The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Succession' Hall of Fame: “Which Side Are You On?”

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

Bill Simmons is joined by Chris Ryan and Sean Fennessey, and they start by reacting to the announcement that the fourth season of HBO’s ‘Succession' will be the final one. Then, they discuss Season 1, Episode 6 of 'Succession,’ titled "Which Side Are You On?" Hosts: Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Yossi Salick, and I'm the host of Bansplain, a show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists by going deep into their histories and discographies. We're back with a brand new season at our brand new home, the Ringer podcast network, tackling a whole new batch of artists, from grunge gods to Powerpot pioneers to new metal legends and many, many more. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, only on Spotify. This episode is brought to by Boris Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Boar's Head just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means pointing your whole day around it.

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I mean, it's a tight rope walk on a straight razor. 500 foot reputational drop. Why is that making you smile? That shouldn't make you smile. Who likes tight rope walking a straight razor? All right, it's the Prestige TV podcast. My name is Bill Simmons. I am here with Chris Ryan and Sean Fantasy.

News came earlier this month. That succession, season four, will be it. We're done. Coming out with a bang. We'll talk about it in a second, but we're going to do some Hall of Fame episodes leading up to the premiere, which is when? Sunday, March 24th or whatever. 8th, whatever that last Sunday, March is. And we're going to tackle Succession, Episode 6, Season 1 as a Hall of Famer.

And I sent this to you guys because I think this is the first great succession episode. I don't think it's one of the four greatest, but I think if you rewatch it, and you rewatch the season, you watch the whole series. This is the first one where all the pieces are being used. It's funny. It's tense. You know the characters at this point.

There's like a real dramatic arc. And then the boardroom thing, which goes like 12, 15 minutes. It's just so compelling. It was in the moment fucking awesome. So that's why we picked it. But going backwards, Chris,

you're okay with this four season thing for succession. Yeah, very much so. I thought that, so I was like my major thing was, Kendall almost dying last season and when they kind of revived him there was like a little bit in the back of my head where I was like are they just going to kind of

do the same trick over and over again and is this just going to be like a six, seven season thing of who's going to get Logan's fortune who's going to get Logan's Empire and I think that they know that dramatically one more season is the right thing even if comedically they could have done it for 10 more seasons

what do you think Sean? I love endings I love when someone decides that something needs to end So many of my favorite shows were completely bungled in my memory because it didn't end soon enough. So I like that they landed on something. I did feel, I mean, I think Chris and I both talked about it on podcasts when season three was happening, but we both felt like they missed an opportunity to do something truly audacious. And so hopefully now, you know, it's a show that demands a really dramatic conclusion, too,

because the whole point of the show is about this fight for power. So I'm excited. I mean, I don't like six, seven, eight episode runs of shows. I felt like even the Sopranos, which is one of my favorite things in the history of culture, just went a little long for me

and felt like a little rickety in the final three or four years when they were putting it together. So I'm happy about this. What was it? The two basically seven seasons. I think also as TV watchers, we've now gotten,

we're now like two, three to four seasons is, even if it's a great show, you know, it's like, Ozark, I'm like, that could end of the season earlier. You know what I mean? Like there's like,

I think a less of a tolerance for like, sure, let's just have a nine season, eight season show, unless it's on showtime, basically. Also, these shows are so dense and they're so rewatchable. I think this show, from the most rewatchable shows that I can remember of the great shows, for me, it's Sopranos, and it's The Wire, and it's this, where you can just jump back in. There's a lot of reasons for that that we can probably go into, but one of the things is how funny the show is. And I think that's the reason the Sopranos has kind of lived on, too.

wire too which you don't think of as a funny show but it really had funny moments and these vivid real awesome characters whereas like i i just don't want to watch breaking bad again i know some people some people do and they want to go back in that world but it's a pretty grim world and that show got super dark it was an amazing experience it was a mount rushmore show for me for a long time but i i think if succession pulls off this last season i think it's going to take the breaking bad spot for me well it's so interesting that TV shows are now starting to occupy our memory the way that movies did. Because obviously you created the rewatchables. That's something that, you know, returning to movies over and over again. And there was this run, you know, in the late 90s

into the maybe mid-2010s where it was like, if a show was great, it was a truly special piece of popular culture. And the conversation changed and we were witnessed all that. And Chris, you've been talking about it for over 10 years now. But this is one of the only shows in the last 10 years where I feel like it's even in the conversation with those shows you're talking about. Probably the only one, right? Because, I mean, I would put Better Call Saul up there, but I think that you have to have like a real appetite for the Breaking Bad universe for that, you know? I also think the show either, yeah, you have to have seen Breaking Bad.

Well, you technically don't, but go. No, but that isn't it more fun? It heightens the experience, yeah. Yeah. But Better Call Saul was a lot of people have. evangelizing about it. You should see this. You should watch this.

