The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Succession’ Season 3, Episode 8 With Mark Mylod

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

Joanna and Sean are back to talk about everything in the explosive penultimate episode of 'Sucession' Season 3. They discuss the dramatic cliffhanger ending involving Kendal (00:46), the cutting scene between Shiv and her mother (31:09), and later they are joined my director Mark Mylod to discuss filming this consequential episode (67:37). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Joanna Robinson Guest: Mark Mylod Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join Justin Charity and Micah Peters in Sound Only as they discuss their deepest, darkest thoughts about the millennial lifestyle, rap music, video games, anime, YouTube, social media, and their underlying themes. Check out Sound Only on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies. Sweet Green's new wraps have got you. Real ingredients? Zero shortcuts. Everything you love in one hand. Think green goddess chicken. Garlic aoli.

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I'm a ringer senior staff writer, Joanna Robinson. Joining me in, I'm going to flatter myself here. A merger of equals. It's Sean Fennessee. Hello, Sean. How are you? Well, I do love equality. You know, it's the Swedish side of me coming out here at Spotify. We have a lot, obviously.

There's just a few things happen on Succession this week, right? Just a couple. Just a couple things. Here and there. Yeah, so we're going to dip our toes into the deadly pool that is Succession, Season 3, Episode 8, Kiantyshire, written by Jesse Armstrong, directed by Mark Milaud. Mark Milad also happens to be our guest this week on the podcast. So you will hear me ask him the question everyone's asking, and you will hear him not answer my question, of course, obviously.

What else is he going to do? Was that question about the charcutory on Schiff's TV? Yes. Oh, okay. He wouldn't answer. I was trying to, like, was it Food Network or was it a YouTube charcutory video? Yeah, I felt like an Apple TV set up with the YouTube app. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. She's got curated material in that apartment. I love that for her. So we'll get to that at the end, obviously. Before we get into the candle of it all, which is where we're going to start. We have a little corrections department to get to, first of all, a very kind listener, let all of the podcasters at the ringer know that they were mispronouncing Matthew McFaddean's name. Matthew McFadion, I think I did it right.

My bad, Matthew. Then we got the futurist correction because I did a sloppy 10-minute Google search, and I got, what I deserved for that, which is a lot of people letting us know that I got the architects behind Kendall's party in last week's episode wrong. So for the record, Yuval Harari is the Harari. James Locklock is that and Faith Popcorn are the futurists. And what I will say about our listeners, Sean, is I've had my share of podcast corrections in my day. Our listeners are so nice about it. They're really chill and calm and just sort of like. here's what you missed.

I think you're quite brave to be engaging in the corrections department in general here. Listeners of podcasts, some of them are nice. And if ours are nice, that's great. Some of them, not so nice. So I probably won't be spending as much time spelunking into their archives. I just like to reward friendly corrections. If someone's a jerk about it, I won't engage. But yeah, people are really nice about this.

Apparently, I do not on my finger on the pulse of the futurist conversation. And then I also want to do something that I like to do in every, every episode, which is just to take a beat on the episode title, Kianti Cher, which is a term that cropped up in the 1990s, I think, about a certain era of Italy where the British leisure class would go spend their time. But also reminds me, forgive me, I wrote a term paper on this in college, so I would be boring about it. But in the 19th century, there were so many British novels and novelists and poets, like setting these sort of emotional cathartic stories in Italy. Italy was a place where the repressed British go to have their, you know, actual catharsis.

Probably the most well-known version of that is Room of the View, Enforster, but, you know, there's a bunch of different examples of this idea that, like, you can't really let loose until you get to Italy. Do you have any thoughts or feelings about that, Sean? Well, I own several castles in Keontishire, so it's really exciting just to see my personal experience on screen. I just feel like there's something really important there about representation. And so I'm a proud resident of Keonti Shire. Yeah, like, is it, is it two or three villas or where are you at? Where are you at Villa-Wise these days? I need to consult with my landman,

my property agent to confirm, but I think it's three. And I would encourage anybody who can afford to go. And if you can't afford to go, please stay out. Great, great attitude. Love this review. All right. So let's talk about, we're going to talk about Kendall. We were thinking of saying this for last, but we're going to dive right in right now, and that's the last pool language I will use. My first question to you, Sean, is do you want me to talk about trailer footage we haven't

seen on the show yet? Does that feel like fair game in your spoiler world? You mean this sort of the season on footage that we saw earlier this year? I think we should discuss it. I mean, do you want to even just kind of bracket this conversation by saying, here's what happened at the end of this episode. What do we think? That would be good podcasting. All right. So the episode ends. I mean, I think we can do as a Pruder film style breakdown, honestly, of the final 45 seconds of this episode. Tell me what you saw. Tell me what you saw. Well, obviously, Kendall is spotted pool in pool.

Iverson is poolside and leaves his father, who's drinking a bottle of beer in the pool. He drops the bottle of beer into the pool. It turns over and sinks. and then we slowly see Kendall's face dipping into the water, clearly in the water. And then we see bubbles coming from his nose and mouth. And the camera kind of moves around. It takes a kind of rotation to show us Kendall from the left angle to the right angle. And it certainly looks as though he could drown in that position. And of course, this comes after this pretty epic showdown with his father that had a sense of finality to it.

And so obviously the conversation over the course of the last four or five times, days has been is Kendall dead. You, of course, at the end of last episode, proffered the theory that Kendall would commit suicide at the end of this season or at least lose his life. So now here we are. You nailed it. I mean, you can, or did you? I don't know. I honestly don't know. I will say when I watched this for the first time, I was like, they did it. Joanna was right. They're taking this character off the board. This person we've invested all of this time and mind share in. And what a brave and fascinating decision. And pretty much since I watched it a second time on Sunday night, I have believed that he is not dead.

So, like, what do you think? Oh, I'm on a whole roller coaster. Tends what time of day you ask me what I think. And thank you so much for promising that I forget that not everyone who listens this podcast also listens to like 20 other succession podcasts like I do. I was like, we all know what happened, right? Let me ask you quickly. So let's circle back to this trailer footage question. This is a big part of it for me.

Do you feel like it's okay to talk about this? I do. Yes, absolutely. Okay, there's a couple scenes that we haven't seen. The big sort of everyone cheering at long tables on the lawn shot that I, you know, has been used a couple times. Some folks have zoomed in on that shot and used a little arrow to point out Jeremy Strong's brown-clad, downtrodded figure at the corner in one of the tables. So that's some pretty good evidence. And then also there's another scene where Connor is yelling at Kendall in clothing. We haven't seen them wear yet where Connor's like, oh, I think your silver spoon wasn't silver enough for you or something like that.

We have seen other – there's been other trailer scenes that have been cut. We know that they've shot and cut plenty of stuff. We have several examples of that this season. But the big wedding banquet thing, unless it's a bait-and-switch, which I don't know if Succession is on that Game of Thrones shooting. fake endings level yet. But unless it's a bait and switch, feels like pretty good evidence to me that Kendall at least survives the pool.

What do you think? Well, there's become this prevailing counter theory in the last few days that Kendall will survive episode eight but will not survive episode nine. I'd like to know actually where that originated because I don't know that it necessarily completely tracks for me. Is that something that just occurred to you

as you were thinking about it? Oh, me. So the other piece of evidence, this is to answer your question, but we have to say that the other big piece of evidence that dropped on Sunday is this New Yorker profile of Jeremy Strong. And most, if you haven't read it, please press pause and go read it. It's one of the most extraordinary things I've ever read. In which a lot of, a few of Jeremy Strong's castmates are interviewed. Matthew McFadion gets one quote, Kieran Culkin and Brian Cox being the bull. of the other quotes.

And every media person that I talked to on Sunday said, these are not interviews you give if you're going to work with this person again on a next season. I don't know if I wholly, I mean, certainly not with Brian Cox, who's been gloves off elsewhere in conversations in Kieran Kalkin, too. Someone pointed out that on his recent fresh air interview, he was pretty gloves off talking about Brian Cox. So I don't know that that is true, true, but it's, I feel. somewhere in my bones.

The Jeremy Strong is not going to be a series regular, at least next year. So there's a couple options. One is that, yeah, he survives the pool, but not the season. Another is, and a popular one that's going around with people, is that Ken confesses to the season one murder, and then Kendall goes to jail. And a way you could connect that to the Connor. Like, what could get Connor so mad that he's screaming at Kendall?

And my thought was, if Ken confesses to this, maybe Connor then feels like his presidential chances are ruined. And the scandal is so big that he can't run for president now, which has been his cherished wish. Like maybe that could provoke that kind of reaction from a Connor. I don't know. But that's where I feel right now. I don't feel, I feel like he survives the pool. But the bet I'm willing to make is that something huge and calamitous happens to the finale. No, duh.

