The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 3 Recap

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Bill, Sean, and Joanna are back to break down the third episode of ‘Succession’ Season 4. They discuss the shocking and sudden death of Logan Roy, how the Roy siblings coped with the devastating news, and what makes it such a bold creative decision. Along the way, they also talk about what the remainder of the season looks like without its lead, as well as where characters like Tom and Kerry stand after Logan’s passing. They close with a handful of predictions on the upcoming episodes and their final thoughts on Brian Cox’s all-time performance. Hosts: Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Joanna Robinson Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Erica Ramirez, founder of Ili, and hosts of What About Your Friends, a podcast dedicated to the many lives of friendship and how it's portrayed in pop culture. Every Wednesday on the Ringer dish feed, I talk to my best friend, Stephen Othello, and your favorites from within the Ringer and beyond about friendships on TV and movies, pop culture and our real lives. So join me every Wednesday on the Ringer Dish feed, where we try to answer the question TLCS back in the day, What About Your Friends? Succession, Episode 3, Season 4, we had to wait,

They did not give us screeners for this one, and now we know why. Logan Roy is gone. He's dead. He died abruptly, about 15 minutes into the show. Joanna, did he have a feeling? Walk us through your reactions here. I mean, we've been talking about it just the last couple of weeks. It felt like it had to happen this season.

We weren't sure when if it was going to be like a finale thing, a mid-season thing. This is definitely earlier than I would have expected, and I think it's a really cool, bold move from them. So, yeah. Sean, you kind of predicted this. Well, I thought that they telegraphed it pretty hard with that conversation with Colin at the diner at his birthday party. You know, an unusually reflective, Logan, thinking about his own mortality. It just seemed to be a big flashing signal like, hey, get ready to say goodbye to this old guy. I have a lot of questions, though, about what happened and what happens next.

So I'm excited to break this down with you guys. So big picture take. we've seen a lot of big surprising deaths in the great shows, right? And they're usually, they're super abrupt or they're spelled out, but like probably the red wedding, I think is probably the exemplary, oh my God, death moment. This one, the way they constructed, I haven't read any, I'm sure Jesse Armstrong's doing a bunch of interviews coming Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday about why they decided to do it when, this episode, what the reasons were.

This really felt like a real person dying. This did not, the way they constructed it was we didn't get to say goodbye to him. He didn't have one last final awesome scene. All of a sudden he was just gone. And everyone's trying to, wait, is he gone? Is he not gone? And they're coming to grips to it for basically a half hour of the show, which I think, Joe, I think this is kind of what real life is like, right?

TV doesn't usually do it this way. I wonder if Brian Cox is mad. He didn't get a big death scene. But I went back and wrote down what Logan Roy's final words are, which is. clean out the stalls, strategic refocus, a bit more fucking aggressive. And that's the last line from Logan Roy on succession. I've been checking in on scripted the Summer Redstone book that you keep citing Bill just to like sort of see what real life stuff. And Summer Redstone died during COVID. And so like something very similar happened with him where like people couldn't come and see

each other. A lot of this happened during COVID, right? Like you couldn't go see loved ones, even if they were actively ailing. Sometimes it's a shock and you couldn't possibly plan for it. And sometimes in something like COVID, so it's my understanding from that book that like something very similar happened where Sherry Redstone had the phone put by his ears and said keep the line open and was just talking to him as he was dying. So it's like it's a reference to that. But also as you say, like this idea of you can't plan for something like this. And sometimes it just does happen over the phone or over an email or something like that. So yeah. What do you think, Shao?

Do we know how old Logan is? Have they said his age? Because if you do it by the way, he turned 80s, season one. Right. Season 1 was five years ago. I don't know if it's four years in succession life versus, you know, whatever it was. But he's either 84 or 85, I think. Okay.

So that's relevant to what I was going to say, which is that I was watching the Masters today. And I took a look at Jack Nicholas teeing off, you know, to kick off the event. And Jack Nicholas is 83 years old. And God, God love him, one of the greatest of all time. He looked every day of his age. Now, he had a great swing, but I was like, man, that looks, if I can do that at 83, that's miraculous. And Logan was living an aggressive lifestyle for an 84-year-old man. And so it's, you know, it's not like that shocking that he would go in transit.

You know, he was still trying to live the life of the 50 or 60-year-old Logan Roy and not willing to let go. That was kind of the theme of the show. And so for him to kind of die off screen while making another move, making maybe the final move, although clearly his speech to ATN indicated that he wasn't totally done, I think kind of said everything you need to know about him. You know, he was a real, like, die holding the scepter on the throne kind of a guy. And in this case, he literally died on another kind of throne. So, you know, just, I thought it was appropriate and well done.

And obviously, like, there's a whole other, like, a hugely emotional aspect to this episode that I thought was so interesting because losing a parent is the ultimate universal tragedy. That's like something that so many people can relate to. And even though Logan might be one of the worst people in the world in the universe of succession, I still was like completely emotionally touched by the way that they portrayed the kids coping with his loss. So it was kind of amazing the way that they were able to thread that needle. Yeah, so this was tonight was the second time I saw this. I thought the show was amazing.

I don't know if it was the best succession episode or one of like the four or five best, but I thought it was the most unique. It's really not funny at all for the last 45 minutes. the humor's just sapped away. The kids all have to figure out not only how to deal with this, but you're saying you goodbye to your parent, none of them really had anything to say to him.

