The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Succession’ Season 3 Season Premiere with Brian Cox

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Joanna Robinson and Sean Fennessey discuss the dynamite season premiere of 'Succession.' They talk about the key moves Kendall looks to make as he wages war against Logan (01:54) along with the reality check that Shiv provides to the show. Later, Joanna sits down with actor Brian Cox to discuss what a typical viewer might get wrong about Logan Roy (47:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Joanna Robinson Guest: Brian Cox Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Head into the Ringerverse to stay up to date with all things superheroes and nerd culture entertainment. Hosted by a rotating lineup of superfans at The Ringer, including Mallory Rubin and Van Lathen, shows will provide instant reactions to blockbuster releases, insightful backstories on canon, and mind-bending theories, as well as fresh takes on the latest news and rumors. Check out The Ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm running on saliva and adrenaline as we are here to talk about the success. Season 3 premiere here on the prestige TV pod feed. Joining me, as always, every week, my partner in, I don't know, espionage, corporate espionage.

Sean Fennessee. Hello, Sean. How are you? Joanna, so good to see you. Let's slide the sociopolitical thermometer up the nation's ass and talk about succession. I'm so excited. I'm thrilled. And it's not just the two of us on the podcast today.

We also are joined by the great Brian Cox. He will be here at the end of the episode. We have a little interview with him talking about this premiere specifically, sort of what's on, on Logan's mind as he's sort of backed into a corner. So that is the plan. And we're just going to be running down the episode, obviously, like blanket, spoiler warning for season three, episode one, Secession. This is written by Jesse Armstrong, directed by Mark Mila, the all-star team of succession. And I'm just really excited because as excited as I was to do this podcast with you in the first place, I'm even more excited now. having seen sort of the fervor that cropped up around this succession return.

So I thought we would start by talking about what it's been like to come back to Sunday night HBO drama. Everyone seems to be watching this at the same time experience. So, Sean, how was it for you? Well, one, from a pure show perspective, just delightful. Like a wonderful season premiere. I'm so excited to be in this universe and talking about it with you. Two, Succession is now what we at the ringer who fell in love with it very early on hoped it would be, and maybe pretended it would be for the first season, season and a half of the show.

I think we were pretty fairly convinced that there was something special going on here. But now ratings are up. Conversation is up. We had two full years to prepare for this premiere. And there's a different kind of conversation happening around it. I would say the memeage is up in the parlance. of Succession, I would say that there are people in my life who I know we're not watching it three, four, five years ago. And now I can see are clearly watching it. And so that's very exciting to see. I know I've got my dad coming to town next weekend. I know he's locked in on it right now. That's how we know the show has reached a kind of maximum point of interest. So it's a great time to be a fan of Succession. It's a great time to be a Succession podcaster. How do you feel about the way it's been received? Yeah, it's funny because you had asked me before the season, because I had seen some of the episodes of the season, you were like, do you think this is going to just be

explosively popular or just pretty popular because season one was sort of under the radar, you know, people who knew loved it, but like it was still kind of under the radar. Season two, a bigger growth. But as you say, we've had some downtime. There was a whole pandemic. There was a couple of years for people to just sort of sit at home and binge things. And it really does feel like it felt like a throne Sunday. That's how it felt like to me, not to overblow it, but, you know, I miss this.

And like you, I have certain bellwether friends. friends who, if they're watching a thing, I know it's reached a broader audience, do you know? And that happened with Marevistown, like, you know, towards the end of Marevistown. And it's happening here. Everyone seems dialed in and ready to go. I'm so excited. We're just nerds for a water cooler show. We have another water cooler show.

It's a delightful thing. We suspected that would be the case. It is the case. And this lived up. It turned out to be worthy of water cooler conversation. Should we have that conversation? Let's do it. Let's converse.

So I wanted to start, before we get into, what I see as, like, a split episode following Kendall and Logan as they react to the ending. And there's obviously other characters we want to talk about, but there are big parallels between those two characters. I want to talk to you about some meta things, because I'm always interested in the opening credits of succession. Never skip it. Never skip the Bertel score. And every season, there's like a slight difference between the open. And so this year, very minor, minor differences. But I was wondering, are you similar?

Do you scour the opening credits for clues? I do. I will admit on my rewatches, I did skip the opening credits because I was trying to make good time here through them. But on a first watch of a new episode, never skip them. I did. The one thing that jumped out to me, and I was not eagle-eyed about while I was re-watching it, but the skiing child, I thought, was an interesting addition.

And I'm not totally sure was that supposed to be some sort of metaphorical representation of Kendall going down the mountain right now, you know? Was there some sort of cocaine joke going on there? Fresh powder? I don't know. What popped out to you? A couple things. First of all, we saw Waste our studios for the first time in Hollywood.

We see a lot more of the ATN of it all. So that like general maybe focus on media and sort of that arm of the company. And then there is one shot of a kid that we've never seen before in addition to the skiing kid, which is a kid with an entire cigar and a gold ring that I have to think is Roman. And so I think people, when they were trying to parse the first two seasons for clues, I think they felt like, and not that this is necessarily like a clue show, but I think they felt like the first season opener was very Kendall focused and that the second season opener felt maybe a little bit more Shiv focused.

And so a question we have is like, is this a Roman focus slightly? It's very minor cosmetic changes. So that's just something to think about. And the other thing is, I don't know, we didn't talk about this in our preview episode, but did you see the various posters that they released for this season? No, I didn't. It was always on them. HBO released like a set of three posters.

And at the front you see Kendall and Logan, you know, it's the cast walking down a hall. The front you see Kendall and Logan sort of glaring at each other. And then people are very cleanly divided on each side of the line here. But the three versions of the posters have the different players on different sides in each version. So no exact hints as to who will wind up on whose side. But I thought that was really fun to sort of tease the audience that way. That was the exciting part of this episode, too. It was kind of a game of battleship of kind of guessing where all of your battleships are aligned by making all of those phantom phone calls that we'll talk about that Kendall was given to his various family members and former employees.

I love that. Do you want to start with Kendall or do you want to start with Logan? Well, how does the episode open? The episode opens on Logan, as I recall, right? in the helicopter. We get that big vista shot of him riding in the helicopter. So why don't we start with Logan?