It's a finale. And Jeremy Strong won't be a series regular next year. Where are you? I am torn. I'm deeply torn because on the one hand, I think Kendall and Jeremy Strong's performance is now in that pantheon. Like it is now in that kind of hallowed, you know, Don and Peggy, Walter White, you know, the handful of kind of classic beloved, beloved, tortured, anti-hero figures. of the last 20 years of television. And I love, despite reading some of the more grueling particulars in that profile by Michael Shulman,

which is just terrific in The New Yorker, I love watching Jeremy Strong on the show. And I think he is the, he's the pulsing, he's the pulsing something, maybe not the heart, perhaps like the pancreas of the show. You know, I feel like he allows it to kind of cleanse itself and rebuild every season and kind of re-contextualized the kind of critical issues and problems of the characters that kind of keeps the story moving forward. So I don't want to lose him. But the way that they have now positioned this and the way that they have sort of like arranged, managed, marketed this whole episode and this whole season, if they just kept him on the show, I think I would feel like a little betrayed or

confused that it would feel like, I feel like we've crossed the Rubicon here. Now, what you're suggesting is actually not something I had thought of, which is not making. him a series regular anymore, but still allowing him to be the orbit of the show so that he could kind of loom like a specter and crop up in one or two episodes a year, but not be a focal point. Now, that would seem more, I guess for lack of a better phrase, realistic to how something like this might happen in a family like this, where someone would just sort of be ostracized and leave the family, and we wouldn't really spend much time with them because they're not in those kind of critical turning points as the company is evolving.

But I love the idea of the boldness. I said that to you last week when you suggested the idea of taking Ken off the show. The kind of like, you know, I don't know, bravery is a silly word to use when discussing the machinations of a TV show. But it is brave to take a singular creation like Kendall off the board. And so I want to see them do it. I want to see them make the move and see what they could make this show into without him. I don't know. What do you think?

I have similar questions about what is this show without Jeremy Strong's performance. I definitely have that question. And we're going to sort of maybe circle back to that at the end of our discussion here. And I want to talk a little bit more about this New Yorker profile because, like, I've never had to work with Jeremy Strong. I've interviewed him a couple times. I've never had to work with him. I have really feel for him and all of this, and maybe that's ridiculous. But this is such a thing to be out there in the world.

It's a very exposed kind of profile. And I was thinking about, you know, someone was comparing to Jared Leto, and I was like, he's not setting people like pig fetuses and boxes or anything like that. Like the trial of Chicago 7 filming sounded pretty exhausting. But for the most part, it seems like he keeps to himself is sort of the thing that he does. And I was thinking that maybe a big thing when we don't talk about is difference between being a method actor for a film, a Daniel de Lewis, versus on TV where you've got a cast that you're returning to. week after week after week and this idea of a camaraderie and all that sort of stuff. And also holding on to that character. That's something that we talked about last week, I think, is that Jeremy Strong is the kind

of performer who's, he gave an interview to The Guardian where he said something like, I don't even feel like it's a performance. I feel like I'm Kendall one half of the year and Jeremy the other half. That sounds exhausting. Ryan Cox sounded concerned for him, you know? Like, you know, I just think for his mental health, he shouldn't be on the show anymore. And then from a writing, from a storytelling point of view, the Michael Waldron, the headwriter on Loki,

who worked with Dan Harmon closely, introduced me to this harmonian phrase, which is arced out when a character has arced out. And that's sort of where I feel like Kendall is. Because if there's some, if he, even this proposed idea of he confesses and that kneecaps his dad somehow, how is that not feel like a retread of the end of season two? You know what I mean?

Like, it can't be what we saw in season two, and it can't just be Ken back on the hamster wheel. So something has to change. And if the change is either death or written off the show and comes back for the series finale or, you know, or one episode or something like that, I don't know. That's sort of where I am right now. I think that the arched out point is really compelling. And the sort of revelation about the waiter's death at the end of season one, I thought, I thought, I like the acknowledgement of it twice in this episode for the first time in a long time, in one in which the dinner conversation with Logan in which he directly kind of like confronts him and mocks him about that death and indicates that maybe in fact, Kendall is not the good person.

He's trying to convince himself that he actually is. And then secondarily when Comfrey is talking to him about the potentiality of this podcast, about the Roy family, we have not gotten very many mentions of that incident since it happened. Colin occasionally will crop up and make his presence felt around Kendall, yes. But not very many things that literal. And that indicates to me that they're not going to do that that reveal or they're going to not make that a part of the storytelling, which would be just so obvious, honestly. And this is a show that has avoided, I think, those obvious turns. As far as the profile goes, really of two minds.

I found his, I find him to be such a gifted actor and such an interesting performance. and often so well cast in things and willing to take on really ridiculous parts. Like, I don't know if you've seen Serenity or the gentleman, which is not, was he was not willing to discuss. But he really like, he goes for it and everything that he does. And he does variations. He's not just doing Kendall over and over again. On the other hand, this almost ruthless determination to pick up Daniel Day Lewis's cod piece is a little, is a little bit.

It's a little bit gross. It's a little bit like, you know, you want to be a spaceman when you grow up. So you, you know, pick up Buzz Aldrin's dry cleaning for 20 years. Like, it's just, it was so overcommitted. And it's like a little hard to read someone's ambition laid bare in that way. Because, like, you can tell that there are people in the fringes of his life that are like, this guy is really tough to be around. And that just made me feel bad that this exists.

Because what if someone interviewed all the people who find me deeply annoying of which I'm sure there are plenty? Of course. Of course. I just felt like he was so exposed. And by someone who already knew him. I don't know. This wasn't a hit piece. It's a really well-written, really well-considered, really well-researched, long-form, long-mead piece.

So, like, you know, I have nothing but respect for Michael Schulman's work on it. But I felt really bad reading it. It has raised something super interesting that I wanted to ask you about. Yeah. Because you're obviously a participant in this economy. Pieces like this were much more common. 10, 20, 30 years ago. You could read long 20,000 word Q&A's in Playboy magazine with people who are sort of

on the level, the biggest star on the biggest show on TV or the biggest box office star in the world. And they would be incredibly revelatory and they would be incredibly open with the, with the interviewers. And you would learn things that were a bit unnerving and certainly fascinating and sometimes like emotionally transparent about these people. And it's long considered like a better time in the entertainment media industry because there was so much more access and people were available.

And now, most actor profiles you read are really lousy. You know, they're born out of like 40-minute lunches. And this season of this show actually basically mocked that kind of a story when Fendell had his sit down, exactly. And I wonder if there was some sort of knowingness in the writing

of that episode of season three, knowing that Jeremy was going through the process of the New Yorker profile, which is one of those things. It usually takes one year to complete. because of how much time is spent with the subject. But it's a question, I think, of basically, how much do you want to know about your favorite artists? And how much do you want to know, Joanna, about your favorite artist?

Do you want to know more about Jeremy Strong or do you want to just be with Kendall? I've long been fascinated by Jeremy Strong. Like, like I said, having interviewed... So I'll peel back to the curtain a little bit, and I feel like it's okay for me to say this because of this piece that just dropped. But I didn't interview with him around season two where he told me something about his method process

that he was embarrassed to have told me and later sent me a really long, really nice email asking me to please cut it out of the podcast because he was just sort of like, I don't feel like I should be talking about this. Do you know what I mean? So like the fact that, and to your point about, you know,

the good, old bad days and media, I mean, this is a show about the evolution of media, so this feels relevant to talk about. When I started at Vanity Fair, like eight years ago, people were talking, that was still in the Great and Carter era, but people were still talking wistfully, they would mention profiles of the past

where so-and-so said this or so-and-so said that. But now everything is so... There's a thing called media training and everyone is so PR-controlled and all of that. It does feel airless a lot of these profiles. And so there's something beautiful about this.

I just don't like that the end result might be that Jeremy Strong is forever or some kind of punchline. Like I've seen a lot of cheap shots on Twitter around this. And, like, I just think it's more interesting to consider him a brilliant performer who sounds kind of exhausting to be around if you have to work on a long-form TV show with him. And I, to your point, I thought that was such an insightful question about being a method performer

on a TV show. I couldn't really think of another example of someone who has been so open about that because it's so different from a film. A film is 30 days, 60 days, maybe 100 days on a more expansive production. And film is, you know, it's finite. And TV shows can be, if not forever, years and years and intimate and cloistered. And yeah, people seem a little bit exasperated by the way that he works. But what are the results?

Great show. Great performance. Yeah. And I don't want to read too much into like the fact that Jeremy's, that Kendall's character was siloed from the main cast for most of the season. I don't want to irresponsibly read too much into that. But I will say that, like, if you go back and watch Nick Braun's line reading of Goddy's so annoying of Ken in the... You're just sort of like, how much reality was like in all of that. Anyway, I like Jeremy Strong.

I don't know that I would want to work with him, but I like him. And I love... I think he's brilliant. Hey, hey, you okay? Yeah, I'm okay. Hey, Dad. Ken, he doesn't want to see you. He doesn't want to talk to you.

Yeah, well, this is all total horses shit. He's all shit. Let's just have it out. Okay? I want to see you. Dad. I want to see you for dinner and let's just nail this. Okay? Eight. On your own. Yeah? He's busy. Sure. We'll get back to him.