Like there were so many telling moments of all of them are basically Fredo and the Godfather. None of them know how to, none of them know how to take charge. None of them know what to say. Kendall tries to do it when he's standing on the deck at the end and he starts yelling at Frank like,

get him, go ahead. I want you to get him the best heart doctor. right and he's just talking gibberish. All of them are such losers that in a way, it's kind of perfect. You know, they're devastated that this guy died. They just had this horrible karaoke interaction with them where he stormed off and he said they weren't serious people. They could never win with them in a weird way now that he's out of the way. They might be able to live their lives. But yet, all them were devastated. So, Joina, what's going on beyond just, I lost my dad? What was at the root of how hard they took this when it's an 85-year-old guy that they didn't even really like?

Well, it's like, you know, when you're, I think it's Carlos says on the phone, like you were estranged and they were like, oh, we weren't estranged. We just had a family function. But like they didn't have closure with him. They weren't on good terms with him. They're going to carry a lot of guilt around this because of the last conversation they had with him. Kendl and Shiv particularly, but then Roman left him that voicemail that he'll never know whether or not he listened to.

where he's like, are you a cunt? Okay, goodbye, you know. And so, like, that's the last thing in theory that he said to his dad. So they're going to carry all this guilt around that. And then you have to think about the other side. Hopefully, they'll think about this in therapy at some point, that Logan made choices that put him on the plane and not on the boat with his family where he could have been.

Like, say, if he were to die today no matter what, he could have done it at Connor's wedding surrounded by his family, but he did it on a plane surrounded by, like, sycophants and hangers on. and that's a choice that Logan made actively in his life. And I think to your point about Ken, shouting down the phone at Jess or shouting down on the phone at Frank, it's just, I rewatched because I thought this is probably going to happen tonight just based on how HBO was acting around screeners.

I rewatched episode two, season one, shit show at the fuck factory, which is like when they're in the hospital, just rolls off the tongue, right? What a great show. They're in the hospital in season one, and how those characters grappled with that. versus here. And in both cases, they're trying to sort of deploy their privilege, their money to try to handle something that is, as you say, like universal. We all have to deal with them.

There's a limit to what your privilege can do. We're going to get them the best doctors. Let me talk to the pilot, like all this sort of stuff and hearing, no, no, no, it's out of your control. You can't buy your way through this. I think that's a part of what we're seeing with Ken on the top of the ship there. Who won the episode out of the three siblings for you, Sean? Nobody. Their dad died, and the last thing that each one of them said was a massive insult to their father. Think about it.

To Joanna's point, the last thing that Roman said was he called his father a cunt, and, you know, Shiven and Kendall teed off in the karaoke room to end the last episode. And so, and, you know, Connor is a whole other, I mean, Conner is really the one who won. Yeah. Because, you know, Connor... got married. And it seems like is in as close as we can get to a healthy partnership on this show.

I agree. You're right. And you're, and it's also so wrong. You know, I feel like Willa was kind of dancing through the raindrops this entire episode and this entire season. And, you know, she could have just snapped Connor in half today and she didn't. She married him. And so if anybody won, it was probably him. And Connor's been the most authentic out of the four of them because all them are in just complete denial about what their relationship was with this guy, how competent they are in all forms

of life. And Connor's reaction when he heard the news was like, he never liked me. And he's like, no, oh, I didn't mean it that way. But that was his first reaction. It wasn't like, oh, my God, I've lost dad. It was more, he never liked me. And I never proved him that I was worth his love. I think it was really interesting.

Like, for the three kids who get on the phone with him, Is all three of them, like, say something that doesn't leave him off the hook, right? They're like, you did terrible things, but it's okay. But I love you anyway or whatever. And I do think it's interesting that in this episode we're reminded a couple times of what of like a piece of shit father Logan is, like him making Roman talk to Jerry, which is just like the worst thing that he could do to Roman, right? And then not showing up for Connor's wedding at all.

And then the reminder, the cake reminder of like what he did to Connor. when he was a kid with his mom. So we get all these like one after another remind. Yeah, the loony cake. Like we're reminded. Logan Roy is a terrible father. And it is still dev, even all of, like, they're not pretending that he's not a terrible father.

And that is still devastating to lose. I wrote all these down quickly. Roman says, dad, you're going to win. You're a monster. You win. Like that's what he says to cheer him up on his deathbed. Kendall babbles and then says, I can't forgive you, but it's okay, I love you.

Soothing thoughts as you're fading into heaven. And then Shiv just did, I love you, don't go, and just babbled for a minute straight and was not coherent at all. And those were the three emotional goodbyes. They literally couldn't think of anything to say it. The reason I asked the winning question was the only lucid moment the three of them have, somehow Shiv reads a statement, and it's actually pretty good and pretty professional. and she dipped into her PR kind of training, but she actually seemed pretty competent.

She was the only one out of the three that I think could have done it. And then, of course, she turns into jelly right after. But other than that, this was not a competent performance from the Roy siblings. Can we compare? So she says, slightly paraphrasing, Logan Roy built a great American family company. As you know, the world will be convening, blah, blah. This nation has lost a passionate champion, an American Titan,

and we lost a beloved father. We intend to shepherd it through whatever his future may be. We intend to be here. Sherry Redstone, when her father died, said, my father led an extraordinary life that not only shaped entertainment as we know it today, but created an incredible family legacy. So it's proud to be his daughter, and I will miss him always. So that conversation they had about how much they have to inject family,

we are the Roy kids. It's Logan Roy, but it's also Kendall and Roman and Shiv Roy. Like, that is just pulled, I think, identically from the Sherry Redstone playbook of, like, this is a family company, a family legacy, and I'm here to shepherd it on. know. I pray to God. I'm described as a passionate champion when I pass on. That's really how I want to be Sean. I'm a passionate champion and ruined Jets fan. Are you the first two things? Are you planning to outlive me, Bill? Is that? Well, it's just if I outlive you, I'm just going to be like he was a ruined Jets fan and a passionate champion of things. Bill's a monster. He always said. I'm a monster. I win. I win, Sean. I'll never forgive you, Bill.

