The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Succession’ Season 4 Wrap-Up, Plus an Interview With Mark Mylod

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

Joanna Robinson is joined by Van Lathan to share their closing thoughts on ‘Succession’ Season 4 and the HBO series as a whole. They discuss Kendall’s fall from grace this season, how the show��s ending compares to ‘Hamlet,’ and the trickle-down effect of the internal strife among the Roy siblings. Along the way, they talk about how it places intimate family dynamics in conversation with the impact of American capitalism and why Lukas Matsson works as the ideal Waystar Royco successor. Later, Joanna is joined by multi-episode ‘Succession’ director and executive producer Mark Mylod to talk about shooting the final scene, the fate of the Roy siblings, the various filmmaking choices throughout the series finale, and much more. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Van Lathan Guest: Mark Mylod Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Morning decisions. How about a creamy mocha frapuccino drink? Or sweet vanilla? Smooth caramel maybe. Or a white chocolate mocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Rappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed.

I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me today to talk about succession finale. Basically, we've been having, like, private podcasts together all season on the phone and we just thought we would share it with you all. It's Van Lathan. Hi, Van. How are you doing? Hello, Joe.

Coming to you live from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Coming to you live from Norway. It's a cross-cultural, cross-global podcast. Absolutely. Also, on the podcast today, we have an interview with Mark Milad is an executive producer and series director.

He directed the finale and, like, all the great episodes of Succession. So I talked to him earlier today about, You know, your most burning questions about the finale, and he was very informative and very interesting. So I suggest you stay tuned for that. Van, though, I just wanted to start by asking you, like, what did you think of the succession finale? I thought it was great.

I left with the very... That's it. Pot over. That's it. I thought it was great. I thought it was great. I left with a very empty feeling, which I think was the intended, the intended emotional. that they wanted you to feel.

That's the intended effect, should I say? I don't know what I wanted going into the finale, was it sure? But I know that the show's aim and goal was not to give me what I wanted in the most compelling way, because that is life. We live life, almost never getting what we want, but having to extrapolate something out of the experience anyway,

which is kind of what the succession finale was. Something that you mentioned to me a couple weeks ago when I asked you, like, is it okay if all of, let's call them the kids, the Roy siblings, like if they all end not getting what they want, is that okay with you? And something you told me at the time is you were like, I kind of need someone to survive. I need someone to make it through.

I need someone to break the cycle. You know, like the poison drips through. That's the whole thesis of the back half of the season. Did you feel like someone made it out of this finale alive? Or is it just all bodies on the floor? There's, it's all bodies on the floor, but one of them is twitching. Who's twitching? And Roman.

Okay. So it's all bodies on the floor, but one of them is twitching almost like that last scene. in The War of the Roses where he reaches out his hand and she flicks it away. Remember that? So, Roman's twitching. We got a smile out of Roman. Out of the three Sibs

with respect to Kahn, out of the three Sibs, he's the only one that ends his story with a smile. The other two end with something much, much less than that. One ends completely broken, and the other one

ends in this sort of emotional and professional purgatory that her mother always seemed like she was in. So I think that they gave me that. I think I needed to see this family not completely be riddled full of bullets in an emotional scarface type of way. And I think that they knew that. Let's talk about Ken a bit, something that was really devastating to see in like basically ever since Logan died

is the way in which Kendall has been stripping away the thing that Ken and Logan always had is Ken was like, I'm you but better, right? I am morally superior to you. I'm nicer than you. I'm more liberal than you are. I care about X, Y, and Z or whatever it is.

And a real measuring stick of that throughout the series, starting at the end of season one, is this reaction to the car. accident that ends season one that gives Kendall this thing that is haunting him for the rest of the series. And Logan has this phrase he uses like no real person involved, right? And Ken is fighting against that. He feels buried. That sounds like a monstrous idea to him. And then in the final moments of this episode with his like with the crown in sight, with the throne in sight,

he gives us essentially no real person involved, right? I didn't do it. I wasn't there. And I just think it's really interesting. We've been talking throughout the season about the ways in which Ken has been, you know, he is stripping away his connection to Rava and the kids. He's stripping away his connection to Jess, like all of these sort of positive influences pulling him to the light. And I think it's this idea that I've been noodling this idea of like without Logan as this like a yard, stick to measure his morality against, well, at least I'm better than my dad. It's just a slip slide down into moral decay and darkness for Ken in pursuit of his ambition. What do you think of that? Well, Ken articulated it. He articulated it. He said, whatever this fierce force in my father is, I hope to God that it's in me, which tells me that maybe before he wasn't necessarily, necessarily better than his father, he just wasn't as good at being an asshole as his dad was. Because I think something that the show comes back to in the finale is the fact that

Ken never sought out to be anything other than what Logan told him he was going to be. When he was seven years old. And because of that, there are a lot of things he couldn't be to a lot of people. Like, for example, do you think that scene goes the same way at the end if Kendall had been the person that protected Shiv and Roman from Logan for their entire young life? If Ken had stood up to their father in the way that their father treated them, if he had ever become anything other than a 10 man, you know what I mean? with no heart like a cyborg of Logan had he ever

grasped anything for himself and put anyone beyond what his father had in the future for him, what he thought he was supposed to be. I am the eldest boy. If he had ever been anything more than that, do you think that his siblings would have had

something more to grab on to? Even at the end, when he's talking to him, he's going, I'm the best for this job, because essentially I'm the last person left standing. I don't have the connection to Mattson. You fucked up at the funeral and everyone looks at your week. It's not like I've done anything to be the best.

It's like coincidental, it's accidental. Just as being the eldest boy is coincidental and accidental. You didn't really do anything for any of this. It just kind of happened that way. And at the end, they just go, no, you're no different than us. You've never really put on for us. You've never been in a really in a place for us. You just think that this is you because of this idea

that you have in your head. So for him, I think he's, to your point, the narrative that he's told himself is that I'm not as bad as my dad, but he's always wanted to be as bad as his dad. Yeah, no, I think it is a story that he told himself. Like I'm my dad, dad 2.0, right? Like dad, dad for modern era or whatever. And like we have seen,

seen him occasionally. And again, this is where I think there is like that pull, there has occasionally been in Ken's life a pull towards the better angels. Like in the, I think it was the R. Jessie's episode, right, when Logan actually hits Roman,

and Ken does jump in and say, no, like, you don't touch him. It's something that Ken did was capable of earlier. Or has defended Shiv against Tom just a couple episodes ago when Tom was sort of sniping at ship. You know what I mean? So like it's in him.

It just feels like it was largely in him in reaction to his dad. And without his dad there, then he can't even hold on to that fiction that he created him for himself, that he is somehow his dad but better. And so he's just sort of gunning towards being my dad. That's what I have to be. That's the only thing I can be at this point. And it's devastating. That's sadder to me. than anything else. Like him, him denying that he was in that accident with that waiter after, like, such an emotional high,

high is maybe the wrong word, but like emotional catharsis of him confessing that to his siblings at the end of last season, for him to deny it is worse to me than, you know, the kid's not getting the company. Who the fuck cares? But for him to just deny that,

that to me is him killing, like, the last of his humanity that he has. going for him. I looked at it differently. Okay. So I've never felt sorry for any character in the history of television.

