The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 9 Recap

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Bill, Sean, and Joanna are back to break down the penultimate episode of ‘Succession’ Season 4. They discuss Roman Roy’s disconcerting meltdown at Logan’s funeral, why “Church and State” is a masterpiece episode of television, and the indelible performances across the board. Along the way, they briefly talk about series creator Jesse Armstrong’s career before ‘Succession’ and why it might be the British writer’s magnum opus. They close by recapping the eulogies and noting Ken’s performative nature, before updating their predictions on who will be running Waystar Royco ahead of the series finale. Hosts: Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Joanna Robinson Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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big picture, the Prestige TV podcast where this is our second to last episode Breaking Down Succession. I am Bill Simmons. I am here with Sean Fennacy and Joanna Robinson. This episode was called church and state,

aka the rise and fall of Roman. Joanna, they set it up. It looked like it was going great for him. He had so much confidence. So much confidence is an apartment surrounded by glass and views of the city and he is just humming. And by the end of it,

is a broken man just stumbling during a semi-riot. What was your take on the episode? Well, I talked to you guys yesterday and I said it wasn't my favorite, and then I rewatched it again, morning and I was like, oh, no, actually, it's a masterpiece. This is a masterpiece episode of television. So I don't know, I guess I was just tired the first time I watched it.

This is incredible. On the Roman front, I love that, the fall of Roman in this episode. One of my favorite TV rules is if you see the dress rehearsal of something, you're never going to see the final performance. So as soon as he's like giving a good version of the eulogy in his apartment, I was like, this is not going to go the way you think it is my guy. Yeah, and the way that he goes into the street to get, you know, hoping to get physically beat up, physically pushed around, which, by the way, something his dad would do to him. That was Sean after the Knicks series, too, and the Knicks got eliminated the heat.

Sean just went out in the street trying to get punched. Same thing. Every jet season ends, I wait for Sean, so he identified. I left New York for a reason. Yeah. No, yeah, I just, I thought it was absolutely brilliant. Sometimes you want to taste your own blood, Sean. I thought we may or may not be working on a possible,

what were the best succession episodes of all time for the website next week, FYI. This to me was immediately on the short list. And I don't know whether it will end up. You know, sometimes you need some distance with this stuff. I think Safe Room is a good example, which I think is a Mount Rushmore succession episode for me. But maybe you don't see that for a year. With this episode, it was on the short.

It brought a lot of the things we love about succession to one, like a lot of people in one room, a lot of different characters, people playing off each other, some real stakes. I think you love this episode. What would you love about it? I thought it did what this show does so well throughout its four seasons. And I also thought it was a summation of the sort of underlying themes and tone of this season, which is like a real melancholy and sadness and grief. that was also amplified by the manic deal-making and scurrying and, you know, high-level dialogue combustion happening in the second half of the episode. Like, it was kind of a fusion of what I really liked about the show the past few years and what I really liked about this season. And, like, once again, the worst people in the world are made empathetic because of the incredible performances. I mean, I think, obviously, like, we knew that this was going to be a big Roman episode,

the way that it was teased. But Jeremy Strong is just on another planet, as far as I'm concerned. He is such an amazing actor and really watching him run the gamut from destroyed, rageful, sad, preparing to go to his father's funeral,

all the way through delivering the eulogy that I'm sure we'll discuss and then into full evil mode, you know, turning the key and fully realizing, this is how I win. I thought it was just incredible stuff. So I loved the episode.

So there was some Godfather two last hour of the movie with him and this. Right down to like the funeral, Godfather one, Brando's character, Vito dies. And it kind of snaps Michael into this whole thing. But he hasn't gone completely evil yet. And then in Godfather 2 in the last hour, that's when he decides, all right, now I'm going to come a little closer to home with some of the murders and the killing. And by the end, he's just alone on it. a bench. I felt like Kendall was heading that way. Oh, yeah. And right after they, what is that, the mausoleum, the above ground thing when they're

kind of walking away and he kind of looks at it again. It was almost like he was gaining an evil force from it. And that was when he snapped to another level. But I agree with Sean. The acting on this show is going to be one of the legacies of the show. Like that we just, I don't know if a TV show has had this high of a batting average for elite performances. He was great. Joanna, Yeah. Your girl Shiv, Sarah Snook. Yeah. All-timer for her.

She broke out three different versions of the I am all the sudden a human being with real feelings and I feel bad for this other person face. Normally she just has the one. I felt like she worked a couple other words. Which was your favorite of the three? You know, probably with Tom. Tom. Yeah. Yeah.

Because it was like the I don't even want him to know that I'm upset, but I'm upset. You know, with Roman, it was the same kind of face she's had before. And then, I mean, this scene with her mom was probably my favorite scene in the whole show when the mom was like, hey, how are you? And then she's like, oh. And she's kind of giving her the up and down. It's like, oh. And Shiv's just kind of looking at her like, and they have that moment. But they use Shiv in all the best ways in this one.

I believe that she said, blimey. Blimey is what she said in response to seeing that Shibb was pregnant. I think that to both of your point, I think we've been waiting all season for Jeremy Strong to get to step into the center ring, right? Because they've given us so much stuff for Shiv, as we've talked about every week. Roman, of course, had his like bangor of an episode last week. And then we were wondering, is Jeremy going to step into the middle in the penultimate and then the finale, a 90-minute finale that we still don't know what's going to happen there. And I think this really was just like him stepping up to, you know, the podium literally

and saying, all right, I got it. I got it from here for the rest of the season, pretty much. I mean, they're all going to have things to do in the finale, but this has always been, as Sean has said before, it starts with Kendall. It ends with Kendall, right? That seems to be what we're looking at. And I don't want to sweep Culkin under the rug because this was in the running for one of his best episodes, too. It was a complete game of it. He was fantastic. he, when Shiv confesses the pregnancy to them, he got off like three of his best jokes, like in the history of the show at like 30 seconds. And then by the end of it, you know, I thought in the funeral,

and this is just a truly loathsome character right at this point. Like last episode, any sort of connection you want to have with this guy is just gone. You're like, this guy's a monster. And then he breaks down in the funeral. I'm like, oh, I feel bad for Roman. I don't know how they do it. And I really think I'm going to have trouble handling any of these actors when we're away from this show, which a phenomenon we've discussed before. But the performances are so indelible and the characters are so indelible.

It's going to be hard to see Kieran Culkin just, I don't know, playing somebody's dad in Pitch Perfect Five. Wait, what's going on? I just don't know how they break out of this. Hopefully that's not his future, I hope. Shaw is laughing, but I think he's not so horrified at the thought of Pitch Perfect Five. That was like brilliant casting, but really sad, like a sad commentary on the state of acting opportunities in 2023. But this is why, you know, I mean, all of us love this show, but this is for Sean who

loves movies, the future movies, and is probably the single most invested person in the next Scorsese movie. I'm melting. We're recording just when they released the trailer bill. I'm melting right now. I know. We're not going to have a lot of opportunities. left to watch people cook like this.

And especially we're in a writer's strike right now, where who knows what the IP, when the next wave of IP is even happening. And then we were in this position five years ago when Thrones was kind of coming toward the end. And we were all, we would talk about this in the ringer meetings. And Joanna, you were writing for Vanity Fair at the time where we were all kind of looking at everyone who cared about TV

was looking at each other like, what's next? Oh, yeah. Everyone felt the cold chill of, is this the end of the monoculture? And like, you know, Succession doesn't have nearly the ratings that Thrones did, so it's not quite the same like cultural phenomenon. But in terms of caliber of writing, of acting and stuff like that, I think, I definitely think this is better than Thrones. It's certainly better than the way Thrones ended.