So the big three plots for this show where Logan collapsing on the plane, Connor getting married. And then kind of the subplot of first 15 minutes of the show, which was a really nice swerve, Roman thinking he has to fire Jerry, which was just a typically evil and manipulative move by the dad to see, are you really on my side? Not 100% sure why Logan turned on Jerry. Is there a reason? Did Jerry do too good of a job? Was there a smoking gun? Was it the stuff with the dick picks? Or is this just what he does?

because the dick pick conversation was in the previous thing on, that informed my interpretation of it. But then also, I think Logan was really embarrassed to walk in on Hugo and Jerry laughing at Carrie's audition tape last week. You think that's what it is. Okay. Yeah. I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back for sure.

I think that was the thing that he had already been thinking about it because of a loss of trust with Jerry and some confusion and embarrassment around the dickpicks. And maybe even, who knows, maybe even some of the DOJ stuff, it's possible that he thought she didn't do a good job, even though obviously she did. What did she say? She got them through the storm and no one got wet. She had a line similar to that. Little like Steph McMahon with Vince, right, Sean?

Well, she knows when to step in and when to step out, you know? Yeah. So the kids find out first. They eventually go to get Shiv, who's upset. Why didn't you come tell me? Sorry. All happened so fast. Then they have to tell Connor the he never even liked me thing.

And Roman, for some reason, is holding on to Logan not being dead. It's like, it's not official. He's doing this. He just kind of unravels, which is fine. Your dad's done. But what becomes interesting as it becomes clear he's dead, and this is one of the great things about this show, everyone starts playing chess.

Kendall's the only one out of the three who is immediately like, how does this affect the sale? Is there a way to delay the announcement of this? Because maybe we can figure out some sort of plan. Like he's seeing the chess board. Shiv and Roman are basically ruined. And then Carl and Frank and Carolina on the plane, there's a couple moments where it's like, we need to give the statement.

Then it's like we need to be in the statement for the support of, you know, to show the strength of the board, which is bullshit. So you can see the hints of the jacking. Am I overthinking that or was that what was going on? I felt like that was laid down pretty clearly. No, the show's called Succession. Like, yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is what the next seven episodes are going to be, right?

Is, I presume, the jockeying for power. But what I thought was so interesting is like even before that kicked him with Kendall, and I thought that the lines he had about like these are going in the memoirs. This is going into like the board meeting records. Anything we say about keeping a plane circling or whatever else, like people, whatever we do today will always be what we did on the day our dad died. Like that's a huge thing. But I think it's so clever of them to have set this.

I mean, they always set things at big events. obviously, but to set it on this boat where they have to keep walking around in plain sight of other people, but pretend that their life isn't, like, completely shattered, like, when Kendall goes to get Shiv, and they're just, like, trying to, like, hold it together in front of these other people, because these are people who have always lived their life in the spotlight are never allowed to have, like, a normal emotion because they are so famous. And so to set the episode that way where they're constantly under scrutiny, we never get to talk about the things they say after the episode, but we do this week, because we didn't record it.

Yeah, but Mark Milad, they did this really cool thing. One of the takes they did, they did it 27, I think, minutes through, 28 pages of script. They shot it as like a one-act play, essentially, where they like, it's not a one shot. They tossed off between cameras. They had to reload the cameras because they're films, so they had to reload them every 10 minutes. But they were, like, passing off between cameras, hiding film canisters around the set so they could easily reload and all this sort of stuff like that. And Milad said he wanted to make it feel like unflinching. like unbearably unflinching on the kids.

And that a lot of the, they did it a couple, they did it broken up, but they did it that way once. And he said a lot of the footage we ended up using was from that take where they just put them through the ringer and didn't take the cameras off of them. It's not an episode I would watch eight times, but I also think it was one of the great succession episodes,

just because it was, think, how much TV we watched. It was such a unique episode. I can't remember another show quite like this. Can you, Sean? It was a hard look at a tragic moment in people's lives, you know, and to show that we kind of come to rely on to comfort us with how mean everyone is to each other and how well-written that meanness is. I actually just started watching it a second time, like immediately after we finished, just to kind of remember what that first 15

minutes were like, because you're right, Bill, like it was basically standard issue succession. It was joke a minute. It was Logan trying to cut people's heads off. It was pitting kids against each other. It was a big event in which everyone was going to be gathered together. You know, it was all the hallmarks of the best episodes of the show. And I really, really, appreciate and respect the decision to not try to. There was a one scene with Connor and Willa that I felt like the laughs were real. But it was still like an emotionally tenuous scene. I mean, what I really liked about it specifically was that you had all three of the kids, the kind of lead kids, simultaneously thinking about their relationship to their father who's just

died and their relationship to the world at large and like emanating that. You know? And Kendall was like the most explicit because he's constantly thinking about legacy and constantly thinking about perception, what will be said about him, how he'll be remembered. But, you know, Shiv has gone through this incredible journey through the last four seasons of her relationship with her father basically being completely destroyed. And she realizes that like he died at the absolute worst time in the history of her relationship with him. Because we know she has a complicated relationship with her mom from watching her wedding episode. But we don't, we didn't, you know, we don't really have any evidence that like he spurned her in any way in the past. So for her, it's like this