We'll get back to you. Oh, you'll get back to me? You prick. Can I talk about a few other things around this death question? Number one, I've read to mind on Twitter pointed out that all the succession finale titles come from one poem, John Barryman's Dream Song 29. The next episode is titled All the Bells Say. The line from the poem is All the Bells Say, colon, too late.

That's ominous, is it not? And then also rewatching this yesterday, I noticed there's two other references to people falling in water that I thought was really weird and interesting. Shiv at the end of her last conversation with Tom, they're all very painful conversations with Tom. But in the last one, he's sitting on the ledge over the water, and she's sort of, Mock pushes him and grabs him and goes, don't fall in. It's like a wide shot. The camera's far away when she does it, but she's like, don't fall in. And then Roman, when he's getting off the boat, like has a hard time getting off the boat when he's going to go see Mattson.

So I don't know what all of that almost fall in the water stuff is doing hanging around. And then also another listener pointed out to me that Ken starts the season in a dry bathtub face up. Also in that episode, of course, he's got that who says I never killed anyone. line. I don't know, like, how much artful symmetry is going on in this show or how much we're reading too much into things, you know? I think it's fair to say that one of the thematic and visual concepts of this show is being submerged, you know, and it feels like maybe you're living in this elevated lifestyle high above the plebs. But in fact, these are people who are sunk and stuck in their positions and they can't get out. And, you know, we've talked about yielded cages, and we've talked about private jets and, you know, these opportunities to be individuated. But it's like everybody has, you know, their feet and cement on the show. And Kendall, more than anyone, I mean, Kendall has basically not progressed at all since this show started.

Nothing has evolved. Shiv has evolved and she's changed her lifestyle. Roman has evolved and he's changed his lifestyle. Ish. Ish. Well, at least you could say that they have ascended in a way. And Kendall is basically where he started, if not a little bit sunk down further. And so I think that there's definitely something to it.

The show is so intentional about it's foreshadowing. It's been that way since it first started. So if they opened the season with somebody in a bathtub and they closed with someone drowning in a pool, would you be shocked? I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Let me pop two more theories on the play. here before we move on from the section. One is, I mean, it's the same theory, but

I'm calling it the Ruskalnikov theory, which is the main character from crime and punishment. Just to say that, of course, our lovely listeners pointed out to us that Adrian Brody's character was reading crime and punishment in his episode, and that book is about someone overwhelmed with the guilt of a murder that they've committed that it ends with them confessing to the murder.

So that's what that story's about. And then the other one is the Jerry theory. this is an interesting side theory, which is that maybe the big bombshell that happens with the finale is that Jerry, because of what Shiv does here, because of what happens with Roman

at the end here, uses her connection to Lori. Like, she's the one with the back channel to the DOJ, uses her connection with Lori to blow the Roy's up with the DOJ and makes a deal from herself. So that Jerry brings it all down.

It's definitely possible, and I think connected to something else that we have to talk about in this episode, obviously, which is Roman's actions and the dick pick and what the ramifications are after the sending of the dick pick accidentally to Logan

because Roman jokes about this at one point when he's confronted by his father, but historically, women are usually punished for these terrible actions by men in corporate environments. And so if Jerry is somehow sidelined or used as a sort of like negative

pawn in the game, there could be something to that. That seems plausible. That would be a lot of things to happen in a finale, especially one in which there's going to be a wedding. But maybe they would start to tip towards it. Maybe they would indicate that if Jerry's on the outside, and we know that she's at this wedding,

but if she's on the outside, we might see her begin to unfurl a plan. I do think it would be odd if we went back to the DOJ drama. I agree. It would feel a little tired. It's just, I like it as a question mark because, like, Lori's at this wedding. And is he at this wedding just to, narratively, just to provoke Roman?

Or is he there, does it matter that Jerry is the connection to the DOJ through all of this? I don't know. It's an interesting question. I mean, I think it does kind of, it obviously raises Roman's hackles and I think leads to this kind of like critical blunder that he makes. He's kind of, Roman has been spinning out ever since the Mattson conversation. It's sort of like power bad and he hasn't been able to stay on track, I would say. in a way that someone who is a little bit more skilled at this kind of corporate maneuvering would. So that seemed to be why Laurie was there, but who knows? We'll see.

And I mean, we should point out, let's just get all the dick pick business off the table. We should point out that Jerry puts up a very firm boundary like in this episode. All season she's been saying, cut it out. And I think we like Roman, we're like, oh, but do you really mean it, you know, in our like sort of rooting for this bad romance kind of way? but she could not have been clear in this episode. And so for this to explode in a way that makes her vulnerable, I think does the thing that Succession is so brilliant out,

which is reveal, like, hold the mirror up to us to be like, I'm sorry, why were you rooting for this? Right? Like, what was this you were pulling for here? Very well put. I think that the idea of, you know, ricotta Dick getting to find love in an older woman had a kind of like, it had kind of like an inspiring quality.

It was like subverting maybe some of the tropes we're used to seeing on television. So that was why we got excited by the concept. But the more terrible things that Roman does too and the more down we are on him as a human being, honestly, and obviously he's not a real human being, but we're so invested in these people.

I think the worst we feel about any potential for happiness, he seems to be going through something a little bit wider. Like characters are kind of consistently challenging him, on his own mental health at this point. Like we see Mattson doing it. We obviously see Shiv doing it.

She's kind of asking what the fuck is wrong with you in every episode now. Of course, Logan's blow up at him at the end of this episode. He identifies him as a sicko. And Jerry kind of turning on him because he's kind of pushed this sexual, will they won't be kind of, I don't know if you, I don't know if you'd call it harassment at this point because there was a sense of consensuality originally, but now it's tipped over into this ugly space. I think everybody who is dealing with Roman is like, there's something wrong with you and you seem to know, but you won't fix it.

I'm not trying to shame anyone who was like rooting for Jerry and Roman because I too was like really into the Jerry and Roman of it all. But like consent has an expiration date. Like you can you can shut the door on something you said yes to anytime you want any person in a relationship can. And so I think that that's something that Roman is just completely ignoring. And then yeah, I just really love this repeated Roman being challenged on what's going on and him saying stuff like, We don't know what reason in terms of like why he can't urinate around other men or we're working on it when Shiv asked him what's wrong with him when he says he's going to make her his sexy sex. Like who is this we that he's talking about? Like is it him and Jerry?

No, they're not talking explicitly about this stuff. So it's to me just kind of highlighted this whole like how I. Like he does need help to process whatever it is going on with him. I'm not trying to shame him. I would like him to process it and feel good about whatever it is he needs. But he keeps saying we're working on it and like who is his we? you know. It's honestly, it's son of Sam vibes in some ways.

You know, it's a little bit like, are you speaking to the dog that lives inside of you? You know, there's like a little bit of a demonic possession thing happening here with him, unless, of course, he is in therapy, and we just have not seen any sequences where that's the case. But, you know, I think I've been pointing out this season that the external monologue that kind of like pulled directly from what's actually going inside of Roman's brain is kind of his character type.

That's the character that's being written. And it feels like he is debating himself the way that, like, a prisoner would debate their own actions after being arrested or something. You know, he's got this kind of, like, sense of guilt, but glee about what he's doing that is pretty unnerving at this point in the show. And, I mean, since we spent so long praising Jeremy Strong's performance, we should say, Kieran Culkin's series of expressions around the Dick Pick reveal is a thing of beauty. He's such a master physical performer. His body is like, he's like a snake with bones. You know, like he's just always kind of like contorting and twisting and spinning. And, you know, that look on his face when he realizes that he sent his father of the photos.

And the hunch. So good. But like his neck completely disappeared. It was amazing. You were 13. And you knew how to twist the knife. You knew then and you know now. And I might cry.

Yeah, where's the onion? You were quite a piece of work. You were my onion. You are my onion. Yeah, well, you're my fucking onion. Speaking of performances I love on this show, let's talk about Harriet Walter as Caroline Collingwood. Sweet Caroline.

As queen of my heart, scary Poppins herself. So there's, you know, we're going to, I think we're going to loop back to the Kendall Logan conversation, but the Shiv Caroline conversation is a really beautiful Miriam Javette, during which I think she floats, occasionally the show floats a thesis of the whole show. You know, like when Naomi says in season two, it's so fun watching you guys tear each other apart or whatever. Caroline says about Logan, he never saw anything he loved that he didn't want to kick it just to see if it would still come back. And you're like, oh, that's the show.

How did you feel about that line dropping in there? Well, who knows Logan better than Caroline, right? I mean, she's the original Roy agent. You know, she's the original lack of succeeding, lack of succession. You know, she got her knees cut out, I'm sure, by him the way that so many others have. You know, when Bill and House did their favorite succession characters episode on this feed, they had Lady Caroline very high. She's pretty high for me, too.

And I kind of wanted, I wanted to defend Bill at the time because I was like, she's never had a bad moment on the show. This was an interesting example of what this show would be like if she was a little bit more present. And I have some, I have some doubts about how much more time I want to spend with her. That's what I'll say. Like between those exchanges, the exchanges with Kendall and the exchanges later with Shiv, which are very dark. That might have been actually, in an episode in which someone may have died, that might have been the darkest part of this episode. She's, she's a, she's a tough hang. She's a tough, tough human.