And I don't know. I just, I never watched it. Right. It was never as big as any of the other shows we were talking about. The other shows we were talking about,

there was this sort of like demand for debating conversation after every episode. And that was also true of other shows like Game of Thrones was like this as well. You know, or there's entire shoulder industries around those shows. But the combination of the writing that you're talking about, which is both funny and dramatic,

and you're locked in on the characters' arcs, the zeitgeist equality of the show and the sense that you were like watching something that was reaching for a kind of greatness that I think is hard to pull off without seeming pretentious or silly that the show always kind of knew what a joke it was

but also how special it was. So it's exciting because all of those other shows we just named all went much longer than four seasons. I also think I might not be right. But I also think this show kind of saved us from the binge watching model we were headed toward where there was this one year there where it's like this is going to be how we do stuff now. You're just going to get everything all at once. And the world's changing.

But then, you know, we've been in this mix now. I mean, I've been in with my column forever, but going when we launched Greenland in 2011. Yeah. And how important these TV shows were us in the ebb and flow of like the show is coming back. Here's what you missed. The way we're able to do that on the website and the pod. It's the way we talk about sports. The preview review kind of model, the like thinking big picture about it.

Yeah. Yeah, the week to week was so important. And we hit this point with these shows where we were kind of worried. What if that model goes away? And now it's just we've dumped all the shows, watch them out your own leisure. We were, Ozark was a good example of like, do you want to talk about Ozark yet? No, I'm only on episode three. Yeah.

Oh, shit. I finished it. All right. Well, let me know when you finish. but then Succession kind of brought the model back and it was a little bit of a slow burn and it wasn't like a massive hit right away.

This is the coolest thing about Succession is that it's good that you pick this specific episode because episode six starts what I think is among the greatest four episode runs of any television show for this for this season here. Greatest five. Yeah, four or five, right.

To end the season basically. But sometimes I consider those last two basically like one A and one B of an episode The wedding. but the first three episodes of Succession, Logan is essentially incapacitated. And I think that they were very much, I think Jesse Armstrong has pushed back against this,

but they were very much finding the tone of the show in the first three episodes. You can see it. Like the Roman jerking off in his office. They're having these moments where the characters were a little bit characters. Does this work? Right. And then the coolest thing about Succession was,

I think that there was a fan base around the first season. But then it was in between the first and second season that a lot of people went back and watched. the first season so that when the second season came along, it was like this major, major moment, you know? And that doesn't really happen anymore because it's like you're saying if you've missed Ozark the first weekend. And we have this problem when we're trying to program against how do we talk about Netflix shows? Because there are some people who are like, I'm going to watch 10 straight hours of this. And then there are some people who are going to

parcel it out of our banks. Yeah, exactly. It's hard for him to get into it. I have, I do and have always hated binging. I love Sunday nights. Yeah. It's been, I mean, when we moved to L.A., Chris and I forged our Sunday nights together. We watched a lot of shows together. We talked about this all the time. There was like some Sundays where it was like, was it Thrones and Mad Men or Thrones and Breaking Bad or something? There was like an AMC show.

Then there was Thrones. And then it was Veep and Girls. And so you could watch for basically like three hours. No, there was an AMC show. Yeah. It was like the killing? No, but there was something that people. It was right around that time, 2011.

Yeah. But it was like there was some Sundays where you could like hang out, make dips or whatever bullshit in between the shows and then just we would watch Girls Veep and Game of Thrones together for sure Yeah and Mad Men too Mad Men in those final couple of years

We would watch those and then it was like Was there a time when Mad Men and Thrones were on at the same time I feel like there was I remember writing a piece I'm gonna say it was 2014 but it might have been 2013 Where it was Sunday night football Thrones And it was either Breaking Bad or Madman

And it was all on the same Sunday night for like eight weeks in row. And it was like the greatest. We were like, oh my God, how are you going to even handle this? There's football and these two shows. Which one are you going to watch? John Snow. He just loves getting out there.

He loves it on the wall. Which one are you going to watch, you're going to watch the football? Which one are you going to watch on DVR first? Yeah. Don't tell me what happens. Yeah, yeah. It was amazing. But us talking about this now makes us sound like we were like, when I was growing up,

we had channels two, four, and six. And 80 million people watched. And we liked it. There's more content now. Yeah. But it's just not, not like it was back to where we just had these. You just asked me what I was watching and I listed three shows and you're like, yeah, I'm not watching this.

You know, it's like, but there's not like this centrality. This is like we built a lot of what we talk about here on like this idea of like the figurative water cooler that we gather around to talk about football and Sunday night TV and the big movie that weekend. So I think we all agree that this is the episode where the show coalesces, right? It's like this is clearly. And we were all watching it. leading to this episode.

I will always give Chris credit for this. Chris watched like the first three episodes before, I think most of us, but definitely me and he was like, this is the show. This is the show. And it wasn't even what it was, I think what you had seen to that point.

