one big thing happens. And the fact that there's just so many big thing after big thing after big thing that feels like it happens in this episode, like an entire, you know, like launch explodes. And that's just your appetizer for what's to come in this episode.

Like, that's incredible television. So it's that. And then it's the rewarding payoff of the entire season building up this world. So all these marginal characters, you know, your Franks, your Jerry's, your Jesses, all feel real. And so everything just feels lived in, real paper-up, every corner of this party feels like it's alive with some person or some dynamic that we're invested in. And that's rare for a show to pull off. What do you think, Bill? It's hard to separate this episode from episode nine, but it's also easy to separate

it because it's so distinct. We've had the wedding. We have these four things that happen that are pretty much. a loaded episode, the Bear Hug Letter and him delivering it, the wedding itself and the toasts and all of like the, you know, I'm just, I'm on the record. I just love every wedding scene and every TV or movie shows. It's just a really hard thing to screw up. You can put all your characters in one place. Everyone's dressed up. Everyone's drinking. Anything that's sitting there under the surface is going to come out. So you have that. You have the siblings versus Kendall

where it gets really ugly, ending with the face-off between Kendall and the dad, where the dad just cuts his heart out. And Kendall says, you're a fucking beast. And then you have Shiv's... Curdle's cream. Just fucking murders them.

And then you have Shiv's ridiculous marriage, which has seemed ridiculous this whole season, and nobody wants to admit it. And Tom's clearly marrying her because it's the right career move for him. But he also, like, deep down, like, really loves her. And nobody has any idea. what she's doing with him, and then it all bubbles up to the surface, and then they end up

fucking in her wedding dress. See, if those four things, on top of Connor decides he wants to run for president, Roman has a rocket launch. So you have all these things. And then all of a sudden, at like the 45 minute mark, we have this shift. And it becomes this completely different episode with Kendall. He's in the car with the waiter. They're doing drugs. Hey, let's go get some more. they're driving. You're like, oh, this isn't good. I don't like, they're filming at Last of Us video game style from the backseat. This isn't good.

Oh, no. Crash. This incredible, like, eight-minute sequence when he walks back, he's wet. He goes, gets dressed, has to break in his own place. Goes back to the party with that kind of deer in the headlights look, trying to pretend. I mean, I've just never seen an episode quite like this. And I think when you're talking about the great HBO episodes, I don't know, Derek, I think this is up there for me.

This to me is like Red Wedding and some of the other ones of just season finale mixed with all these other elements that were just incredible. I would put Successions Run between season one episode six, which is every one. Yeah. So 10. And then really honestly, I thought season two was spectacular. I think it's the best full season of succession. Those 15 consecutive hours of TV from season one episode six to the season finale of season

to, I put them up against the best 15 consecutive hours of any television show of the last 20 years. Maybe that's nuts to say, but it's right there. I'm not saying anyone's crazy to choose the wire over it or choose the best peak of the Sopranos over it, but it deserves entry into that final four or into that finale. It's just so spectacular how beautifully Jesse Armstrong in this writing team, combine things that shouldn't feel this easy to be combined. This is a spectacular satire of the Murdox and of media royalty generally. It's unbelievably funny. It is laugh out loud funny.

And it's also Shakespeareanly tragic. And the way that it borrows from Shakespeare, not only with the Hamley, Kendall, but also like sometimes very dramatically. like the patriarch is Logan Roy, Logan King, King L, King Lear. It is as explicit as possible. And Brian Cox is one of his most famous roles as having played King Lear.

So, you know, if you think about pitching a show like this, it's going to be Shakespearean, it's going to be satirical, it's going to be a comedy, it's going to be a drama, but it's also basically going to be a spoof about a bunch of fucking Nimwitz. Like, it executes everything at A plus level, especially across these 15 episodes. The only thing I wanted to add to your great rundown of all the beats of this finale, the printer scene that kicks things off is a great glimpse of the kind of like spinal cortisol

injection that we're going to get throughout this show. They need to deliver the bear hug letter. Printing a letter is the easiest frigging thing in the world to do. And guess what? It goes somewhere else in the Wi-Fi network. So maybe Logan's going to be walking by, you know, whatever is some business table, the business room and pick it up off the print. winter, so many little moments in this episode and this one-hour episode that give you this

white-knuckle urgency that then five seconds later is relieved because, you know, Roman will say something hilarious and incredibly offensive and inappropriate. Yeah, they've unlocked Roman probably midway through this season, maybe episode four ranch. And by episode 10, it's just every time he's in a scene. Like, oh, here we go. Here's Roman again. Joanna, why do you think Kendall thought it was a good idea for him to run everything. Because over the course of this season, we see somebody who, as Derek said, could barely talk. They didn't seem like he had a plan. He was super entitled.

They didn't really have the respect of anybody else in the room. And then when it comes down to that moment in the bathroom, and he gives him the bear hug letter, and Logan Roy says, son, why do you want this? And he's like, I just think we can do better. And he's just so good things. Do good things. So I just, he's just so incompetent. Why does he even think he can do this?

Do you think the show established that well enough in the first season? Well, I mean, in terms of any of the Roy kids, like their sense of entitlement or their puffed-up sense of self, like I think that's just baseline for who they are and who they've been told they are despite the ways in which Logan tears them down constantly, they're also the upper upper echelon of entitled in this world. And so they believe they are the smartest. They believe they are, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

And then for Kendall, there is, despite everything he does in this episode, despite everything he'll do in the future, there is this part of him that believes that carries a guilt, even before he puts that kid in the water, right? There's this tremendous guilty feels over his privilege, and he's always kind of like trying to tell people, that's not who I am, right? I'm not my, you know, when he's talking to the woman in the Prague episode, right? he's like, I'm not my dad. Roy, that's not who I am. That's not me. I can do good things, you know.

And I love what Derek was saying about. Well, and then by the end of the episode, he's like, plan some stories about her, say she's a co-core. Yeah, yeah. So he plays the same Logan Reggae. Exactly. And that's why they all slip into their dad sometimes. Or in this case, in Shiv's case in this episode, I think her mom. Like, they all slip into their parents' model behavior from time to time.