I've never felt sorry. So the wire made me feel for various characters. Like when Wallace is killed, I'm like, Jesus Christ. But there's this socioeconomic part of it to where I'm looking at it, and I'm like,

there's a part of it that's making this, that I'm thinking this is happening to kids all over America, you know, when Bodie dies, but Bodie kind of goes out on his shield. You know what I mean? Bubbles at times, I felt really a lot for bubbles,

but he was always so so inventive, so enterprising, that he really wasn't a character to pity. They seem like there's some agency in him, even though he was out of control at times. The thing that secession was able to do was make me feel sorry for people. I have no business feeling sorry for. Absolutely.

I agree with that. So in that moment, he was so pathetic. And I looked at it as a failing, but at the same time, he was blindsided with that. When she turns around and she goes, the show is so well active. She goes, you can't be the CEO because you killed someone. there is absolutely no compassion in her eyes. She doesn't mean that as an observation, it seems like a cut down.

It seems like an insult. You know what I mean? And he's not even reacting to me to the actual reality of it. He's reacting to the notion that she's either right or wrong. So in that moment, that was them at 10, 9,

and seven. Well, you can't do this because mom and dad told me to do this before you left. Like when she looks at them, they are three kids in that room. They're children. And the scene is played like that with everybody on the outside going, look at Logan's kids and they're fighting. Is somebody going to get their dad? Oh, wait, he's dead. So when he, when he did that to me, as low down and cowardly as it was, I felt, it felt like he was pouting. It felt like he, it felt, it felt like it was, I was really like, but it felt like he was just kind of like, no, that, no, no, that didn't happen. I'm like,

oh, shit, Ken. I felt, I felt, I felt, I felt like this fucking guy doesn't, this dude is over, man. No, I agree. I, I think, no, honestly, I do. I think we're on the same page with that, honestly. And like, it is, it is a magic trick that's a succession has

to make us care about these absolute assholes who, like, a couple weeks ago we watched push an election and a direction for petty childish reasons. And to your point, that's some of my favorite shit on succession when these, I'm going to call them kids, even though they're grown adults, kids just fall back into that, you know, there was a couple episodes ago early in the season when Shiv was calling Candle and Roman out for lying and she recalls like an event from their childhood where she was like, Dad, she've spilled this in the SUV or whatever,

or in the election episode, when Roman is talking about, you know, the kind of food that they would have when they were kids. You know, it's just sort of like these petty, childish squabbles that have never been remedy, that have never been worked through. And what I love about this show, and I was thinking about this,

I am going to, I am, because it is my brand, going to talk about Shakespeare for a section, but, like, what, What I think is so interesting about why Jesse Armstrong chose to tell this story at this level of power in America is to examine the way in which these petty, childish squabbles think about, especially in that election episode, the way that that impacts all this. The way that we have to think about them as careless children smashing their toys together and their toy cars just happen to have like us in them. And like thinking about the way in which Shakespeare, for example, was like often interested in. in telling stories about kings and queens. And the reason is their drama,

you know, like you could tell a story about a small, you know, working class family. And that is interesting and we can relate to it. But when you tell a story on these grand scales of kings and queens or titans of industry, and then you have to think about the way in which those problems trickled down, to use an economic term, to all of us, I was thinking about how at the end of Hamlet,

Nobody, often people forget this, but at the end of Hamlet, there are bodies everywhere on the floor, but that's not where the play ends. The play ends with the crown prince of Norway coming in and taking over because the family was so distracted by their internal drama that they just fight each other. And then Norway invades Denmark and then what happens to all of Denmark when Norway invades? And that's why these grand scale, larger than life figures and their childish family drama is universally impactful on a large scale. And then on the small human scale, what the show has done has made us care for, root for, hope for absolute assholes that we would never want to have a meal with, you know? Yeah. I mean, you're absolutely right. They're a family, but they have this big, huge bloated kingdom worldwide kingdom like really way bigger than a small Scandinavian country with beautiful floors um you know i'm in louisiana right now so i'm with my family yeah and

you know watching i watched the finale here in louisiana like where i grew up in baden where I grew up, and I thought about two different stories of my own father. Okay. Tell me. So me and my friends are in the, we're in my house. And my dad's from Maryland, Louisiana, very small town. He was a rest and peace dad. He was country, hunter, fisher, all of that.

Man, outside, whatever. I knew how to do all of that, but I was from Baton Rouge. I grew up in the city. So as I would go out to the country, I was out there with my family yesterday, I'm one of them, but I'm also of the city part of Baton Rouge. As city as Baton Rouge can be considered. Somebody from New Orleans right now is going, Baton Rouge is the country.

So, you know, we're in, and I won't make these two stories too long, but we're in the living room and there's a gigantic wasp in there because it's still country enough for Baton Rouge to have pernicious wildlife that wants to get around you, right? So gigantic wass in there. And we're being, we're 14, 15, we're being like kids, Basically, oh my God, watch out, bro, watch out. This is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

We're doing all of that. My dad walks in. He's like, what y'all doing? And my boy Ryan's like, look at that gigantic, like, look at that big bug, Mr. Terry. Look at that big bug. And my dad, go, where he at? And then he reaches out with his hand and he crushes it, crushes the was. And we're like, damn, this dude is a different species.

He takes his hat off. He's got gigantic gun on his hip. He's still glistening from having worked outside all day. It's like, man, I'm not that. So later on that day, they left and me and him are sitting down and he reaches foot. He's like, what are you playing on the thing? He wanted to play the video game with me. And I look and I see a gigantic welter on his hand.

It's not that it didn't hurt him, is that he didn't care. And I'm like, I'm never going to be that way. I'm never going to be that much man to where I can just know that that pain is coming, but just do it because I want to share. show everybody else that sometimes you got to kill the bug. Okay, cool. So I'll have that vision in my head. A couple of years later, I get a call. And it's like, yo, we're at the, we're at the, I'm at the house and I get a call. It's like, yo, because that's because we the Van Lathan.

I'm like, this is Van Lathan. And I'm like, this is Buffalo video. Like, these tapes, you need to bring them back. And I'm like, okay. And I'm like, what are the tapes? And the guy goes, well, you know, these are from the adult section of the video thing and then he said a couple of names. I'm like I didn't rent those. I'm like, wait. You're calling for my father. And they're like, yeah, I'm like

17 at that time. Do you know what I think? What? He's just a guy. Yeah. Yeah. Like in two years, I go from this dude is this kind of unassailable super terminator father. I'm not afraid of anything. So he's just a horny dude like the rest of

to the point to where he would risk them calling the house for his and his son knowing all of this. He's being irresponsible with the same stuff. And let me tell you why. The second part of that, I think happens for everyone. Maybe not in that way, but there's a point where we realize our parents are just people. Absolutely. They don't continue to lord over us. We actually end up going at them and trying to put.

pull away at the strands of their godlike aura. Either we become friends with them or the roles changed to where we start taking care of them. These kids are actually children because that never happened for them. They never got to call that Logan was late with his pornos. They never just looked at him as a guy who was all fucked up. There was a part of him they couldn't access. There was a part of him they couldn't get to.

and a part of him that they were still trying to be even after he was gone. What would dad do? What would dad do? And that's not just for them. That's probably for everybody in that company. It's probably for everybody in the NBA who's trying to play like Michael Jordan. But think about how different it would be trying to be a basketball player if Michael Jordan was your father. I mean, you're trying to be him anyway.