All right. Let's start with Logan and how he reacts to all of this. And I think it's really interesting to think about, I haven't heard a lot of people talk about this and it only jumped out to me and I don't know,

my fourth watching. Maybe I'm slow. But the direct parallels between the Logan and Kendall stories, we've got, you know, a phone call with everyone in the car crowded around the speaker phone or frantically trying a place

to, you know, make home base. as you pointed out last week, there isn't a clear home base for these people. So, like, where do we go? What do we do? And so I think it's really interesting to watch, like, each decision through that lens. And obviously, Logan starts with a massive advantage because he has a much bigger team on his side in all of this. So, so how did that, like, how did his treatment of his team strike you in terms of,

like, leadership or who might survive this? Well, it's interesting, right? Because we did talk about that last week. Logan himself is an ex-patriot of his family is originally from Scotland. He is raised largely in Canada, and then he finds himself up in the sky, circling the Balkans, unsure really of where he belongs. And his family is completely unmoored. His business is completely unmoored.

Logan is a dyspeptic personality. And so when things go bad, he goes bad. And this was, I think, even more so than when he was ill and unable to necessarily know how things were moving and where they were going. He seemed really off of his square throughout this entire episode. You know, Kendall really did, as he said, pull a move on him. He made a move. And that move was completely unforeseen.

And so you find him in real time trying to navigate both his emotions and his strategy. And I don't know, he just, as per usual with Logan, was a dickhead. And I think he didn't even necessarily totally know how to divide and conquer, but that is what he ultimately does. He divides his, essentially his business associates from his family. He takes the three potential future CEOs and puts them on a plane somewhere. And then he brings the not trusted Frank. He brings the quasi-trusted Tom. He brings the consistently insulted Carl.

And Hugo, who has taken on quite a big role in this show over the last few episodes, I'll say. And they split up. A lot happens, obviously, in between that split up. But it was interesting to see Logan just so completely out of control, as opposed to where he had been, even while he was keeping his company together. It's so interesting. I agree that compared to Logan and his prime, he's out of control, but compared to Kendall, he feels so much more sure in his actions because Kendall is Kendall and we'll get to all of that. And I like that Logan's focus, the specific questions he asks

his troops. Like, he calls it war. I've always thought of these things as battle episodes sort of thing. So like the council of war and the way in which he deploys his troops, I think is really interesting. And the questions he asked, he's like, what's the price? What story are we telling? One of my favorite things that Logan often says in a crisis is like, what's the protein of the media story? Like, give me the protein, right? So he's like drilling down onto the basics of what they need to handle, you know, the shareholders, this, that, and the other thing. How is ATN spinning things, etc.? Not looking for approval and not really caring what the public thinks of him. Like especially when Jerry suggests that, you know, they cooperate with any. investigation and he's like, no, you start, you start with apologizing and like you never know where it's going to go. So like he doesn't care about the public opinion, which is Kendall's primary focus. He cares about taking direct action, you know what I mean? But to your point, I think what's really interesting about this episode is how often we aren't privy to Logan at his most vulnerable when he's talking about his mom or when he's rattled by the call. These are all things

Jerry reports, but they happen behind closed doors. And I think that's an interesting choice. What do you make of that? Well, I think that that shows that there's only one Logan that we see on the show, which is the Logan that is obsessed with maintaining his empire, but the emotional person is mostly absent. But the reason that he's so good, I think, in those sort of tactical moments that you describe, we see later on in the episode when Frank and Carl have a conversation on the airplane. My absolute favorite exchange in this episode is when they talk through the many crises that they've endured as a company, you know, the tabloid suicides, the Argentina incident, the Tiananmen accommodations, all of these things down the line, they have nicknames, you know, they have an identity.

So Logan knows how to fight through crisis. He does not know how to fight through crisis necessarily orchestrated by his son. We watch this, obviously, in the aftermath of the bear hug, how it kind of spun Logan out. And once again, something incited by Kendall has completely spun him out emotionally. But it's a very keen observation. I didn't totally pick up on that that. We don't see him feeling. We see him thinking. We see him strategizing, but we don't see Logan feeling. I think until the very end, until that last shot where he's out sort of in the open air, and Brian Cox did sort of talk about what he felt like was going on in Logan's head, so we'll hear that in a bit. But I think it's really interesting this idea. Also, this is a small thing, and it's a good joke,

but it's this idea of like, we're not eating. If I get the shits, like, you know, this is all, we're fucked, right? And that's. It's funny and vulgar in the way that succession obviously can be, but it's also like the way in which Logan's like, I can't be out of commission for a second. I cannot even go to the bathroom because I am the only one who can save the day on this. You know what I mean? All the things that he takes on himself, you know? It also reveals how fragile he is. This is a man in his 80s.

He's not a spring chicken. And so the idea that he has to be conscious of his own health to weather the storm is also a fascinating aspect of this. I mean, he's obviously one of the most important characters. There's been a lot of debate this year about kind of what direction is Logan headed in. There is a kind of frailty about him over the first 2.1 seasons of the show. And so there's a lot of speculation. Like, can this show survive, basically, without a Logan Roy at the center of it? What ultimately becomes the conflict?

I think we see him, not just that a physical crossroads or even a professional crossroads, but like, as you say, at the end of the episode, a real kind of emotional crossroads, really figuring out. how he finds himself in this position. There is a great piece up on the ringer.com right now about what would happen if he were to die, if Logan were to die. And it's so interesting because Logan, I guess, was supposed to die at the end of season one. And Brian Cox's answer, whenever someone asks him sort of like, would they kill your character

off? He's like, they could, but I think they'd miss me. And you can imagine him saying that with like sort of a wolfie grin, right? So let's talk about Ken and how Ken reacts in contrast to Logan. And his goal is much more complicated, right? Because Logan's goal is to neutralize Kendall. And it's funny, there's another piece up on The Ringer from John Gonzalez where he talked to, like, real PR pros about sort of how they would handle all of this. And they predicted exactly sort of some of the things that they said in this episode about how to neutralize Kendall and neutralize the papers.

Like that's the goal for Logan. For Ken, it's so much more complicated. This is what he says. This is how Lisa sort of recap. caps what he wants, right? Kenal wants to take down Logan without implicating himself without damaging Waystar, all while making himself like the hero. That's the part that I added. What do you think of this objective, Sean? How is Ken going to pull this off? Once again, it does not seem as though he has fully thought through everything, even though it seems like he has an action

plan. There are a lot of things that he needs to pull off. We learn pretty quickly that he has not necessarily assumed that they were going to strip his access at Waystar Royco when he goes on his big car chase when the juice gets loose. And so he has not really thought very far ahead. The idea that they would not strip his access is absurd, and he should have seen that one coming and not having necessarily a home base to operate out of after taking this action indicates how sort of fly-by-night it is. On the other hand, we think of Kendall as a guy who's been daydreaming about taking the number

one spot for years, for decades maybe. And so this is his, you know, that we see in that conversation with Rava that like between them, there's something unspoken about. this has been a conversation between them for many years. Been in the mail, right? Yes, exactly. It's been in the mail, exactly. And so, on the one hand, it feels like he has an answer for everything, perhaps too many answers.