Yeah. And I mean, I'm guessing we're going to get two episodes of her this season as opposed to our usual one, because I can't imagine she's not at her own wedding next week. So, you know, that might be a cool move. You saying you have doubts about her. Just reminds me of how I originally planned to open this podcast, which was to say to you, like Marl Streep and John Patrick Shanley film, I have doubts about Kendall's. about Kendall's death. I have such doubts. But yeah, no, I mean, I think a little Caroline goes a long way.

And I love her in this episode, but I don't think she should be a series regular. I think Harry Walter is an incredible performer. I think when she comes along and needles the kids and you kind of go, oh, yeah, that's why they are the way they are. As if Logan wasn't enough to tell us, like, all of that. But what I think is interesting this episode is they did something that I never really realized before, and maybe I should go back and watch her other episodes and see if this has been an ongoing thing is the parallel they drew between Caroline and Shiv

I thought were really interesting. I told you before that I was really excited that the actor Pip Torrance, who plays Peter Munion on the show, was coming because he's so good at being so acidic and so that's not at all the character he's playing. And so I was like, well, that's not what I wanted. Okay.

And then I was like, well, why is this character like this? Then I realized that he's just Tom. Like, they gave Caroline her own Tom. And, like, the fact that he, you know, she calls him Bridezilla, like, the fact that he's so status-obsessed, the fact that he comes from, not doesn't come from money, worked his way up, the way that they can make fun of him for that, the way that they make fun of Tom for that. All that sort of stuff. I was like, oh, okay, they put Caroline with a Tom. And I think the only reason you would do that is just to, you know, shove those parallels between mother and daughter in our face. I don't know.

What do you think? Do you think Tom is a grifter? No, I mean, no. Because this guy seems like a grifter, no? I don't think that Tom would run like shady nursing homes. It's not an exact comp. I completely agree with you. But in the way that like Peter goes up to Logan and sort of glad hands him about like getting into,

that seems like something Tom might do. Do you know what I mean? And like calling Peter. like a seat sniffer who's been waiting around for Caroline this whole time. Like that feels like a Tom still being with Shiv even when she says, I don't love you, but I love you, you know? You know, like there's some comps there. It's not a one-to-one, you're right.

You're right, though, that he is a tall, handsome, kind of blank man in some ways. You know, he's like a little bit of a white screen to be projected upon by a more powerful and charismatic partner. And Caroline says, he's awful, I know. You know, and you're just sort of like, well, that's how people, that's how she kind of acts about Tom, even though she doesn't quite say it that way, you know. I want to shout out just the phrase, the skunk, the porcupine, and the cockybine, because it's just like, that's just music to my ear. The writing is so good on this show. Is there anything else you want to say about Caroline, though?

You know, that was a tough greeting of Kendall when he, you know, arrived from the front with his head shaved and she identified that he had. had to be, they had to split time, negotiate time so that Logan could be more present at this wedding, which, you know, my folks were divorced. I can't really imagine either one of my folks attending the wedding of their ex. That just doesn't seem, now I know we're in this kind of elevated social culture here where sort of like making appearances sometimes has a kind of power to it. But I don't know, Logan attending Caroline's wedding just seems awfully strange. What do they say to each other? How do they communicate? They didn't talk at all, right? They didn't. That's what I'm saying. When was the last time they talked?

That's an interesting question. Yeah, because they don't share time in the season two episode. I don't know. Did we see them? I don't know that we saw them in season one. That's a great question, Sean. I don't think so. It blew my mind. Thank you for reminding me about the thing that I forgot to say about Kendall's shaved head. Skylight Fu, who's a writer for Bloomberg, reached out to us earlier in the season to let us know about some sort of real-life business parallel with Logan sort of being smuggled out of the Balkans. And she DMed me to let me know that she thought that Ken's shaved head was like Lachlan Murdoch, who's known for shaving his head, sort of military cropped. And then Lachlan sort of like famously quit the news core. And it was sort of a big deal when he did.

So, you know, as we found out in the New York profile, I think this was Jeremy Strong's call to shave his head for this. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's why he did it. I appreciate Scarlett hitting us up about that. and drawing the parallel that had not occurred to me. Let me ask you a question. Do you think I should, I've been threatening to shave my head for like five or six years. Okay, well, let me go back in time and give you a different answer. Why do you want to do that?

I don't know. I just, I want to be cleansed. I just feel like. Yeah, just the responsibility of this, this helmet on my head every day. I'm just sick of it, you know, I want to move on. Should I, should I do it? Only if you play needle in the hay while you do it. And I will film my stuff.

You know, I can't remember what, someone pointed out that we were not subjected. Was it in the Shalman piece that we were not subjected to the head shaving sequence? I thought that that was funny and astute that they didn't, they're not taking us into the depths with Kendall. You know, we're mostly seeing him in social experiences. We're very rarely seeing him alone now. Even with Naomi at the end of episode seven, he was still with people. And you imagine that it's at his darkest moments when he's by himself. And the episode ends with him alone.

You know, that's like some of the last times we've seen him alone in a long time. So that feels notable as well. It feels notable to me that Naomi's not at the wedding. Because like if she's been his security blanket all season and at the end of last season two, you know, she's the one who literally pulled him back from the edge at the end of episode seven. And she's not there. What do you think that's about? I think it's putting him in a position where he co.

could. Yeah. Like he do something that he couldn't do if Naomi were there. Do you know? I think that's it. I think you, I think you, that's one of those things that makes me feel like he's not alive,

is that there's no one there to save him. There's no one there who cares about him enough to save him. His plus one is either comfortier or the nanny. I don't know who it is, but it's not Naomi. And I don't know why, but it makes me worried. Italy. It's a pasta and poops. You ever met the Popecon?

Yeah, huh? I met one. A couple of popes back with Dad, here's a real full-fat pope, complete pope. Very religious. I guess he really drank the cooling, huh? Let's touch on a few characters who only get a little bit of time in this episode before we circle back to the biggie.

Connor and Willa, you know, a light touch in this episode. Not much going on here, just a marriage proposal at a wedding. Very dee class A of him to do that. I just want to shout out. Justine Luce's, a pasta popop's, like, intro, like, walking into this villa, just, like, hitting us with the House of Gucci accent, which was pretty extraordinary. The tight smile on the person carrying her baggage, just shoes is really wonderful stuff. Yeah. Is there anything worth worth putting out here about Connor and Willa?

I mean, my single favorite moment from the episode was Khan recalling his engagement with a former pope, an ex-pop, two popes to go. A full fat. Yeah. That was fair. Just the writing on this show is very, very special in ways that elude even description. And yeah, I mean, I think they've set up something potentially here with Connor and Willa, like Willa potentially being exposed as I guess I still don't totally understand was she a sex worker, a high-end call girl, someone that I don't totally understand the sort of like how they

met how they came together, was she hired? What, like, what is that relationship and what are they fearful of being exposed? Best description we have of it is from the Roy siblings and their comments that they made at the beginning of season one when we meet her. So, and that's not always very reliable, right? So, but I think they said call girl. To me, it makes me think of like a Julia Roberts and Pretty Woman situation where, like, he paid her to stay.

And then they just, unlike the Julia Roberts situation and Pretty Woman, it's not quite a fairy tale because she. She's just like, let's just keep this transactional. So he, like, you know, he finances her play and he, you know, pays for her flat here and buys her clothes, you know, like, I don't think he cuts her exactly a check, but maybe she has an allowance. Maybe she has a credit card. I don't know what it is, but it's transactional, whatever it is. Do you feel that it has evolved at all over the last six, 12 months? Because we saw that great moment at the 40th birthday party where she defended him.

And it felt like there was something authentic between them, not authentic enough to have her agree to his proposal right away. that was painful. But I just felt like something was building, was growing. I mean, this is going to allow me to perfectly zoom over to my next point. I don't think we should believe in anything remotely approaching actual love or affection on this show. As you accurately called last week, the Greg and Comfrey thing is not something to pin our hopes on. Immediately, immediately, not. And I definitely muttered out loud, oh, Sean was right.

Love is a lie. Love is dead. Well, yeah. I mean, that's two people on the make, too, in Confere and Greg. And Greg gets his sights set on one countess, and all of a sudden he's in sourcehold in a completely different direction. It's disappointing. Disappointing.

Is it? You know, he's sewing his oats. You know, he's just trying to meet new people, trying to have experiences. It's okay. No, it's totally, of course it's fine. It's just sort of narratively if we're like, all season is going to be like, oh, Greg. I mean, I think it just teaches, what it teaches us, again, is like, Greg's not someone, not some cute innocent to root for.

Like, he's made several calculated moves over the season series, so, you know, keep her eye on him. Dude, are you asking me for material non-public information? I mean, I don't know. Were you trying to give your share price a pop by tweeting unverifiable information

outside normal disclosure channels? No. You're not allowed to do that. Let's get down to these sort of satellite folks circling the board at Waystar Royco. You've got Sandy and Stew. You get an appearance at the beginning. I loved, I loved this.