But think about how difficult it would be to average 15 points, 20 points a game if your dad averaged 34 a whole career. And they crumbled under the weight of that. And this entire series to me was them trying to just look at Logan as a guy and not try to do exactly what he did. And for a second, you thought that they weren't going to do that, then they did. Last thing I'll say, I'm being hyper verbose. But I thought at one point in the finale that they had got there when they were all watching that tape of Logan just singing and everybody in Kahn was there, I thought, hey, that's just the person. He's making them all sing.

It's just they just missed their dad. They gave us a hint of it. And they went right back. They went right back. They were like, oh, maybe in a different world, they could have actually just had a father. Maybe Logan would have been different. Maybe they would have been different. But that's not this world.

in this world, this guy left a footprint too big for all three of them put together to fill. Well, and I think part of that is, thank you so much for sharing that, especially a part about your dad and pornos. But like, I think that he was who he was. I'm not ashamed. I think that they have tried to touch that again. And again, there are moments like in the, I don't know if you want to call it, like the wake episode when they're in their dad's. old apartment and they were talking about him like a guy they were they were giving like the real headlines versus the like myth of logan roy that was in the obituaries they're like here's who

he really was and so i feel like occasionally they could penetrate and see that when they were like making fun of him and carry or whatever the case you know whatever it is his little foibles they could see it and they could make fun of it but i think the problem is that only works best when it's always three of them together, they can kind of break the spell. And it's so hard for them to be all three together. It's impossible. And I think part of that is because I think, and this has nothing to do with politics, but everything to do with Jesse Armstrong, a British creator, Mark Milad, a British director. Like, these are the two of the, you know, major creative forces behind this, this outside looking in examination of late stage American capital.

but also that idea of American individualism, exceptionalism. That idea, I was reading this Rolling Stone article that Jeremy Strong called out in a recent interview that had to do. It was written in 2020, so it was like the height of COVID, the height of like presidential mismanagement, all this sort of stuff. And it was about the end of the American myth or exceptionalism. And I'm not actually quite sure COVID killed that off. But it was this idea that COVID revealed the rot at the center of American individualism, because if you're only thinking about yourself, you and yours, you can't get through something like a pandemic. You have to think of the larger community in order to get through something like that. And that is like a sickness of America, as we are told that individualism is

important. And that's part of Logan's whole myth, even though he's, you know, he's an immigrant. He is the, it comes from nothing. He's the epitome in the American dream. The guy, the God, can't be replaced. No one like him. And so then he's got these three kids. And together, the three of them can accomplish things. The very rare moments that three of them can work together, they can Voltron into something, right? But it's about individualism and it has to be just one of them. And anytime it comes down to it, Ken's like, it's me. Shiv's like, it's me. Roman says, why isn't it me? It could be me. And it's, I think that that is that, that examination, that outside looking at examination of the rot at the center of this idea of American capitalism.

I don't know, is that, like, is that interesting to you if a show is both about very human characters, but also about a larger concept like that? Sure, of course, because I think it's a about how those concepts mutate human beings, how we become less than what we're capable of, right? This show is so compelling because of the family dynamic. There are other shows that deal in high stakes, corporate machinations, espionage and things like that, but they're not as compelling as succession because they're not all related.

And so there's this underpinning there of familiarity and also strangeness that you only have with like your relatives to where you see somebody and like you both know them as well as anyone but you don't know them because you're you're kind of you're kind of searching for it. So yeah, I think that's I think that's the part of it that's that really drew me in because I don't relate to. to the characters very much. But looking at Logan and what Logan represents, he represents, and that's why the Mattson character is so interesting to me, he represents the sort of America of the last 60 or 70 years

where industry fell away, and it wasn't about in any way prioritizing the needs of the average American. It was literally about, trying to kill them and make them into what you need them to be. Like he's not Carnegie or any of these other people who were terrible to workers, but at the same time needed them to push factories ahead. He needed to manipulate, entertain, and pacify.

And that's what he was good at doing, even to his own kids. And so when he's gone, it's almost like Oz, you get to see what's behind the curtain. And everybody's looking at each other and they're still looking for the wizard and he's gone. And I think that exists in America. We're trying to look behind the curtain and see who we really are.

And sometimes it doesn't seem like there's anything staring back at us. 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, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical

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I think it follows off what you were just saying. but why Madsen is the ideal successor for Logan? Conquerors deep down only respect other conquerors. Like we see this. Conquerors respect other conquerors. You have to like swordsmen respect swordsmen. Like there's this, there's a power and safety thing. Like two boxers respect each other because they can hurt one another.

Madsen is Logan Roy. All of these tech bros, these Elon Musks and stuff like that, they're Robert Barrens of the Gilded Age with Twitter accounts. It's the same thing. It's the same stuff that's been going on. If you think that there's anything different, but if there's anything different between Bill Gates and J.P. Morgan or Warren Buffett and fucking Cornelius Van Gogh.

and fucking Cornelius Vanderbilt there's not they're the same guy with a different set of shit and Madsen is

Logan he is him he's ideally him he's got this new way of looking at the world with this sort of cutting edge

technological sociological breakdown he is ruthless he is this weird subhuman aspect to him

he's kind of like a bond villain, right? You almost, you almost look at him as if somebody that Ethan Hunt or James Baum would have to take down. And he is just willing to, he stops at nothing to get to where he is, right? And the kids just aren't that. Nobody inside the company is that because they haven't been watered to grow into that. They haven't been watered to grow into anyone who thinks too terribly outside the box, who wants to shake things up. The, the, the, the real way the kids would have rebelled against what would have happened if they would have said the three of us are going to run the company.

That would have been really rebellious. That would have challenged the status quo, but it was the one thing they all agreed they could never do. So you know what I mean? So when you look at Mattson coming in, the way he looked at people, the way he didn't seem to really value anybody for anything other. than what they were worth to his grand plan. That's like Logan up and down. And when Logan was ready to ride off into the sunset, he saw Madsen as the guy that was able to provide the horse.

Or when he was ready to sell the company and just keep ATN and kind of start over, really start over. I'm going to build something new with you lot. Like he was looking at the, like, you know what I mean? Like all of that stuff. So Madsen really is Logan and he's the killer. that Logan said that Kendall wasn't, and Kendall isn't, but Logan didn't want a killer like that in his house.

Because if you have a killer like that in your house, they're going to kill you. That's such a good point because that goes back to the end of season two, which is like one of the greatest moments in all of television, this idea of Logan telling Kendall he's not a killer, and then Kendall going and having this press conference and trying to kill his dad. And then Logan gave that enigmatic smile

at the end of season two, which is to say, oh, maybe he is a killer. Right. But then when season three starts, it's like, but you're not going to kill me. Right. Like, okay, I like that you have it there,

but you're not going to get me. And no matter, and that was like the impossible center, not just the, like, he sat, Kendall down when he was seven and said this was for him this is who he was going to be and I love speaking of compassion I love that Shiv in that moment said

he shouldn't have done that there was compassion from her in that he shouldn't have done that right but it was just this impossible impossible standard that Logan set out for them where he was like be me but no you can't be me

that's the constant push Be me, but you'll never be me. But you'll never be me. And once again, I went through that with my dad. My dad one time was like, you know, I was what they called a 60-minute man. I was like, what was that, dad? There's a song. He was like, I played offense, defense, and I returned kicks.