He said that about Nick Foles too. And he was right. But you were a total sear about this. And so I was watching, I think we were all watching from the very beginning. I watched every episode and I didn't love it, but I kept watching. And this was the reason I picked this episode partly

was because this was the episode where I was like, I'm fucking in. The shit moment. Yeah. And I think part of it was there were so many new actors, which now seems brilliant. Yeah. But I was like,

I don't know if I like this, Jeremy Strong. Like, is this guy really going to be the lead? I don't know if he has it. But it's the same thing that those other shows did, where it was like, I've never seen Dominic West before. James Gandalfini,

I don't really, John Ham, like, who is that? Like, the discovery of a, of a family of Shiv of Tom, You name them.

Yeah. Yeah, really the only one we had histories with was Brian Cox, who was just that guy. He became Brian Cox, but he's, you know, he just blends into 20 to, I don't, can't even name. It's been in so many movies. I can't even, like, rank him. Yeah. And then, he liked him as General Stryker in the Wolverine films. Primarily interested in him as Hannibal Lecter.

Right. Well, and then Culkin. Yeah. Just like, oh, there's a Culkin. That was really it. I didn't really have a history with anybody, which is what made the show so fun because they become the one thing the late period Alan Ruck Renaissance was also

something I really enjoyed yeah but like it just you think about like the kinds of things that have become part of the lexicon or like the way we talk like everything from like just the idea of cousin Greg to like so many of the ideas in this show or like moments in this show that have become like oh this is a real bore on the floor moment

for the patriots you know what I mean like it's it's just it's truly or fuck off. The last of its kind, I think, in terms of, like, a show that was really broken through like this. I think now, because things are so limited,

I'm trying to think of, like, the other ones and, like, HBO is now obviously, like, pivoted more towards, like, your mayors of East towns, and big little lies that, big little lies, I know it went on for multiple seasons,

but is ultimately, like, I think, was envisioned as a limited series. Like, it's more like this brief moment of, of an experience, whereas Succession has essentially been the show of the decade

in the last 10 years. I think that's true. I think that's true. I also didn't want to like it because initially I thought it was on the Billions Corner and I love those guys. So I was like, well, fuck this show,

but I still watched it. They're very different. They're very different shows. Yeah, you can't compare. The worlds are different. I think the ideas behind the shows are different and the intentions are different. But what really came out of this

from especially a rewatchable standpoint is each episode, probably starting with the fourth one, So we have the first three It's basically like Logan Is Logan gonna die? You have his birthday He might die

He's in the hospital And that those three episodes Probably got a little repetitive Because it was like This guy's in a coma And it's people running around Being like am I gonna do it Are you gonna do it?

Am I gonna do it? Well then in episode three The big pieces Kendall finds out They have all this debt What do I do? Well my dad's basically incapacitated If the stock drops below

130 we have to pay the money back immediately we're fucked we we so i have to make a decision and that's when you're watching it going man this guy doesn't have it something's off with him which so that brings that theme into it but it was till the fourth episode when cox's character logan tries to kind of sniffs out what's going on they're having this big speech from kendall's going to give the speech logan sniffs it out he gets it goes up there so that part was great the episode five was thanksgiving the brother comes back. Now it's like, oh, here's this fucked up family and all its glory. But it's still, this was the episode, episode six.

And you know, oh, I know where this is going. Yeah, all right, here we go. Kendall, now he's done. There's no going back. He's fucked up his chance. Logan's kind of got his fastball back a little bit. The siblings are turning on each other and we're off. The show is so good at creating opportunities to bring everybody together.

Yeah. Like, even in the first episode, with the softball game where you're just like, this is just an incredibly memorable set piece of all of these people that love each other and absolutely despise each other, being forced to spend time with each other. And even the board meeting is like

is a final representation of that. Like looking each other in the eyes and being like, God damn it, you fuck me so bad. So in this episode, we have, basically we have the conspirators, which are Kendall and Roman, the two brothers, Frank,

and our girl, Jerry, who really starts to emerge as like episodes four and five, trying to figure out, all right, we got to do this voter no confidence, which was an awesome idea. Apparently, Jesse Armstrong said the voter no confidence against Logan was inspired by the Disney 2004 shareholder meeting when they did this to Eisner, and then he ended up leaving in a year. So he kind of tucked that away, like great idea for an episode. So the whole goal of this is we got to do a voter no confidence for Logan and then we can

push him off the board. So many things happen in the first 40 minutes of this. We have Logan gets big time by the president. The old guy's kind of losing his juice a tiny bit. We have Logan's brother, Ewan, hanging out with Greg, telling him to paddle his own canoe and it's a rat's nest of a family and eating weird food with him. We have Roman meets with the Walter guy. Where do you stand in the Walter guy?

But I love the Volter plot line. Yeah. So Romans meeting with the Volter guy to try to convince him, hey, this might happen. They started learning people. And Shiv's meeting with her old flame. What's that guy's name? Nate.