And the question is, like, I think that's the question of the show is, can they break out of that cycle and not be their dad. Because I don't think, like, this is the question I'm constantly asking. I think it's to your question, what is winning on this show? Like, is winning for these kids getting the company? Is it becoming their dad or is it, you know, making their own pile, which is what, you know, Logan told them to do at the end of last season finale, right? Like, is it winning without their dad's tactics?

Because I don't think, like, I think we've all been kind of brainwashed by the show that Logan's approval is something that we want for them, but I don't think that's it. I don't know. What do you think, though? I mean, they're all traumatized and damaged in all of these different ways. Shiv, I think, ironically, is the most like Logan of all them. Roman was his whipping boy, and they lay all these breadcrumbs throughout the series that he's definitely hit him. He actually does hit him in one of those episodes midway through season two. Connor, I don't know how to explain. He's just like, he's not talking. totally a black sheep, but he's hilarious, but nobody takes him seriously. It doesn't seem to work.

And then Kendall, just by, I guess, being the oldest of the second marriage was always the chosen one. But from the moment we see him in episode one, the guy's a bozo. Like they establish it immediately. This is not a cool guy. This is not a guy with charisma. This is not a guy who sees the chessboard. Like nothing. Even the way that Stewie and Sandy are playing him, he just doesn't see it. He doesn't understand what's going on. And then you have Logan who, I love Logan in season one. I think season two, if you're going to really nitpick, Brian Cox does, he kind of moves, he becomes a pro wrestling character in season two. He's like, it's just a lot of yelling and what are we doing? Like, he's just this agro energy that's a little, little dialed up. I got to be honest, just a tiny bit.

Season one, he does a great job of like this guy almost died. He's slowly coming back. And then one of the great things about episode 10 is how he sees the chessboard with everything in that final scene with Kendall where it becomes the dad again but he really knows what he's doing. He needs to end this bear hug. He now he's got Kendall back

and he's just like, Derek, is that the most vicious he's been in any scene in season one in that scene? Because he's not fatherly. This is a chess move for him. He is fatherly, but it's a chest move. And it's so tender. And you have two actors that are so different, not only in their presence on the scene, but also famously in their approach to acting.

Jeremy Strong is famously a method actor. I acted before I was a journalist, so I am intimately familiar with exactly how annoying method actors are to be in a play with. I've never done video or TV or film, but they're just so fucking annoying. I mean, like, you're having snacks in between breaks and they're like still pretending to be in character. It's awful. Ryan Cox, in the Shakespearean tradition, you don't have a lot of method actors, because how are you supposed to be method as someone in the 16th century? Ryan Cox comes from this opposite school of like, you turn it on. And sometimes you go maybe a little bit too agro, you go a little bit to like, you know, Act 3 King Lear, but he's just so sensational. And one of the questions that I think this episode is a beautiful job of exploring is this question of, does Logan love his children?

And it's a profound question, I think, in this show, because on the one hand, he does seem to care for his kids. And yet there's all these moments where he has an opportunity to show his care. Like, for example, Jerry turns to him at the wedding. And she says, should we tell the children about Kendall going public with his bear hug? And Logan says, what's the advantage? And Jerry goes, just to tell them? And he goes, oh, oh, oh. He doesn't even think about his relationship with his children outside of the context of the business implications.

And then at the end, the last sentence of the episode is not, you're my boy. You're my number one boy. That's the famous line. The last sentence of the episode is Colin. That's how the script ends. Colin. And a security guy comes in and takes him away. So his last word in this season instrumentalizes his children, right?

I have played my tool. I have played my play. You may take him away. I'm done with this, with this moment. And that is just so. With a wide shot, wide shot of Colin the Grim Reaper,

pulling Kendall out, and then Logan's alone in the room and he's back in power. I mean, to your point, like they have that therapy scene in one of the earlier episode, was that like episode seven when they all go to Connor's ranch?

And he just, he goes into that, whatever therapy speak of. Everything I do is for my children. He just, like, he can't even explain why. And they're all kind of rolling their eyes and ships like, Dad, you said that already. And it's just, you know he's full of shit.

He doesn't love his kids is the point of the show, in my opinion. There's an interview that he gave that I think Brian Cox and Jeremy Strong gave with Vox at the end of season one where he says that he talked to Jesse Armstrong. He asked Jesse Armstrong at some point in the middle of the season one filming. He said, does Logan love his children? And Jesse tells him, absolutely, he loves his children. Now, maybe that's what the writer-director, showrunner, has to say to your sort of Hannibal Lecter.

I keep calling him Hannibal Lecter because in a kind of Hannibal Lecter, Michael Myers kind of way, everything you throw at this guy, he sheds. And so you need some way to humanize him. And so maybe the right way for a director to humanize his protagonist is to say that underneath this exoskeleton of just like a cold, blooded business acumen, there is, is some humanity. But I agree. I think he would actually read the show as evidence that he does not see his children as anything other than instruments toward raising the market cap of Roika. I think that he, I mean, I think that I would disagree in that I think there are just different

definitions of love. And I don't think that the love that Logan has for his kids is a healthy one. I think it's more of that sort of ego, my legacy sort of love or extensions of himself. How can they shine glory back on me, that sort of narcissistic love. But I still think it's some definition of love. I don't think it's that he doesn't care about them. I think he genuinely does want them to succeed, but he doesn't want them to succeed more than he succeeds. And so like it's this constant push and pull of barking not good enough at them, but then also when they do accomplish something, he pulls them down so that they need him. And it's this constant sort of feedback loop. And something I love about the show, to Bill's point about Logan Roy in season two, what I think is so fascinating is that Cox has said that they were going to kill off Logan Roy in this episode, that Logan Roy was just to die at the end of season one and much like Jesse Pinkman and a number of other two charismatic to die characters like he lives on.

And so, you know, he might have been a little high at, like, I'm unkillable high on his own supply in season two. I don't know. but like I love how responsive generally the show is to things like this. Like, to your point, when we meet Kendall in episode one and that first introduction where he is like wrapping in his car and it's so pathetic, but the Kendall in that pilot is different than the Kendall we get going forward. And I think it's because I know it is. The writers have said they saw what that actor could do, what Jeremy Strong could do, and they made Kendall so much more soulful.