So I'm on the field, offense, defense, and I return the kicks. And, you know, that wasn't me. So I eventually looked at this motherfucker and I was like, well, we don't play like that no more. You know what I'm saying? I'm not like, I don't do that. Like I'm 230 pounds. I'm not going out there to return kicks. I don't know what you want.

You know what I mean? I just had to be like, I, hey, guess what? I'm not you. But I know what you don't know. You don't know the name of the planet where the Galactic Civil War started. I'm my own person, that I don't want to be you. You know what I mean? And it just seems like for a little.

the rest of your life, if you're trying to be someone, someone that set up that type of thing, either you have to, what did Ultron say? You guys are obsessed with having these little beings that are ultimately going to replace you. You call them children. There was a part of Logan that was like, that protected himself from his children by weakening them. And I really do believe that. And so what we saw were these little shards of his personality, try to run out and figure out how they were going to prove to him that they were a big enough deal to continue his legacy when really his legacy was so singular that it was going to die with him anyway. And they would have had to have wanted to create their own legacy.

And as much as they flirted with saying, hey, we're going to do something new. We're going to do something different. It all came back to what would dad do. Meanwhile, Mattson didn't fucking care. He just wanted to, he wanted to, he wanted to, he wanted to. Logan had. And I think that like so Jeremy Strong told the story on the official podcast about how, you know, so you know when, so he and the other Sibs are fighting and Frank and the rest of the board, as you mentioned, are in the other, or in the boardroom. They could hear everything through

the glass. And then once it all shakes out, Ken goes back into the boardroom, right? And Frank's like, it's done, right? And for it to be Frank who was, you know, his godfather, sort of one of his closest like throughout or whatever he's like it's done the guy who told him like your dad's dead it's over kid like it's done um apparently according to jeremy strong um the scene was supposed to end with just the kids and jeremy strong was like it's not over for kendall and because of the way they shoot the show the camera will just follow the actors because they're just the cameras are roaming and they just follow the actors improvisational whatever and kent and jeremy strong of course is prone to this.

And so he's the one who decided to go back into the boardroom. And since that wasn't supposed to happen, Dessie Armstrong from off camera is just feeding lines to the actor

who plays Frank because there's no more scene. They're just like going for it. And apparently a version that didn't make it into the final cut was Frank saying, you don't have it.

You never had it. And Jeremy Strong is like the you never had it didn't make it into the final cut, but that's what I played for the rest of the episode. You never had it. Whatever it was

that you hoped was in you of your father, it was never in you. Joe, that's from seven years old. Think about that. I thought Ken was going to kill himself. Because, because, because I want, think about

the, really, in a way, Kendall Roy's death, because he did die, in the finale to me, is the most significant television death or one of them that I've ever seen. The person that he thought that he was, since he was seven years old,

is gone. He said, I'm a cog meant to fit one wheel. If I can't do his entire, the dude is only 43 years old. And like, when Nate said to him, you're not your dad.

That's a good thing. that's what's so gut-wrenching about succession is we want to shake these kids and be like, you don't want to be your dad though. Your dad is a horrible person. Like you don't want that. You want to tell Ken,

you want to rewind back to the beginning of the season with California Ken, like eating his sunflower seeds and planning a new media empire with his siblings. That's the future that you want for him and he just couldn't say the course, right?

How much money did they make from the sale? Like, how much money did E.C. make? I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think it's, I think it's with a B billions, I think. So you think it's like $1 billion, two billion, something like that,

maybe, who knows? Think about that. This is the whitest shit I've ever done. I'm really, I'm really feeling sorry for someone who just walked away with a couple of billions. But think about it. That's because we know deep,

down, that's not what it's about. And it's inherently relatable to want to do the things that you thought that you were going to do when you were a child, especially when your father told them you were going to do them. And so for him, there's just this profound, like, what is my life now? And going back to the thing where, I don't know what Roman got in the Roman, where Romano just hits them with your kids or Randos, I'm like, they just had some real talk. They seem to bounce back from everything as brothers and sisters, right? They seem to still have that, is there even a family now? Like, what is left?

I think if they talk to each other, it won't be for, I mean, we're all just imagining at this point, but, like, I would say it wouldn't be for years. That's what I would say. I would not be surprised if, like, Ken just disappears, you know, probably goes off on some, like, genuinely, extremely Caucasian spiritual journey to, like, Asia or something like that. Roma goes back to L.A. And then Shiv tries to be the power behind the, you know, behind the guy. What do you make of the Tom

of it all? So Tom really became a Sith in a real way. So. There's always two. Does that make Greg his apprentice? No, no, no, no. Tom is the apprentice.

Tom, the scene between Tom and Mattson is to me the same scene between Darth Sidious

and Anakin Skywalker after May's Wind was killed off screen here. That was Schiff. They had to kill him. So he's, Tom goes, hey, got to kill somebody to become my apprentice

and he's right there. His demeanor changed after that. Because at the end of the other thing, at the end of the other episode, we had seen him emotional breaking down. We had seen him, we saw some humanity to him. After that, he's like a cyborg. He assaults Greg. And then he comes back and he looks at Chiv in her eyes after being found out. And there's just nothing in him. And towards the end, he's, it's almost like he is now operating with the dark side of him with the confidence of knowing that he has this new sort of power.

You know what I mean? And so I am both sad for him and in a way incredibly happy and proud because they've been, because look, because look, I'm going to be real. It serves them fucking right. They've been cucking him, treating him like shit from the beginning.

He was on the outside. And the thing that they, at first in this show, the thing that made him subject to scrutiny was that he was not a Roy. And at the end of the show, the thing that left him holding whatever sort of type of power that he has, being a puppet, I guess it's better to, to rain and held in the serve in heaven. I never understood that.

It's hot down there, but whatever. But the thing that left him standing is that he's not a Roy. So I was actually both like, God damn, he's a Sith now. But at least he's got a cool double-sided lightsaber. That's the way I looked at it. I was kind of like, all right, Tom, get to your thing. You get to be in a loveless marriage, but they'd be fucking on other people anyway, so it's probably going to be okay.

you know what I mean? So I don't know. What did you think? Like I, with Thomas sitting there talking to Greg and he's, and he kind of sons Hugo a little bit, he seems different. He seems a little straighter, a little bit more resolute.

The power seems to suit him well. For me, it was mostly when he walks in and he's like flanked by his followers. And like to me, it looked like a like a conquering king or something like that. Or could be, you know, that overhead shot of Anakin with a, you know, troopers behind him if you prefer a Star Wars

reference. Yeah, it's I think Matthew McFaddean has been throughout this really stealth MVP and like not that stealth because people do talk all the time about how tremendous he is. But I think this idea

that Tom wins, if you want to call it that, Tom wins is so interesting. What does that say about, I mean, it's cynical. It's deeply cynical because Tom gives this speech to Shiv in the, I think it was the election night, previous to the election night episode, when they're talking about love or money, right?