And what I hope, I know we're in a different, slightly different administration in HBO. But what HBO is pretty good at is if they have a talented TV creator, you know, locking them in for another project. So Jesse Armstrong is done telling the story of the Roy family and maybe once a year to relax or whatever. I feel confident that Casey or Zazlov or whatever will want him to do whatever he wants to do next. You're confident in Zazloff?

He's going to be like, hey, Jesse, do you want to, we're thinking about turning Dr. Pimple Popper into a series. What are your thoughts? But it would be great. With Alec Baldwin lined up. But like, don't you think Jesse would crush that assignment? I think so. Probably would.

She was researching Jesse as I, I was just so staggered by last night, by the episode nine. He's 52. Like, you know, he, and, you know, he had a whole British, he wrote some shows and did, but he's kind of a late bloomer for a show like this, especially the scope of it. I assumed in my head, I thought he was like early 40, something like that, but this is kind of the culmination of, I was looking at him, it's a really interesting career. And I think Adam McKay, I think, was involved heavily, at least in the pilot and HBO identified him.

But for how this came out versus probably where they were with it five, six years ago, as they're trying to plan it. Pretty amazing achievement. I think an important thing to remember with this show is that it has actually a lot of the hallmarks of all the great shows that we talk about. Like, when I finished this episode, I texted you guys and I was like, this show is really climbing the rankings for me in terms of all-time shows. Because final seasons are really hard. Penultimate episodes are sort of the old. ultimate test of final seasons. But one thing that Armstrong has

is something that is very similar to what Matthew Weiner had or Vince Gilligan had or David Chase had, which is he had a long career as a writer of TV shows in different forms and formats than this sort of masterpiece work. He's done a lot of really great stuff. Everybody points to

peep show, I think, and the thick of it as like the two indications of where his kind of taste and point of view was going. And this is sort of a summation of that to this point. But it takes a long time, I think, to become a master of the high version of the low art that is TV.

TV is like a low medium in many people's eyes. So to do it really beautifully and well. And Joanna, like you're constantly pointing out the comparisons to deep considered artwork that this show is constantly referencing. And you can feel Jesse basically taking 25 years of experience as a TV writer

and then mounting that on top of, this is my great American track. Like, I'm writing a great American tragedy, and this is how I'm doing it from a British perspective. And it's like, he couldn't have done it at 25. And he needed to be 52, I think, to get to this point to be able to achieve it at this time. I think also, like, his great success across the pond with, like, Peep Show and Thick of it came before the walls kind of came down between British television and American television. So now, you know, if you're Phoebe Weller Bridge, you make Fleabag, you become a sensation in America because Amazon picks that up and shows it here. Peep Show is a huge show over there.

I think of it, a huge show over there. But they didn't, I mean, Americans have definitely seen those shows, but they weren't, they didn't come over here. Which is not to say they wouldn't have been huge hits over here if, like, you know, we had had the same relationship we have with British television now. So I think, you know, I guess it's just like a British invasion moment in American television. But, yeah, and it's so interesting to see the fact that this is such a hybrid of Peep Show and Thick of It, because thick of it is so political, and Peep Show is just a comedy about, like, really dumb, dumb, dumb, Greg-like guys, you know? And so, like, to put all that in the stew and then lay it over the Murdox, et cetera, et cetera, and tell the story, this Great American Tragedy, as Sean just said,

yeah, but I hope he has more in the chamber, you know what I mean? Like, this might be his magnomos opus, but I still want a second movement of it, you know, so, yeah. I always knew about those shows, but I never watched either one of them. And I'm sure I'm going to hit some dark succession has never coming back point and be like, all right, I'll give Pete show a, we'll give it a spin. He's getting in his American digs in these last couple episodes. He has the Botswana, Lucas Mattson. You guys have only been a democracy for 50 years.

Like, whoa, settle down there, English guy right in the show. Do I have to bring up 1776? Calm down. We just engaged, we just engaged patriotic bill there. That was huge. I was ready to put out a Fourth of July hat. Would you rather conspiracy bill or patriotic bill or are they one and the same? That's my question.

No, they're two different, two different animals. And they pop out at different times. So our big themes for this episode, the country is falling apart. Logan Morris funeral. Roman has to do a eulogy. Shiv's trying to swing a deal with Madsen. Logan's ex-wife is walking around like she's still. the queen of the family, even though she's not.

Rava is going to basically pull Kendall's family away. Shiv's pregnancy is starting to leak out. And we have a looming Kendall versus Shiv. I just listed eight plots. Did I miss anything? Well, I mean, Conner's, you know, formatively innovative eulogy that I never got to give. I thought that was a really important. Would that be?

It would probably cause, what did she say? What does she say? What does legal action against us? I really hope. Willow wrote that. I really hope Willow wrote every single word of that. I mean, Tom and Greg, Tom and Shiv, like there's a whole other series of strands that are, there's so much going on in this episode. I mean, the U-N was my favorite part.

That was my favorite part of the episode. Yeah, let's, before we dive into the actual episode, let's talk about the U-N. So how old is James Cromwell, Sean? 83 years old. Long career. I mean, I remember he was two different characters in the White Shadow in the late 70s. And that was, he was probably in his late 30s then. Goes up there.

I loved when he shook off Greg, like a running back. When Greg tried to grab him last second, he just whipped his hand away and goes up and just absolutely crushes it. What sort of people would stop a brother from speaking for the sake of a share price? That's how we kick it off. Tells this whole story about them as kids. Tells a polio story where it's like, oh, is he going to give us the Logan Roy? there was actually some good in them.

Nope, does the flip. He has wrought the most terrible things. Cuts to the kids. They're like, oh, no. Now and then dark in the skies little closed men's heart. Fed that dark flame in men. He was mean.

He made a mean estimation of the world. He fed a certain meagerness in men. I don't know when he decided not to try anymore. And it was a terrible shame. Those are some of the highlights, Joanna. I'm going to shock you by giving you a little Shakespeare corner here. But like, in Julius Caesar famously, there are two eulogies, right? Brutus gives one and Mark Antony gives another.

Brutus gives one to sort of, Brutus, Brutus who killed Caesar, right? Gives a eulogy saying some nice things about Caesar, but then also saying it was good that he died. It's good for the democracy. It's good for the republic, actually. It's good for the republic that he died. Brutus says, as Caesar love me, I weep for him as he was fortunate and I rejoice at it. He was valiant, I honor him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.

There is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valor, and death for his ambition. And after that comes Mark Antony. And Mark Antony basically gives a rebuttal to Brutus's eulogy and whips up the country into a civil war, which is essentially what Kendall does. Because Kendall hits that ambition, note a bunch of times in his eulogy, basically ripping up lines. from Mark Anthony's very famous friends, Roman, countrymen, lend me your ears, speech is essentially like some of the foundational work for, there's a lot more on top of it, obviously, but I think that idea of dueling eulogies of a head of state and talking about ambition is a bad thing, and then ambition is a good thing that fills the coffers of the Republic when he talks about

the money and the corpuscles and like all the things that Kendall says, I thought, that that was like a really fascinating, you know, engagement of death of a loved one, a friend, right, a close friend for these men and Julia Caesar and literal family here. And then also how that ties back into the death or health of a republic, of a nation, church and state sort of thing. Sean, was that show in his audition for a Shakespeare rewatchables? We just season one. See, we just bang out books? What do you think?