I loved Ariane Moyad and Hope Davis walking in, looking great for the board meeting. Them being kind of like a team together. I really like, I like that Sandy was like, A, where Shiv. B, she totally accurately called that there would be a tweet, a meltdown from Lucas Mattson, you know what I mean? And so, like, I respect Sandy a lot. I think she's got a lot going for her. But I really love this little, like, use of them.

They didn't get to go to Tuscany, but they're here at the end. What did you think of the Sandy and Stewie moment? Incredible series of line readings from both of those actors, particularly the, if I ambush you in the street and say this is not an ambush. It's still an ambush. I really enjoyed that. I think it'll be, this does seem to indicate kind of like some things. future tensions on the show is how much participation these two figures are allowed to have despite being on the board and what, you know, how much control is Logan going to retain as they

continue to try to make deals. It also reveals a kind of delusion, I think, amongst people at this level in which, you know, these sort of like massive company-wide mergers are being set all the time. And we talked about this a little bit in the last episode in which the Gojo conversation came up. But they all think that this is great and don't necessarily realize that when companies like this come into legacy companies, they often hollow them out and just, you know, like live inside the carcass. And that seems to be what Mattson is after. And no one really recognizes this at the legacy company. You know who did? I think Frank and Carl, who were like, uh, on the on the call, when they go to Milan and they're in this conference room.

I love the detail of like they're in this, you know, Logan at one point says to Carrie, I think, you know, get me some rooms. So they rented some office space in Milan just to, you know, take the jet to Milan, no big deal. But the office space in Milan has these like empty boxes of like the very, the like screens that they just bought to set up their conference room are just sort of like lying around. I mean, just incredible stuff. But, you know, Frank and Carl on the call were like, we don't love this merger of equals idea. I think it's Shiv, who says, oh, sure, senior staff is going to have to, you know, tough it out, meaning we don't give a shit if you get cut, Carl and Frank. But, yeah, but everyone else, it's so interesting how quickly this Gojo thing, how quickly it's become,

we have to get this or else the company's dead. When, like, that feels like only, it only cropped up last week, even though, Ken was talking about the Gojo deal, this idea of, like, it's a make or break for us is only the last couple episodes because we had our eye on the shareholder meeting prize for so long this season. But this feels now life or death for them.

They need this. And that's just weird late in the game stakes to me. But I guess it's the only condition in which they're going to let, I think I referred to them as Fox in the Henhouse last week and I'll do it again this week. A Swedish fox in the henhouse. I think it's a really bad idea.

Terrible idea. It is a bad idea. It does feel honestly, representative, though, of the way that some of these things take on a life of their own inside of corporate houses. You know, this is an idea that was originally pushed by Canon is now being pushed very hard by Roman and Shiv. And the idea of supercharging the company is something that feels important. You may recall a season and a half ago, Logan was interested in buying some old legacy local TV stations as a way to supercharge the company. You know what I mean? This is not,

like, these things evolve quickly and the tension seem to grow quickly. It's very plausible in the world of kind of corporate media that Waste Our Roiko continue on for another 10 years and be just fine, you know, and just be perfectly, you know, it would slowly die out, but slowly dying out for a company like that is doing better than 99% of all companies in the universe. And so it's just one of those things that spreads like a virus. You know, once you get an idea like that, everybody thinks we have to do this. If we don't do this, we're failing. And that kind of is, is animating most of the actions of the people in this episode who are not Kendall. Everybody else that is associated with Waystar Royco is now kind of obsessed with Gojo and Gojo making this company

whole again. It would be interesting if, you know, the constant theme on the show is these characters getting sort of hosted by their own vatard, like, you know, like just really crushed by their own actions, their own weaknesses, as Roman is the best example of in this episode. But I think that the idea of Logan fending off his family or fending off all his other stuff only to willingly engage in a deal that could eventually kill him or his company, I think, would be the move the show might make. I want your read on Madsen. I know you're a big fan of Alex Sarzgar's performance in episode seven. The tweeting through it all, I think got a lot of people to think of him as like an Elon Musk comp.

I know you've said that comps aren't always your favorite thing to talk about. But like, what do you think overall of Mattson here? Matt's in the series. Is this working for you? What do you think? I like the way he's playing him as this kind of sullen figure. You know, he's not, because the actions are Musk-esque, but he does not have that kind of devilish prankster quality that Musk evinces when you see him in interviews. And this is a different kind of archetype.

This is like someone who's a little bit too smart for his own good. And, you know, the idea of being let down by people very quickly. quickly is something that feels resonant and kind of fascinating. Interesting line, yeah. There's like instant psychology in the Matson character, which I think is like a testament to the way that they write and a testament to the way that Scars Guard is playing him. But it's also like we talked about his physical bearing and especially next to Kieran Colkin.

But I mean, he's in that like this like a sleek, all black kind of leisure outfit in the most extraordinary lakeside home you could possibly imagine. I mean, that is so gorgeous with a, you know, the, um, You know, that beautiful, that, they're like the most perfect, crystallized Adobe slats you've ever seen in your life, that amazing pool, the vistas. The cheek decking around the pool. Yes. Yeah. Everything is so elegant and perfect.

And he just seems kind of unhappy, you know, and he seems, and he's definitely a fox, like you're saying, and he wants to win. But you don't even get the impression he wants to win for anything other than just to win. He just wants to on top. Success is boring for him at this point, right? Yes. Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned the height difference. I did ask Lorraine about that last week in the episode interview. I didn't want to get too into it before she talked about it,

but the idea of the physical practicalities of shooting someone of Kieran Kolkin's stature and someone of Alexander Sarsker's stature is interesting. Yeah, I'm a treat, I'll say. And I don't feel like I have a full beat on the character, and that's interesting to me. And he'll be back in the finale you saw, right? Yeah. And then in the next week on, I have one more thing to say about Matza before I do, I want to talk about this perhaps final meal between Logan and Kendall. Maybe is their last meal, possibly. I put the clumsily, but I put the full transcript of the conversation because I like didn't know how to pull out a quote into our notes here. And there's so many highlights. But I'm just going to start and say for me, a highlight is the fact that as Kendall tries to make. make his deal. He definitely wants to keep Jess. Jess is one asset that he definitely needs as he leaves. So shout out to Jess. Maybe if Jess were there, like, Jess isn't there either, right?

Like, maybe if Jess or Naomi were there. Who's the woman looking after the kids? Is that their nanny that we don't know? Yeah. Okay. She was, I think she was the one who fed the bagel to the rabbit. Okay, but we've never met her, right? We don't know her. Okay. No. You've won because you're corrupt and so is the world. Well I'm better than you You're you know

I hate to say this Because I love you but you're kind of Evil Don't talk about things you don't understand Well you're smart But what you've done is you've You've monetized all the fucking The American resentments of class

And race I thought I was just telling folks the weather You've turned black bile into silver dollars. Oh, you just noticed, did you? Do you have any highlights from this conversation that you want to pull out? It's one of the most painful things I've ever watched on television. Correct.

One delusional person and one pragmatic person. The pragmatic person is the meanest person in the universe. The delusional person is the saddest person in the universe. Imagine those two people talking to each other. And on top of that, they have a father-son dynamic of hate-love. And this theory of like, not even theory. this line of thinking around how Logan actually feels about his kids, I think is fascinating.

Because actually in this conversation, what I could see was a kind of honesty from Logan that is maybe not rare, but very rarely told in this way, showed in this way. Or he's like, I did my best and I cleaned up all your shit. And he's angry about it, but he knows that people are imperfect. And in fact, people's imperfections is what he's leveraging to build his business. Now, could he be a more caring, thoughtful, open-hearted, generous, decent father?

Of course, he's a horrible father. But he kind of gets it. He kind of knows what's going on here. He kind of knows how weak people are. Ken is trying so hard to lie to himself throughout this whole conversation. And this whole mythology that he's created around himself about how he's a good person is utterly bizarre. I mean, he's just a deeply flawed man who's made a lot of mistakes, have done a lot of bad things, and taken advantage of people. And so I thought it was pretty heartbreaking.

I thought it was genuinely tough to watch. I didn't highlight it here, but actually the thing that I thought was, you know, listening to you talk, the thing I think that's the most interesting that he says is that Kendall says you turn black bile into silver dollars and Logan says, oh, you just noticed, did you? Yeah, maybe I did. Which is the closest I think we've ever heard Logan admit because he always just like, oh, just like earlier in this monologue, you know, he says like, oh, it was just a little fun, little, you know, a little spice with the news.

What do I done that's so poor? You know, and here he's like, yeah, I did do that evil thing. Guess what? You've been here the whole time while I did it. You know, like I thought that was a really profound moment. Mark Mila talked about shooting this scene a lot in our interview, so we will get to that. But in various preseason interviews, both Jeremy Strong and Brian Cox talked about the fact that Jeremy Strong like broke down in tears while filming this exchange, which I can completely understand because I guess on one take, Brian Cox went like, which is the take that's in just full beast mode, you know, and just sort of, which he achieved not by yelling.