ultimate devastation. And you can see she's, you know, Sarah Snook, I thought was incredible in the sequences where she's sort of like quivering and trying to come to terms. And she's going to lash out because they didn't come to get her. But then she understands and has empathy. And then Roman, who has just been a pawn for so long. And he's such a pawn that even at the end, like you said, he's not willing to accept the truth because he's waiting for his kind of his dad to come in and save the day. Because that's what he thinks will always happen in the back of his mind. So I just thought it was an amazing ability to kind of show us exactly who the characters are, even at the worst moment of their lives. It's just such a well-written show. There's very few shows that

that's well-written. So I really appreciated that aspect of it. I thought the star stuck thing, one of her best episodes, if not the best. There's one moment when Kendall's trying to plan ahead and she's in the background standing behind him and her face is just changing expressions because she's not only like, what the fuck is this guy doing, but like, oh my God, this guy's turning into my dad. Just the way he was, and her face starts doing all these different things

in like, I don't know, 20 seconds. I thought she was really good. In the after, you know, the after comments that Joanna was referencing, Bill,

Sarah Snook was, it seemed like she almost couldn't cope with the idea of Logan dying. Like, she talked about, like, leaving it on set and then how you have to feel about the relationship.

I mean, obviously, they're a very close-knit production. Alan Ruck told the story about Sarah Snook coming and telling him that Logan was going to die and, you know, how fraught that was and how he didn't even really have to act because of how, you know, how overwhelmed she was in coming to tell him.

And, you know, you could tell that there was some real energy going on here, too, because that, you know, that this has been like a real family for a few years for these people. And I think, I think that larger meta conversation, like, because the inside of the episode ends with, like, a lengthy Brian Cox, like, tribute and, like, him talking about, I think they're going to miss me when I'm gone and all the sort of stuff like that. But, like, the meta idea, because as we, as we, as we, as. we discussed in a previous week, there was a version of succession where they thought of killing Logan Roy right at the top and the whole show was about who takes over. So you compare that episode to season one, like he could have gone then. And when you watch how the kids are in that episode, like they're frantic or whatever, but they're not devastated in the way they are in this episode, A, because he doesn't actually die, but B, I think we haven't earned that from the characters.

Now three plus seasons later, knowing who Logan Roy is in their life, knowing the shadow that Logan, Roy and Brian Cox cast over this show, there's this like meta, what do we do? And they did a lengthy, like basically this season on succession trailer afterwards because obviously they've been holding a lot of this back because, you know, they didn't want to announce that Logan was dying in episode three. And there's a line from Kennel's like, basically, I know what you're thinking. What are we going to do without our king? Which is identical to a line that was in Wakanda forever talking about what we're going to do with Chadwick Boseman. And like, basically, I know what you're thinking. And like, Both of these are just these meta ideas of how does the story go forward without this gravitational pull of a character like Logan Roy? How do these kids take over without this big figure in media and business? I was trying to think of TV deaths, which have happened in all these different ways, but very rarely do we have a death and then watch everybody processing it in real time, right? the biggest, like the most famous deaths we've had in TV, Tony Soprano, we're still arguing about whether he died or not, right? Question mark, yeah.

When in Game of Thrones, now I'm blanking, what's the dad's name of Game of Thrones? Who got beheaded in the first season? Ned Stark. Yeah. That one, and we watched it through the daughter's eyes. And then they kind of processed it, but it wasn't like this. One of my favorite ones was in Cheers when coach died in real life. And in the first half,

episode coming back, Diane was in a monastery where she couldn't talk and Sam goes to try to save her. And I think like at some point she, they're talking for a minute and then she's like, oh, I'm so sorry about the coach. And it was all the real life stuff that bled into the interaction. Now that was like the best executed I've seen of like a character dying and the people processing in real time. This one you could feel like the connections of the actual actors. Like what you said about the Saracynic thing. I actually could feel that in the thing. I didn't feel like it was pretend.

The one it reminded me of a little bit, just the way it made me feel, was Adriana and the Sopranos. Oh, that's a great one. That was so devastating as a viewer to watch that because she seemed like the only innocent left in that world, you know? And that one is just so, so painful. Sorry, Joanna.

Spoiler alert. No, that's the one episode of the Sopranos I've seen, actually. Honestly. I don't know why. episode to start with. But it's, I mean, you're right, Bill. It's rare that you feel like you're actually, it's more about surprising the audience

with something like shocking at the Red Wedding than it is about necessarily like being forced to grieve on behalf of the character. And this was like, this was 40 minutes of grieving. Breaking bad hit man guy. That was a good one. When he died on the river. Mike. Mike. Yeah.

I was thinking, like, you bringing up coach and shares is a really good example because like when it's that meta, we've lost an actor and now we have to narratively deal with it. Like I was thinking about John Spencer's Leo McGarry on West Wing. Like that's another one where it's just like really emotional because you're thinking about the actor or even like Phil Hartman on news radio. You know what I mean? You're just like thinking about the real person that they've lost.

And obviously Brian Cox is still alive and thriving. But it did it does hit that way, especially in an episode three. Somebody I thought was, I mean, I want to talk a little bit about Tom in this episode. This is like a huge Tom episode too. Well, even beyond the Tom part, now all these people whose fate was tied to Logan realizing in real time on the show like, oh, I'm fucked now.