Yeah, is it a rereadables? Is it a re-reformables? The re-readables. Yeah. Season 1, Shakespeare. Sounds like a new brand. It's 180 episodes. I'll check, I'll look into my living plus investment in portfolio and see if I can carve a little aside

for rereadables. I think that there's, I think that's bang on. Like that is, I mean, I thought of Julie Caesar as well. I think that the one differentiation or like the one kind of critical note with the U.N. story is that he opens it with effectively an explanation of how Logan became Logan. And in the previous episode, Kendall asks, does the poison drip through? And there's this open question, I think, about are people born bad or born evil or born more likely to do bad things that hurt people? Or is it the product of the environment that you're raised in? And the story that he

tells is that Logan at the age of five or six years old or whenever he goes to private school in the time of that story is effectively blamed by his aunt and uncle for the death of his sister and that he has become a hard and cynical person because of this story that Yuan tells if you believe the way that it's told and if you wonder why Roman is such a piece of shit or why Shiv is so unable to emotionally reflect on this incredibly difficult time in her life or if you wonder why Kendall can vacill wildly from a destroyed person to one of the most evil operators in all of capitalism. It's because their father was fucked up by the people who raised him and he fucked them up. And that is, like, as you said last week, Bill, that is the legacy of this show is about what you do to your kids.

It's chilling for me as a young parent. I think about this every day. And the Ewan telling that story, obviously, what is most memorable is, you know, he drew in the edges of the world at times. and, you know, that dark flame that you talked about and this incredible poetic, powerful, doom-like speech that he gives. But the point of that is that he is, even for a person that he believes is truly evil and wrought havoc on our society, there's a reason this happened. Like, there is a human reason that this happened.

And that's, if you, the cut away to Roman's face when James Cromwell is telling that story at the beginning of the speech is everything to me. like that's the realization. That's when Roman realizes he can't go forward. That's when he realizes pre-grieving is not a thing. That's when he effectively falls apart. So I just thought that the choice to do that, to let you and speak, you know, we both suggested that we were going to see Cromwell at some point in this series, and they pulled them out of their back pocket. And he's a master actor given this incredible responsibility to basically explain the show. I mean, and that's what eulogies do is that their request to explain lives. And then the third part of that kind of

in tandem with Joanna's point is just Shiv talking and giving what is basically a normal eulogy, you know, an anecdotal personal story, which is what you find at most funerals, especially when a child is asked to eulogize their parent, they reflect on something that they remember from their childhood.

And so I thought like that union of those three speeches, and I'm sure we'll get into Kendall 2, was just like, was perfect. They could not have done it better. The idea of just Roman talking or Connor talking, that would have been all wrong. This was the exact right way to kind of commemorate. So, at my funeral, CR is going to give like the negative eulogy,

and then you'll probably give the positive, and then Mao will give the one with the human touch, and Juliet will just be sobbing like Roman. I genuinely appreciate the fact that you think I would give the positive. I think we all know. Maybe Juliet would get the positive. Maybe you'll be Roman. Honestly, that's probably likely, Bill.

You can create it. Thanks, Sean. You know, the thing about, the thing I was thinking about during that speech, other than what an incredible performance it was. I just think it's, I was thinking of the actor. Not only do you have to perform and not fuck that up and nail every single beat,

but you're also doing it. It's not just like the crew and a couple actors, right? You're doing it with 300 people. Like you're actually really giving a speech, but there's cameras there and you have to hit every beat. But I was thinking during this speech, I think all the shows I like are about, like the shows I truly love.

Like my favorite, favorite shows are, all kind of about the same thing. To me, the wire really unlocked in season four when it went into the schools. And it was like, how do people end up this way? What are we doing wrong infrastructurally, right? And it just centers on those four kids. Tony Soprano, that whole show is about this guy, bad person or not, right? And what were the effects of what his mother, Joanna, spoiler alert, what were the effects of

his mother on Tony? Tony loves his family. Does that mean he's a good person, even though he's doing all of these bad acts? Breaking Bad is all about this guy, something snapped in him, and now this is all about this endgame where he just wants to win,

and he'll do everything to win there. But over and over again, it seems like the same theme, right, Joanna? Well, that is a really compelling question. How do we get here? Is anyone truly bad? Could I have been bad if my environment had been different, et cetera, et cetera.

And then the other question that Sean was alluding to about the poison dripping through is there is there any escaping that? Is it a DNA thing? Yeah. Well, once the wheels are in motion or whatever, can you survive that? I was talking to our colleague Van about last, he hadn't seen this week's episode, but we were talking about last week's episode. And I was sort of asking him, I was like, in terms of an ending, like, do you want all

three of these kids to fall flat on their faces and Connor too, I guess? but like all three of these kids to fall flat on their faces because they're terrible people and have done terrible things and they deserve it. And it would be a good critique of capitalism or billionaires or whatever the case may be, whatever Jesse Armstrong has in his mind. Or do you need at least one person and to make it through? And Van was like, I need a survivor. He's like, I need someone to survive Logan Roy. What Logan Roy did these people? I need someone to survive that.

I'm not sure he's going to get it. But I do think that that's an interesting impulse because often when we talk about wanting these kids to escape, people will come back and say, like, but they're horrible people. Why are you rooting for them? And I'm like, I'm not rooting for them. I'm rooting for the idea that the poison doesn't have to drip through, that there is some choice you can make or some freedom you can have in all of this if you realize it in time. And for Kendall, in this episode, shedding Jess and Rava, and replacing them with Colin and Hugo is him just really digging into just guzzling that poison down, you know? And that has me very worried and doubtful that he will be able to shake this off. But could someone like Shiv, I'm not saying she's better than her brothers, but like someone like Shiv with a lifeline to Tom and a family in a future or something like that? again, that doesn't seem very feminist of me, but like potentially get out? Could Roman who has this like huge emotional breakdown perhaps realize something about himself

and get out? Or are they all doomed? I don't know the answer. Or will we ever see Roman again, which is a question I had for later in this episode? Shiv has the additional thing of her mother is in some ways just as much of a monster as Roman and she knows it and basically told her last year, I wish I hadn't had you. I shouldn't have had kids. And now with the pregnancy revelation, kind of work at each other like a speedbag a little bit on that one, where she,

Shiv has the emotionally stunted line. And you can tell the mother's like, oh, you're going to be an horrible mother because you're my daughter. And I taught you everything that you don't know. I think one of the things about shows like this. And then Breaking Bad was like this, too, where you kind of realized at some point, oh, there's no coming back for this guy. right and Skyler was always the one maybe maybe she can pull him back but then when it went fully sideways with Skyler was like that's it he's gone it's funny though with the with the Corleones and godfather one and two Vito did some bad stuff but I always felt like like he I never felt like

he was a bad bad person as weird as that sounds I mean he had obviously bad qualities but he really did like think about his family and wanted that and really cared about the unit itself and like that in my favorite scene in godfather one is when he has the scene with michael near the end right before he dies when he's like oh he's got whoever comes to you for the meeting that means of the traitor and uh and then he does i never wanted this for you as santino freda but you you were supposed to be a senator but it's like logan roy never had that moment with any kids right they have the therapy scene where they the therapy episode was like, oh, it's all about my kids.

Just was a horrible father, didn't care. And that was one of the great things about this funeral episode where they're telling, Schiff tells that story. We would be, you know, fucking around outside his office and he would come out and scream at us. And we were so terrified of him. And you could see like, oh yeah, that was their entire childhood. There was this guy over here. There were people coming in and out.

He was making deals. He pretended, he did a little photo shoot. with them, maybe he took them to Disneyland once. But for the most part, they were these little toys in this whole empire. It felt like they all kind of finally fully realized this, Sean, in this episode, especially Shiv. She's even wandering around. She goes, ask Carl and Frank, is my dad a good person?

And they're like, oh, but I think all of them kind of fully realized, oh, this guy was kind of a monster. And that was it. I think for such a collection of narcissists, there's such little self-reflection going on. They're just not, they don't really think about why they are the way that they are.