Like, that soulfulness was never supposed to be a part of him. So when that kid goes in the water, like compared to Roman, Roy, like, literally washing his hand into the bathroom after he's seen his launch explode and probably kill a bunch of people, right? You know, you've just got Kendall sitting on the bank of that, you know, lake or whatever it is and just, like, the life during out of his face at what has happened here. And he might go on to the wedding and, like, dance like Will Smith at the Vanity fair Oscar party last year or whatever.

But like it's, it's over. His life is over in so many different ways in that moment. You know, one thing about Logan Roy, and this is probably after watching three seasons of this, is he loves the power more than the children. The children, to him, are just a piece of the whole empire, like the different houses they have. There's that one scene when they have his birthday and, and Shiv's like, I made you this album of all the houses we have.

That's the Malibu House. and he doesn't even know what the Malthouse is. He's like, what, we have Malthy House? Like, he's just, basically he's so obsessed with the power, hunger piece that he's just lost all this other stuff. And his kids are a mess, right? Kendall's a mess. Shiv's, you know, going to marry this guy who she doesn't even love.

Connor's a mess. Romans's a freaking mess and a half. And, you know, that this is what happens with the big powerful families, which I think is what Armstrong was trying to talk about. I want to take a break and then I really want to dive to Kendall and Jeremy Strong because I have some thoughts on this. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea,

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Visit Sephora to shop now. So we mentioned Jesse Armstrong won for Outstanding Writing in a Drama series. This show did not do well in the Emmys in season one, which sometimes happens with the Emmys and the Emmys have their flaws. And then season two, everything rallies. Strong wins in season two. Well, actually, I mean, his win in that year was actually kind of a surprise because that was still a Thrones dominating the Emmys year.

Yeah. And so the fact that he won over, I think it was like three different Thrones episodes, were nominated in that writing category, that felt like this anointing of like, here's the new kid in town. The new HBO heavy hitter, yeah. Well, it doesn't get nominated at all in season one. And I've rewatched the show.

I think this is my third or fourth rewatch now. I think he's up there with any HBO actor we've had on a show. I really do. If Gandalfini is the peak, and I think he should be and I think he is, he's right there underneath him. And the stuff he does from episode one all the way through this episode, all the things he adds, and then it all pays off in season two, too.

But I just think this is a really hard part. There was a newness to him because we didn't have a history of him, which I think we talked about last week was one of the reasons the show works so well. We're discovering all of these actors at the same time. We're discovering the characters. But there's so many things he does episode to episode there. And then in this episode, he's unsure whether he should double cross his dad. He does.

Then he has to face his siblings. Now you have to act a little differently in that one, like the little false swagger. His dad cuts him down. Now he's mad. Then he's out with Greg. And Craig's like, hey, I got these documents. And now he's like, hey, Greg, I see you, you McAvellian fuck. Like he's got a little charisma again.

Now he's going to go out with the waiter. And then it just all gets taken away. And by the end of it, he's broken. he does so many things in this. How is he not nominated for anything, Derek? What happened? Here's a theory. And it's just a theory.

And I'm interested if you guys disagree with it. I think that the way that we, as audiences and especially as award institutions, honor great acting is to honor representations of that which we consider to be greatness. So we honor great performances of strength or great performances of overcoming difficulty, right? Rocky-style narratives or people that play kings very well, or people that play the oppressed to overcome their oppression. We don't often honor performances that are mere performances of weakness.

And Jeremy Strong is an absolute genius at playing weakness. This guy can't actually do anything well. Like, if you, if someone came to you and said, you know, Kendall Roy is a real person. And you know him. And, you know, a friend, Bill, wants to hire him. And he's like, what are Kendall's strengths? What are Kendall strengths as a person?

He's connected. He's got a lot of connections. Right. He's got a lot of money. And he's got, you know, great sneakers that he'll give you for free if he decides that they're not, that they don't predict, look particularly good on him. He has almost, like, he's a profoundly weak character. He struggles with drug addiction.

He's not good at his job. He hasn't been a good husband. been. He sometimes screams at his children when they walk into the room in opportune times. It is so hard, I think, to portray weakness in a way that we recognize as something that is great. And he somehow finds a way of pulling this off. He is absolutely pathetic, especially in the context of his relationship with his father. And there's just something uncanny and sort of almost without parallel in the quality with which Jeremy Strong performs something sentences that are basically a bunch of us strung together.

There's so much going on behind the eyes and behind the stuttering that really makes you realize that you are in the presence of a truly awesome performance. Yeah, and that's why I get protective. Like, he's taking some hits on some magazine profiles, and it's clear the cast doesn't love him. I just think he's one of the great actors we have right now. And you're going back to the weakness thing, Joanna, like, are you a godfather person, Joanna? Yes, yes.

You don't have to kick me off the. podcast. I haven't seen The Sopranos, but I do love The Godfather. Four decades with The Godfather at this point. Yeah. John Cazale just grows every time. Like, and I think he got nominated, but the Fredo character as that show evolves, the two things that really, really, really stand out are how great Pacino was and Godfather too. And how great John Cazel was as Frato, which was just a Black Sheep character. He's not in a ton of scenes. But all the stuff he does, especially in Godfather too. It's like this is one of the great performances.

And that's what the Kendall piece reminds me a little. Joanna, will you tell me if he was better than Billy Porter and Pose? He won the category that year? He wasn't. No. Jason Bateman, Ozark, Sterling K. Brown, This is Us. Kid Harrington, Game of Thrones.

Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul. And Mila Ventimile, this is us. Those were our nominees. So he couldn't even beat two This Is Us guys. We were still in a very much This is Us phase of Obey Emmy times. And you know, he won the following year, right? He did. And what's

interesting to Derek's great point is that the episode that he was like not, you know, they get nominated with an episode ostensibly was a season two finale when Kendall makes his big power move. So I don't know if that completely affirms Derek's

theory there. But I think that's a good point. Your Fredo comp is so good. Like we're it's easy for us to think about Roman as the of this whole thing and he is like sort of the more obvious frado. But I think they're just all a bunch of fredos, right? There's no Michael in this family, right? And there's no Michael anywhere. There's no, like, Tom's on a Michael, Greg's on a Michael. Like, that character doesn't exist. So it's like, Don Colione and a bunch of freitos. And it's like, you know, and maybe a sunny if you want. And like, what are you going to do with that? And that's why this is such a

fun disaster because we're constantly asking ourselves a question. We asked all through last season, all through season two, who is the right kid to put in there? Right? Like, sometimes we're like, oh, a Roman has some good ideas. Or like, oh, maybe Shiv. Oh, no, not Shiv. You know, like, you know, who's the right kid? And I just don't think there is the right kid. I don't think any of these kids are ever going to be their dad. And that's both bad for business, but maybe good for their ultimate moral, you know, balance sheet, possibly. But like, it's like, when you think about Trump, I hate to invoke Trump, but like, when you think about Trump, like, none of his kids are ever to be Trump. And I don't think that's a,

that's not an aspirational thing. I don't think anyone should aspire to be Donald Trump, but what is very clear is that his kids might have various things they can do, but none of them have the full package of batshit charisma. I can convince a room that a Logan Roy or Donald Trump has. And so, you know, when you're looking at that, or I was thinking a lot in terms of this idea of succession or real-life comps, Derek, I was actually thinking of your episode of Plain English about the Bob Iger succession

and how, like, Iger is this, like, beloved leader and, like, revered and cannot for the life of him pick or groom a successor, you know? And part of that is, I think he just doesn't want anyone to come after him and be as good as or overshadow him in any kind of way. And I think that's a lot of what's going on with Logan here is not like... He learned that from Eisner. I mean, Eisner was the original. I don't want anybody to come in and be better than I was. We see this in sports, too, Derek. The owners just pass the team off to their kids.

And in that case, it's not as big of an industry as whatever Logan's in charge of, but it's still pretty big. But over and over again, it's the sons and daughters of the famous guy who worked his way up from the ground and built this thing and self-made man. But, you know, buys this franchise as one of his crowning achievements, runs it pretty well and then passes it off to his kids who then completely fuck it up. And this happens in every sport. It continues to happen. And it will always happen because that's the rule of professional sports. And that's kind of like this Logan Roy thing, right? It's absolutely a Logan Roy thing.

He himself seems clearly to be torn between the fact that he wants the family, he wants the business to remain within the family, but he doesn't want to pass it off to anyone in the family. And as a result, that means that he simply has to stay on and on and on. I will say this as a matter of sort of drama. I love this show, as I hope I've made very clear, But I do think secession is at its worst when it has to fall back into the incredibly familiar territory of you have Kendall who's incompetent trying to get one over on his dad who cannot be bested by anything except mortality. Like that's the crux of the end of season one.

It's the all of season two. It's the end of season two. It's the spine of season three. And it looks like it's going to be season four again. Ken Kendall overtake his dad. And that is my one big criticism of the show. overall and why I'm happy that it's going to probably, that it is going to end after this final season, that fundamental dynamic is not a 70-hour dynamic. You can't do 70 hours of will-he-won-he

with Kendall versus his dad. We already now are back to where we were at the end of season one. And I'm glad that they're finding that they, I hope they're going to find some new way to settle this tension between Kendall versus his dad. I mean, they know more than we know about building a show, but it would almost seem like the move. And maybe they'll do this in season four was the family has to band together to protect itself from an outside force who's trying to take over. They have a little bit. There's that great, great episode.

What's the pretty early in maybe episode four, season three when they're trying to, or it's the fifth episode when they're doing the investor, the whole meeting with all. And Sandy and Stewie are officially trying to. get the deal done. But Sandy seems like he might be a vegetable, and it's unclear if he can even talk, and there's a lot of chicanery going on. But yeah, in general, they never had the family band together against an outsider for like a sustained season.

I mean, the constant conversation that Sean and I were having last season, we were covering this was like my, and this is before I knew that season four was going to be the last one, but I'm like, the kids need to work together. Like one of them can't take down or take on their follow. father, they have to Voltron together, like their powers combined could possibly take him down. And so, but any time those kids get in a room, anytime they almost get to a point where they can band together, almost happens at the beginning of season three, right, when Kendall goes to Shiv's apartment, etc.

Like, the Logan just tosses in like the apple of discord, the so's a cease of discontent, pours poison in their ear and gets them turned against each other. And so what they need is this like, this, like, this. moment of betrayal, that Godfather moment at the end of season three when the door, you know, like, and she sees Tom, like, this idea of like, it has to be us and we have to get past whatever program we have that teaches us to your point about, you know, Roman and his abuse and being in a cages of like that, that like weakest dog gets sent away mentality that Logan is programmed into them. They have to figure out that they, like, only together can they take

him down, which feels almost mythological, you know, but Logan feels like a mythological beast. In this episode, when he comes in and interrupts the four kids when they're in the room and Kendall's sort of talking and he wanders and he's like, how's the torture going? And he starts, it's almost, it's almost with the logical where you're like, don't let him talk to you. Don't let him talk to you. You're like, I'm like screaming at Kendall to get out of the room. He's, Kendall's like, I'm not engaging with this, but he stays. I'm like, get out, man, because his whole spiral at the end of this episode is because of that curdled cream moment, right, where his dad just gets fully in his head and tells him he's not.