This is a wrap for me. But Tom specifically. Tom voicing it, Greg maybe then realizing it. Greg definitely leaked that to the journalist that he was talking to, by the way. Never told Greg anything on the phone, like, ever. And then Carrie, Carrie not realizing it,

but everybody else realizing it was fantastic. Something I've always loved about succession, because the knives are so often out, it's those moments of tenderness, like when someone is tender to someone else, then it means that much more because usually they're just slicing each other. So like Tom's saying,

I don't know, honey to Shiv, when they've, like, had so much terrible stuff between them the last couple episodes. Or like, or Kendall would call it, say shivvy honey, like, to her, like when he's trying to tell her the news. Like these moments of tenderness. Or Frank, Frank talking to Kendall,

Frank being like historically, I think he's technically his godfather. Like, historically, this person who's close to Kendall and being like, you can't talk to the pilot's son. He's flying the plane. Like, calling him son in that moment is just like these little moments of tenderness. And then the lack of it, the lack of connection between Roman and Jerry. Because, like, in any other circumstance, Jerry would have offered something to Roman in that moment.

But since he just sliced at her off. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He was like, I'm sad. Yeah. Basically, like, can I get a hug? And Jerry, the fucking Ice Queen. Although Jerry did have that moment before Logan died when Roman was basically like, they're going to shi-hand you.

And she was so mad. And then it cuts away and it cuts back. And she had the quivering lip, angry, sad thing. It was like, one of the only times we've seen her crack. But now Logan's gone. So maybe she can relay back. I think she would have had some quarter for him if he hadn't. betrayed her like less than an hour before.

Yeah, she had a couple of arrows in the quiver. Yeah. If they're actually trying to fire her. I liked what she said when he was attempting to fire her when she said, this is nothing to me. That was, that was a dagger. By the way, I wrote down, Jerry looked great at the wedding. Great outfit.

I liked her whole look. I thought it was a great Jerry performance. We didn't mention, speaking of people who realized the gig was up for them, maybe the saddest moment of the show. Colin the Grim Reaper. Colin looking so sad on the tarmac. He's lost his life. His best friend.

It's over. It's abruptly done. What's he going to do now? Doesn't even have a reference. Some other stuff I liked. It seems like they're dead and Carl they're all in the plane and Carl goes, well, I'm going to have a little stiffner here.

It's up to have a drink. It's funny that Carl Frank. Frank definitely has the better relationship with the family and Carl's just, hired gun. I hope my severance package isn't going to be threatened by Logan's death.

Like he's just, doesn't compare it. I think we got, Carolina was back, got her in some scenes. I was excited for that. She was kind of driving the show for about 15 minutes there.

I loved it. Get Dagmaro Domichick back in the mix. Carrie, who, that whole scene when she comes out of the back, she's like, that was fucking crazy.

She's losing her mind. And Carl called her juggles the clown. Well, I loved what Tom said as soon as she left the room where he was like, judging by her grin, I think she caught a foul ball, Yankee Stadium. That was really great.

So, let's just walk through this. Yeah. So Logan was in the bathroom. Was Carrie in the bathroom? Undetermined. Like, are you saying, was this a Mile High Club situation? I'm just asking questions. Did he go out with a bang?

It's either that or an Elvis on the John death. It's one of those two. Tywin Lannister. Well, I was trying to figure out like why she was so shook. And I thought the implication was maybe that she was present for the moment. Oh, interesting.

That that was why they kind of like, that was why she was so shell-shocked. And that was why they kind of ushered her out of there was that she would have a kind of difficulty coping in a way that maybe everyone else there wouldn't. You know, it's not like Frank doesn't have a strong bond to Logan. You know, he says in the episode, he's known him 40 years.

Carrie, you know, she looked like she was losing her mind. The implication is that. that she, like, when Schiff says, Carrie talked her for quite a while, like, the implication, I think is that Carrie had was the one, like, with him talking to him while he died, other than the kids being on speakerphone, right? So. But, like, while he died? Hmm. Yeah. I'm just, I mean.

You're asking the right question, Sean, and I appreciate that about you. I like it as well, Sean. It's your journalistic integrity, and I like it. Plus, I think she was locked into that 9 p.m. daily ATM spot. Now, I don't know what they do. the Carrie variety show or everything going to have. I think that one probably sailed.

That's really tough. She's just going to have to go to true social now, you know, just to build her brand socially. Tom asked Greg to delete some files because God forbid they're not doing something illegal as dramatic. Logistics.

What's at the bottom of your stocking, Greg? An old guy who hated you. Okay. If we're talking about best lines of the episode, though, I really think it belongs to it's Ken, right, who says, we can do Regans with tweaks talking about how, we'll do a funeral off the rack.

We can do Regans with tweaks. Incredible. What? I didn't know what that meant. Reagan had died like 40 years earlier. It's unclear if Kendall was even alive for it. Can we circle back to Tom quickly, though, really quick? Yes.

After he says that to Greg, and he's kind of like leaning into his comfort, which is just making fun of Greg. That makes him feel better. He has like a real emotional breakdown. And part of it is obviously that he has put all of his his eggs in Logan's basket and now he doesn't know what to do. But part of it is this weird

like, you know, reaching for a father figure mentor thing that he had with Logan, which sometimes was rewarded and other times was not. And it seemed like he was as close as he was going to get to being in that, you know, right in that VP seat, that second seat

next to Logan. And like what? What did you guys think was going through his mind or what he was feeling? Like, why was he so distraught about in that moment. It felt like a cocktail to me of like a bunch of different things. And this is what the episode does throughout is like conflate Logan with the company. Is this the man that we're grieving or is this the uncertainty of the company?