They just think about the way that they are. And I think that the Godfather comparison is very apt for a variety of reasons. The Vito point that you're making, the difference between Logan and Vito, there are many, but I think the critical ones are that Vito has his own

moral compass and a concept of ethics that he lives by, even if many of the things that he does in his life are illegal and his relationship to family is very warm and we also see him near the end of his life and as he gets older he gets warmer, not darker and colder and Logan got darker and colder. And so even though he spent his life screaming at his kids

without getting away from his door, it's not as though he opened his arms up wider to them as he aged. He only sought to hold more power more tightly as he got older And I think that's also kind of shattered these kids. And I think that's why they almost don't know what to do other than to just scheme and connive, even at their own father's funeral. I mean, the entire reception is about scheming. And I think to both of your point, like, the, if you're talking about Vito and you're talking about specifically that scene with Michael, the whole point is that Vito is trying to teach him how to be, you know, the capo, right? and Logan did this awful trick on his kids

where he said, the only way to be anything of value in this world is to be me, to be like me. The way I do things is the only way, it's the best way. But you pieces of shit will never be me. You'll never be as good as me. You know, that was the constant. He was like, be like me.

You're not serious people. Oh, you can't. You know? And so all they know how to do, you know, in this episode, when Roman is practicing his eulogy at the beginning, one of the things he says is like, and doesn't he remind you a bit of his father? Right? Like, can't you just see that there? And this is the thing we've heard throughout the season, right? Like Shiv, Matt said telling Shiv that she's like Logan, et cetera. Like all they know to do is to chase what their dad did and try to be like their dad. Kendall is the closest, I think we've seen so far in this episode as. he like amasses his dad's hangers on. But like things like saying to Roma at the end of this episode, you fucked it. You fucked it with Jared. You fucked it.

And cuffing him on the back of the head, not hitting him, but like sort of cuffing him on the back of the head. Like in a patronizing all I'll have to fix your mess you pissed on the rug sort of thing. That is such a Logan move. And being happy that he fucked it up. But he's actually happy that he did it. Yeah. And Ken, for all his faults has always been like protective of Roman, right? Like when Logan goes to hit Roman, Ken jumps in and says that's not okay.

You know what I mean? So like he's always, he always softens for his siblings at a certain point. And that feels like it's been burned out of him. I hope not permanently, but possibly permanent. Well, he said that the last episode, right? Where he says to Shiv, like, I feel like Roman has the upper hand. Yeah. Right.

And how do we fix this? That was the first time he'd kind of acknowledge like, oh, I'm competing with this dude. Let's take a break. and then we'll swing through some of the big pieces of this incredible episode. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity,

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for use in children. Don't share needles or pens 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 Zep bound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-5-45-5-5. or visit zepbounds.lily.com. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce,

and some very tasty, limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango, Yuzu chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels, make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. All right. So going backwards with the lead up to the funeral where Roman does his

craze speech rehearsal. I am the man. I am the man. See Roman the showman light up the sky. I like this part where he said his death was printed into newspapers he started, networks he launched through fiber he laid on satellites. He built a great man. And as Joanna said, you know, as we're seeing this, that we're probably not going to see this again. But I thought it was, I really liked that scene. I thought he was spectacular in that scene.

He also has a moment right at the end where he says sort of like, I love you to an invisible casket that's like in, you know, in his rehearsal space, comparing that to like his heartbroken, is he in there? absolute meltdown than he has later. It's just really, yeah. I also liked how Roman yada yada the World War II part, whereas Ewan made that sort of like the signal opening to explain where he came from.

And one person who understood his father from one direction and kind of his perspective where something like that didn't matter as much or he didn't know as much about it. So we have Kendall's having a bad day where Rava's pulling the kids away. He comes back with the year online too much. Always a good one. I thought that was a great reflection. of what everyone was told after certain elections over the last 20 years.

Yeah, you're online too much. You're too online. And then our girl Jess tries to quit. Jess, you know, I think, I don't think it's too early, even though we haven't seen episode 10 yet. I think she won the Carolina Award for season four for kind of the sneaky character

that all of a sudden became weirdly essential, even though she's not in that much. Last episode, this episode, very moral compassy in a lot of different. ways. And wait, what is the history with that actress? I was looking at, I was looking her up and I don't really remember her in anything major. Um, I think she's really good. I'm interested to see what happens with her. She was the star of this sort of short-lived FX show, uh, called Why the Last Man, which was like hugely anticipated for a long time and then kind of fizzled when it was released.

She's a really good act. She's like a Yale trained high level, like every other performer in the show. Yeah. I'm buying stock with her. Um, then we have all the kids hop in the limo. And that's when we get the, Shiv telling the boys about the pregnancy. Roman rips off, is it mine? I thought you'd just been eating your feelings. And if I see breastfeeding,

I'm going to have to jerk off within 25 seconds. He's just, and he's like, I'm sorry, this is what I do. It's always like his excuse. But I was, I was interested that she did this in the car

she's jockeying with them for power, basically. It was surprising to me that she gave them this chip to be used against her potentially? I have a, we won't know the answer until the postseason interviews, if even that, because Jesse Armstrong tends to not like to talk about how the sausage gets made. But there have been some interesting interviews of some of the directors about like when they knew about whether or not they would incorporate Shiv's pregnancy, like they knew Sarah was pregnant,

but when they knew whether or not she was going to be part of the season, like the directors who filmed that balcony fight between Tom and Shiv said they didn't know and it had, been sort of confirmed that they were going to do that yet. But, you know, Sarah Snook is so obviously showing in this episode. So I wonder if, like, it came to a point where they're like, well, we can't pretend this woman is not pregnant because they could have backseated. There's only, like, really two scenes that they would have needed to sort of backseat into the season to make that.

Because it was just sitting in the back of our minds, we knew it was happening for her. And it was subtext, but it wasn't text for most of the season. And so either that's just sort of an interesting thing that is. decided to do, or they decided late on, like, we can't pretend Sarah Snook is not pregnant. So, like, let's make Shiv's pregnancy part of the story here. Do you think it's possible that they, because in the first episode, we find out, right? She gets the call in the first episode of this season. You think it's possible they shot that way later?

That's what I'm saying. But, I mean, they were filming the show and then she's like, oh, shit, I'm actually pregnant. That's what I'm saying. And they go, and they backdated it. Like, they filmed it after they filmed everything else? Yeah, they would just have to do that. And then her telling Tom in the election episode, those are the only two she was pregnant text moments of the season up until this episode. Yeah, there was one.

There was like a doctor calling about an appointment. They could have backdated that. Yeah, you're right. Because how long would it take to film a show like this? It would have to take like six months, right? Like that episode nine was like a movie. I can't imagine they bang that out in four days. And I'm sure she told them she was pregnant.

right? And then, you know, like we were discussing a couple weeks ago, we never know how a woman's going to present at what, you know, so they're like, you know, do we want to make shift pregnant in this final season or not? And they decide to do it. They did it very efficiently with like basically two scenes.

So up until this episode. I think that's a good call, Joanna. Okay, so Connor wants to do a eulogy. They shoot it down. We have all the characters in place. It seems like it's going to be like one of those. It's a funeral, but it's also going to be a funny episode because people are getting off one-liners. Jerry's saying Stockholm syndrome crossed with a little China syndrome.

Schiff's trying to be the U.S. CEO. Matson calls her out. And Shiv does that whole, oh, no, it would be fine. I'll just, vanity Cesarian and basically lays out like this whole roadmap for, don't worry, I'll be out of work for two days. We don't have time at the funeral. We have Greg as a casket carrier, although Peter, what's the mom's name? I just call her the mom. Does the mom have a name? Caroline. Peter, the stepdad. He volunteers to carry the casket.

Shiv shoots that one down. Incredible Peter Munion episode. I just need to say, Daddy's here. Daddy's here. Daddy's here. It's the best. That was the hardest I left in the episode. I also don't want to skate through Caroline without mentioning the, I thought I heard

the howling of Dalmatians when she walks into the church. Also, an incredible men. Minkin episode where he's doing a lot without talking. He's just kind of processing things and people are talking to him and he's kind of waiting them out and doing the John Walsh move where he just kind of stares at them and waits for them to continue to talk or does stuff with his eyes or his body. But he's basically absorbing everything and not tipping his hand at all. I don't even think he has more than 10 lines.