Nate. Fucking Nate. Fuck that guy. The political guy. Can I just mention with Walter, somewhat with Nate, although he hangs around for most of the season. But one of the things I love that Succession does is subtly,

like very old school TV tricks of like three episode arcs for different characters. And the Volter arc, over the course of the of the of the of the show is is really well done that guy is so smarmy Kendall Kendall's eventual shiv into him is incredible yeah but they they did that with holly hunter they do that with like people where they're just like really good at bringing people in out of the bullpen do three innings for us and then we're good I was reminded just watching this episode of the fact that Lawrence the Volter guy is gay which I had just completely forgotten about but then you see the moment where you know he's out with Roman and he's out

with his boyfriend and his boyfriend's like edipus yeah yeah and there's also just a lot of subtle character choices for every character where you're like oh that that that's that person that's that person it's a realized world I should have gone slower so Logan getting big time by the president the president assumes this character

and it's basically Trump but they we never see him he's always alluded to and Logan's always shitting on him but clearly needs him yep the brother you in who is really in the Thanksgiving one when he emerged But his whole relationship with the family, I thought our guy James Cromwell, incredible.

Rewatchable's icon. His whole relationship with the family, I thought was really smart. That's a character that should have failed. Sure. You need somebody with gravitas to go up against Cox to imagine that not only is he is equal, but that he might even be as better, his moral better. And then at the end of the episode ends up voting for him and not shaking him. Walter guy we mentioned

Shiven the old flame this sets up everything that happens here sets up the uh gill coming in for the last few episodes Bologian portraying the billions guys

hopping over changing teams Johnny Damon to the Yankee style and uh and that whole arc which I thought that character was really good it was just a really to to your point about the the three episodes and out

like he's four episodes now but that character uh he was like some sort of Bernie Barack Obama blend. Yeah. Great character. Who is he supposed to be?

Basically a younger Bernie, I think. Yeah. That's one of the things with these shows when they take these characters that are clearly built on people, but they don't, like, entourage always blew it. They would just actually have the actual guys, not to compare entourage to succession. But instead of having like the Michael Eisner character, they would just have Michael Eisner. Yeah.

And that was the flaw of the show. I think Armstrong and presumably the whole writing team, they're just like scholars of power. They just understand the last 40. years. Here's how power operates in our world. Here are the people. There's so many absurd. Like we were talking about this recently with the Summ to Redstone book. That's just the craziest book ever, the Viacom book. And all the things you read in that book, you can't make it up. It's so absurd. And they're just pulling from all that real life example. So Shiv meets with the old flame. And this is when they kind of unlock Shiv. This is another reason episode

six is great. Now they're writing her like a guy. Right. She's, you just that, like the kind of the ceiling comes off for the ship characters. They're like, oh, she's probably going to fuck this guy. Wait, she's getting married. Yeah. And she's controlling the situation like a guy with, so they completely flipped that around. And Nate's kind of almost like the mistress. But with some real sexual attention, too, though.

It reveals her vulnerability, though, too, because she sits him down to hire him. And by the end, we know that he's going to hire her. Yeah. You know, which I think she knew that, though, don't you think? Possibly. But she's always like... She's trying to court the outside world to see her differently than her father does essentially.

Very much so, which we see this happening. That's happening right now again with one of the Coke daughters, you know, was just profiled in the New York Times in an attempt to sort of like reposition her away from the way that other people might see her father. So that happens all the time. I think Shiv has always been the most interesting character on the show to me because you can never really tell is she smart, too smart for her own good,

or not that smart but seems smart. And also, like, weirdly vulnerable for somebody who's an ice queen. Like, there's multiple times in each season where her feelings get hurt and they're actually hurt. Yeah. It's not like, you didn't hurt my feelings. I'm an ice queen. It was like, you can see like the look, like in the wet, in the pre-wedding episode, the ninth episode, when Marsha finally goes at her. Yeah.

Logan's wife and just like, you little spoiled slut. Shiv is like taken aback. Yeah. She's good at fighting, but not really. Yeah. I love the ship character. And shout out to Van Lathen. It said she was 2019 first team all white girl.

I'll let Van. Van will come on a later Hall of Fame episode. He can go into that. This is the episode Tom and Greg go to a whole other level. Yeah. So good. They go out for a rich guy night. And you know what?

I kind of feel like this is another thing. So a lot of shows are really planned to within an inch of their life. They've got people for three, five. of six days, six weeks, whatever it is that they have to have like a very like lockstep plot that they're following. You can just kind of tell that they were like Nicholas Braun and Matthew McFadden

are fucking awesome together. Let's find new things for them to do. What if they go out on a date night? Yeah. But Greg's already eaten. And the Ordelon thing is like I think is one of those moments. Like if you're saying episode six is where this show jumps up a level, the

fucking napkins over the head and it's like is it to disguise the shame or the ecstasy or whatever is like what am I watching and that's Tom's whole being rich is great it's like being a superhero you get to wear cool you get to work we should mention he has a black eye for some reasons that remain unclear and then like the black eye was when he goes in he's like oh shibs rough in bed and those guys are like yeah please tell us about having sex with our sister he has quotes like look here's the thing about being rich it's fucking great um they eat a deep fried songbird they go and hang out in some club

the gold flecked vodka he's like you cost two thousand hours a bottle we're getting totally ripped off every moment with them it's just lights out so we have that whole thing and then can I just like the my favorite thing in the whole episode is have you ever visited the California pizza kitchen

and he's like it's delicious he's like no no it isn't what do they make just what do you love it's like they make a fettuccini he's like a barbecue Yeah, with Fettuccini. But we also, there's a real reason that we come out of that where Greg tells Tom about the vote. And Tom is always in these first six episodes pretending he knew something.

Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah. But meanwhile, you can see, like, that actor is fantastic. He's amazing. I don't know what he ends up doing after this or whether he'll just like this succession. Probably just making a ton of really good British TV that doesn't pop. But, like, he's incredible. He's so distinct to this.

It's going to be hard to see. It almost like what happened of some of the wire people and some of the Sopranos people. You kind of can't unsee the character. If they were going to do a spinoff, I could see Todd and Greg being the spinoff. Sign me up.

We have Kendall joins Logan for the super weird dinner, gets the invite from Marsha and goes over there. And it's like, and I think the show did a really good job in the first six episodes of like, is Logan? Does he have his marbles anymore? Yeah. Probably how you guys feel about me at this point.

Me and Sean has long wondered whether you suffer from a UTI. When I peed in Sean's office that time. The reason that I don't ever challenge you though is because I know that if I do, there's a, you have your game? I have my game. That's that speech is right around the corners. So Logan's just a mess. You show up one day and he's hosting the big picture.

I come over and Bill's like, you want a big Mac? We have Shiv in the old flame still going, playing cat and mouse, should we fuck or not. They'm not fucking beat. No, they will. And then we have Kendall zipping over to Long Island to sway Olana's vote or Atlanta, whatever. Alona, yeah. Alona. Alona.

And Frank gives him the old. Sure we have time? Of course I have time. I'm a rich guy. I'll just use my helicopter. What could go wrong? This is the big mistake for Kendall. Right.

It just goes to the board meeting. If he throws away her vote, but then he'll have the Roman vote, he'll be in the room, he would have made Logan leave the room and said Logan stays in the room because nobody pushes him out and it all goes to shit. And Kendall's life is never the same.

Although, would Kendall have done a good job running Waystar? I'm going to say no. No, I mean, that's the whole thing. Kendall is full of shit. This is the brilliance of Jeremy Strong's performance is that this is not an undiscovered gem of a leader. Like, Roman probably has better ideas about how to run that company than Kendall does. When Roman's like, there is no more 9 o'clock news.

There's just morsels. Give me the morsels. The guy from Volta is just like, I don't know what you're talking about. But like, Roman's probably right, you know, like. Roman speech in that is awesome when he's like, look, I have ADHD. I'm seeing six things at once. But here's the thing about morsels. And it goes into it.

I think that scene reveals something really great, though, which is that Lawrence, who runs a kind of gawker-esque, like, you know, digital media click farm is secretly a very savvy intellectual esteet. And he probably came from not much and rose up with these aspirational ideas, whereas Roman, who comes from the highest of high families in the United States, I look at bookstores and I laugh. Yeah, right. He's like a numskull.

He's like a very low, low. Now, he and Kendall might be the same in that they are, very savvy political operators but don't actually know how to be in charge of anything. And like the same way that I'm like, is Shiv like actually really smart or not smart at all? Kendall was the ultimate question. Because you're right that he could have pulled this off

if not for a terrorist warning and he could have gotten the power and we'll never know. A terrorist warning, which by the way is hinted at the beginning and it turns out the president wasn't full of shit. Yeah, perfect piece of writing. Yes. Terrorist thing. Yeah, Roman says stuff in this episode like

people like me, I look like a maddador and everyone wants to fuck me. So you can't take him seriously, but at the same time, he probably would have had the best chance of running Waystar just because at least he had taste. Yeah. Kendall had no taste in anything. It makes my soul die, but he's probably right about

where society is going into like a post-literate kind of like. But he's also the guy who oversees the SpaceX style rocket ship exploding. Like he's also in which we've also found out is not like a barrier to entry. Right. Did Roman predict? TikTok in this episode? Pretty much, yeah. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptitide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced

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it all leads to the 15 minute board sequence which this was when the show was like, oh, this is going to be a great show, at least for me watching it, when a helicopter can't take off. I'll pay whatever. Guys got this weird accident. We're going to get shut down by an F-16.

That's not happening. Now we're trapped in a tunnel. Now he's running and he's on the phone. And we have this weird board meeting going on. And Logan's slowly realizing what's going on as soon as Ewan walks in. Everything about how this is constructed is just like masterful. It's beautiful. It's really great.

It's as good as any great movie. I can't think of another show that really ever has balanced comedy and drama the way this show does. Yeah. To be able to go to flit in and out of like to have Kendall have that opening scene with the rapper and Kendall like making an ass of himself. You're fucking imperial right now. I think American Diablo is your best album. Oh, is he plumbing the depths of the rap ocean? American Diablo.