nothing. He's nothing without him. He goes immediately to go find some drugs. Yeah. Well, Shiv probably had the best chance, but I don't know, Derek, why couldn't it have been Shiv? What was she missing? Shiv thinks she's smarter than she is. You know, all of, all the characters are so beautifully rendered in, as the other, all the children are so beautifully rendered in, they all think there's something that they're not. In a weird way Romulus gets it, you know, he says, um, he says over and over in the show, I'm dumb, but I'm, I'm smart. He understands that fundamental tension within himself. Pendle thinks he's an executive, but he's a drug addict who actually can't make decisions and doesn't know why he's in this

business in the first place. And Shiv wants to be a killer, but has no experience in this business and repeatedly overestimates her talents. I mean, she falls for the trap. It's laid by Holly Hunter in season two so, so easily. It takes 15 minutes for her to be wiped out as a possible contender. So she doesn't know what she's doing here, even if we buy the idea that she's talented as a political consultant. She has years of practice as a political consultant and what weeks, days, hours of practice as a media executive. So she doesn't really know what she's doing. And there's no reason really to believe that we should take her that seriously. I mean, they don't when she, you know, submits the memo in season two and they say, you know,

I love the quote to the top from like whatever it was, like, you know, Gandhi and Amelia Earhart. Like she sent a memo to her father that began with like, you know, Rojay's thes and like, you know, random quotes from from luminaries. Like it's, it's ridiculous. And so I don't think she's as impressive as she thinks she is. And that makes her weirdly more like Kendall than immediately is obvious because she is such a smooth operator and is so much more eloquent than her brother. But sometimes she gets it, like, Holly Hunter gets it over on her, but then she eventually

gets it over on Holly Hunter as like Shivroy's official defense attorney. I just have to say that. And I think they all have these massive weaknesses, and Shiv definitely has hers. Roman definitely has his. Obviously, he gets in his own way at the end of season three. And they're all constantly getting in their own way. And again, I kind of feel like there's some blend of Roman self-awareness and like Shiv's spine of steel and then Kendall's something. I don't know what Kendall brings to the party, but like I'll vary it out.

Kendall's veteran experience. Yeah, makes the cocktail that we need. to, you know, to persevere. Can I give you a theory? Yeah. I'm glad you're both sitting down. I do wonder if this all leads to Greg being the one who wins. If you watch the first episode, he's a little more central to the first episode than I realized on like the six rewatch.

And then you think like, of all the people who are actually playing the chessboard, as goofy and incompetent, as he is, he does kind of make the right moves over and over again. He knows when to switch sides. He knows when to keep the documents. He always sees what's going on and reads it and he's kind of moving up, up, up. And I do think like that maybe that's the whole point of this show is they're going to replace slogan with idiot cousin Greg. And it'd be like, oh my God, that's the guy who's in charge of ATN. No wonder this all makes sense. So your theory ends with Cousin Greg as the CEO of Rick of Royale-Wa. Greg wins.

He wins in some way. Yeah. I honestly don't, I don't know how it ends because I feel like there is this way in which, I don't know if you guys feel the same way, there's a part of me that

hates Logan, but can't help but root for him in the way that I root for him actually isn't even the right phraseology. Like rooting for the Yankees? Right. I expect the show to reward his cunning. That is what I come to each episode,

expecting. And so to have the children beat him overturns what I've expected from the show for the first three seasons. I wonder if the ending isn't going to be something that's sort of orthogonal to the actual succession of Royco Waystar. Maybe they all lose. Maybe they all lose. They're sort of dispersed and it kind of ends in this, in this awkward purgatory, the same way that Veep ended. And Jesse Armstrong is somewhat connected to sort of the Deepaverse. And so there isn't a winner-luser dynamic that makes this a clean end. It's going to be a messy end that leaves us all thinking about like these broken people and their broken lives.

Something about that seems more in keeping with the message of the show, which is that the kids can't win. There's something about the villainous superheroism of their father that they will not overcome. Like it will take depth to bring them down. Well, and I mean, I agree that it will take. death to bring Logan Roy down, but I also, like, again, it goes back to my question, like, what is winning? There's this whole, that whole interaction, like, interaction in this episode,

when Kendall is explaining to them, maybe it's a good thing that we're not in charge, like, that the company's not a family company anymore. Maybe that's a good thing. And all the kids are talking about, like, who are we if we don't have this? Connor's like, we're just, you know, we just have millions of dollars. We don't have the power. She doesn't have the power, like, that she needs for her political machinations. like Roman doesn't like can't get hired all this or stuff. Who are we without our dad or who are we without this company? And I think that's the question that the show is interested in answering.

Okay, that's my prediction. That's my prediction that I'm willing to timestamp. My prediction is at the end of season four, episode 10, Logan Roy is dead and no Roy's are in charge of this company. It goes over to someone else and it ends with that awkward existential anxiety of all these children realizing they actually have to face their own identities once the company no longer belongs to them. And so maybe there's this idea that, like, you know, Kendall's going to try to start his, some VC firm that you know is going to fail, but he seems happy maybe with, like,

some spouse that's someone they're stating. And Romulus, like, is going to join some, like, political campaign because, you know, he's, like, hooked up with the new Republican presidential nominee. And then, and they're all going in their own direction. And none of those directions are the path blazed by their father because I think their self-actualization needs them to get out of those grooves carved by Logan. They have to leave this because it's so poisoned and it's so toxic that no no good finale ends with them merely getting this thing they only got by virtue the fact that their father is mortal. I think the key, like a key moment in this episode is when Kendall comes back having taken like one of the worst baths of his life and like anyone who is

interacted with the European bath or shower nose. Like if you're trying to erase crime scene from your body, you don't want a European tap to do so. But then he goes back to the wedding, and he dances with his family. And like, on the one hand, he's trying to like, that anguish that my life is over is still simmering out of the surface for him.

But you're also getting a glimpse of like what Kendall's life could have been with Rava and with his kids and just like happily dancing at a wedding if he hadn't tried to be his father, or if he hadn't tried to take on his father, if he had just rejected his father's path for him and done something else. Like, there are times in which Kendall is a good dad,

and there are times in which he and Rava actually connect. And so it's like this other life, this like ghost of another life of what could have been or this is what really matters, like this moment of dancing with my family at this wedding and not like all the other shit that I've been doing and all the other shit, the like imaginary throne that I've been going after, you know.

It does remind me that bus family. Because Jerry Buss was one of the great sports owners of all time. He owned the Lakers and got old like Logan Roy did and then wanted to give the team to his kids. And none of his sons could run the team. They just weren't competent enough. And very similar to like Kendall and Connor and Roman. And then the shib in the family was Jeannie Buss, who kind of begrudgingly took the team over and really hasn't done a good job. Like LeBron wanted to play there.