You've ever seen those compilations of, like, greatest performances from an actor in the last however many years. And when you see them, it's usually someone yell, a man, a white man yelling, you know? And like, I respect a lot of those white men yelling like Daniel Day Lewis or Jake Gillenall, whoever the case may be. Like, I enjoy a yelling performance. Yeah. All my dads, you just named. But that's not. that's not the only way to,

and the fact that Logan does this, he can scream fuck off, but then he could also do this, and this is scarier to me. I mean, we saw it in the, in the Shulman profile. We've seen it in interviews recently. I thought he was pretty nice to you

when you guys spoke, but in general, he's got this wolfish intensity and this plain spoken, um, I don't need, ruthlessness, you know,

he is kind of very direct. And you find this in a lot of English actors of a certain age. where they have crossed a kind of line of of success. Yeah, cross the Rubicon of fucks to give. Yeah, exactly. And he's kind of,

watching Cox kind of in public now. And I think the other thing, too, is if I were Brian Cox and there were all of this kind of majesty around the Kendall Roy character and the Jeremy Strong performance, I'd be like, I'm fucking Brian Cox, man. Like, I am one of the best actors alive.

I'm giving one of my greatest performances of all time as Lear in Lear, the TV show. And no one is telling me I'm the greatest. I have to watch. watch Jeremy Strong win, Emmys. I have to, you know,

and you get the sense that he still has that kind of like competitive spirit that some actors from that generation also had. And so it's interesting

to hear you say that they used this kind of really tough take in that scene because you feel him competing in a way that certain actors like to compete on camera.

That's so interesting because like, you know, Jeremy Strong is so good at the quiet intensity. So the fact that maybe Brian is matching.

him in that way. That's really fascinating. There's another line in this scene, of course, which echoes Caroline's observation when he says, maybe I want you close. You know, this idea that kicks all his kids, but ultimately he needs, you know,

and Shiv kicks Tom egregiously in this episode and all this stuff like that, but like ultimately, he's not willing to let him go. You know, like that's not an option. The only thing more painful than betrayal is loyalty, you know? The only thing more difficult is continuing to confront the people that will stick with you.

That's really, it's hard stuff. This is, this, this was, this was kind of the show at the top of its, of its powers, I thought. And that's another one more reason why I'm like, to seem like a sense of finality to this showdown, didn't there? I mean, especially, like, Jeremy Strong may be crying because Brian Cox is so, like, scary and intense in his take. But then also maybe, like, this is the last time he gets to do this with this actor, Dana. Great point. I don't know. I don't know.

Watch them have just a perfectly convivial conversation next week. We'll see. But I do want to shout out one thing really quickly. I didn't ask Mark about this because I didn't notice it before I talked to him. But I just love the last shot of this scene,

which is a wide of Kendall, alone at the table, lit by the headlights of the car going away while he's just like drinking his wine. Okay. The last thing I want to say before. we get to the interview is this prompt I have for you, which is if Jeremy Strong is not on the show next season either at all or as a series regular, is there a guest star from this or any

other season that you would promote to main cast as like a pseudo-kendel replacement. So this is someone we need to have met before? Or you can just dreamcast or rando if you want. Wow. But I think Succession might be a show that would lay a breadcrumb before they you know, had someone like that. I'm thinking. I'm thinking of who has been the most impressive.

I mean, to me, it would be really interesting if Justin Kirk was a bigger part of this show, but his job, his role, I think would completely redefine what this show is if he became a big part of it. So that doesn't seem plausible. Whereas somebody like Hope Davis or even Raya Jarrell, you know, someone in that class,

it would make more sense to draw, them into the story again or bring Cherry Jones back, someone like that, that would make more sense. But I mean, you and I were so intoxicated by what Kirk was up to. And that character was so heinous in such a fascinating way and felt so ripped from the world, you know, and what we're kind of going through in our political moment right now, that that would be pretty exciting. I don't know, is there someone that you've seen before that you want in the mix? Well, like, I don't think Brody would be a good fit full-time, Adrian Brody. I think that, it's interesting.

I asked Mark Milot about the guest actors, like how they use guest actor the season. So he'll talk about that, but it's almost like little auditions for everyone of like what's going to be the most interesting ingredient to put into this salad, right? Is it Justin Kirk? Is it Adrian Brody? At this one, I got to go with Alexander Starsgarde. Like, I would put Mattson up as a series regular next season and just put his weird brood. interior thing that he's doing

in as the as the new spice of the show. So that raises this interesting question I think of how do you feel about this show if it's not Kendall Roy's dissent into despair?

No, no, no. I mean, it just feels like that has been the primary you know, tension of the story. Yeah, I mean, I think I, we brought it, we were trying to figure out before if there had been shows that it killed off a character if that's what they're going to do in this way. And, you know, the option that I offered up was Stringer Bell on the Wire.

That idea of the Wire reinvented itself every season. And then I was trying to think of other shows that didn't feel the same after, you know, like after you take Steve Carell off the office, like, is it really the office anymore? That being, you know, so if it's just, if it's just the mean Roy's being mean and witty to each other, that's not going to be the same level of quality for me. And can they even be as hilariously awful if there's this, if there is a death looming over the show? Like, can we even adopt that tone?

Do you know what I mean? One small, small, small sign that Kendall is not dead to me. Yeah. was in the scenes from the next episode, Roman has a line, I can't even recall what he says, right at the end of the preview. All will be revealed.

All will be revealed. And the look on Shiv's face is not the look someone would give if their brother has just died. She's like, kind of gleeful when he says that? Yeah, the only way the next time on works is if Kendall's not there. Yeah, if they don't know.

Yes, that's what I was thinking too. Because he's been disinvited from the various events. and so his absence wouldn't be noted, though, as I said, someone, like, phrase framed that other shot in there he looks to be. But, yeah, like, if the kids are with a nanny and, you know, maybe the nanny takes them to the wedding event because they're allowed even if their dad isn't or whatever and everyone's partying, like, how worse is that if everyone's partying and Kendall's dead? So I don't, like I said, I don't think he's dead, but we'll see.

He's not dead. I don't know how they're going to, I don't know. This is, it's so fascinating. I mean, this worked. This got us talking. This really worked. Here's the last thing I'll say. I promise is the last thing.

And it's a question for you. Before we started recording, I think you said you weren't sure how you felt about this episode. And I guess my question is, can you parse that a bit more for me or has how you felt changed since our illuminating conversation?

Well, I feel like I spent the first six episodes defending the concern about the momentum of the show and talking about what I admired about the way the show is constructed. And then I kind of went over the moon for episode seven. Six and seven in particular, I thought were pretty terrific,

up there with the best episodes they've done. And in this episode, I knew that there was all of this anxiety before we all had a chance to see it. And then you suggested perhaps Kendall wouldn't make it to the end of this season. And I'm thinking about events. And then events, I think, overtook, I think, some of my appreciation for the episode itself. And so now this, think of our conversation.

We just, like, opened with what happened and what we think is going to happen. which is not really how we've been doing this show up to this point. And so it changes it in some ways. I think there were, I mean, we barely even talked about Shiv and Tom and their bizarre kind of sexual, psychological warfare that they're inflicting upon each other. That is a really rich and fascinating thing. That might have been the centerpiece of another episode. And so it kind of like distorts what we usually pull from this show by making it a,

what happens next kind of a TV program. It's not necessarily a bad thing. it's just different than I think what I'm expecting and maybe even what I'm hoping for out of this. And while I think, like, I know that they come to the decisions for what to do with the characters, honestly, I don't want to ignore the smaller,

you know, writerly or actorly moments that kind of keep me coming back to the show. You know what I'm saying? Totally. I had a very similar thought where I was like, poor Kieran Culkin, like in a different episode, like this traumatic downfall for Roman would be,

the episode. But it's in an episode where the last shot is Ken in a pool. And I mean, I actually don't know if the writers intended for this to be, because I know plenty of people who finished the episode and had not even a single thought in their mind that Ken might be in danger. They were just like, there goes Ken again, like passed out in the pool, he'll sputter awake at the top of the next episode. I think the New Yorker profile dropping. And then I think like some of the rest of us getting like overly agitated and theory addicted and whatever it is. like put a lot of expectations around. I don't know that's exactly what they had in mind.

What's also true is that they shot both this episode and the finale together. It's almost like, I almost wish it had been a two-hour, you know, event. That being said, the will-he-won-he-he... I was thinking about the timing of this. The pen... Like, this episode ending this way almost made me less certain that it was going to happen because I'm like, this timing is so interesting. The end of the penultimate versus somewhere in the finale itself.

But I will say this. At least it's not Kit Harrington at the end of season five having to pretend for like a year that he's not, that he's not coming back to the show. You know what I mean? Yeah. Or Stephen Young on The Walking Dead having to do similar. You know what I mean? Like at the very least, like if this feels like a cliffhanger and it's resolved next episode, it will be less stressful for the actor. But I agree with you.