And he's like, I love you, but also I love my things, right? And so if we consider Tom winning here, if we consider this a win, which plenty of people want someone to have one succession. So if we consider this a win, and he gets his money and his throne in hell, as you put it, and he gets his kind of unwilling bride, you know what I mean? The Persephone to his Hades, if you prefer, like, gets the girl in, gets the money, is that winning? But it's like this horrible, chilly, limp, cold fish of a handheld version of it that does not

feel valedictory in any way. Like it does not, to me, it does not feel like anyone won at all. Not to me. It doesn't feel like anybody won. It feels like, like a lot of times what we have to do is we have to just kind of, we need to get something out of it.

We need to feel like somebody conquered everything. Because Tom looks, he looks strained. He's, he looks like he knows that, there's something he's going to have to try to hold together. He puts his hand out, and that was almost, it wasn't like he put his hand out for any affection.

He was asking for fealty, almost. He was, he was, bend the knee, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so he was, and she did it, but she held something for herself. Right. I'm going to touch that hand, but I'm not going to grab it.

So, you know what I mean? So she held something for herself. know that eventually five years from now, 10 years from now, the succession movie is coming. They'll do it unless something goes, oh, I definitely think they'll do it. I definitely think they'll do it. Movie or like, or mini series. Or actually one of our listeners wrote in and suggested a Christmas special as a very British thing to do. The Christmas special. You can get Caroline back for that. I think that I want to talk to you about this larger picture. I mean, you and I are both

card carrying members of like the pro-Shiv club or at least that Shiv is a very interesting character club and I think her move in this episode which I can track like if I rewatch the episode I can track it

like I'm not I'm not confused by it but her move is controversial enough I suppose or electric enough that I think it has provoked a lot of conversation and debate around the episode what was she doing? When did she decide it? What was on her mind? Et cetera, et cetera. And I see that as nothing

but a good thing for the longevity of the succession finale is something that we think about and talk about forever. It also helps that, I mean, like, mark my lives on this podcast, explaining some things. But in general, Jesse Armstrong doesn't like to explain succession because he prefers that we talk about what we got from it rather than him being prescriptive of what we should have gotten from it. And when I think about the succession finale, you know, Bill and Sean have been talking a lot about sort of where to succession rank in the Hall of Fame of shows ever. You and Charles had a great conversation with Bill as well. I think that something that sort of pokes at you will stay more relevant and important than something that feels like a wholly satisfactory. I feel at ease with this. I think the discomfort that can't. Kendall looking out at the water and us not knowing what's exactly what's going to happen for Ken yet, or the enigmatic nature of Roman's smile, or the frostiness of that handhold for Tom and Shiv is going to make this linger in my mind for a very long time. Where do you see it sitting with you? There was another, before I get to Shiv, there was one more thing.

Roman, who was one of my favorite characters, watching Roman going there and sign the papers and having to do that and having to show his belly to Mattson and seeing Madsen right there so smug and that's the last time we saw Madsen, that was another part of the show that I'm like, God,

damn, this is a nut kick. Because Rome ended up just becoming a walking open wound, literally. Literally, yeah. Literally. I don't understand the shifting and I'm not supposed to. And look, here's the thing. I have opened to it.

To me, I've watched it back twice, right? Two things. One, one, this is cultural, right? One, this is cultural. What I mean, this is cultural, I mean that, like, you know, I have brothers and sisters, and sometimes we fight, and sometimes it's like, whatever. But if it's us against them, it's us against them.

And, like, and it, you know, I mean, it is. If it's us against them, it's us against them. It's like, for me, I'm not, Joe is shaking her head. For me, if it comes down to some shit like that, like I'm riding with my brothers and my sisters. Like even if we, I'll go out there and curse them out behind the thing. I'll come out.

I'll vote for you. I'll be like, hey, I need my shit. You know what I mean? So there was a part of it that's like, just what she did to her brother. And it's not to her brother necessarily. I guess it's for the company. Well, no, I mean, you know,

I've been a shift. offender my whole life, but I will say she did that to her brother. Yeah. What she did to her brother, it came out of, it just didn't, nothing was trending that way and not just in the last couple of episodes, but forever.

And then to do that to where it would empower Mattson and Tom, who had just, just fucked her in a major way, it just seemed, I don't get it. I know that she doesn't think, so okay, so she doesn't think that Ken will be great for the company and then Ken will be

full of yourself. Are Tom and Matt's going to be? I mean, like, what the fuck? I don't think, no, I actually, I mean, I genuinely don't think it has anything to do with the welfare of the company. I think that's to do with her, her own interest and her power. And I think that she believes that and Ken already did it this season, so I don't think she's wrong. She believed that Ken is CEO, he will cut her out. You know what I mean? Like, we saw him do it with Roman this season. and actively behind her back, you know, does pinky dance? Like, do you think we should tell Shiv, you know, like all this sort of stuff? And so when she sees him talking to Stewie about being chairman and putting his feet up on her dad's desk, she's like, he's going to fuck me. And at least with Tom,

that's a sort of predictable way in which someone is going to fuck me versus like, I can't set myself up for this. And I think she thinks she will have more power due to her proximity to Tom than she would with Ken. And I hate that choice for her that it's either like be under her brother or be behind her husband. But like, I think those, she saw those as her two options. And she picked the one that she thought would get her more power. And he's that selfish and horrible. Yes, but that is what Ken would do given the same opportunity. And I, I don't know, Roman might not. Roman is a Roman might not. Roman might not. He would just like

probably impulsively fire her. But like, so I get that she, but is did the story the story that the show do enough narratively to make us believe that she would make that decision being that the only two other people,

like she helped Mattson every step of the way. She really enabled him to get the company. And then he double-crossed her. and then Tom is double-crossed her multiple times more than Ken. So is there anything that, I get that she made that decision, but is there any narrative work that the show has done, not just in this season,

but over the course of a couple of seasons, to make us go, yeah, that makes sense. Because it, not really, when you look at it, when you look at it, Ken has been like a, like a dick to her, or whatever, but she, if she was, she had more power. I don't know, man. It doesn't make any sense that she would fuck him and go with them.

If those two things are on the table, everyone has been so shitty to her that what will make her feel more safe with those guys, especially Tom. Tom has literally fucked her at every single chance where it was either Shiv or the other thing. Tom has always chosen the other thing. Always. He's always. chosen the other thing.

I think the first time he chose the other thing was the end of last season. I think this feels like a fairly recent thing. And I think she thinks with a baby in the picture that, and this like, you know, it's a horrible, shitty way to think. But like, I think she thinks, you know, she could have this. And also Tom's earlier comment to her that really hit hard for me was when she calls them and she earlier in the episode and she's being vulnerable and crying. And she's like, what do you think?

can we do this as a family? And, you know, he says, I don't know, honestly, I don't know. And then he says, you don't like to fail a test. Do you, Shavon? And she's like, no. And so there's this way in which she can have the appearances of this powerful family. Her husband is a CEO of Waystar. She's his wife. They have a kid, maybe multiple kids together. She has in the external view, not internally, I would argue, but in the external view, not failed that test. She has not failed anything.

She is not divorced. She's not a single mother. She is not kicked out by her brothers of her own company. She has proximity to power. Her marriage is intact, et cetera, et cetera. And like those things seem to matter to her. I don't think they should,

but they seem to matter to her, you know? He tells her that it's me. She turns around with fire. in her eyes. She's now more resolute that she wants to kill both of these guys. Yeah. And then it's one thing to me if, and I'm not about to start

right in succession, you guys, come on, get out of him. But there's one thing to me if she waivers, she brings up to Ken that he killed somebody and then after that, you know, he reacts poorly and she changes her vote.