But for the most part, has no idea what she's doing. and they're not very well run. But it was just like there was no other choice. So I wonder, like, could Succession go that route too, where it's like, no, no, it has to be. And then it's like begrudgingly shiv, even though from what we've seen, it doesn't seem like she'd be a good choice either.

Who knows? I want to go over some stuff in the episode quickly. So we have the wedding and we have the wedding photos and the opening credits, which are great. And Connor demanding that Willis in the photos. or he's going to punch Tom in the face and take a shit on stage. There's a brief shot, Joanne of Shiv and her bridesmaids.

Did you want to know more about the bridesmaids? Who were they? Where did they come from, college? The most implausible thing about this episode is that Shiv has friends that she talks to because we've never seen her do it. She has female friends? I just, I thought that was ridiculous. I agree.

And then also on the wedding, they do all the toasts. And the toasts are kind of secretly great where you have Shiv, where she's like, you're a good guy, Wom Gans. I like hanging out with you. It's like, ooh, heartfelt. Then you have the mom who goes up and just can't wait to make one last remarried joke.

So the mom was fantastic, up nine, up 10. And then Tom's more heartfelt, but just that's when you're like, oh, even he knows this marriage is destined not to happen. So the wedding stuff's great. Wait, wait, you forgot Romans. I don't feel like I'm losing a sister. I don't feel like I'm gaining a brother either. I don't feel anything.

It's a mental disorder called Borderline Personality Disorder. It's just amazing. And it's hosted to a girlfriend who I thought was a great ad halfway through the season. Tabithas, Tom's X-Flame from Prague, but she's laughing hysterica. I always enjoyed her scenes. We have the Bear Hug letter, which you mentioned. We had the satellite launch in Japan, which, as Derek pointed out, like, you know, he has no remorse whatsoever over.

And then when he finds out nobody died and he does like, guess who gets an encounter? But maybe who lost a couple thumbs. This guy. We have Connor just decided during the episode. He wants to be the president of the United States. He spars with Gil, which is a great 45-second scene where he's just going at this guy. This guy's like, all right, I'll see you later. It's a good sparring with you.

He buckled under intellectual scrutiny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have Logan just freaking out on a waiter and getting fired. We haven't seen Logan do enough evil rich guy stuff in season one because he was compromised. But a good example of like, oh, you're just a fucking absolute worst person asshole in the waiter. Yeah, like a nice circle back to the first episode with the kid with the watch and the baseball game, right? Like the way in which they're no real person involving these guys. We have very little Greg except for the Machiavellian fuck scene, but I think it's important because Greg's always kind of moving ahead no matter what happens.

he's always gaining. We have the Shiv Tom open marriage thing. I'm just not sure I'm a good fit for a monogamous marriage, which I'm positive as a sentence you don't want to hear on your wedding night. Well, it also sets up, Tom, in the finale of, going to see, but, oh, yeah, put it back. Yeah, when he has a glass of wine, put my wine back. I mean, you begin to see his vicious and somewhat, you know, sadist nature that he continues with human footstools in season two.

But this conversation with Shiv also sets up one of the most remarkable one-liners in the finale of season two where they're sitting on the beach, Tom and Shiv, and Tom goes, I feel like I was Shanghai into an open borders free fuck trade deal. Which is just like, who puts those words together?

Yeah. That later conversation is wonderful. And you can see in season four, the dissolution of their relationship is almost certainly going to play a really good. Oh, yeah. Joina, were you glad to see Nate just get his legs cut out like that? One of my favorite things about Succession is how much Bill hates Nate.

Like, Nate is your mortal enemy. You hate that guy. My question for you, Bill, is Tom gets to do this to the tune of Uptown Girl by Billy Joel. What song would you like to have playing when you kick someone out of your own wedding? I thought Uptown girl was perfect. It was so happy. And then they kept the camera on him. And he does like the little head nod and gets back out of the dance for.

I thought all that was great. Kendall, the special K with the waiter, not great and I'm old. I'm not a drug guy. So I had to Google special K, which is ketamine. Does that mean my ketamine text did not play for you when I first sent it? Did you literally think I was? I didn't really know what ketamine was. So I had to research it.

And partly because of your text. But apparently it doesn't, Coke is just like ramps you up, gives you a little, makes you a little more agro, gives you energy. This, I think, can send you into a fucking fog, which is where the waiter goes. See, waiter or caterer? What was he? Cater waiter? I'm calling a waiter, whatever he was.

But the accident was the waiter's fault. He grabs the wheel and turns it over the bridge. So I do feel like if Kendall hadn't been on drugs, I think he could have, I don't know if anyone would have believed them. That's Kendall's whole. Well, that's Kendall's whole life if Kendall hadn't been on drugs.

No, but I mean, I was thinking that when he's crawling out of the water, I'm like, you don't make the logical decisions in those moments, right? You're so traumatized and your adrenaline's going and stuff like that. So he's like, hide it. That's his instinct, right?

But I do think there's a way in which he could have gone to the authorities and said, what happened. Yeah, this drugged that way to grab the wheel and drove me off a bridge. And his privilege would protect him. I don't think, I see where you're coming from that what happened happened.

It literally wasn't his fault that the car drove off the bridge. But if you're a celebrity behind the wheel of a car, you can't say I was driving, but I wasn't actually driving. Like, you are still in the eye of public. You blame him for the driving, I think. Okay, then you lie about the underlying details.

The problem for him is his, His wallet was there. Right. His wallet was there. So he has to admit that he was there because they're going to find out anyway. Then it looks like he's hiding that he was there. I just think ultimately if he had gone to the authority, you know, Tom has a line in this episode.