And on the other hand, he doesn't have a lot of foresight and how to pull some of these things off. Jeremy Strong was just like such a brilliant actor. And he is an absolute ball of energy throughout this whole episode. You can see him vibrating at a very high frequency throughout every conversation, every sit down with the PR strategies. You know, the conversation with Lisa near the end of the episode, he is go, go, go, go, go. sometimes at his own expense. Yeah, I mean, I think Chris Ryan on this week's The Watch called him Manic Koki Kendall back in the habit. But like, it's an adrenaline episode.

I think that's what I told you was my reaction to it. It makes me feel jittery to watch Kendall. Like I feel anxious and jittery watching him. And even though it starts in this moment of calm with him in the bathroom, like doing his breathing exercises, which given what I know about Jeremy Strong's process, I'm like, is this just Jeremy Strong's like warm up? acting. Is he just the kind of guy who gets in the tub to think about a scene or something like that? He might be.

But, you know, but then we're off and we don't stop. And it's sometimes hard to watch, like especially when, especially his anxious neediness. You know what I mean? That's the thing that mainly comes through in all of this is how much approval he needs from all corners. And as you say, how he was blindsided. He didn't expect, I think he didn't expect that it would be so. hard to get people on his side for this.

He doesn't see that he's his own worst enemy too. I mean, he's constantly telling people what he thinks they want to hear. He tells multiple people, I did this for you. You know, he gets a time with Barry Schneider, who were thought to, you know, made to believe is this great PR genius. And then he basically cuts her off at every turn and has his own strategy, some of which might even be a good strategy, but the way that he presents it makes him seem so unlikable and so overdetermined in everything that he's doing.

He's such a contradiction as a figure. It's also kind of an interesting callback to the very first episode of the show where when we first see Kendall, he's in a car, he's listening to the Beastie Boys, he's getting himself fired up to go into this big meeting. It's in lockdown Volter. And then he goes into this meeting and he gets his pants pulled down. He gets embarrassed. And he consistently does not see these sorts of things coming despite having grand plans. And so on the one hand, it feels like a mirror moment or a callback. And on the other hand, maybe this is him learning a little bit that he needs to be at least.

one step ahead, if not three steps ahead of his father, if he's going to make the right moves. I don't know. We'll see. Yeah. And I mean, I think to your point earlier is like, Logan has the experience, obviously, he's weathered many storms. He's got the better team right now. You know what I mean? With all the people around him, you compare his car to Ken's car, which is like poor Jess and Greg. You know what I mean? Like, that's it. Carolina's out. It's just Jess and Greg, you know? So I'm betting long on Jess, though. I feel like this is a big Jess episode. we see, you know, you pointed out here in our rundown, like this indication that she's been close to him for a long time. She knows how to manage him in the moment professionally.

She knows where a lot of information, she's acting quickly and seems to have everything on lock in that car. So all of a sudden, like, how do people rise in corporate atmospheres? They rise exactly like this. They stay close to powerful people. They execute for them. And then they rise into power. So I am betting long on Jess. I think it is interesting that none like none of the other characters have a consistent assistant, the way

that Kendall and Jess operate, you know? Jess disappears a little bit at the beginning of season two, and I think that has to do with sort of Logan restricting Kendall's access to certain people, but she's been around if you've done a rewatch, watch for Jess in the background of so many scenes.

This is the most she's spoken in any episode by far, though. True, true, true. And she has my favorite line, which is he's kind of laughing, but not like nice laughing. I don't know, her delivery of that kills me every time I watch it.

But yeah, so Kendall has the less experience, a ramshackle team, but he's got the WMD, right? Like he's got the papers. So it's tough to say who's far ahead in this game. You know what I mean? Logan's rattled. Ken's got the arsenal. But is he going to blow the arsenal? I don't know.

I mean, he's Kendall. What does Roman say about? I mean, he's going to fuck up. That's what he does. It's weird. I mean, you're right. You identified this as kind of like a battle episode. It does feel like a Game of Thrones episode in more ways than one.

But you don't get the impression that anybody is really winning. You kind of get the impression that they're just blowing up the company and that they're like Ken in particular seems quite confident that he can quote unquote win and that he will go forward and rise to power at the head of the company. It's possible that he gets what he wants, which is to dethrone his father. But that doesn't mean he's going to get the company.

So as you say, this is a really complicated game that he's playing. And again, he really hasn't thought. it through when Carolina points out to him sort of the fallout. He's like, well, no, I'm doing this for the company. You know, I'm the Kiro. And something that we should talk about definitely in all of this for Kendall is this shield of wokeness that he's sort of standing behind. Like, because every time he tells someone I did it for you, whether it's Frank or Rava or whoever, and Rava's reaction is my favorite, she's like, yeah, but no. But, you know, every time he makes himself out to be this sort of moralistic high-ground hero,

I mean, none of that rings true, especially the way that he surrounds himself with all these women, women of color, specifically, and then talks over them. It's just the contrast is so rich and delicious. This is something you see in the world happening right now. You know, you see somebody trying to capitalize on a social moment by adopting it

and filtering it through corporate apparatus. And Ken's not giving up any power to make change. He's actually seizing more power to under the veil of change. And, you know, Kendall is a very sympathetic character because we know he has a lot of personal struggles. You know, we know he's struggled with addiction. We know that he is a person who's been bullied by his father his whole life. But he's not a good person. I mean, he's a bad person in many ways. And he's a really privileged person. And this is not unusual to see from bad and privileged people. And it's a very clever move by the writers.

And yet somehow I still think, like, I'll point this out every time we talk about Kendall and Jeremy Strong's performance, he kind of, there's like 10% of you that's like, you can do a buddy, you can do it. You know, this like wounded bird thing that he has going on is really powerful. Yeah, I was thinking about this because I want to talk before we leave the car, I want to talk about the juices loose moment that you alluded to when he says, who said I never killed someone, which is funny and bone chilling at the same time, right? because we remember what happened

at the end of season one, even though he never talks about it. And I was thinking about how my feeling about Wounded Bird Kendall, kicked puppy, broken boy, Kendall, tracks with how much

I'm invested in the show. And I think for me, it starts in season one when he loses the vote, when he's running through the streets and he loses the vote, and he's on the back foot. That's when I got really into the show.