But to have it go for that to the pathos of him, like, running through Midtown to try to get to that meeting, there's very, very few shows that can make me laugh this hard and also be like, this guy's Hamlet, you know? I mean, I agree. I don't even know how to follow it up. Like, to me, the final 15 minutes are, like, truly anxiety-inducing. Yeah. I mean, it is really painful to watch it. Because it literally is an anxiety dream. Yeah.

I mean, not the same things, but that. that idea of being like super late to a meeting. Yeah, like everything going wrong. Yeah, exactly. Test and ninth grade. And even still, even though he's on the phone, the speech he delivers is good. It is sound.

It is like a proper attack on his father. And one of the reasons why... So I love my father. But Brian Cox is unbelievable in the final 10 minutes. Yeah. Where he's sitting there while they're having the vote and he's just firing at everyone. But part of the reason he's firing so aggressively is

because he knows that his son has. mounted, even over the phone, a legitimate case. Stock is plummeting. He's got this weird fucking plan to buy up all these old news tools. He actually is at that moment behind the times. He has a losing idea.

And still he loses, which is just part of the amazing tragedy of Kendall. It was like me at ESPN. I was like, Grantland's the future. The cable bundle is about being the past. I don't know. I was running through the streets in Bristol. I have some questions from the board sequence.

just after I've been watched this episode probably seven or eight times of my life. Why couldn't they have just delayed the meeting? I've been in board meetings. They're usually like three hours. I think there's plenty like, that was just mechanics for great drama. It's not like,

no, I know, but it, it, it, this show does a really good job of being just realistic enough. Yeah. And then not realistic at all. Yes. You know, and it's like super entertaining, but they could have stalled a lot better. Well, they use a storytelling,

gimmick where they say Logan has never started late in the history. Well, they had that amazing story about even that time he shattered his fever in Aspen, the air lifted him to the meeting. Oh, here we go. When do you think Logan officially caught on? Oh, I think when he brings Kendall over for dinner by that point, he's like already, I think he's already sniffed out. You think it's that early?

I think he's already sniffed out. Really? Yeah. I think so. I think that's like his first power move is like, I'm going to make you come to me. I don't think he knows. I personally don't think he knows until the brother walks on. Because remember Frank's reading the, he's like, all right, we're going to read, everybody's got to say he was here. He's like, why are we doing this?

He seems genuinely confused by it. I thought that was more to make everybody uncomfortable, but you could be right. Yeah, I don't know the answer. I think it's possible that someone who is as successful as Logan knows something is up. And so he's at least doing some research and trying to get a feel for what's going on with his son without necessarily knowing exactly that he would be, you know, called into question as a leader. Why did they actually make Logan leave the room? This is a big nitpick for me after like six episodes.

They're so afraid of this. You make Logan leave. Yeah. Well, it's basically like we can't have the vote until you leave. You almost got to stare him down, but nobody, that's, I guess that's the point. Nobody at the table at the balls to be like, look, we're not like, Kendall would have been the only one. It would be like, you have to leave.

Or we'll go somewhere else. Yeah. I mean, he's bull charging them in the room too. Yeah. Everything he says. an attack on them. That's one of the things that's so great about this episode.

You finally see Logan, you're like, oh, this is how this guy is 80 and still basically Rupert or Murdoch. Why do you think Roman back down ultimately? I mean, I think that that's where you get into like the real like crippled family. Like, you better,

what does he say? You better be fucking smelling your armpit or what is Romulus. Well, he hits him in a later episode. Yeah, and it's pretty much intimated that he used to beat the shit out of Roman. Kendall also used to torture Roman too, right? Yeah.

He talks about locking him in a cage, basically, right? Well, they have the next episode, is episode 7's the therapy episode. And Roman starts talking to Connor about when he used to sexually abuse him and say, I'm going to talk about when you used to fuck me. It's like, what are you talking about? Why are you saying this?

But the next episode's a really great example of how complex these characters are because Roman's the one who goes and gets Kendall when he's smoking meth. Right. The Romans the one who's just like, cool. I mean, that's another amazing Jeremy Strong episode. Australia is like the Jeremy Strong like Emmy Reel. The drugs, Jeremy Strong on drugs is just a totally different character.

And he pulls it off and it shouldn't have been pulled off. Thanks for nothing alone. A fuck off. Hanging up kills me. And then him when Kendall finally gets in and he's like, did it happen? And he's like, my son, that was your best shot, son, you lost. It's fucking awesome. You lost.

And then, uh, and Cox Dows it up. I'm in the middle of turning a fucking tanker. So do you think this was, because they mentioned the lawsuit in the next episode. Was this not a legal vote if he didn't recrees himself? That's what you would sue on, right? Yeah. We tried to have a vote. He wouldn't leave the room.