Like when Roman looks at the stock price just plummeting and he's like, there he is. That's dad. He's the couple inches on the stock ticker, right? So like that's throughout the episode. It's like, okay, Logan's dead. The man is dead. But also, you know, we have business. concerns about him. So I don't think anyone is allowed to have a pure moment of grief for a man

when he's so closely identified with a company, a deal, a future, you know? The stock thing was a big piece of it. Yeah, if you're talking about eggs in the basket, it's Tom, it's Carrie, it's Colin the Grim Reaper. Greg. It's Greg, but he didn't like Greg. So I always feel like Greg is going to turn out okay. Yeah, but the kids. The kids had no quarter for Greg. He's trying to talk to him and they're like, fuck off. I just feel like Greg is termites. Like he's somehow coming back.

You just know he's, the wings will show up on your floor one day and there he is. I love that everyone hates Greg this season. It's pretty funny. For Carl and Frank, pretty good. I think for Roman bad because it seemed like Logan only really liked Roman because it was the one kid who he still had some sway with. Shib not sure. And then Kendall probably in the.

the best spot just as the oldest kid and, you know, I'm sure that's going to be, the jockeying is going to be a big piece of this. Kendall and Shiv do not know that Roman had kind of flipped on them though. Right. Like that really never came to light. So it'll be interesting to see if that sorts itself out. We saw a lot in the preview, by the way, of what's coming next week, like about what's coming this whole season.

I don't know if we want to speculate too much, but I felt like they were actually quite generous with what they showed us. It was a season-long trailer for sure. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5 or 15 milligram injection. Zepound contains terseptitide and should not be used with other

terseptide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pins or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain. or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia.

If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfoniluria or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsened kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. Can we talk about the hugs, the hug scene between the three kids, Joanna? Yeah, I love talking about hugs. No real hugs at all, no consoling each other really at all for the first 15 minutes.

And then when they bring Connor and they tell him, Roman comes in, like almost like a wrestling move, he comes low and like hugs his arm quickly because he like doesn't know how to have intimacy with anyone. Yes. And then you see Connor and Kendall. hug a little bit later. But then at the end, the three kids actually have like a real bonding hug. Yeah. And, you know, this whole show really is, it's not about Logan. It's about his effect on these kids and their relationships with each other is the heart of the show. And that's probably the most

intimate moment the three of them have had, right? Am I missing a different show? There's two other moments, if you want to count hugs on Succession. I would say it's Shiv's wedding. There's that hug they have in the boat that is like kind of drunken and stoned but it's like kind of sweet at the same time and then there's that really important like shiv and kendall hug in season two when he's like you did the hall of fame episode yeah yeah um but yeah the hugs are few and far between there's also right before that there's that hug between tom and shiv where like he holds her close she's still kind of curled on herself like she's sort of like yeah you know not fully in the hug but she lets him do that and she i think where all the kids are at the end of the episode

episode is so important, of course, right? Because, like, Connor's getting married to Willow, which seems like, honestly, the healthiest thing that someone is doing. They're allowing themselves freedom from their dad. And I'm just going to do, he wasn't even going to fucking be there anyway. So Connor might as well get married, right? Yeah. She calls Tom over to get in the car with her, and she says something about, like, can you run me through it again? But which just felt like, the thinnest of pretences of like, I just want the comfort of this person here with me. Roman gets on the plane, you know, to walk his dad out and then Ken all alone. You know what I mean?

Like that's where it all shakes out at the end of the episode. I think that's really how they react to this. Of course, that's like the whole show. How are they going to react to this? Are they going to feel free from the toxic influence of their father to form actual close relationships? Like, can Shiv and Tom reconcile once again? I'm rooting for those kids? Or are they forever poisoned Sean?

What do you mean? No, I'm nodding my head. Tom has to get back with Shib. That's his last chance or all his last few years with the Roy family goes down the tubes. Watching that scene of them hugging, though, that I was like, this is the last time they'll ever be this close. This is the end of that. Because he is what brought them together. I mean, even though they hated him.

However, I will say that something that they've underlined a bunch of times in the show is Shiv saying that she was a complete mess when she met Tom and he helped put her back together. We've never learned exactly what the circumstances of that were, but she said that a bunch of time. I was such a mess when I met you and put me back together. So like what, you know, perhaps, I'm not saying that's a healthy foundation for a relationship, but like if she's feeling unmoored by this and feels like she wants to reach out and lean on Tom, she might. Or, you know, love is a lie and romance is dead, you know, who knows? Well, how about she saying, how about Schiff saying when she heard the news it was something serious? as she was hoping it was mom.

But that was an incredible moment. Tough. That was kind of telling. Tough one for the mom. I don't blame her. We've met the mom and hung out with her. She's the true villain of this show for what it's worth, the way that she's been characterized.

I mean, she's not even charming. She's just, I mean, she's witty, but she's painfully mean. And really is the one who ultimately shived them. Agree. Willa and Connor, the marriage, just quickly. Quotes included, I'm always scared you're going to walk away. My father's dead and I feel old.

That was such a good line. My father's dead and I feel old. Are you just with me from Money, Willa? And her answer, after thinking about it, was, I mean, there is something about money and safety, yeah. But then she does that. But, you know, this has been pretty good. But I'm happy.

I'm not going to walk. Not today. Not today. It felt very honest. My note on that scene was incredible scene. That was all I wrote. Yes. I loved that.