And it was because I was like, oh, Kendall, buddy. Oh no, you almost had it, right? And then all through season two is really, really emotionally invested in broken Kendall. And then how do I feel about manic Koki Kendall, which is something I'm holding on to from Chris Ryan. Thanks for that gift, Chris. How do I feel about that? How do you feel about Kendall in this episode?

Well, our sympathies have to fall somewhere, right? I found my sympathies going somewhat in Roman and Jerry's direction. We'll talk a little bit about that shortly. But Kendall, he has the language. He's always had the language of cool, yes. young progressive people. He has that language in those sit downs with Walter. He's aspiring to be cool. He's literally clowning Barry Schneider by describing something as the straight like Chino version of Twitter. And so he keeps shooting himself in the foot in that respect, even if he's

trying to ultimately be a good person. It's tough because I certainly don't think he's going to make meaningful change at his company. Because usually what happens is when people like that get into a position of power, they look at the bottom line. The bottom line is usually, that ATN needs to keep hate mongering in order to drive ratings to make money to keep the stock price up. And then he's going to keep doing what his dad did, if not worse.

But again, it goes back to Jeremy Strong, goes back to him being somebody that you have to, your sympathies have to go somewhere on the show. And I think in many ways, they go towards him. But we'll see. I mean, maybe he's going to make some moves in the next few episodes that moves us away from him and his interests.

I mean, that's the question is like, I think when some people were initially hesitant about succession, I feel like the complaint I heard a lot was there's no one for, I don't care about any of these people, there's no one for me to root for, right? I think some people don't need people to root for in a show. I think some people watch for like the good memeage and the witty repartee and that's all there and that never is gone in succession. But for me, I need someone to care about and I can, I can, I'm capable of finding someone to care about in the, even like in the trash heap. I can find it. But that's

something I want to keep an eye on this season. And I also want to keep an eye on, is it intentional? Is this moment of, who said I never killed someone, an intentional jab at us for caring so much about Kendall in season two and forgetting the no real person involved young man who died at the end of season one? Do you know what I mean? Well, I had a question for you about that too, because do you think when Kendall says that he is referencing the person whose death he is responsible for? Or is he just trying to have a kind of sick burn. Like, I just killed my father live on TV, or I've killed people in the boardroom, the way you might say it colloquially.

And he's forgotten that, in fact, he is responsible for someone's death. Like, that seems plausible, right? Which is worse, though. I don't know. I don't know. You know, like, I do think. And it's, what is interesting is, like, as it's possible he's just running on saliva and adrenaline candle.

It seems probably not because there's no indication that he's not using, right? Like there's, he started using again in season two. There's no indication that he stopped. And though we don't see him do it, like that's all part of it. And I just feel like he's just gassed up to the point where he feels invincible and untouchable. And so I don't know. I think he was just, I don't know. He was just zooted.

He's beaming when he says that. It's unsettling. I think the presence of Naomi also confirms that likely he's continuing to use. And that's a factor in the story. And I hadn't thought about that. until HBO lean on the gas with their sort of like last season on Succession, and they connected Naomi to Logan's comment about her being a source of drugs. So I think, yeah, she's around.

We can assume that Kendall is still using. This is crazy. This is like OJ. I mean, except if OJ never killed anyone. Who said I never killed anyone? Juice is loose, baby. Let's talk about, do you want to talk about more about, or should we move to Shiv and Tom?

Well, I think it's interesting that she is the only reality check on the show. She's the only person, even though she also lives a very nice life and lives in, as you pointed out, a $24 million apartment in New York City on Park Place. She is the only person who is willing to, if not tell the truth, at least roll her eyes to the truth when she's engaging with Kendall or really anybody else in the family. And as you also pointed out, and I think Chris and Annie might have talked about this too. they have certainly vanished the children from this show, which I think was a wise choice. I don't think the children watching their coked-out father manipulate his father's company is a good bit of television,

even though it is important. Chris Nadey's point about the kids is so interesting to me, and I think it's so funny when you start, if you start at the beginning and watch season one and how important there are multiple children around. There's the whole messy thing where I don't really know what happened with the kids that were assisted with Roman. I guess they were the kids of his girlfriend.

It just seemed like there were more kids and they were wanting to make it more generational. And then they were like, you know what? Let's leave the kids out of this. Well, they used Iverson getting hit as a way to show us just how monstrous Logan can really be and just how not well he is. But then you're right, they seem to lose interest

in having to tell that story. Part of it is because the show has grown. They've added so many characters over the years and they're adding more characters this season. It's just one more story that I think would be difficult to tell in an hour every week. Yeah, and as we've mentioned,

as we mentioned the preview episode, you know, to make room for people like Hugo, the Great Fisher Stevens is a series regular this season, right? To make room for the Carls and the Franks, etc. Kids got to go.

Let's talk about Chivintam. It's a really interesting dynamic here because obviously they pick up in a really awkward spot from the end of last season. Tom has consumed Logan's chicken, but what really has changed here? And they have that awkward tarmac

sort of farewell where it seems like they're going to table that conversation for a time of less crisis, if there ever is one in this family. What do you make of the way in which they're interacting with each other this episode? I think it's really interesting. I used to think that their relationship was strictly opportunistic, but now I realize I was wrong, and that there was love, and now it is strictly opportunistic. Right now, they are using each other for strategy and success. Tom very nearly was the fall guy one episode ago. And in this episode, he is discussed, albeit not seriously, but he has discussed as the

potential new CEO. So he is using his marriage to a woman that he doesn't really trust anymore to keep himself in the mix professionally, which is interesting. I suspect we're going to get a lot more of Shiv and Tom and their future and the future of their love than we got in this episode. We actually didn't get a whole lot. We got that tarmac showdown. We got a couple of phone calls. And that's really it. And it's compelling. I mean, what did you think of it? Well, I think it's interesting that she lies to him. She used to not. She, like, he was sort of her conciliary, right?

Yes. And, I mean, she lied to him about other things, but I feel like in moves of business, she told him the truth. And so he was a clean jar. Yeah, exactly. What I, like, I googled that phrase after he used it for the first time, and I, like, couldn't even find it. So I don't, I think this is in the New Yorker profile of Jesse Armstrong that he, like, sometimes just makes up phrases. that sound like their well-used phrases. So swinging on the flippity flop of succession phraseology, yes.