I agree with you. I think they need to end seasons with us wondering what's going to happen next, not whether someone is alive or not. Yeah, which is why the end, like someone was trying to. argue with me whether or not this could be considered a cliffhanger ending. And they were saying, didn't season two end on a cliffhanger? And I'm like, no, season two ended on like a big dramatic moment. And I'm curious what Brian Cox is thinking as Logan smiles. Like I am curious about that. But I'm not what actually happened here. And that's where we find ourselves now. And I'm just plenty to blame for that because I do this to myself. But it is a different kind of discussion.

And I agree with you that it might overshadow some of the more nuanced conversation that we might be having about the show. All that being said, let's hear my chat with a lovely human being. Mark Mylon. What is this? Why do you send them? It's just, you know, it's like, here's my dick. Oh, what? Like, fuck you?

People just send each other picks of their dicks. People send each other picks of their dicks. Have you heard of dick picks, Dad? Well, we do publish a number of popular newspapers, so yes, son, we probably invented the fucking words. We, of course, thrilled to have on the Prestige TV podcast, executive producer and director Mark Milaud. Mark, I want to start by asking you, what is the question that nobody, everyone forgets to ask you? Like, what are you like, I really wish they would ask me that. Why don't they ever ask me this?

No, no, nothing specific, really. it's a little, I have to edit myself somewhat because episode 8 is so kind of entrenched with episode 9 that's so kind of symbartic, in my head they run as one episode, you know, a kind of two hour plus episode. So I have to create an almost artificial dividing line in my head.

Of course, you know, we shot the two episodes effectively together. in our trip to Italy at the end of the season. I suppose what I would say was about, it started was a kind of element of gratitude, I suppose, without sounding too holiday phony. And that was that we got to shoot in Italy at all, which was by no means a given, quite the opposite.

In terms of, you know, wishless conversations right back in season one of, you know, where would our characters go? where would we like to go with these characters? You know, Kianti Shire, and that area of Tuscany was right up there from the very start, along with the yacht, you know, that the yacht we managed to finally get to in season two.

Initially, it was going to be the Bachelor Party venue for the eighth episode of season one, which we weren't able to do budgetarily at that stage. So we repurposed it for who was going overboard, metaphorically, the end of season two. Kianti Shire was always on the wish list and season three gave us that opportunity but of course with the pandemic

and they were always going to be the last two episodes there was this is dawling horror that we might not be able to get anywhere near Italy not be able to leave the country so effectively for a long time we were running parallel plans really one to shoot in the US and on the other to hopefully get over to Italy. And thankfully, with the way that the infection rate went over that point, which was what we started.

I think we went over there in May 2021. Then we were able to get over there and shoot. And in fact, actually, because there were so few tourists around, we were able to get access to a lot of locations that we wouldn't. possibly being able to get to in any other point in our history. Where would Caroline get married in the US if that had to be a backup? What was the big question really? And the tricky one, we thought she would really logically get married in the British Caribbean, you know, Barbados or someone like that, British Virgin Islands, somewhere

with that connection to British colonialism. And it was difficult to find that in the US. we thought that perhaps she would have family contacts from Martha's Vineyard on Antucket. So that was the areas we were looking in. But they were all, if we're really honest with ourselves, none of them were as good as Tuscany. That was the perfect place for that character.

Absolutely. I wanted to ask you, like, zoom out a little bit and talk about your role in the show in a larger way because when I was talking to Lorraine last week about directing her episode, she mentioned that she had met with you and with Jesse before she'd done her episode. And as far as I know, it's a fairly unique position that you're in, and that you're an EP, you're the sort of director and residence of this show,

but you're not directing every episode. So I'm wondering sort of how much collaborative work do you do with guest directors on what the parameters of the visual should be or how loose they can go with with their style. Yeah, that's... Like, zoom out a little bit and talk about your role in the show in a larger way because I was, when I was talking to Lorraine last week about directing her episode, she mentioned that you, that she had met with you and with Jessie before she had done her episode.

And as far as I know, it's a fairly unique position that you're in, and that you're sort of the, you know, you're an EP, you're the sort of director and residence of this show, but you're not directing every episode. So I'm wondering sort of how much collaborative work do you do with guest directors on, you know, what the parameters of the visual should be or how loose they can go with their style? That side of the producing director role in terms of interaction with other directors, I have my own kind of set of my own creed, if you like. and that is if you've invited the right director then that's 99.9% of my role and that is to meet with a creator soul

who's sympathetic with that particular episode which we've got quite good at particularly with the help of HBO who of course had this great kind of that they're always talent hunting that's how they've stayed on top for so long looking up for that emerging talent. So working with Nora and Max,

there was always a huge, huge help in terms of finding those people out there. In the case of Lurine, I'd seen Hustlers loved it. And I particularly loved the sense of intimacy with the characterism, particularly the locker room scenes, and a whole kind of visual style, and it felt real, but it had a style to it. And I believed it, it felt authentic to that world, which is, you know, that word authentic or something.

I'm and Jesse are kind of obsessed with in terms of our attempts to reflect the Roy family's world. So she seemed like a great, a great fit on paper. And then with a phone call, you know, quickly became very quickly became obvious that she was perfect and perfect for that episode, for episode seven. We needed somebody to bring it together with a cinematic touch, but also within the blueprint of the visual language of the show. And also to find those connections between the Carousal disconnections. It's a very war episode of very, it's very harsh emotionally. And we need to somebody who could be authentic with that,

but also, I don't want to get so emotionally cold that it felt just too bleak. And, you know, it is in terms of the arc of the series, we are taking, obviously, we are taking Kendall to a particular nadir emotionally there. So we didn't want to flinch from that. But there's something in the humanity, I suppose, of Louise's work, which just felt that she would get the right balance of that. Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned the word cinematic and the word authentic. I watched this fascinating video interview, long video interview,

with your two main DPs on the show earlier this year. And they were talking about how the word cinematic is sort of foreboughton on set, like that you sort of try to steer away from the word cinematic. You've got this sort of very style that is, you know, the shows become famous for. I'm wondering when you go to some place as cinematic as Tuscanee, as a villain, Tuscanee, you can't really have your cameras, I would imagine, chasing your actors around the way that you can and sort of an office building. So what kind of changes do you make to that approach on a location like this? It's, I see it's not complex, but it's multi-headed, I suppose, in that, you know, first of all, the definition of cinematic, of course, does not necessarily mean big sweeping crane moves. Of course, you know, Paul Greengrass is pretty cinematic without probably ever using a crane in his life. But in our case, I suppose, I don't want to say rule, but I can't think of a better word, but we try not to fetishize the locations too much. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

It is particularly challenging when you're on a $200 million yacht, when you're in, you know, Tuscany in, you know, one of the most beautiful areas that I know on the planet. It's very difficult to, because you don't want to avoid the beauty. At the same time, what you want to do is juxtapose the beauty with the mystery of the characters, I suppose, so that they're acting, so there's a paradox, a contradiction to what, You know, and another story might be a basking warmth if you're watching under the Tuscan sun.

In our case, we'll try to use that backdrop of beauty to point out the isolation of loneliness or emotional coldness of the moment. So we try to use it in juxtaposition instead of to height in a moment. And that can be done in a million different ways. It becomes about the tone of any specific scene, really. and that's as much in performance in the camera, what the camera is most interested in is. So instead of the camera, you know, painstakingly being interested in a specific bee

buzzing around a beautiful piece of flower, then, you know, it's more about the pain or the isolation of a character or the comedy of Arizona awkwardness or attention, anything but the obvious visual, really. Let's talk about the emotional idea of Kendall Roy, If the beginning of the season, Brian Cox was talking about this big scene than he has with Kendall in this episode. I believe he said that Jeremy had a lot of emotional difficulty with this scene, that he was crying at one point, stuff like that.

Jeremy, of course, is a very, you know, passionate, dedicated kind of performer. But can you talk a bit about filming that scene, which is a stunner in a series of stunners and what that was like to get through that day? Yeah, we shot over two nights just because the way the schedule worked, we knew we needed a certain amount of time to shoot this, you know, magnificent piece of writing and do it justice. And because, obviously, it's a night scene. I didn't want to go shoot me at two or three in the morning. Partly because of performance reasons and partly because of the knock-on effect to the following days of shooting. So it's a practical element to it as well as a kind of humanitarian element. But the emotional content, the close-ups, if you like, we got on the first night.

And both those actors work in very different ways, which is kind of well documented. Jeremy is very kind of towards the method. In there, he is, when he walks on set, he's in the mode. From the beginning of the season, he's in. Kendall's body and emerges like a butterfly when we call rap on the final day, which is quite an extraordinary thing to witness. And in that, he's deep, deep within there. But Brian is much more in the British theatre tradition of in it for the moment

and snapping out and snapping in again. It's very different. But we've, you know, from both of them equally stunning results. So as a director, I'm very aware and very sympathetic of both those styles and I'll be working towards structuring the scene towards their different energies. I know when I have a good sense of when they will both peak, if you like, or when they're both peaking and when to get in closer to find that moment and to help them when necessary.

In that case, both are such smart actors, obviously, who know their characters backwards. So it would be preposterous of me to go bragging about, you know, my directing role in the scene. My directing role in the scene is to support, not to know. I don't need to create the scene and guide them towards the act tone. We all know where the right tone is by now. But my job is to actually set a table of which they can get stuck into it and deliver most effectively, which I do with, you know, this brilliant team that I get to work with.