That's my, like, that's one of my favorite scenes of the episode. I'll be thinking about it a lot if love is just transactional, which is something that the show brings up a lot. I also think this question is, like, people delivering news is so interesting in this episode because, like, obviously there's Tom having to, you know, having this fraught relationship with all the Roy kids, but being, like, very kind and, like, Midwestern gentle with them and all the sort of stuff like that. But, like, even before that, there's, Shiv, you go tell Connor that dad's not coming

because Connor likes you. Or Roman, you call Madsen because Mattson likes you. Or Kendall, you go tell Connor that dad's dead. Okay, I'll go with you. Like, who's delivering the message? And then, like, the kids being like, we are the one who's going to read the statement

about our dad being dead. Like, it's going to be us. It's not going to be Carolina or whoever. And so I just thought that that was that idea of, like, I don't know if it's just a general where you hear the news from at a time like this or if it's a larger, like, trying to think about the Roy kids

as a functional unit and deploying each one of, like, each and other at the right diplomatic moment, you're the right person to do this thing. You're the right person to do that thing. I just thought that was an interesting thread. How about I whipped up some Greglets? Also. Tom. Two to three, Greglets. You found some new Gregs? Yeah. I whipped up some Greglets.

I mean, what I would say if I were Greg is I might be pleased that it takes several to replace me. Right. You know? He just finds you visually aggravating right now. That was another thing he said. All right. It's, uh, we hit everything. But now we got to do some predictions.

The old man is dead. Seven episodes left. There's going to be a power struggle brewing. Kendall is going to be involved. Are we crossing off Shiv in the power struggle at this point? Or do you think she can finally get her shit together? I am personally leaning toward the cross-off. How about you, Sean?

Should we not be opening Connor winning President of the United States of America? I'm sure you don't want to start there? A sympathy surge? A sympathy surge? Could be a sympathy surge for Connor. I don't think she's out. I don't...

I actually think she's still a great candidate in many ways. Roman? Roman, I do not think is a good candidate. I never thought he was a good candidate for this job. It could be a good number two. Like, well-deployed as a number two. Yeah. I think he is a impetrous.

How about the Carl Frank Jerry that threesome? Anybody? Joe, I don't see it. I mean, you know. Would you clean how? Oh, as the top job? Yeah, you're asking what the top job, right, Phil? I was grabbing some power here.

I mean, they could, they could grab some power depending on how they play the kids, but none of them are getting the top seat now, for sure. My instinct was Kendall, and yet he still has like a fucking massive skeleton in his graveyard. That only Colin O. Marcia knows about it. I was just going to say Marcia is.

Colin knows, Marcia knows, and Marcia's son. And we haven't seen Marcia yet this season. She's been shopping in Italy forever. So those two know. And Colin the Grim Reaper, that's it. Yeah. But that. And Colin's out to pasture.

Collins's now talking about religion with his dad somewhere. You know, he'll never have a friend again. Poor guy. Well, but doesn't Kendall have to befriend him if he has this incriminating information on it? I don't think Colin wants to spend any time. Kendall, based on their interaction throughout this series. I cannot imagine a cozy diner chat between Colin and Kendall now. And then the other piece we have is the sale and all the mechanics of that now that

the dad is dead. Does anything go through? Does there one aspect of everything we've spent the last 10 episodes on happen? We got a few scintillating looks at Alexander Scars Guard in the preview. There's a lot of Alex going forward for the rest of the season. That seems clear. That much seems clear. And also Justin Kirk, Jared Bacon, the presidential candidate, also seems crucial, which is why it's good to have Shiv on your team, I suppose, if politics are going to come into play.

But yeah, it almost seems like first half of the season, family stuff, back half of the season. I mean, we're not even at the halfway mark, of course, but like, you know, the guest stars come into play. Maybe that's how you fill the gaping hole that Brian Cox leaves in a show. You bring in Justin Kirk and Alexander Scarsaird. It's not bad. You need three to four Greglitz to fill the hole that Brian Coxley's behind. I want Adrian Brody back too. Just bring back the whole gang.

You know, we need more Stewie. I need more Hope Davis. Like bring back the whole fucking All-Star team. This has got one of the deepest benches in TV history. Does Adrian Brody wear as many layers as he wore last season or more? Literally. Chris Ryan five layer. $65,000 worth of Patagonia on one man.

Great. Bill, I mean, Bill, what do you think? Like what? If you were doing the NBA? over under's podcast, right? We're at the turning point now. Is the company sold? Is it not sold?

Does we do one of the kids rise? Like, what do you think happens? I'm still confused by the simultaneous sales going on with the gojo, but then on top of it, the kids trying to buy Pierce and what happens now with the dad dying? Could there be like a hostile takeover? I thought Carl was really interesting during the last half of this episode. Frank seemed like genuinely bummed out and he had that moment where he was like, I've known your dad for 40 years.

And even though his dad was horrible to Frank and fired him and treated him like shit. Like I do think he liked him. Whereas Carl is along the lines of who's that guy at the end of season one who tries to get the deal done with Roman and they get kidnapped. And then they're on the boat at the end of, at the end of, is it season one? No, season two, I'm sorry. And they're on the boat. And he's like, it's a good deal. And Roman's like, I don't know.

I don't think we should do it. I don't trust those guys. And that guy's like, fuck it, I bailed. He leaves the boat. He was like, you know what I'm talking about? The guy with the dark hair? This is the end of season two. Oh, yes.

Yes. I know he was talking about. To take the deal with the Middle Eastern people. And Roman says it's flimsy. I don't think they're serious. And that guy gets pissed and he leaves. That guy might come back. I think in this universe, anybody can circle back.

You just never know. It's all on the table. The mom? You know? What if Bob Iger steps up? And he's like, I want in. I need another big acquisition for Disney for the portfolio. What if Bobbagger's like, oh, you kick me out of Marvel.