Exactly, exactly. But the fact that Sheila's to him and then he, I can't read it. I actually don't know how to read it because I see a read, which is that Tom is just being opportunistic. But I also see a read where Tom is being genuine when he's like, do you want me to push for you? And then he like, I think he was, I don't know. I don't know if he was trying to push for her in a really delicate way.

Or if he just wasn't. It was bizarre. It's a very good question. Was he actually acting against her interest by citing people? Or was he, well, how did Logan describe what he was doing? The reverse banjo. Also not a phrase I'm sure I've ever heard before. But again, if that's an invention of the writing staff, kudos to them and Jesse Armstrong.

I don't know. I think that there's a lot to unfold in their relationship. And they're just at the beginning of unpacking whether or not they actually give a damn about each other. Because I still can't tell. It's really, I think. it's one of the most interesting couples I've ever seen on television. And I'm excited for us to dig deeper. Something that I think is worth remembering and something that Katie Baker wrote a really good article about on the rigger.com is that like Shiv can't trust anyone, right? Like, and this is something that Sarah Snook has talked about, the fact that like, Chivon is scared to love Tom because that involves exposing your belly in a way that she has been taught not to.

now. So looking at who people have, again, Jess comes up as like the only reliable partner to a main character until we get to Jerry and Roman. So, um, the only pure love I've encountered is Jerry and Roman. That is love to me. What they have going on right now is very special. It is pure. Um, it's fun that they went like right to this sort of flirtation thing, but, but a question that is worth asking is like, do you want, do you actually, Sean, want to see the Jerry and Roman thing taken to the next level. Meaning do I want the sex tape? Do I want to see them knocking boots?

Do you want to see Roman layer badly but gladly? I mean, no, I don't want to see that. I do, I like the idea of them in a meaningful but covert relationship. That's a fun story. You know, continuing that and kind of like lying to each other in real time about how they feel about each other is fun. once Roman and Jerry are getting hitched both in the boardroom and at the altar,

I'm a little less interested, I think. There's just something exciting about the teasing going on between the two of them, the table tennis that they're having between them strategically and emotionally. Exactly. I think I never want to see like a consummation, more of a consummation,

because this other thing is so tantalizing. And it'll be interesting to see because this has been such a popular aspect of the show, especially, I think they know now in the writer's room, something they didn't know in season two, which is how explicitly popular this would be. And when something like that happens on a show, you always get worried that the writers are going to lean too far into it.

It's such a great observation. I think you're right. I think they run the risk of overexposing it if they overdo it. But this was, in general, I would say, arguably the biggest Jerry episode ever, in terms of the amount of things that she was at the center of and then ultimately the decision that is made at the end of the episode. So while Roman and Jerry is a,

exciting, I think, really more what's happening with Jerry is the most pertinent aspect of this episode. Yeah, and I think that circles back to sort of the inciting incident of all of this is the scandal is about the abuse of women. And so a big question hanging over this whole episode and it's mentioned several times. That's what I appreciate about this show is like it doesn't pretend that these things aren't optics. It's like how they want women at the front of this because it's going to look better. It's going to look better to have a shiver of Jerry. It's going to look better to hire Lisa Arthur. It's going to look better for Kendall to have an all female PR team, like all this sort of stuff. Surrounded by all these intelligent women. Kendall

says Z-Pats himself on the back. And how much of that must be doing something, right? Yeah, gross. And how much of that is, is optics and how much the women understands, like the juries and the shivs understand that that is something that's true, that it's not just that they're incredibly good at their jobs, which to varying degrees they are, but like that they that they have the right chromosome, I think, is how Roman puts it, you know. Well, we're obviously here at The Ringer, we're not dealing with any crises on the magnitude of what they're doing over at Waystar Royco. But, I mean, let me ask you, like, honestly, as a woman in the workplace, do you feel like you are sometimes being positioned as a pawn towards people's gains? And if you are aware of that, are you okay with it?

Because I think that that's something that Shiv and Jerry are constantly negotiating for themselves is, like, I'm smart enough to know what's happening here, but I need it to get forward to go to where I want to go. I think that's true of a lot of people, you know, like I'm extremely privileged as a cis white woman, but like I think I've heard from other friends, at least in the media world, but like we're increasingly trying to get own voices on things, right? If you have a story about a certain subject, you want someone with some life experience on that subject preferably to write about it, right? That wasn't even necessarily the case, I would say five years ago. And it's not the case as often as it probably should be. But I think there can be occasional resentment of like, oh, you just call me to write this kind of story. and then there can also be opportunity. So I think it's a cocktail. Do you know what I mean? But you can't help it feel like a little bit of a tinge of something with it. Well, I may as well say on a dumb level, I'd like my Twitter to be off the hook. This could all get super earnest.

So I was thinking of hitting up some BoJack guys, you know, some of the Lampoon kids, just to smash that shit, make my feet a little powder keg people need to check in with. Like cool tweets to position you? Yeah, that would be the straight-leg Chino way of putting it. Let's talk about the politics, not to just be in dialogue with Chris and Andy, but they had this really interesting conversation around the president, the fictional president on this show that I think is so interesting because they see him as a direct Trump analogy and I disagree. So please allow me to disagree with Chris and Andy on this podcast and say, fire away. He's called the raisin because he's from California. They call him the California raisin, right?

That's where the nickname comes from. And he has shown himself amenable to coercion from a Logan figure. I just don't think Trump would allow himself to be pushed by a Logan figure the way that this president seems like he is able to be pushed. The corruption thing I agree with, but the secession of power, I don't know, what do you think? Well, we talked about this last week on the first episode of the show about how it's fun to play Mix and Max. and try to ID corollaries in the world. I don't think that there is a clean match on Trump. I also don't think there would be a clean match on, say,

I don't know, let's say Gavin Newsom runs for president in the near future, a California raisin himself. I don't think that you can easily one to one any of the picks. I thought what was most compelling about what Chris Nanny were pitching was the Kellyan Conway part of it. The idea of this, like, Flack, who is doing the bidding, but is more of an advisor and is not in one of the true offices.

That made a lot of sense to me. This Michelle Ann figure feels more like an attach that you would find in a corrupt president's White House. So I was listening to Caras Swisher's doing this official podcast or secession that HBO prompts you to listen to after the episode's over. I'm a huge fan of Carerswisher, queen of media reporting, et cetera. And what she's doing is a really interesting.

It's only about 30 minutes, at least the first episode. And it's mostly interview. and she interviewed Jennifer Palmyeri, who worked in the Obama White House, and then was on the Clinton campaign. And they were talking about Michelle Annas, she were like a press secretary. And so I don't know if that's official official. But Jennifer Palmieri was saying basically like, this call would never happen. It's an idiotic call. Everyone exposes themselves way too much despite all the like careful double talk.