Do we want to have like the Manking conversation right now? Let's do it. Because then we'll go into the funeral and all the beats. So I watched this episode a couple times. Second time I watched it, I watch it with my wife. My wife's a huge Justin Kirk fan. I think it's safe to say she's got a thing for Justin Kirk. Did she watch Monkey Hospital?

She did not. I think it was weeds that turned her on to Kirk. And I think that this has been a real trial for her as she watches him emerge as a neo-Nazi fascist. Because after we finished watching the episode, she was like, On the one hand, I definitely see how this guy could become the president because he looks like Justin Kirk. On the other hand, Justin Kirk cannot be a neo-Nazi fascist. And he is dancing this line in this episode of knowingness. And I was trying to figure out if the intention of this character is, is this guy the ultimate operator?

Or does he actually believe the things that he says? Because his conversations, and they are few, and he uses few words, are very, very strategic. everything that he is doing is very strategic. Shaking Kendall's hand and telling him that was perfect after his eulogy, the brief conversation he has, giving Roman shit for having an emotional breakdown very quickly. And then that in conversation between Mass and the Grim Weeper? The Grim Weeper, yeah.

Tiny tears. Yeah. I think Kirk is fabulous in this. I have seen a lot of people say this is a very unrealistic character. I wonder how you guys are feeling about this character. I disagree with that. I think he's a great character. For what reason?

Just that the sort of like, you know, Blake Masters, Josh Hawley, like, tall, handsome, shithead fascist figure in our culture, like, it could never be elected president, basically, that, like, these guys are usually so transparently dumb or evil or what have you. Like, there has not been a lot of success for that archetype in our culture. But Kirk is, like, a slight twist on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's not. He's not. Like, Josh Holly is dumb, and this guy is not dumb. You know what I mean? And it's like, I think the way that he moves, oils his way through Ken, you know, and saying stuff like I thought you were the sound system, now you want to play the track, like, you know, sneering at him a bit.

But also like leaving the door open to work with Ken and then oozing on over to Mattson and talking to Mattson and listening. You know what I mean? Taking it in. Listening and watching. Dropping little fischistic breadcrumbs, like when he says kind of kinkukukuk about shit. meaning, which is Children's Kitchen Church, the way that the German idea of what a woman should be and stuff like that.

Like he says, he drops little breadcrumbs in there, but like he's dog whistling mostly. He's not saying, like, he's not saying in his text. It's constant subtext. And when we heard his acceptance speech, his victory speech last week, and he says things like pure and clean, like we know what that is signaling.

But again, it's a dog whistle thing and he is just very smart. And so I do think someone's smart, good looking, and can whip up the fears or whatever of a nation. Like, that absolutely is someone I could see taking power. I'd hard agree with Joanna. The dog whistling stuff, we've already seen at work. We haven't seen the smarter version of somebody doing that and kind of knowing how to

dip their feet in whatever pool makes sense for them. I also think the way that he gets everybody else to say. say stuff seem really realistic to me. He's like the poker player who you just kind of never know what he has. I still don't know what his intentions are. You know, he might, now that once he actually wins the office, he might back off on some of this stuff, right? He might not be like an absolute maniac.

He might have done what it took to get elected. So I don't have a feel for him yet. I'm sure episode 10 will have a better feel for him, right? I wonder. I mean, we can maybe wait until the end of the episode to, Talk about where we think we're going. But I think his acting style is so interesting in this episode because you can almost see him like leaning closer and closer

and never breaking eye contact with whomever he's speaking to. But waiting for them to do what you just said, Bill, say the thing. Does the John Walsh? Yes. Yeah. John Walsh, who's my mentor at ESPN, he was the master of when you had a meeting with him,

he would just kind of stare at you and you would always feel obligated to speak. Phil the silence. And I think that's, you'd be like, oh, shit. And then you start volunteering stuff that maybe you wouldn't have said. And I do feel like he, the other thing with Justin Kirk, not positive Joanne, I'll get this reference. Although sometimes you surprise me with the sports stuff. He looks like Colin Coward. And I keep expecting him to go into Colin Coward mode where he's, he's, he's, he's deal breaking with him. But then all of a sudden he's like, here's the difference

between Jimmy Butler and Jason Tatum. Jason Tatum is like Josh Allen. He's great in the regular season. Playoffs, I'm not sure. And then he just goes into something. sports rant. Anyway, I love the idea. Next time we watch Macon, think a coward, yelling at Jason McIntyre about Josh Allen. We thought Daniel Jimenez was the next LeBron James. In fact, he was the next Markell Fultz. Yeah, we didn't get a lot of Jimenez this episode. I mean, other than his supporters, his supporters out on the street. But like, I feel like that's the only scene we're going to get with him is like that, you know, or two scenes, right? The boring speech that he gave that Hugo was like, you know, popping out or whatever.

And then the phone call with Ken. He's like an intentionally boring character. So, wait, before we put a bow on the Mekin thing, what do we think he's thinking as we head into episode 10? Because he's got these two paths, right, which are laid out over the course of the episode. Mattson's working them. And he could have this whole world where he approves the deal for Madsen.

Madsen takes over Waystar. And he has to think Madsen's an ally with Shiv, who he knows. called it out later in the thing. Like ideologically, we're not aligned. And she's doing basically sells her principles down there. But no, no, it'll be great. Go that way. Or go the Kendall Roman side.

Romans already revealed himself to be just, you know, not somebody you can rely on in any capacity. Doesn't seem like he likes Kendall. And I don't know which side he's going to pick. So, Sean, who do you have in that betting rankings? I wonder if he's a little concerned that Kendall is a little too smart to be controlled. Now, that sounds like a weird thing to say

for someone who has made as many blunders as Kendall, but Kendall actually having a great moment in his eulogy delivery might have worked against him. It might have revealed that he is a little bit savier and that Roman was very manageable because he's impulsive and that, you know,

I'm not at all convinced that Matz and Shiv, though, is the preference of future demagogue. There's way too much power in that corner, I think, for that to be effective. Shib's a mover and a shaker. I'm with you. I think you'd be more Kendall. I thought the implication of Madison's phone call at the end with Shiv was that, you know,

Jared is leaning their way. Definitely. When I am... Oh, interesting. I took that to mean he had decided he was good with her being the U.S. CEO. I thought he said... As like a strategy going forward. I didn't know if there was a making piece to it.

I think he was implying that. they had gotten word from Mencken's camp that they were on board with us. But they did not, he said with an American CEO, but he did not say Shiv. So like, I feel pretty certain that Madsen's going to fuck Shiv over and pick someone else. Another American is a CEO, right? Oscar's going to apply for American citizenship. Is Emma partially American perhaps? I don't know.

Then he's going to get it. Guys, guys, guys, wait a second. Greg. U.S. CEO Greg. Oh. Because Mattson loves him. Hey, sexy. That's the one thing he says to Greg.

I'm alive. I'm alive with my Greg theory. Come on. It's so repulsive. It's absolutely what's going to happen. Nauseating. Joanna's going to be so mad. I mean, what a perfect pawn for Mattson's plans.