Okay, I'll come by. He steps up. Yeah, the King of Florida, absolutely. Yeah. Well, the Sumner-Readstone, that was his daughter who was pretty embattled. Not a lot of people were sold on her. Took a lot of shit. And then ultimately, when the dad died, she took over.

And maybe it's as simple as that. Can I, okay, again, out of that. Redstone book that I've been reading. So at Summer Redstone's funeral, Sherry Redstone, this is what's in the, according to the unscripted book, she knelt so close to the grave her children thought she might fall in between bouts of crying. She told her father everything she'd ever wanted to say to him, which made me think of a lot of stuff that's in this episode.

And then there's this whole part in that section where she, because she doesn't have closure with her dad, she asks, like, one of his colleagues, like, was my dad proud of me? And he essentially says, like, your dad, like, your dad, like, your dad, like, your dad, love to fight and he loved to win and you never gave up the fight. So yeah, he admired you. And that reminded me of Logan saying like these kids have juice. Like they have juice. They didn't give up the fight. Like was Logan proud of them or did he love them in the end? And like they don't get to know that. He said that. But I do think, you know, he was to a certain degree, proud of them for holding the line in that way.

We're going to find out. Next week, a lot of drama for next week's episode. This is all going to sort out in a bunch of different ways. we might be bidding a dude to carry as a character. Might not be seen her again. Everybody else is in play. And then Tom is going to have to scramble his ass off. And then we'll see if the kids can stay aligned. But last thoughts on Brian Cox before we go?

They kind of really let him cook in those first two episodes. We were wondering when we did last week's show, like, man, they're really, they increased his usage rate, gave him some big scenes. They gave him the big pirate speech on ATN. and then all of a sudden ended. But I thought it was a really good season for him. I'm going to miss that character. I'm not going to miss some of the attentions behind the character, but he was a great anti-hero,

got a lot of mileage out of him. And really, really just memorable character and a crown on that guy's career, Brian Cox. He was like more than that guy. He was never like an Anthony Hopkins type of actor, but I don't know, where'd you put him, Sean? Like, if you were putting him in the hierarchy, he definitely wasn't a that guy. He was Brian Cox.

He had some big signature parts. Never won an Oscar. I mean, you know, he's like in order of the British Empire and was one of the most celebrated stage actors of his generation. In addition to being, you know, Colonel Stryker in the Wolverine films. He knew you were going to say, right? No, I mean, you know, he was the OG Hannibal Lecter. He's the father in 25th hour in my favorite movie scene like the last 20 years. Like, he's the, he's the.

he's one of the great living actors he's also I mean what I'll miss most more than anything and I love the character is him just talking reckless shit in every interview during every season of this show he was just such a hilarious interview because he didn't give a fuck I feel like we have not only seven more weeks of that for the show but also all of the Emmy season

for you to still enjoy that Sean it's still coming they're definitely going to want to get him one more yeah but I think that um you know yes he's a striker he's handle electrical this is obviously like a bump up for him as like a household name and you know like he's got McDonald's endorsements now and stuff like that, which I don't think he would have

gone before. That's a key point. He's not in all these different ads three years ago. He doesn't have the name recognition like that. Love him as Robert McKee in adaptation too. He's got like 10 or 12 of those like, you're amazing for five minutes in a movie parts. You know, he's just, he's one of the greats. Yeah. Well, now he's dead. Not dead in real life. His character's dead. All right. This was an incredible episode. I'm probably going to have to watch it one more time because I feel like we're probably probably miss some crucial things that they always kind of slide in like Easter eggs, right? And I'm sure the interviews over the next two days.

One last thing. One last thing. What the fuck Jamie Chung for like two seconds on this episode as like the wedding planner? What was going on with that? Yeah. Needed a real world person? That was some weird stunt casting. Why was she on a show for one minute?

They had like podcasters on last season. Like they do spot. They do stun casting on the show. It's a very good point. Maybe Comfree can come back. That's what we need. We need more comfort. That's what Greg definitely needs at this moment.

Some Greglets. All right. This podcast was produced by Kai Grady. We will be back. What do we think? Do we get screeners now, Joanna? What happens? Yeah, I do.

They said they were just holding this one back because I talked to them. They actually said they're going to give them to me, but not you guys. Just something. They haven't really appreciated the way we've talked about the show so far. So I just wanted to say thanks to HBO for that. Sorry, guys. What do you think? Three to one odds, Brian Cox.

takes a blowtorch to Jeremy Strong one more time this week and one of his farewell interviews. Two to one. I hope so. I'm not willing to wager, but I am willing to hope. By the way, Jeremy Strong was tremendous of this episode. He was so good. But they were talking about it.

They shot this for two weeks. Like two weeks is how long they took on at least like the boat parts of this episode. And like the idea that Jeremy Strong had like who doesn't get out of character as far as you know, like had to be in that headspace for two weeks. Felt notable that they closed. on him, you know, at another emotional crisis. That final image, yeah. His face is so good in that shot.

So good. I mean, the whole, how many episodes do we have, 29, 32 episodes of him trying to prove to his dad that he was confident. And he just never pulled it off. And then he's looking at the stretcher at the end and the white blanket over the dead body. And he's just like, yep, I never pulled it off. That was how I interpreted it. It wasn't my dad's dad.

It was like, I just never proved to him what I wanted to prove. Yeah, and now he'll never know that I really was his number one boy. It's like CR. Every time CR looks at me across the rewatchable's table. It's at the end of every episode. Was that good enough, Bill? Not quite, Chris. We'll have to try again.

One more. Maybe next time, son. Yeah. Joanne and Sean, good to see you. We'll see you next week.