Like, this is incredibly stupid and would never happen. Yeah. Do you believe that? I don't know if I believe that. I am a little bit more cynical about how power operates in this country. I don't know. I mean, power. I mean, she wasn't speculating on the Trump administration because she has didn't work in the Trump administration.

But she was like, yes, of course corporations have influences over presidents. Yes, of course, that happens to do a call like this. The main line she was saying is that we're told that any call we make, a foreign country is probably listening to us. So it's not that we need to be careful about like the other person recording or ourselves recording or whatever. It's that some other country might be recording and use it against us. So if a meeting like this were to happen, I think it would have to happen in a corridor, in hushed tones, not over the phone. I don't know. What do you think?

It's possible. I mean, Jerry and Co. are offshore at the moment, you know. Sure. So this would ultimately be on the White House and the White House taking this call. And maybe it's a corrupt White House in this world. You know, we know that he can be pressured by Logan in the first place. So it's this is all, that's the thing. It's all imagination.

It's true. And it's great television. It's fantastic television. That scene in particular is so wonderful. Jerry kind of like slightly coercing her into something with the Department of Justice is great. Yeah. Jay Smith Cameron's like, unless you reach out and grab it, like, you know, like all of a sudden. Like, no, just keep trying to push the envelope a little bit further.

It's pretty incredible. And like, and last and not least. in terms of Jerry, who gets, yeah, who gets the big job in this episode. She does. She has this great line where she talks about how she's incredibly successful because she avoids mess and she identifies Roman as a mess. And she's not wrong about that. Deeply relatable content from Jerry.

You know, I am attempting to be a successful person in this world by avoiding mess. I am not a fan of mess despite my many podcast appearances in which messy things are shared. and I she's she's probably right now you get to be a successful person in these kind of bland interim CEO opportunities whether Jerry is not going to be the CEO of Waystar Royco

this is not that's not what succession is about well yeah and and I mean Logan even says like you know it's kind of just her show like I'm still going to be running this all of this all you know and then before we go I mean I don't want to skip Connor and Willa our two-man

team in the Balkans Unlike his father who practically skips him. How upset did it feel like Connor was about that? Or was he not? Well, he's pretty able to nimbly pivot to the Iarono cycle for the hipsters and the dipshits. So I think Connor knows that it's his destiny to be a stymied kid. And all of his actions are lashing out to prove that he is a man of grandeur from, you know, jizzing 500K on the fake Napoleon dick to launching this play, to Austerlitz, to everything he does

is over the top and absurd in an effort to show that he should not be overlooked. And in fact, it only makes him more ridiculous and more easy to overlook. And speaking of the president, you know, like his campaign for president is something that I'm delighted to see unfold. But to preview next week's episode, we'll have Alan Ruck on next week episode to me give us a little bit more insight into the world of Connor and what he's thinking in times like this. I have a few other things I want to hit, but before we go,

is there anything else major that you want to talk about, Sean? No, let's go to the speed round. Tell me what you made of Lisa Arthur's office. Well, one, I'm just delighted to see Sunnall Lathen on the show. One of my favorite actresses, incredibly like a dynamite and powerful woman

on a show that is like constantly negotiating women's power. So she really is like kind of a pipe palm and some of the storytelling. Really excited about that. And her conversation with Shiv is one of the more fraught moments in show history.

I mean, obviously it reveals so many of Shiv's weaknesses as a person, just everything that she does in that conversation. I thought that was dynamic. What do you think Shiv's weaknesses are in that scene? It's like a false ally.

You know, she's a person who imagines herself as being a part of some sort of like new generation of change when in fact she has as much, she's as insecure pure and as desperate as her older brother Kendall. And yet she would refuse to be perceived as such. She has such an icy cool veneer that any time,

but you can see that once it is cracked, it shatters. And it's like she shatters in Lisa's office. It's so abrupt, like how quickly it all falls apart. And it's wild to me. There's a phrase that I don't love, but I'm going to use it here,

which is like, she walks in and plays the woman card. She just slaps the woman card down on the table, right? again, as a phrase I don't love, but like, that's, you can't call it anything other than that, where she's just saying like, listen, and we saw Shiv do this to great effect with the witness at the end of last season, right? Like, that was a moment where Shiv got the job done. She was persuasive. She was thoughtful. Yeah, it was a disturbing scene, but Shiv got the job done.

And here she sent on a similar assignment from her dad and she doesn't get the job done. And I don't think it's just that Kendall got there before her because I think Lisa's implication. you have to be between the lines, I think, in that scene, but the implication is like, it's not like we were ever that tight to begin with, sort of seems to be what's coming off of Lisa in that moment, right? Like, if they were really friends, I feel like Lisa's attitude would have been a little bit different in all of this.

I agree. I think it reveals, like, some of the hollowness of friendship of powerful people at that level, too, where it's like, if you've spent some time at four or five cocktail parties and you've had one phone call, you're, like, close friends. And that's not, they're not really. And also, it's like, business comes before friendship in this world. And the way that Shiv drops the word honey on the way out and Lisa repeats it is just chef's kiss. But yeah, the office is insane.

I mean, like, it's this white, it looks like something at a Westworld, like, to me. That's what Lisa's office looked like. I just thought it was an incredible location. And then I want to talk, there's a couple of golden hour sort of tarmac shops. Just we don't talk a lot about the visuals of succession because the writing is so good. You're so right. This was a beautifully directed episode. Is there anything that stood out to you particularly?

Well, it is beautiful, you know, starting with that helicopter shot and then we're consistently on the tarmac, we're kind of traveling through Sarajevo in the Balkans. I don't know where this is actually shot ultimately, but it looks great. But the other thing that it highlighted for me, and I know that this is the visual grammar of the show, but specifically when they're on the plane, there's a lot of fast cutting to people's faces to get reactions to things other people are saying. And they have this very specific, almost like, click track approach to cutting, where it zooms in on a character's face and then zooms in again. And even if no one's talking, Carl in particular, a lot of facial reactions from Carl in this episode.

The show is really good at using essentially like comic visual timing on a serious drama that makes the show so funny and so clever and so it underlines every bit of dialogue in a way that is pretty unique for a show like this. So I just, that jumped out to me as I was watching a season and new. Yeah, I think that Mark Myelod's camera specifically, and we talked about this before, is so nimble.