I'm not going to be mad. You'd be mad at me that I was right the whole time that it was Greg all along. No, because what I've always said is that being head of the company is not winning on the show. winning is getting the fuck out like absolutely Fair So Shiv's like in Living in Bedford with her

Small child and Tom Again Just run in like a candy store It's not very feminist of me to think so But possibly Last thing We gotta talk about Marcia and Caroline

Pulling Carrie into the front row Was the holy shit moment And there was some good reaction shots in the background. If you watch it again, you can see Carolina does like a double take. But the whole Carrie cameo, I was not expecting. I like, she's like, this is my brother who had like the same terrible herder that she has. And then it was like, and this is my friend who turned out it was a lawyer because she wasn't sure she's going to get in. And then freaking Caroline just pulls off this amazing, oh, let me introduce you to my version of you 20 years ago. And then the four of them all

sit next to each other in the front row. What I loved about this episode, and the old guards, like, what the fuck is Carrie doing in the front row? What I loved about this episode in, not only in bringing in Caroline, who's like, always here for an episode nine, love that about her, and you and et cetera, et cetera,

is that, like, the rose piece, which had been, we had heard about, but didn't know the full story of all series. Sally Ann has also been mentioned a number of times, so for Sally Ann to be at the funeral felt like a, you know,

it all just feels very, And to your earlier point about Jess, like, Jess has just been with Kendall in almost like every scene throughout the whole series. She's just been there. And for her to leave right now means so much, not because she's been this huge player,

but because she's just been there simmering in the background. And this is what the show does so well. It's just like put something, you know, give Rava two or three scenes a season, but we know what that means when she leaves. You know what I mean? And this episode had so many moments like that that I really appreciated.

There's like a great testimony to the power of the storytelling when like six or seven episodes ago, Kerry was this supplicant to a monster fucking him so she could get a job on TV. She was like one of the lowest, most unlikable characters in this orbit, in the world. You know, we really denigrate people like this publicly.

And in this episode, when Marcia puts, her hand on her hand, on Carrie's hand, and Carrie starts to cry. I almost started crying. I was totally, I was just with her. I was like, this is devastating. This is a bizarre formulation that these four women have. Their bond is unique to this very fucked up world that they operate in. Victims. In many ways, and almost identifying with a kind of freedom that his death brings them. But I was totally moved. I was like Zoe Winters, this is a great performance that she gave

as this character that you easily could have written off at the end of last season. For Caroline to have more compassion for Carrie than she almost does for her own kids seems like exactly right because it is a very like self-absorbed way to think of like this person is like me. So I will protect this person. And the way the four of them were just sitting there lined up, like they don't look exactly alike, but they all like look of a piece where you're just sort of like, yeah. He's a type. Yeah. Yeah. You know, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, there definitely is a little bit of a look. that actress's name who plays Jess is Julian in Canfield. Yeah. She has been Kendall's assistant since the second episode. Yeah. And I was thinking like, obviously we know what finally drove her to be like, I got to get the fuck out of here.

But it was also amazing during the course of the show. There were also multiple other moments where you want to say, hey, Jess, maybe get another job. Like, remember the birthday party episode, right? when they're trying to figure out how they can get him to fall from the ceiling on the zip line or whatever the fuck it was. And that whole episode, she's so hairy. It's like, why is she keeping this job? I always wonder, like, what were her intentions? What did she think this Kendall Roy's assistant job?

Like, you're putting that on a resume. Five years, Kendall Roy's lead assistant. What was the next job for her in her mind? Anything. It's like the devil wars Prada, right? if you survive that job, if you work for Anna Wintour or whatever for like how many years,

you can, you've proved you can work anywhere. You know, that's... Do you think she want to go in like politics? Did she want to be on TV? Did she want to like run a... I just don't know. I think the point is

Kendall never asked her, so we don't know. That's great. All right, let's take a break and then we'll bang out the funeral. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right. So I can continue.

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All right. All right, so we talked about you in speech. Kudos to you, James Cromwell. Yeah. Roma goes next, can't do it. Does the, is he in there? Get him out. Just complete meltdown.

Kendall comes in. He had a vitality of force that could hurt, and it did. Talked about a bloody, complicated life, terrible force, fierce ambition that could push you to the side, which I liked. If we can't match his Vim, then my God, the future will be gray. And then he said, there wasn't a room where he wasn't comfortable. He was comfortable with this world. He knew it and he liked it.

And I say amen to that. great backhand a compliment. There wasn't a room he wasn't comfortable in. I don't even really know what that means. So all rooms, like rooms with horrible people, you're also comfortable in those. I guess it's a compliment. But a great Kendall moment. Like between that and the Living Plus, it feels like Kendall's finally cooking with gas.

And from he finishes that speech, it was really interesting. The family walks out and he's waiting there for the handshakes after. you know, and it really feels like for the first time, oh, you're the head of the family now. He's also, he's a born performer. We kind of lose sight of this. But from L to the OG to destroying his father after thinking he would become the sacrificial lamb

and publicly outlining, you know, everything that Logan has done that was bad for the company to Living Plus to this moment, he is the reason that the three of them should get together is that every company needs this. They need their Steve jobs who can present, like this. We have Chris Ryan. We have CR, absolutely. But behind the scenes, we have Mal as Shiv, you know, like we all we have all the pieces here, which is why the ringer is such a special

dark place. I think that the fact that he freelanced bloody complicated life, he made life happen. He made me and my three siblings and that magnificent awful force of him. Like, obviously, no one could freestyle the, the poetry of that speech. But it was amazing. And I bought it. Like, I bought it 100%. I loved Caroline's face when he said he made me and my siblings. You know, and Caroline's like, what did I do? By the way, that was really funny. But yeah, I like, I love the sentence, like, people want to tend and prune the memory of him as a rebuttal to you and, you know what I mean?

Like, he's up there to rebut what Ewan says without deftly, without saying, you know, my uncle is an erratic piece of shit. You know what I mean? he's just sort of like, let me make the case. And what I love, I mean, you know, if we want to talk about Shiv's Uly-J-N-N-N-X or not, but like... Let's do it. When she goes to do it, what I love is she just says one word to Ken, right? She says, office. Like, I'm going to go up and tell the story about when we were kids and we would go to the office.

That's what that means. But she just says office and, like, goes up to do it. And that's, as you've pointed out, Bill, I love when, like, we are reminded that these people were children together. You know what I mean? And they have this shared institutional memory. certain things, whether it's chicken or steak or going to the office and getting nailed up by their dad. Well, she has, though, when he let you in, it was warm.

It was warm in the light, which is a theme we always hear about these flawed, terrible characters where they always talk about, but when the light shone on you, you felt like a million bucks. I don't want to come for your guy, both of your guys, Ben Affleck. I'm not really trying to, but I just want to say that one of my favorite interviews of all time was the Jennifer Garner Vanity Fair interview. interview. And in it, she said, oh, I remember this. She said almost exactly this. When the sun shines on you, it's warm. You know, that's the whole bless his heart, Phoenix from the ashes sort of interview.

But I was thinking of that. I was also thinking, by the way, speaking of Vanity Fair and Celebrity, whatever, of Jason Sudecass when Kendall said he was going to lay down in front of the car that Rava was trying to drive away. That was the whole like Sudakis Olivia Wildell thing. Yeah. I was like, I don't know. Can I just point out one other quick thing during Kendall's speech that I thought was notable? That didn't happen as much in the other speeches. There are only a couple of cutaways to the audience. And I think the two most critical ones were to Mattson and to Mencken. And they both had these kind of wry smiles on their face, which were indication.