There was procedural stuff that was wrong. Yeah. And then it ends with which side are you on and broken Kendall walking through the streets vanilla sky style. Yeah. I think like a breathtaking final sequence

of waiting, of making the president wait on the phone, the ultimate exertion of power. And then all of a sudden, this like Pete Seeger song starts playing, which is so anachronistic and so out of style for the show. It's not really like a succession thing to end

with a pop song like that, right? And, And then the cut to Kendall wandering the streets, which is like, you said it before. You're like, it's as good as a great movie.

It feels like a 70s movie. And the cool thing about it is like, it's, I think you mentioned this when you were texting us about this bill, but like there's all these little elements of this show that elevate it, like the music,

like the visual language of the show where it's like, it's all coming together in this episode where you're like, oh, like every other part of making television is so elite in this show. show that it's raising this show even higher.

Yeah. Yeah, it's got no weak links. And that's why I think when you're talking, we'll see how the last season ends, but in the greater show conversation, you know, some of the greats, you can pick apart, some of the Sopranos actors are just bad. Not the main actors, but that next level they would bring in people and Gainville, Gaino Finney would just be blowing people off the screen. Everybody in the show is good.

Yeah. I wish they had done more with Brody, Adrian Brody and Les with Alexander Scarsgaard. Yeah, yeah, you're right. But that's like really minor quibbles. And then the music, I don't know if any show has ever used music, basically the same two songs more effectively. Where there's like the slower, sadder version, there's like the happier, zippier version. Yeah. Nicholas Bertel being like a secret weapon of the show.

And writing new music for multiple episodes. Greg has like his own music in season one where it's like this little like hip hoppy. It's scored like a 70s film. Yeah. I'll just say, I'll just say like I feel like each of us maybe have our own of the big shows, right?

I feel like the wire is always your show. I feel like The Sopranos was always your show and I always feel like Mad Men was my show. I was Wire Sopranos combo. Like Bigamist. I think that what all of those shows do is they're all very novel.

They're all like deeply literate stories and they're influenced by like 70s movies like we like and You know they have this amazing casting, but they're all Simultaneously fun to read but incredibly psychological and they're all about like what is thinking you're constantly thinking about what is actually going on the heads of the characters Which is that's hard to that's hard to manifest and then keep going Yeah For over years and years and that's where I think the tension of maybe a little bit of what happened last season with Succession is that it's like what's what's the resolution here you know and i this has been talked about a lot with other tv shows recently i think it's been a kind of interesting conversation which is like is death

the only real closure you can have on a tv show and so like is is logan's death inevitable in succession you know that is there going to be like one last joke where logan dies and like leaves the entire company to jerry or something or you know is kendall's death because he's just like he can't find worth in his life, you know, like, and that's what it was so breathtaking about the concept of this guy taking his own life, you know, in, in the last season. I don't know. I don't know how it should end. I don't really, part of me doesn't want it to him jumping. It's, it's clued over and over again, even in the first season. They have it at, I think even in the first episode where he's just kind of looking out the window. Yeah. Somebody jokes like, don't jump. Well, he doesn't have anything.

So that would be my bet. Yeah. He doesn't have anything. You left out one thing when you're talking about the great shows, how they have all they have all. these things. I think the other pieces that, you know, all the great shows you're entering some sort of world that you're not that familiar with, right? You're in a world. But like, Sopranos, I'm in this weird mafia, New Jersey world. I don't know anything about it.

Wire, same thing. Albuquerque Drug Underground for break up. Their secrets aside. Mad Men, I'm back in the 60s and it's like, whoa, things worked this way. And I didn't think another show was going to be able to pull it off. I really thought, like, the way. way we were making more and more stuff, how self-conscious everything was and just how many things have to go right to have a great show. I didn't know if we'd have another one. I know that sounds

cynical, but I just think to pull this off, I don't know if we see it again, but I would have said that before succession. Yeah. I think there have been a lot of other shows that place you in a world or show you like a place that you never would have expected to see on screen or would you fall in love with the characters. Like, that stuff is always going to happen. It's not that that... Yeah, like White Lotus

most recently. That's a great example. Yeah. Like, you know... But you're not going to watch White Lotus ten times. But also White Lotus gets to reset.

I was thinking a lot about Orange is the New Black recently and how, like, that first season of that show, I loved. I was like, this is an amazing show. Yeah. It is like a totally unique tone.

I've never really seen anything quite like this. Certainly never been in a show set in the world of a woman's prison. And then the show almost had too many characters and it got too distracted by other side ideas and I I lost touch with it. I couldn't stay with it. And like that is why the the consistency of this show, even in it's like whatever,

even if it's kind of struggle to close out season three, it basically has zero bad episodes. Yeah. And as you said, zero uninteresting characters. I'm nitpicking it in a perfect. It's like, it's like basically being like, you know, the Patriots didn't win by enough in one game or something And they also never have the episode of, we just had this episode because we owed HBO 10 episodes. Jesse was kind of talking about the New Yorker pieces. Like, we could just keep going on in perpetuity and have bad weeks. Yeah. You know, and have bad episodes and just be like, well, it's an eight-season show.