In terms of what I do remember about the scene was there was two or three takes where it wasn't quite hitting. It felt like everyone was still on the warm-up lap. And then when we got onto Brian's close-up, maybe around take three, he just hit this gold vein, this old. And I remember watching the monitor and finding myself leaning forward. towards it and just hooked. And our camera operators are extraordinary, and they could feel the same. Gregor, I think, had the title single at that point,

could feel it too. He started to edging minutely towards it. He started to get sucked in in this beautifully kind of intuitive way. And at the end of that take, you know, which we ran the tape, you know, top to tell each time, six, eight pages, I don't remember, maybe more.

by the end of the take I knew that we had the scene just from that performance there was nothing I knew that I could editorially build the scene around that performance because the balance the effortlessness

with the character appeared to seed power to his son only to effortlessly take it back all of it every ounce of it, every gram of it and then walk away with it was to be devastating emotionally, and we could all feel it, and that's what the scheme needed to be,

to me, this ebb and flow of power with this terrible inevitability about who was going to walk away with the prize. I came out of episode seven really, really worried for Kendall, and of course this episode ends with this, you know, when you're talking about the contrast of beauty with isolation, I think that underwater upshot of Kendall and you know you've got this beautiful pool and then this absolute despair at the

center of it is a great example of that is this I mean you worked on thrones I've covered thrones I know what it's like to be on like my alert for for character death but is that the show we're watching are those the kind of stakes we should be thinking about or is are we are we watching the wrong show if we're thinking that way I don't know I don't want to lead the witness on that Jonah, to be honest. But yes, but in terms of the stakes for Kendall, I worry about him.

I worry about that character. I worry about all of them in the way that like so many of our audience and we're so kind of intimately connected and that's bizarre love-hap experience of rooting, stroke unruiting

for these characters each week. We spent so along with them that I can't help but feel for them and to, particularly for the context of their behaviour, And this particular arc of this season with Jeremy's character is particularly heartbreaking as they all been in that one way, of course. In that, you know, we thought he had it, you know, he thought he had it at the top of the season. It'd never been better positioned for a win, you know, to transcend that cage to escape and to see it glad.

And in the great traditions of dramatic tragedy to his own flaws to gradually pull the rug on that potential for success for any kind of emancipation is heartbreaking in the way that tragedy is, particularly because it's brought upon himself. So yes, I do worry about him in terms of physical and mental self, yes. Let's move to a less pratt son for you for a moment. talking about their own flaws, bringing them down, obviously, like, Roman is another icarus sort of in this episode. I'm curious how much of Logan's response to this move from Roman, which feels unsurprising, inevitable, I should say. How much of that is true disgust or anything like that, and how much of it is some kind of

possessiveness around Jerry. I don't know. That's sort of the, that seems to be an element to me. I don't know if I'm reading the wrong room. No, I think that every, genuinely, I don't mean this is a platitude, but I genuinely think that every reaction is valid. And I think the relationship and the possible history between in the long, in the decades that Jerry has worked with Logan, I think inevitably there is that macho possessiveness from Logan in there. I totally agree. As for what the ratio is, who knows. I think there's a genuine huge disappointment from Logan,

and almost a frustration, I think, and some kind of repulsion about anything that goes outside the bounds of straight down the line, old-fashioned, you know, toxic male, heterosexual attraction. So he doesn't understand it. And of, of course, because of, you know, we've seen the ascendancy of that character this year

and to his, really to the point of actually him becoming the heir of parents almost. And so, of course, it's almost inevitable, totally inevitable, in my opinion, that Roman will somehow self-sabotage, the rug will be pulled, that he will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, which of course is exactly what happens with the Dick Pick in this episode. That, to me, is inevitability with the character. and I expect a smarter person

as a smarter psychiatrist than me would find any, would have a feel down to what level of self-sabotage that is from the character. But as for that ratio between, you know, disgust, repulsion, fear, disappointment, or possessiveness over Jerry, all of the above.

All in the mix. Yeah, it's interesting. Something that we've talked a lot about in this season is what does it mean to be winning on succession? Because I think every week as people watch this, they're watching it almost as like a game of Survivor or something like that, and who's on top this week,

and Roman's on top for the last two weeks, and now he's in the bottom or something like that. But as you described that love-hate relationship with these characters, I care about them and I care about their well-being. And so it's almost like when they're winning, when Romans ascend it in the last week's episode, but his most vicious and cruel self, that to me doesn't feel like winning.

It's an almost converse thing. The hair they get in Logan's eyes, the more I'm worried for them and their sort of well-being. So what do you think winning is on this show for any given character? Winning would be to take the $2 billion and get the heck out of town, wouldn't it?

Right, yeah. I'd live up the Russian River somewhere and, you know, with some kind of eco-start-up. but you know can only them ever do that I think Jesse's maybe I don't know I can't put words in his mouth is there hope for them I genuinely don't know I genuinely

I want to I want to believe there is a possible redemption a possible escape for them but all evidence both in terms of our characters and the real life references say otherwise you know for the most part, maybe there is.

I agree with you, the closer they get to the eye I saw on, then the more of that kind of brings out their most vicious nature. It is like they're wearing that ring, and it brings them down. The further they can get away, the better. But I'm not sure if they could ever get far enough.

We've hopefully rid of a bit of time yet to explore those questions in a little more depth. I love a Tolkien reference and a Russian River reference in the same answer. You're speaking my entire language right now. We've also been watching Shiv closely, of course, this season as she sort of rises and falls in the ranks. She has what she believes to be some sort of breakthrough in this episode of sort of what she needs to do. And then we see her, you know, grabbing the opportunity of Romans fall to sort of advance her own position. Do you see that as a true breakthrough for Shiv?

or do you see it as just like another loop around the merry-go-round for her, you know? I think if I put myself in she's position, if it just feels another loop around, if the character is without hope, then she has nowhere to go. The character has to, well, in this case, you know, having since those giddy days back in, you know, the winter of season two, of being offered this, you know, to be the successor and the way that is, again, a lot through her own actions, having slid down the pecking order somewhat. And then, of course, the humiliation of the AGM and the rise of her brother Roman, particularly with the Gojo deal, is put into a position where

at the beginning of FTA 8, we find her in that absolute Nadia. But she's just not bred that way to give up, you know, ultimately. The all the siblings, the kids are so brainwashed with this idea that the only goal that has any worse. It is the CEO of Wastar Royco that she, she's gone under her own ruins and then come back fighting. and that's exactly what the conversation with her mother is the catalyst to, in true Caroline and daughter fashion, and that it could never be a positive affination. It has to be,

but you're doing that, so I'm going to do that. It's a classic manifestation of their relationship. But I'm not without hope for her. I personally think that one of Ships' greatest flaws is a kind of intellectual arrogance where she assumes, because of her more liberal politics, that she's therefore the cleverest person in the room, and she isn't always. And that's the intellectual immaturity, you know, comes back to bite her more than months.

But I still believe she can learn from that. I have one last question for you, but I really quickly want to say, the Caroline episodes are my favorites because Harriet Walter is one of my favorites and she just like drips acid and is one of the one of the greatest actresses alive um but my last question for you is is you know this season has had a really interesting we don't have a lot of seasons to compare it to but you know last season the way that the guest actors particularly holly hunter were sort of folded into the cast is different from the way that you know adrian brodie pops up for an episode or hope davis pops up for a couple scenes or um you know Alex is here at towards the end of the season sort of

more one-off true guest stars than than sort of subcast members. Was any of that COVID-related or is that just a different cadence you wanted to bring to the season that you know? It's entirely the latter, I think Joanna. This season, you know, was about civil war. And by definition, that's the members of the family.

So it's just so happened that in terms of the structure of the drama and the structure of the conflict that we didn't perhaps need, we know, we had the scenario, obviously, as Lisa, with the through line, it was fantastic, and Dashra, of course, was great with the through line. But for the most part, in terms of the centre of the conflict, was much more about the siblings and the dynamic between them and their father.

And therefore, structurally, we just didn't have the same need as we did for for someone like Holly who was fantastic and so integral to season two. Well, thank you so much for the chat. I really, really appreciate it. It's nice talking to you, Joanna, and it's nice seeing your lovely cat wandering around.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm trying to keep her out of brain, but she will be here. She will insist. All right, that is it. Like, I am actually kind of emotionally devastated that we only have one more of these to do. Sean, I love doing these with you

with our producer, Steve Allman, who's the best. But this has been like a really, really fun way to sort of get acquainted with the ringer in general. So thank you for doing these shows with me. I'm enjoying it. And we'll find something else to do. I'm not worried. We'll be back together. We'll figure it out.

On the feed itself, you'll hear Chris Ryan and Wals on Friday. Bill Simmons and I had a chat about yellow jackets. And also, believe or not, Kendall Roy on an episode of Prestige TV that dropped earlier this week. all kinds of good stuff on this feed. But we will be back next week to find out what happened. See you then. See you then. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items.

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