And he's always moving it. And like the actress have said frequently, and Brian Cox says this in our, in our chat, you never know when the camera's on you. So you always, that's what makes the show feel like theater, I think, to the actors. So they can never relax. You never know when the camera's on you. Or he was like, not to spoil our interview, but he was like, sometimes you think the camera is on you and it's not. You know, so it's like, Mark is just zooming his camera around trying to catch the best face at any given moment. And if it's Fisher Stevens, while Brian Cox is talking, it's Fisher Stevens who makes the cut, you know?

So I think that's fascinating. It's a great point. But yeah, I think I want to try to pay closer attention to the visual grammar of the show as, you know, because we can't praise the writing enough. We've already done it. So like let's sort of look at some of these other corners of what makes us a great show. Anything else before we hear from the man himself? I'm so glad to be back with you. I'm so glad to be doing this show.

And I'm so glad succession is here. Me too. Just a quick thing to say really quickly to premise this conversation. Last week I talked about King Lear a little bit. I couldn't help myself when I talked to Brian Cox about King Lear, and I apologize to people who aren't familiar with the play. But I'll just say King Lear, a king who is old and needs a successor, has three daughters, Goneril Regan, Cordelia, Cordelia being like the youngest and sweetest. So we talked about that a little bit. And so let us hear some Shakespeare chat for Brian Cox. Hugo, I imagine most of that is obvious and in train, right?

Largely in hand. Largely in hand. Great. And in terms of cooperation. It's war. Fuck off. I wanted to start at the very end of this big moment for Logan when he rushes out of the hotel into the night air. And I was wondering if you could tell me about filming that moment and what you think is roiling in his head at that time.

I think he just needs some fresh air. And I think he's overwhelmed by everything. And I just think he wants to, you know, he's just, he's, He's under siege, you know, in a way that he's never been under siege before. So he has to deal with that. He has to just breathe, you know, that's what he's got to do, breathe. And he goes out there to try and get some breath. But he's also, he is distressed.

You know, it seems to be that everybody and everything is so dependent on him that he's not free. He's not liberated. And therefore, the burden becomes, For that brief moment, it doesn't happen too often. I suppose that is the lowest moment that he has when he just goes, this is just too much. I need some fresh air.

I got to get out of here. I can't deal with this anymore. You know, I need a breather. It's like, you know, it's like doing these interviews where you're going, I mean, then you go, well, for Christ, give me 10 minutes to lie down. It's like, what more can I say? Not another one. Yeah.

I said it. Not another one. I've said it before I keep repeating myself. So after a while, you get a little bit like that. And I think Logan's suffering from the same thing. You know, he's just, he's got no reserve anymore. He's got, they've exhausted him. And he is exhausted.

And he just has to need, he needs the fresh air to kind of rethink what his situation is. Given that you have been peppered with questions all day about Logan, what do you think it is that people get wrong about Logan? And what are people incorrect about your character? I mean, the obvious thing about Logan is he's cruelty. He seems to be cruel. But he's only cruel north-northwest. He's not really, he just uses that.

It's a device. It's not, it's not, I mean, it's what he says about, the revealing moment is in episode five when he says about Frank. And somebody comes in, you know, Candle's being really mean to Frank. And he says, no, no, no, no. no, I'm the only one who can be mean to Frank. Nobody else must be mean to Frank, but me. So he understands his position within that family as this sort of agitator,

the provocateur, you know, that's what he does with all his staff. And they don't see that that staff of Logans is pretty consistent. You know, he fires and he hires them. He's fired Frank so many times and rehired him. He's done the same to Jerry. And Jerry is, which is why Jerry becomes the acting CEO, because she is the ethical face of Waystar Royco. So she makes total sense.

So he does understand what people's positions are. And his motives are all to do with finding the right person to succeed him. You know, he's not a fool. And that's what he's been doing. And nobody's come up, Trump's. Kendall is too neurotic, too, you know, drug crazed. Roman is just too masturbatory adolescent in his behavior. And, you know, he's bright, he's smart, he's got a vision of things,

but he's just not a grown-up. You know, he's stunted. And Shiv can't keep him fucking mouth shut. You know, she just says things at the wrong time, which, you know, She's going along beautifully and then suddenly she'll open her mouth at the wrong moment. And the whole thing goes, you know, pear shape. Right. So the children are, you know, and of course he gets angry.

Of course he would get angry. I get angry with my kids, you know. And I, believe me, I mean, I can go pretty far with my kids when I finally get, they're really upset with them because they don't play ball in certain factors or they're being selfish in a way. And Logan, in a way, on the whole, is resisted most of that for most of his life, you know. And now when this whole question of succession comes up, he finds these kids behaving like really spoil little animals, you know. And it's a little, it's a little disappointing. Audiences don't get that. So he's quite misunderstood in that way.

They don't really get the pressure he's under with these children. I think that's interesting. And I think if you played him as just an outright monster, he wouldn't be interesting to watch. If he's just a cruel monster that's not. Exactly. And he's not. You know, I don't think of him as a monster at all.

I think of him as Logan. I think he has, he's a strategist. He knows how to operate. He's a great operator. And he knows that at times, you know, he, I mean, his technique is to wake people up. So that's why he shouts. He suddenly goes, hey, what's going on?

You know, everybody goes, oh, what is it? And it's a strategy. You know, he does it, you know, just to kind of make, are you still with us? Are you still awake? And I do it for the audience as well. I'm curious, if I had to think of one child that Logan has the softest spot for, to me, watching it feels like Chavon. And I'm wondering what the source of that soft spot is for Logan.

Well, it's your fathers and daughters, say, oldest. thing in the world. It's the oldest relationship in the world, you know, a father and a daughter. I mean, in Leah, he has a problem with three daughters, you know, he's got three daughters he has to deal with. But mercifully, Logan is the one daughter, and he loves his daughter, and his daughter, and he's very proud of his daughter, but she behaves in ways which are untenable. And you go, no, come on, don't do that. Why are you doing that? Just grow up. Shut your fucking mouth. Don't speak until you know what you're saying, you know.

And she inevitably puts a foot in her. And in a way, he's empathetic towards that, but he knows it's difficult. It's so interesting because Sarah has said playing Chauvin has helped her understand Cordelia. But of course there isn't like a one-to-one map of the children in this. Sort of like everyone is Reagan or Goneril or Cordelia, depending on how the wind's blowing.