So, like, we're going to have some bad ones, you know? Yeah. Well, and they also, they just struck oil with the people they hired as their main actors. Even somebody like Marcia is really great. Fantastic. And she's not even in the show that much, you know. Or they're just bringing in James Cromwell to be you in. But on and on down the line.

Every, I never felt like, ah, this person's overmatched. Or, you know, and then they strike oil with somebody like Jerry, who's been bouncing around for 30 years and kind of belatedly became a star because of the show. Yeah. Kenneth Onergan's longtime partner. Yeah. Like, you can see her. I can see her being like a best supporting actress nominee for something,

which I would not have said while ago. Yeah. That's all I got. I think the first five they hold up in their own way and then you get here and it rips off one of the best five episode runs ever. This Austerlitz and Prague are like, it's like maybe the best three episode run in TV history. I have to really think about it.

But then you get to episode nine and you get to meet their mom, which answers so many questions. She's a fucking maniac. Well, there's also a lot of shows. I have nothing but like the deepest admiration for Mad Men, but there are lots of Mad Men episodes where nothing happens for 43 minutes. And then there's like a kind of interesting dramatic turn in the last five minutes. And then it's next week on Mad Men.

Like there are Mad Men episodes that are really beautifully written, but are not particularly consequential. And I don't really feel that way about succession, especially once you get to this episode going forward. Supranas had a couple too. Yeah. The Wire probably did the best job of, not having those episodes.

The wire had cases. Like the wire was always moving towards this thing. And because the wire reset every season, you can make the argument that maybe Succession should have reset in some way, that there would have been like a good moment for it to be a world without Kendall or a world without Logan. Well, the question about whether they should have killed Kendall in season three is a good one. Because, I mean, if they had killed Brody after at the end of Homeland season one, I think that

goes down as one of the great one season seasons. Right. instead they kept them around and they had the weird second season then the daughter got involved and it just got really weird there's such a it's an interesting moment for a show like this to end too because we're going through this thing where Netflix is canceling a lot of shows after two or three seasons and the idea of like constantly churning and relaunching stuff is is in the in the news all the time I'm I always wanted to be a fly on the wall of a negotiation between a studio head and a showrunner and saying like here's my plan for how long they

show should go because this one does feel close and the first time I blinked was when they didn't kill Kendall when I was like oh so they do want this to go six seasons I might have even said that on a pod where it was like oh they pulled back because this is just

too important for HBO they don't want to play that card it's just too like you just can't lose Jeremy Strong he's the lifeblood of the show he's emerged as the biggest star from the show they just they couldn't pull the trigger and you know what it sucks from a storytelling perspective but like I totally get it but now we know that it's ending it's like so was the oky-doke

an attempt to like lure us out and then make us feel comfortable again it's a really interesting story choice now when you look back at it it also speaks to how great HBO is not to sound like I'm in the bag for HBO but they're the only network that would have said

no no we need six seasons out of this like they really do care about the excellence piece the most but they'll also but they'll also let Curb go for 13, 14, 15 seasons. But that's more of a Larry wants to keep this going.

And that's, and I think CASE employees would have kept doing succession for as long as Jesse Armstrong wanted to do succession. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, it's more like, I'm sure that Jesse Armstrong is like, I think we've come to the end of the story.

Again, I'd love to see what their conversation was like. I still think Showtime slash Paramount is like, Jesse, we're sorry to hear you're leaving the series. Yeah. But we'll be doing season five. We're also doing a prequel, a Logan prequel, and a spin-off of Tom and Greg. Oh, young Logan? Yeah.

Young Logan. Where did you set that? Like the 70s? Scowland. Yeah. England in the 70s coming up in the tabloor newspaper era. There's so much pressure on the Tom and Greg spin-off. But I would be counting down the days.

What would they do? What would be the spin-off? I don't know. Tomlitt and Greggs. About their future and their families and the new rise of succession. He gets a job as a CEO at another company. company, brings Greg along with them. They try to manage power while also they're raising young families.

Tom and Greg takeover Fox Sports. That's right. Well, this episode was called... Wait, did Shedin Sharp start a fight? What are we going to do about Skip A-Lis? This episode was called Which Side Are You On? Who sang it? Pete Seeger? It's an old folk song. I think it's Pete Seeger singing on the soundtrack.

The first great succession episode. All right, that's it for prestige. We will be doing a Hall of Fame episode on Succession every week leading up to March 28th. We have one in the archives from a year and a half ago. I can't remember who I did it with, but we did episode, I think, six or seven. Me and Joanna did it. Yeah, I don't think it was me. What was the episode?

Safe room. Safe room. It was a great pick. Season 2, episode 4. I think that's the best succession episode. That's Kendall being like, it's not going to be me to ship, right? That's fucking good.

Great stuff. So you can hear that in the archives, and we'll see you next week.