But she literally goes from The Terminator to terminating her brother. And it's like because he put his feet up on the desk and because he talked weird to Stewie, I get it to show deals and subtlety. But it still for me was like, fuck. It really bumped me the first time

to like steal Sean's word that I think he stole from Andy Greenwald. Like it did bump me the first time. And Sean and I were talking about that. And I agree with Sean's take. Sitting with it, rewatching it, I've made my peace with it. But I think that it will always,

provoke and that's what I meant, that this finale will always provoke because there's that move there that you're like, it feels bizarre. And I think the reason it is, it goes back to your very first point, which is the idea that Succession did not give us what we wanted, right? There's a version of this story where Chavon, Shiv, who we like, you and I do at least, terminates these fuckers, Mattson and Tom, and she just absolutely demolishes them. and grinds them under her heel and we're like, fuck yeah. You know what I mean?

Like that's an end, that's a part. That is, yeah, and then the Carly Simon let the river run plays. And it's great, right? Like,

that's a version of the story. And, you know, and for people who hate Shiv and Ken wins too and that you can have that. Like, that's a version of the story

that I think I want. And the show not giving it to me and giving me something much more horrible instead is why I think I'll always be thinking about succession. I agree. I think that the much more compelling way to end the show is the way that they ended it. Because

something that you said earlier, we talk about finalities of shows and some of them are much value hood for not being great. And when the finale is not great, it ends up becoming like the Seinfeld finale wasn't great, right?

But the bigger thing, to it is I don't remember what happened. Like, you know, I remember that they got, they were in some town where they had to like do something. I don't remember what happened. A lot of times these finale's, they're

they're, they when they collapse under the weight of themselves, it's also because they're not very memorable and there are no more questions to ask, which was something that the Sopranos, which was wholly unfulfilling to me, uh, got right.

is that we continue to talk about it for years and years after. And I am wondering now what Kendall Roy is doing. I'm wondering what he's doing right now. Exactly. And I think it's that version of, I mean, everyone knows I haven't seen The Sopranos, but I know how it ends.

And it's like that cut to black, that controversial cut to black in the Sopranos is provoking forever, right? And what it gives you is this sense that the story goes ever on And you're not a part of it. You just don't get to watch anymore. And that's so much harder.

That's so much harder than killing your characters or having them get what they wanted or having them achieve. Because now it's like Kendall's life and Roman's life and Shiv's life, they go on. But I just don't get to see anymore. And so now I have to wonder what happened. And I probably wouldn't have wondered in that same way had Ken been the CEO and running the whole company, had that happened that way. Exactly. And so yeah, the story goes on, but we're not invited to the party anymore. And that's going to frustrate us because we loved this party. We're going to be like banging on the glass outside of it forever. And we're going to think we want a succession film or a succession, Christmas special or a succession like reboot. We don't actually is sort of what history has told me. This is the most satisfying, unsatisfying end to a story. I'm a big fan of it. So, anything else you want to say about succession before we go?

So there's a pot that I want to do. I told Bill about this. I'm going to give Bill a couple of days to make his peace with the Boston Massacre. But, you know, or the Boston three party, except the threes were falling

for the heat. Okay, cha-ching, undrafted. Anyway, this is me being a jerk. But, no, we should do at some point, like, a succession 10-year forecast. Oh. We should do a pot where we try to guess and we all come together and we write it out what everyone is doing 10 years after the finale.

These people will still be spry. They're going to be in their 50s, most of them. You know what I mean? What's happening? Roman is in Ibiza. You know what I mean? He's living his best life. Willa has a Pulitzer, I hope.

Willa has a Pulitzer. You know what I mean? The one I'm worried about is Khan. Because I know he has a show on Newsmax. I know he has a show on Newsmax, man. I know Khan has a show on Newsmax. I know that he does. You know what I mean?

But that's the kind of thing that, you know, it lasts on forever and ever. I'm so Marvel corrupted that I looked for a post-credit scene, but there wasn't. I got what I got. And the show is over and it was really great. We can give it a year to think about whether or not it's the greatest show that HBO has ever had. You've been foggy filled. I love it. It's in the top five.

I think it's in the top five. Of course. Yeah, it's in the top five for sure. Sure. Yeah, but we can argue where it sits in that top five forever. That sounds fun until the next thing comes along. All right. Well, let us go now to my conversation with Mark Milat.

Maybe we could start with last looks, like these final moments that we have with our core characters. Maybe starting with Jeremy as Kendall and sort of what was on the page versus what you wanted to make sure you capture. I know Jeremy has said you did a bunch of different versions of it, as he has wanted to do. But what about that setting felt like the right place to leave, Kendall Roy? Well, it started with just internal logic, I think. You know, I think we'd established, you know, a long time ago, that Waystar was in the financial district downtown. So there was a, what was in the script, as I recall, as much as I recall,

was he's out walking. and we reveal that he's trailed by Colin. And I think Jesse had written that they were walking towards water. I'm paraphrasing horribly, obviously. So I basically did a circuit from Brooklyn Bridge down around Bowling Green and up the other side, up the Hudson side. And being down right on the tip of Manhattan there, The idea was really to start him walking through the trees in that area and then to reveal the water in the distance.

And so we used that initial setting to reveal Colin Scott's character. And that was, I think, a little frustrating, I think, is the honest answer. To that section, we all wanted to feel something that wasn't quite happening. and that's happened to us before. So even though it was scary because we were shooting the last scene, we also know to work the problem. So that's what we did. It was also an insanely cold day,

there was a minus something Fahrenheit chill factor. So it was absolutely freezing. And after the first couple of takes, Jeremy was seriously perturbed, as we all were. He said, I can't feel anything except cold. But the closer we got to the water, the better things started to feel. And eventually we kind of abandoned shooting amongst in the park proper and moved it right down to the water's edge.

And then we just ran a 10-minute take, went through a whole role of film, and then it just came alive, where there was something about that proximity to the water, So yeah, we just brought something alive inside Jeremy and for me and for Greg, the camera operator. And so we went into our kind of classic ballet of Jeremy just being lost in the moment. Me and Greg are just dancing around that and repositioning in a way that I knew we could bring the sequence together editorially. And seeking out to capture a moment. and when we brought the camera out to the side and we had the shallow depth of field

and with Colin's character beyond, that just felt like it to me. That felt like a ghost, a banquoise, ghost. There was something haunting about it. And that combined with the reverse shot of Jeremy just staring out at an uncertain future, but then I knew we had it. Jeremy said in an interview that in one of those balletic moments,

he clambered over the railing. Was there anything about that idea that was appealing to you? What goes through your mind when your lead actor does something like that? Yeah, the first one was fear for his well-being. So, you know, with the help of Scott and the rest of us, we got him the right side of the fence. And then just carried on shooting once, you know, once the basics of safety had been applied,

there was no reason not to stay in the moment once he was the right side of the fence. And it was golden. It really was the emotion that continued through that. And then editorially, it presented an interesting choice and a challenge that we debated long and hard about what point to leave it. There was a point where we could have,

taken that choice, of actually taking the character towards that railing and cutting to black there. It felt too much to both Jesse and I. There was something about leaving the character in a purgatory

of between two horrible places. One is an icy cold ocean. The other, an icy cold future. And that just seemed like an extraordinarily heartbreaking place to leave Paul

Kendall and therefore probably completely correct. How about Roman? Roman is sitting at a bar, he's got a martini, Jerry's drink is what he orders. Can you talk about the decision around the drink and the decision around putting him there? Is that a more, does he have the most optimistic ending of the three siblings? What do you think? Oh, goodness, that's all relative, isn't it? It's how optimistic they are. I suppose relatively one could make that argument. Yes, I think so. I'm delighted that you picked up on the martini connection with Jerry. It's always lovely to me where there's what I think are Easter eggs that nobody would ever notice and then people do.