This was sort of like two little Logans in the making. You know, like two guys who would do anything for power, who would do anything to win, who have more in common probably with Logan than they do with Logan's kids. And them feeling seen by Kendall's words, I thought was a great acknowledgement of like this world that we've been living inside of. And I was wondering, I mean, hopefully we'll get some great interviews from the director from Mark Milon about like how this is all shot in terms of reaction shots. Because like we know that usually they just let the camera run. So I don't know if the camera just caught that because Kirk's like they were both good reactions faces, but Kirk's was like especially good. and I was wondering if he just gave that good of a performance in reaction to all of the eulogies that happened,

or if Mark My Law is like, okay, now we're going to do your reactions. Because that's not usually how they do it as far as I know. They just let the cameras run around. Yeah, they redo the speech, but the cameras behind the person giving the speech and they do that again. Otherwise, we would probably see the cameras. I felt like Cromwell's speech, it felt like that was really. one cut. I know it wasn't, but the way they did it, it really felt like it was all in one take, which would have been amazing if that was true. I feel like that's a testament to how captivating

it was, that you were just locked into every word he was sharing. Joanna, how'd you feel about it was hard to be his daughter? He was hard on women. He couldn't fit a whole woman in his head. I think that's a great line. What an incredibly good line. Cutaways to Carolina and Jerry there. Yeah, Jerry was kind of, by the way, Jerry can't be ruled out either for U.S. see you. I'm not, I'm not willing to kick her aside either. I feel like Megan wants a tall white man like Greg over a Jerry or a pregnancy. Speaking of whole women in your head. But like I think that Jerry is special, like Jerry kicking off. I don't know. I'm really curious what we get from Jerry in the finale. Because like Jerry has been so minimal this season. It's been quiet.

Yeah. Like important, but quiet. And in this episode, she's like, you know, how glad are you? that he's gone. We should have done the top 20 reaction shots during the speeches because Jerry had a great one when Roman completely fell apart and it cut to Jerry. It's like, oh, my guy, if he'd only stuck with me. It was like Sean after Zach Wilson's 19th interception season. My guy. I don't know what happened.

I'm already showing you so much of vulnerability in this episode. I know, and I keep bringing up the jets. So the funeral ends. Everyone walks out. Kendall feels like Michael Corleone 2.0 all of a sudden. And Hugo tells him that Eba floated Shiv as U.S. CEO to placate Manchin. And Kendall goes into full-fledged end of Godfather 2 mode. We learned about Logan spent $5 million on his mausoleum.

Five-mill? Five-mill? Good deal. Great Kendall line. Five-mil. A pet CEO. Cat food Osamandias is also a top-tier line in this episode. And then he says, they ask Connor, would you want?

to be in here and he's like, I'd have to talk to Willa, but yeah, I wouldn't say no to a top bunk. He was in a cryogenics, though. He had been thinking cryo, Bill. Did you relate to that? Yeah,

I feel like he goes back to the cryogenics. Shiv as Carl and Frank, how bad was dad? Frank says he was a salty dog. He was, but he was a good egg. And Carl says, what you saw is what you got. And then sees Marsha.

And Marcia says, I miss him very much. He broke my heart and he broke your hearts too. Walks off. And that might have been it for us in Russia. Probably it for Marsha. Yeah. Yeah.

I liked that Roman couldn't go into the mausoleum. Like, yeah, this is just a very consistent. Roman cannot confront this thing. No. He ends up hiding in the limo. So much for pre-graving. Eating cheese it's. I enjoyed, I had trouble finishing a scotch with him as Kendall's reason for not joining him in the mausoleum.

And then Roman said he made me breathe funny. I'm pretty sure that's the line. I rewatched it a few times. We don't have captioning, though. but he made me breathe. That's what I wrote down to. Yeah. Yeah.

So Kendall tells you go to leak that the family is souring in the deal. This is the quote because I felt like it was important. So I wrote it down. Life isn't nice. It's contingent. People say they love you also fuck you. This is an explicit plan to fuck the deal. Me rule the world.

You can come, but it won't be a collaboration. Okay? You'll be my dog. But the scraps from the table will be millions happy. and our guy Fisher Stevens goes woof, woof. Happy, iconic Logan delivery of that.

Logan would do that. Happy? That was a very Logan, delivering a very Logan line. Critical score change here. This has been a mournful Nicholas Brutel score all the way up until this moment. And then as soon as this scene happens, it's like the dark clouds cover this whole story. It's like evil Kendall is here.

He is making the moves that Logan would make. Yeah, when he gets into the limo, that score change. I wrote that down, absolutely. It's amazing. Fisher Stevens, another winner this season. I like Fisher Stevens a lot, but again, I feel like he sucked oxygen from Carolina and Jerry and, you know, I feel like we would have had more room for them

who have been here the whole time if we had less. I need more Carolina. I can assure you of that. Yeah. Well, you know, I agree. As a card carry member of Club Carolina when Waz and CR started that, St. Bart's a couple years ago. Colin the Grim Reaper's back.

Kendall said if you're talking to a head shrinker, I think you could work for me, come work for me, good man. Smart Kendall move. You know who I should hire the guy who knows that I killed the guy four years ago and help covered up? I kind of need this guy in my side. I thought it was savvy. No, he has two dogs.

Two dogs of war, right? Colin and Hugo. Good to have Colin back. What do you think Colin was up to those couple months? Like playing some video games? What was he doing, Sean? I mean, it was only like two. weeks, I guess, since Logan died. Maybe getting out to top golf, you know, working on his seven iron.

I don't know, reading. What does he read? Guns and ammo? What is Colin into? Field and stream. Field and stream. Catching up on his field and stream. Speaking to a therapist openly about all of his experiences of Logan Roy over 25 years. I lost my best friend who was an 85 year old maniac. Talked down to me and told me to cover up crimes. I was looking around. I was trying to remember what Logan said about what he wanted for his funeral, because Frank laid that out in an earlier episode. So I was like Googling around and someone, I think it was at probably GQ or Esquire,

had like screenshot the will and like pulled it all out. And I miss this the first time. Maybe we talked about it. But in his will, I leave my head of security, Colin Stiles, my Rolex Daytona Lappas. Like he left him a watch. That's what Colin got from Logan. His best friend, you know, his best friend in all the world.

So we have, then we have the making negotiations, which is really kind of how the two things happen at the end here. Megan negotiations, Greg pops in. Conner's in, Romans in. It's a disaster. And then Shiv comes in, pulls him away to talk to Mattson. Mattson and Megan do a little dance. And Shiv says, my dad was about money winning and gossip.

I don't know. I support all three of those things. It made me like Logan Moore. Money winning and guy. You throw in sports there. I might sign off. I was really glad that Madsen's privacy pussy pasta came back. And Shiv's yes and of anarcho-capitalist Parmigana was like incredibly good.

Yeah, that was good. I thought Madsen was great in this episode, by the way. Shiv as CEO gets floated Minkin. And then finally, we have a little Tom and Shiv doing a stare down, which Tom starts off with. It's getting a little Tiananami out there. I can't even say that. I can't say it either. We get, they finally talk about the pregnancy a little bit.

Probably a good idea. She grabs the glass of champagne as a sort of taunt and drink some. And, you know, I know it's fine. I know it's fine. So, so, what? I mean, that's, these are simple things to write for dialogue, but trusting the actors that you can do all the work with very few words. This is a great sequence.

Joina, I don't have a lot of hopes for the Tom and Shivay. kid. Oh, no. I'm not buying a ton of stock in that child. Maybe the poison doesn't drip through. That's the hope we have to have, those of us who have come from fraught families. But I, so my interpretation of what happens at the end of this exchange is she says, go back to the apartment and sleep for a couple hours. And he says, maybe take fucking Mondale for a walk.

He's been there for eight days. Well, it's not. Just take him out. Take him around the block. It's, I'm a little, I'm slightly confused because I thought he was at their apartment and she was at a different spot. I thought that was the arrangement before or, but he says, he said he was at a hotel. Yeah, they know my name at the hotel and I hate that, right? So it's like, she's like, come home, sleep at home.

Sean, number one, Shiv Tom Shipper. Are they, are they back? It's a marriage man in hell. I just, again, as a young parent, how you, how one would do it by themselves, I don't know. No. So maybe just as a matter of convenience, they need each other through this period. With a lot of staff, as Shib said in this episode, I think. I hope Mondale malls, Tom. I was going to say, if they treat them like Mondale, then they're going to have some problems.