If I go to jail, which I won't, right? Which I won't. Which is an ultimate thing that happens for Tom, right? But like their privilege insulates them from actual consequences, right? And so all he did was give his dad leverage over him for an entire season. by hiding this. If he had gone to the authority, he's not thinking clearly,

I'm not blaming him for that, but like, if he goes to the authorities right then, and he's on drugs. Like, I think his life is better than letting his dad just grind him for,

you know, the rest of his life. Well, I'd say that if we were doing this for rewatchables in the what's age, the best, what's age,

the worst category, the what's age the best versus watching this for the first time, when this happened for the first time, versus like, I've watched it six times now. first time, you're like, oh, they're doing Chappaquittic. Like, you're just, your head goes to Chappaquittic.

Now I don't think about the Chappaquitic piece. But, you know, the Chappaquitic thing was such a huge part of this. And Armstrong even admitted, like he went over the Chappaquitic, like, what happened, how Ted Kennedy talked to his dad. And that was why he was trying to recreate with the last scene a little bit. I don't know. I mean, you know, and Ted Kennedy was, it followed him forever, but he was also like, insulated from real consequences from that. And I don't know if that plays differently in today's media

landscape versus when chapter... It plays differently in today's media landscape, Joanna. Yeah, you're right. You can kind of bury the old car accident where the girl died and the guy swam away. Social media in 2023, probably a little harder. Yeah, you're right. The footage from of the car, like driving toward the bridge is going to be on TMZ in like 36 hours.

Like, you're at. It's actually amazing in 1970. that Ted Kennedy got away with it. Like it really is actually, and then it's like, should I run for president? It was like 1976. No, still too early. The 1980, it's like, ah, it's been enough time.

Like, killed a girl and swam away. In this case, you know, Kendall's obviously to blame. But the guy did steer the car off the bridge. Yeah, I don't know legally our responsibility cashes out. but you're a you're a drunk and drug-using driver of a car on a bridge with another. That part's not great. A dark bridge. You're the wrong side of the car.

A stick shift. And you end up in a river with him dead. I don't know if that's a hiccicaler manslaughter. Like I don't know what it is. But for the purposes of this show, it's not innocent enough to keep him as a part of the bear hug team, as long as his father understands the relationship or the connection to the death. So at that moment, he realizes,

my life is over as I thought it existed. And I have to make a decision. Do I stay against my dad and still pull out of the bear hug? Or do I align with my father? And like in that moment, I think, Yeah, there's no choice almost. All things consider this, this is a defensible choice in an absurd situation.

And I think, I mean, the waiter grabs a wheel, like Kendall's one who's in the car when he knows that he's drunk and high and doesn't you know is driving on the wrong side of the road first of all and secondly does not know how to drive stick and so all of that's and like

this is like a first take episode we're like whose fault was the car accident Kendall or the waiter in the graphic both everyone's making bad decisions right but like as you point out like it's so stressful because the way it's shot last of us in the backseat style you can see that Kendall's eyes are hardly ever on the road.

You know what I mean? And you can see where the headlights are cutting through. And every time they cut to the wide, the car feels like it's going too fast. And you're just like, and it's longer, it's longer than I remembered how long they're in the car before it crashes. And like, it's a really memorable scene. Like a minute or a stretch. Well, and the danger, there's, it's so cleverly done because there's other elements of danger. Like when the kid's like, should I kidnap you and I'll keep you?

You know, like this kid can barely stand. And so probably he's not going to do that. But it's still like, it's not, they're not seeing Uptown girl in the car before the car crashes, right? There's like a weird, dark, twisty thing going on in the car. And then there's all this when you rewatch it. Also, there's a tiny bit of sexual attention in the car. Let's be honest. Like there's just a whiff of flirting or something.

I think Andrew would. I think that first shot, the first shot you get of him where he's smoking in like in the parking lot, right? And Kendall sees him. There's something so ominous about that. Like there's just like the. dread starts. And there's all these little moments throughout the episode, like Shiv joking about killing the stripper at our Bachelorette party, or Roman and Jerry talking about corporate manslaughter, like all these little like things that are leading up

to this really, really, you know, out of control, dangerous feeling. But again, it comes down to that, you know, when at breakfast the next morning, when Kettle's trying to figure out if anyone is talking about this or anyone knows. And Greg is talking about how like, oh, they're sad. The hobbity people. right the hobbity people the staff um it's it's that yeah it's that no real person involved thing that becomes a recurring comment in season two but it's it's you feel it here right like no real person involved at the launch as far as romans concerned right that happened far away it's does it's not here right no real person involved maybe like that's how shiv thinks about tom like in the fact that

she smashes him here no real person involved no real person involved this this caterwaiter, Andrew, who goes into the water. Well, we also get to see my favorite character of the episode, Colin the Grim Reaper.

One of the best cast actors, it's like your face has to look both non-threatening and the most threatening face anyone could possibly have. You can have no expression. And when you come in, it has to feel like you're a pro-wrestling sidekick

that just, oh, I don't want to fuck with that guy. They use something. him in season two in a much bigger way when Kendall's trying to fuck with Shiv's speech. But in this episode, he comes in. And the moment you see him in the brunch, you're like, uh-oh. Oh, no. The way it's shot, you know, Mark Mylaw, and Josh Armstrong wrote this episode, Mark

My Law directed, these are like the Successional All-Stars, right? And the way the cameras are slightly up from Jeremy Strong in that scene. He looks like a kid. He looks so small as Collins walking in. They often combed Jeremy Strong's hair that makes him look like, I don't know, Michael Banks from Mary Poppins. Like, he looks like a little kid

often with his little, like, sticky out ears. And so he just looks 12 as Colin's coming to get him. You can see everything begin to, like, fall to earth. Like, his shoulders shrink and his answer down, and his eyes start to fall, and his mouth is pulling down. It's a beautiful moment of acting. If you just freeze frame on what Kendall looks like

when Colin walks in the room, it's, you know, displaying without a single sentence, I know my life is over, is very, very hard to do, especially when you've just been at like a breakfast buffet line, something that's did a totally anodyne. He plays it perfectly. He plays it perfectly. And the last five minutes of that, so, I mean, again, we've circled over it, but it really, it's just a masterclass, especially into unbelievably different styles of acting.