I forget just how smart audiences are. I don't know. I still find it, I don't know, I would say the most optimistic, but I find it absolutely heart-rending. And particularly Kieran's performance. Because the character is so many things, but all three of them are really clever. And it is, you know, an hour before that, at least in our world, he's said the absolute truth, the absolute defining truth of those characters and their destiny. We are bullshit.

So this character has this self-knowledge that has lain that he's been happy to anethitise his whole life, really, but finally the anaesthetic wears off and bam. there's the truth exposed horribly, and then he calls back into the anesthetic, in this case, through alcohol. And I find that heartbreaking. There is, in terms of the idea of optimism, there's another lens to view it. Of course, there's the past, you know, two years in terms of the character's history has just a little detour, and then he's, you know, and he's found himself exactly right back where he started, like it was just a tangent that never happened. A, a a wistful dream.

I can't remember if we even left it in the final edit now. But scripted when he walked into the ball was the words, and forgive me, I'm probably paraphrasing again as, What Up Motherfuckers, which was a deliberate echo in Jesse's writing of the very first words that we ever hear the character say when he's introduced in episode one in the first season. And that, at least to my ears, was symbolic of that the character, has, like all of them in some ways,

actually through all their endeavors and all that noise, it's exactly back where he started. I guess I think the only optimistic lens I could put on top of that is what I hoped always for the Roy kids is that they would break free of a cycle. You know what I mean?

And if he's back at the start, then sort of that implies he's on a wheel of some kind. But I always wanted them to find freedom from this thing that they're changing. that they're never going to have. The least free amongst these three seems to me, Sarah and Matthew, Shiv and Tom in the car,

this very icy date taunt between them. Can you talk about that decision to end them there? And then also, of course, the very specific instructions you gave around the handholding, the chilliest handhold I've ever seen in my childhood. Yeah, I would love to take credit for the handholding, but that was Jesse.

I think he wrote something to the effect of two unexploded bombs being transported with the utmost care, which was kind of all the direction that me and Matthew and Sarah needed to find that scene. Obviously, visually, it's very simple. I use the metaphor, you know, coming up out of the tunnel into their new life. Visually with the positioning of the car, in terms of Sarah and Matthew, they hit it from take one. I think we only did maybe two or three takes, and that was specifically because of the amount of traffic that happened to be on the street when we broke out from the underground car parking area. So there was, as with almost all of our really important scenes, those actors, they just find the tone so quickly. And the dance of the hands, they found absolutely perfectly.

So, yeah, no directing required, really. Just support. It was, yeah, it was scripted like that. and they delivered it and broke my heart. I actually see it oddly, kind of optimistically, through the kind of straight prism of what does Shiv want. And even though she was self-sabotaged and destroyed the whole destiny of the characters, she's also the only one that's vaguely still in the game,

in a lady with Beth fashion that she can play and manipulate from the sidelines. So she's the only one that actually has skin in the game still, I suppose, whether that's the best for her wellbeing, I don't know. I think some people are interpreting her ending as she's just become her mother, the wife of the CEO of Waystar. But I don't imagine that Shiv would approach things the way that Caroline would approach things. What do you make of that? I mean, we all become our parents to a certain extent, don't we?

So I think there is a truism there, isn't that? Yeah. The other thing we all do with parents is try to do the opposite of all the faults that we perceive in our own parents. And that's how, of course, you know, in the famous program we find otherwise to fuck up our kids. So, yes, I'm sure she will try to be different. But in terms of emotional availability, I expect that that is something that will be rationed out. That'll be in short supply, I imagine. And that, of course, she does share with Caroline.

For this big decision that Chavon makes in this episode, what moments would you suggest the audience look for to sort of understanding her steps towards that moment, either in things you specifically wanted to frame or in Sarah's performance? I love to be on back and tracking actors' performance and just seeing how we find our way, because we try to shoot the episodes as chronologically as possible,

this one actually being one of the exceptions and that we weren't able just financially and practically to shoot Barbados until the very end. So that section had to be broken out, which was tricky in terms of emotional flow, but actors are well used in their craft to shooting out of order and we had to resort to that in this case. But having learned of the betrayal by Mattson, there's that very quick study of the character pivoting. as she does with that intellect and an ability to pivot quickly, to make that, how can I realign, how can I still make a deal? And that deal is made with her two siblings.

She immediately jumped to that as a least weak position and embraces that. It's something that the character has to do, perhaps a bit too impetuous. That's also part of her nature, I think. to get from there and that you know kind of the loveliness of me or fit for a king and that that kind of second

childhood that we get that glimpse of to get from there to I just don't think you'd be good at it to Kendall in the boardroom debacle that's a long way for the character to go but Sarah's cleverness, brilliance as an actor

is that even and I think if you go back on watch the cut again, even when she's celebratory and supportive and the trio are united, there's still a lack of clear focus in the character. There's still an element, an echo of self-deceit of actually not being completely in there. And so she's acting out of necessity as opposed to out of heart. And when we get to Kendall's office or to Logan's office before we actually go to the boardroom,

watching Sarah clock the way that Kendall buddies up to Stewie, the way she starts to intuit, okay, I'm really going to be sidelined here in this future deal. And then, of course, Kendall's feet going up on the desk. And all of those things. And so by the time you see her, the look in her face when she's walking down that hallway towards the boardroom, you know, second time round, you can interpret that not as resolve, but as encroaching doubt and increasing desperation. I think she threads that perfectly. I love watching Sarah work. I think she's so, she's incredible. I totally agree.

I wanted to talk to you also. I mean, to me, the most perturbing moment of finale, an episode that I loved, but the, I think one of a couple moments that were really hard to rewatch is the embrace that Kendall and Roman share before the final board meeting when he pops his stitches. I've seen a million people compare it to Michael and Fredo and the Godfather or something like that.