Tom comes in, Mondo gets scared and attacks him and kills him, and that's the end of Tom. So they kind of had a semi-moment at the end, though. It seems like there was a hint of some sort of connection. Matt said tells Shibb's a yes. Kendall tells Roman that he fucked everything up. that they're dick in his hands and that they're going to have to fight Shiv at the board and he says you fucked it, but it's all right.

And then Carl and the gang are talking about some video that they're trying to figure out what the video is and it's very cryptic. This is important. What do we think the video is? Is it of Roman crying at the funeral? It's Roman crying at the funeral.

That was 100% my interpretation of it. They were saying it sounded. We're positive? I think so. I thought so. I thought so too. Yeah. What do you think? I was worried that it was. What do you think it is? I was worried it was Logan on the airplane. Oh, God.

Because they said the guy, Hugo, the other guy, the other PR guy, not Hugo. What's his name? They said they thought he'd take it. Ray. Ray. Yeah. And Ray was on the plane. So I was like, is this? What is this? But I thought they left it weirdly cryptic. But then my bet would be that it was on Roman because Romans's walking by them as they're talking about it. And then Roman goes out to walk through the streets and get punched in the face a couple of times. So I guess we have two leftover questions. One, will we ever see Roman again? What if he just gets killed in the mob?

Off screen? And that was like his actual farewell. I'm not ruling it out. I don't think that's going to happen. I think if this were Game of Thrones, maybe. I think that there was like this, there were a couple of reasons why I think that it ended the way that it did. One was obviously like it opens with Roman and closes with Roman. This is really his downfall, like you said, at the top bill.

But the other thing is that I think seeing him in the streets among the common people and going through his entire life thinking that he's in charge, it's a clear confirmation that in fact he's nothing. He has no power. He doesn't understand the world. And also that Logan, who, as we learned in the eulogy, could sit in the lowest house. Yes. You know, he's comfortable anywhere.

Yeah. And Roman is not comfortable. in this world. He is comfortable in moving from limousine to limousine, you know, high rise to high rise. That's his life. And that's the life that his father created for him. He's not normal and he's not built for this. That's what the message is. Not serious people. And I think also, yeah, definitely that Logan could walk anywhere and Roman can't connection, absolutely. And then also this as, I don't know, come up and, I don't know, of last week when he was just sort of like, oh, boo, the people. who cares, you know, like,

well, they don't matter, you know, whatever, democracy. You know, thanks. And then he just gets like literally kicked around by them. And you're just like, it's a little satisfying at least. Okay, who's winning between Kendall and Shiv? Sean, you go first.

I mean, Kendall, but at what cost? It's always been Kendall at what cost. But this was the final confirmation. Again, when that musical cue hit, the Nicholas Bertel score hit, after he talks to Hugo, And he says, woof, wolf.

I was like, okay, it's on. And then as soon as the next scene was him talking to Colin, I was like, all right, he's building the army. This is where we're going. Also, something, I think we talked about this last week, that in almost every episode, they drop the premise of the next episode in there. In, you know, like, tomorrow's the funeral,

tomorrow is Connor's wedding, tomorrow's the election, you know, whatever. This week, they say, did you get the invitation to Caroline's Caribbean Air Clear? You know, and Ken's like, oh, I'm not going to that. But I think we're going to the Caribbean for the finale. And I think Jesse Armstrong's like, Jesse Armstrong's like, one more vacation on Zazlov's time. Let's do it.

Bring Dr. Pimple Popper. Let's go. I love when they're on a yacht. I'm a big yacht head, as you know. So, you know, bring back the yachts for the finale. I'm excited. Oh, the helicopter top shot of the yacht looking down, zooming in. Yeah, I'm in. Let's go to the Caribbean.

We haven't gone really, where have we gone this season? We went to, uh, we went to Sweden was the big one. Norway. Yeah. Yeah. And the L. Wherever, wherever Nann's house, when the, during the PGN acquisition, where is that? California somewhere.

Sonoma or Napa or something? I think Santa Barbara. I think Santa Barbara. I think Santa Barbara. I think San Barbara. Yeah. Um, okay. So next week's episode, here's what we know.

It's 90 minutes. That's all we know. We have not, uh, we are taping this. Right now it is a Thursday. It's running on a Sunday. We have not seen any interviews or anything that has tipped us off. Joanna seems like she's hoarding. Joina's been, there were two interviews that you saw a while ago that you kind of wish you hadn't seen.

But now is all the stuff played out from those interviews? No, it was just that Richard the third thing that Sean and I mentioned last week. That was the only one that. Okay, nothing else. No, nothing else. So that's it. So we don't know if we're getting screeners next week. If we do not get screeners and we have to do the episode right after it airs, we will not have

Joe Anna next week. So then we'll have to do some sort of second look episode whenever you can do it after you've seen it. I would love to do that. Yeah. It's also game seven of the Lakers Nuggets on Sunday night. Speaking of succession, Nicole Yokic, succeeding LeBron as the face of the league. that series is not going seven, so it's all good. My guess says that series is probably not going seven, and it'll be a succession night.

I'm boarding a plane in four hours to Europe, and an entire trip to Europe will transpire before the next episode of Succession is in my eyeballs. So just think about how far away that is. I'm glad that Bill said that, just so you guys don't know, that I don't think I threw myself off the side of a yacht in despair is what happens to ship in the finale. If I'm not on the podcast, it's because I'm in Europe, and I apologize. We're going to do season finale. I'm also, I'm going to have Van and Charles.

I think on my podcast next week leading up to the finale. Oh, nice. We're going to do some succession awards. We just had to get Van and Charles in the kitchen and let them cook a little bit. Absolutely. Van's got some thoughts. But so then we'll do the end of whenever episode 10, we'll start taping. It'll probably take, I don't know, it'll be an hour or so.

And it'll take another hour to get up. So it probably won't be up for a couple hours. after the finale, unless we get screeners. I might have to work some magic. I don't know if I'll be able to pull it off. I might have to be on Dr. Pimple Popper to get a screener. And then Joanna will pop on a couple days later with a co-host or co-host of her choosing and do basically a final episode, deep dive.

Because you can watch it like seven times and do the whole thing. So that's our plan. Sean, any last words? Joe mentioned she was going to have Mondale as a special guest for that final deep dive, which I think would be an exciting opportunity for both of them podcasting-wise. We're getting Mondale out of the kennel, out of the coat room, and onto a podcast. Can the ringer do a Mondale? I'm going to force Ben Glickman to assign a Mondale piece for the last week.

Just the history of Mondale when he first showed up. This feels like an Austin Gale piece. How many Mondale references have been? shown Mondale's screen time. Let Mondale cook. The interviewing pet owners about Mondale's treatment. Yeah. What does it say about Shiv's psychology as a mother the way Mondale was just kept in that little pen?

If this is the last time the three of us talk about succession on this podcast, I'll just mark time by saying this has been a great experience and it's very sad. And I'm really, really, really, really going to miss this show. Me too. Well, I echo those thoughts. And I will just say this. I did think last night watching that funeral for the third time, I do think there. There's a Succession movie and Jesse Armstrong down the road. I don't think we're never seeing these characters again.

You're damn right. Calisper Tron 3. Listen, if they can bring back entourage as a movie. If the entourage movie can happen, I'm pretty sure the Kendall Roy five years down the road movie can happen. Succession colon, Mondale's revenge. Yeah. Mondale and Dr. Pimple Popper bring down Kendall Roy.

And that's going to be the movie with Adrian Grenier playing Kendall Roy because they can't get Jeremy Strong. Adrian Grenier is now getting away. All right, this podcast was produced by Kai Grady. And we will see you on this prestige feed a bunch of times. Don't forget to listen to Van and Charles on my podcast next week. We might co-run it here. And then I will be here with Sean and we'll see who else we bring with us in Joanna's place.

Joanna, you're two big shoes to fill. We're not even going to pretend we're filling. in the shoes, but we'll miss doing the last episode with you. All right, see you next week. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium.

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