They're more complicated than that. Yeah. And it's interesting she sees herself as a virtuous Cordelia. You know, I think that's a little neocited, if I may say so. Of course, you know, the Lear vein runs really strong in this story. And you've got these tremendous playwrights on the writing staff of the show. given your long experience in both stage and on screen, what about this show feels like theater,

and what about it doesn't? It all feels like theater, because we shoot them as long scenes, and it has a kind of very strong theatrical perspective. Even though Jesse is not a theater writer, he's ostensibly he's been a TV writer, but it has great theatrical viability. and just in terms of the arch of the story.

And that's very appealing. That's very, that's territory which I'm very at home with. So I love that. I love that aspect. I love the theatrical aspect of the show. I think it's great. You can't overplay it and you just have to seep it in. You know, you have to fold it in, you know, like eggs and a meringue.

You have to fold it in, you know. It's interesting to me because the show's, exceeds so well in both these sort of chaotic crowd scenes and also in these smaller intimate moments. And I'm wondering if you have a preference between the two of which you prefer to play. No, of course I like the one-on-one stuff. I like the stuff when he's trying to reason with these kids and trying to find out where they are and what they're doing and what's going on. So those scenes are always, you know, they're not necessarily the most exciting scenes, but in a way from my point of view, they're the most interesting scenes because he's digging, he's delving,

he's trying to see where his children are in terms of their alignment. So I love that aspect, but then the crazy scenes are great just in terms of musicality. And that's where the writers are, you know, they're offsetting of one idiocy with another idiocy and another part of the room is just brilliant, it's just genius. I mean, like, and also classic telephone calls, like the telephone call to Logan in the car, you know, when I'm talking. But you don't see me. I'm, you know, and she's, and what's the name's reporting? Jess?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kendall's assistant is reporting it on. He says he's laughing and, you know. And then you hear the odd line. So I love that scene. And this girl who's like piggy in the middle of this comedy, you know, between these two kind of nutcases, you know, she's trying to. You just try to do it.

It's brilliant. And it's very theatrical, too, you know. I love her line because I think she said something like, he's laughing, but like not nice, not in a nice way. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, laughing with a nice way. You said elsewhere that you feel like the show over the course, you know, into this third season, has morphed into something different from where it started. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about how you see it changing.

I think it's different. developed rather than change, I think it's heading in a certain direction. And the writers allowing it to go into that direction. So it's, it's morphing into, I mean, it's hard to say where it is at the moment, but it does become pretty full-blooded in a way that it hasn't quite so far. We've seen it go, but we've not seen, as they say, you ain't seen anything yet. I can't tell you what the last, because I'm sworn not to tell you what the last two episodes are, but you will be, you will go, oh, wow, this is astonishing. And for me, it was

very gratifying because a lot of stuff I was able to bring home stuff that I'd been boiling up over three episodes. In the last couple of episodes, I was able to bring to a sort of some kind of crisis head. Interesting. Intriguing. Thank you for that tease. I want to go back to asking you about working with Mark Milod, who is such an integral part to the whole stew, because his directing style is so specific and I think is informed the way the whole thing works. And so I'm wondering what you think it is about his style that works so well with this show. Well, again, it's the, to me, it's the key word of the show. It's the rigor. The rigor that's in the show, the rigor that's in the writing, the rigor that's in the playing. And particularly the rigor that's in the direction.

Mark has got a great... I think it's because he's English. He has a great understanding of text and the value of the text and the importance of the text. He's not looking beyond something visual. But what he does is he gets his visual... He answers his visual questions

by adhering to the text and by shooting the text in the best possible way. So it's not only entertaining, but it's also very cleverly shot. He really shoots it well. He's the best organizer we've got. That's what he does brilliantly. He organizes the scenes exquisitely.

And that's the great skill of a director is to organize the scenes in a way that everything has its moment and has its place and the shape comes to a climax. It comes through various stages to a climatic finish, you know.

And his scenes do with that. His work is he understands that. It's just in his bones. He really does. And he's very modest about it too. Very modest. Something I love about his camera is that it's always moving to sort of catch

the odd stray expression. Something that Alan Ruck said to me today was, you know, just don't ever assume that the camera's not on you. It could swing around to you at any given time. And does that give that extra layer of feeling like you're on stage. Yeah, that's the great thing about, that's the theatrical effect, is that you can never

know that you're not on camera, you know, and sometimes when you think you're on camera, you're not, you know, and that's also to do with the dynamic. That's, and that's also in the edit, too, in the edit, you're thinking, oh, I'm going to go, this. This is why I never get attacked, but I tend to be a doer rather than a watcher, so I don't always watch what I do because I did it years and years ago. And I used to say, well, why has you chosen that take? Do that? And I thought, after a while, I thought, to hell with that. It's not my job. My job is to do it. My job is not to, you know, I'm not, is to, it's to, it's to analyze it, in watching it in performance, you know, and I did, I did that. And I just, now, I follow the Maggie,

I love the Maggie Smith principle when Graham Norton asked her, she said, so, down to Abbey and you must be excited about the season. Oh, yes, it's very nice. And have you seen most of the episode? And there was a pause and she said, well, I've got the box set. And I completely understand what she means by that. That we are not, we're not, I think she and I are probably the same.

We're not the type of actors who are, oh, you know, you get those actors who rush to the video village to see how the scene went. How does it go? You know, I can't be doing with any of that. I'm not interested in any of that. I'm only interested in the doing of it. And they can do what they're like. They can shoot it whatever way they want.

They can place it wherever they want to. That's not my job. My job is done. You know, that's their job. Something that you've said about working on this show that I find so interesting is you said, you share Logan's disappointment in humanity. And I'm wondering if the act of making this show, of doing this show, has made you more pessimistic about humanity or less?

No, it's only confirmed what I found years and years ago when I did, I played Titus Andromachus at the RSC in the 80s, is that life is neither tragic nor comic. It's ludicrous. I love that. I love that. It's perfect. And I think that that's the great thing about our show. It's ludicrous. These people are ludicrous. They're brilliant, but they're ludicrous. It is. And the whole world that they play in is ludicrous. It's a ludicrous world. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. You're welcome.

You're welcome. Nice to talk. All right. This episode was produced. It's always by Steve Allman on Friday, on this feed, on the Presti TV feed. You will hear a precap of episode two with Chris Ryan and Waz and they will be trying to figure out what's coming, I suppose. We will be back next week with episode two and Alan Ruck. Until then, Sean, I'll be on the Iranoc cycle.

Where will you be? I'll be with the hipsters Mc diff sheds Spring just slid into your DMs grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner those sandals that can keep up with you and hang some string lights

to give your patio a glow up Spring's calling Ross, work your magic I'm like. Thanks.