Is that, okay, so is this an overt framing reference that you're making there? And then also, again, what's on the page for this really unsettling blend of comfort and pain that is part of this embrace? Yeah, it wasn't a, I've not been above ripping off Francis Ford Coppola in the past, but in this case it wasn't, because the dynamic is essentially different, it's two brothers,

but there's no betrayal of playing here, though it isn't a mask. It's a beautiful contradiction to me, however brutal. Kendall in his mind is releasing Roman from his torture that he's giving him an out the out that the character unconsciously I think desperately desires to be released from

this sense of kind of ludicrous duty that he cannot escape as that gravitational pull that you alluded to earlier in our conversation he can never escape that and his brother gives him this gift of saying okay your face is too fucked up

to be the face of us in front of this board. So he gives him an out, however brutally. So in a very twisted way, I think it's actually a loving act. Pain with all love in Succession always. The reason I was familiar with her work before Succession is because I covered Game of Thrones for years. And so you were quite familiar with shooting kings and queens. You've got your Tommans, your Cerces, your Dineris. Are you thinking in terms of kings and queens

when you shoot something like Tom sort of storming in, linked by courtiers? Quite the opposite. I tend to see almost all characters and including the characters in Game of Thrones as children. That sounds ludicrous, I know, but the way we all put on these trappings of adulthood in literal uniforms and armor.

and it's only but to get to one's essence, to get to the vulnerability to make contact with those characters in television or film storytelling. You have to find ways to strip that away literally or figuratively. And yeah, I tend to, the first thing I look for in when I'm reading a script and trying to get hold of a character or connect to a character is to kind of find what would they like as a child, what do they still carry from childhood,

what dreams and ideals that have, what innocence do they have? before that innocence is perverted by experience and the nature and the nature of their families and those around them. So even at those moments of, you know, coronation, as you say, with Tom's march down to accept congratulations from his minions. I still see, you know, the boy from Minnesota who made good, really. I still see this social climbing outcast who is, you know, desperate to be to make it in New York City. to impress the girl that broke his heart, you know, when he was 17. I still see a child there, and that's how I connect to the characters,

and that's how I love the characters. I love that. Someone pointed out to me that Kieran, in the Barbados sequence, that Kieran is literally wearing a shirt from like the children's section of Walmart, that he is dressed as a literal child in that sequence. Is that part of it, you know? I would love to ask. He's wearing diapers, too, underneath the pants.

I was certainly not aware of that big a children shirt. As far as I could feel, it was a very expensive shirt. I'm curious, you know, we talked about some of my favorites, but do you have a shot or framing or a sequence from the finale that you consider either the most important or the thing that you are proudest of in the way that it came together? I'm very proud of the final scene with Jeremy because it was born out of a certain amount of suffering and angst. And because it's a non-dialogue scene, you know, we have this trump card in succession in that, if nothing else, we've got Jesse's brilliant writing and of course non-dialogue is writing also.

that scene we had to find something out of silence and find something powerful with that tremendous sense of pressure with it possibly being the final scene of the series. So to walk away from that feeling that we had something that was potent enough to be worthy of that. And it's not a specific framing. And I mentioned the two frames that we found during that. but it was more the collective of knowing that scene was going to work and with all that pressure that we're putting on ourselves to make it work. Is that, yeah, how much is it on your mind specifically that the legacy of other shows and their final shots

and are you thinking, I want to make something that stands in the Pantheon or are you thinking just more holistically like, I want a shot that makes the most sense for the story that we're telling here? Yeah, more the latter for me. I think there's two, there's many, but the two bare traps that I found in that one internal discussion that one has, specific to the finale was comparisons with other brilliant, the brilliance of six feet under, of Sopranos, of, you know,

breaking bad, a brilliant list of genuinely classic shows. And to be even in a debate where our show is even mentioned in the same breath is insane. and wonderful to me. But to play that comparison game is ludicrous. So, you know, we are our own animal and have to stay true to that. The second thing that I was really wary of was, you know, particularly we shooting that last episode, this is the last time that we'll be with Harriet's character. This is the last time we'll be with this.

This is the moment that this happens where we find out that Tom will succeed. et cetera, all of those things. If I leaned into those and tried to play the importance of the moment, as opposed to the truth of the moment, then I knew that I'd be in trouble. So I had to, against all my kind of emotional sense with the last episode, tried to stay as laser-focused and as cold, actually, as cruel as I couldn't clear-eyed,

and not give somebody that last great close-up, that, you know, or really lay into that moment. It's just an hour of day in the life of these characters, and these characters in our metal universe will continue to live and exist beyond this day. This is just one particular day in their life. So trying to stay clear-eyed with that was a real challenge. Yeah, that farewell tour aspect can sort of bog a finale down.

And I think what I really, liked was the very tidy way via video. We get a little bit more Logan in the finale. We get to spend time with Frank and Carl and Jerry and carry and everyone in it acts as sort of like a last look without doing that sort of

fond farewell exactly. The last, perhaps the last question depends how quickly you answer it, but one of the last questions I have for you is, do you have a scene or a shot or a sequence from the entire series that

you consider the most important or that you are the proudest of. There's, okay, two, two, and two hours, I'll be really quick. Not the most important, but certainly something I'm very proud of because it was really hard to do. And I love what we did with it was Turnhaven, season two, episode five. The majority of the episode, and certainly the meat of the episode took place around a big dinner table with about 22 people at the table. And that's directorially and acting-wise, despite the brilliance of Will Tracy and Jesse's script, it's really hard to achieve. And I really loved, I've always been a big fan of Robert Altman. And so I took a lot of leaves out of his book in terms of overlapping.

Anyway, so that I was really proud of and was really proud the next day to get a letter from Spielberg saying how much he liked it. So that was a real high point. But in terms of most important, I'd have to go back to the last episode of season one, to the secret, the last 15 minutes or so, 20 minutes of the episode. It sets up so much of the dynamic that will follow through seasons 2, 3, 4, with the death of Doddy and the power that gives Logan, the additional power that gives Logan over his son, Kendall.

the execution of that and that whole episode, how we dug in to Shiven Tom's relationship. And I felt that that was where I really properly understood what the show should be from a directorial stance. This is going to sound like I'm just trying to curry favor with you, but Turnhaven is my favorite episode of the show. Thank you. Steven Sewellberg and I must have the same taste. All right. Then my real last question for you is sort of more of a technical one, which is, you know, you've always spoken so beautifully about the freedom of the camera in succession and how you're nimble and you react and you will follow Jeremy if he decides to take a scene into the boardroom and give Frank more dialogue to have, etc., etc., in this episode. Was there anything new or different that you want to do in this season or in this finale episode to sort of, I guess, mark? a transformation of some kind.

Yeah, no, to be honest, I actively fought against that because I didn't want to, yeah, I didn't want to signal the end. I didn't see that, you know, in terms of, you know, I played a lot more three shots than I've ever done before, which is an obvious reaction to the closeness of the siblings before that alliance so cataclysmically explodes.

So I played, I played the group shots more. I played the dynamic and put them into spaces where they could be close together to bring them, to try to bring the characters as close as possible. But in terms of actually more subconscious camera grammar, my approach was really stay laser focus, stay clear, keep the audience barely keeping up with events. It was just, I just wanted to be clear-eyed and not telegraph anything or get sentimental or to, or getting caught directing, I believe, is one of the expressions of where one tries to,

where one tries to make the camera do too much because that becomes ego on the director's part, which is always something I'm fighting against. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for the time and for your wonderful answers and for this tremendous show. That's it for the Prestige TV podcast on Succession. I actually have no idea what's coming up in the future of the Prestige feed. You'll just have to stay tuned. I have not been told what we're doing. You can find Van and yours truly over on the Ringervor's feed. Van does, of course, higher learning.

I do trial by content, et cetera, et cetera. And thanks, of course, to Kai Grady, who wrangled us in multiple time zones on multiple continents to put this all together. So thank you to Kai. And we'll see you soon. Bye.