This really broad, brusque, sort of old style, kind of Shakespeare. just big guy way that Brian Cox does so beautifully. And in all of his movies, and then Kendall, acting his way through a scene in which he barely gets a single sentence out. Every single thing is, uh, uh, ha, stammering, uh, maybe I would,

it's, but he can't even talk and he plays the inability to talk, just so, so well in that. This could be the defining moment of your life. It'd need everything. A rich kid kills a boy. You'd never be anything else. or you know, it could be what it should be.

Nothing at all. A sad little detail at a lovely wedding where father and son are reconciled. Fucking brutal. You have this man to get me. Yeah, there it is. Forget about that kid in the bottom of the river. We're good.

To go back to what you said earlier, Bill, in terms of, like, logan's manipulation here, he's so cruel to offer your son the thing that he craves, which is like tenderness and affection and attention in this moment when you are so blatantly manipulating him, right? Like he couldn't give it to Kendall.

Any other time Kendall looks to his dad to be like, tell me I'm a good boy. And Logan has nothing for him. It's like, you don't have it in you. Yeah, and then he gives this to him here. Even though we all know it's like fake and manipulative, it's still like the cruelest move that he could make is to offer tenderness here.

Well, it leads to you're my boy. You're not my number one boy. Come on, boy. What time is my 10 o'clock? Get this broken kid out of here. I got a fax to send. Incredible episode. Great cliffhanger episode. Really nice journey of 10 episodes start to finish, perfectly constructed.

I still don't feel like they totally, I agree with you, Derek. We've said this before on this pod that they didn't really know what they had those first couple episodes. So, Joanne, are you positive that they're. thought Logan was going to die at the end of season one. Like, Jesse has said that. Indisputably that that was his plan? Brian Cox has said it, you know. Unless Brian Cox is speaking out of pocket, he's definitely said that.

I mean, he is an old crazy actor. I don't know. It's true. It's true. That's fair. Because we know that happened with Homeland, right? Where they said, oh, Jesus, we can't kill Brody. Right.

The show he's too important. We got to bring him back. I don't. Walt, Walton Goggins on Justify. Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad. Like, this happens a lot where they're like, oh, look what we have here. And again, I think-

Run our test on the Lakers in 2009. What I would want to know is, like, because you don't necessarily always present to HBO all 10 episodes of the season when the show is greenlit, it's possible that just here I'm strong, just didn't really know where the show went. Just did the pilot. Maybe he just did the pilot.

Maybe it sort of sketched out the plots through the boardroom scene. He knew you were going to get up to which side are you on and that Kendall was not going to become CEO of this company by episode six of the show. But then after that, maybe the show goes this way, maybe it goes another way. All these things were in the ether.

Something like that might be realistic. If he had actually sketched out and started to plan for and hand out scripts for and sort of to rehearse scenes in which Logan Roy is on his deathbed, that would really surprise. No, so this is what Jesse Armstrong said

to Radio Times in 2020. He said, at one point, I did think Logan might expire at the end of the first season or even the first episode. though all this changed before we committed before we committed ideas to paper. And once I saw Brian,

I realized how big a weight he is at the center of our solar system. He's great to write for. So like it was a nebulous plan of like, let's kill the king and watch the kids sort of scrabble scraps. And then they decided that they, that Brian Cox is like,

you know, the counterweight. And I think that this explains the thing that you like to say and I agree with about season one, Bill, which is that the show doesn't really figure out exactly.

what it is until like five or six. And I think it's because these writers are responsive writers to the talent. And they're shaping the characters to the talents that they have. They know that Kieran Culkin can improvise like no one else. So they just let Kieran improvise all the time. And that's kind of who, that's kind of who Roman becomes. You know what I mean?

And they know that, you know, Jeremy Strong can go fathoms deep with, you know, whatever they throw at him. So that's who Kendall becomes. And so they're shaping the show. And ultimately it's what makes a show so strong, is that it's so reactive to the bits of chemistry, you know, Tom and Greg, etc.

Like the, or Jerry and Roman, like the things you can't plan for. It's reactive to that, but it means they hadn't really firmed all that up for the first few episodes. Yeah, we know that about Jerry. All right, last question, because we've got to go. Derek, it comes out a week from now. Jesse Armstrong has thought about it, and he wants to do a prequel set in the 1980s about Logan Roy.

what's your response? I'm generally against prequels. Me too. But I'm also generally for whatever the fuck Jesse Armstrong wants to do in perpetuity. So when I put those two things together, I would much prefer to have Jesse Armstrong writing television for me almost immediately after succession ends rather than him like sort of wander in the wilderness of idea generation for 10 years and me have no Jesse Armstrong in my life. So it's an acceptable outcome.

I'd much prefer the alternative reality where for the last year and a half, Armstrong's been sort of croaking up this other idea that he really wants to turn into the next succession, the next elite Sunday night HBO big prestige television show. That would be my A, and this is my A1. Joanna? My only question is, like, is James McAvoy ready to go back and do another HBO show? Because if he is, I would put McAvoy in his young Cox and, like, yeah, let him. cook.

And before we go, can I just shout out, like, a stealth MVP of this episode for me? Yeah. Arienne Moyad is Stewie. Like, Stewie, I am always happy when Stewie shows up always. But the way in which he manipulates Kendall in this episode, and down to that scene where he's, like, sitting with his, like, legs crossed, ankle showing, sipping some brandy, I think it is. Like, it's just, like, the body language, everything that Stewie does, I can never get enough. So maybe a Stewie spin-off for me is what I want. You talk to the old grandfather clock?

Toffee of Fuckchester? Stewie rules. I'm so glad you said that. Yeah. What an underrated performance? Yeah, I think because his name's Stewie, you don't take him seriously. But he is one of the few masterminds on this show. All right, that's it.

Succession Hall fame, episode 10, season one producer, Steve Alman. Thanks for, thanks for doing this. Thanks for doing this, Joanne and Derek. Now I hope you guys get to be friends and make prestige TV podcast episodes together. I love that. I'm a prestige TV matchmaker. I just, I like to ease Joanne in with different people and see how it goes. And then maybe they spin off and do their own thing.

All right, this is great. We will be doing another Hall of Fame episode next week. So until that.