The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Succession' Series Finale Precap

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

Wos and Rob start the pod by breaking down the individual performances of each of the kids during their the eulogies for Logan Roy and talk about the importance of letting stuff go when facing the finality of life. They then dive into their plot and character predictions for next week’s series finale and discuss how ‘Succession’ was so great at mirroring some of society's most critical real-world media events (16:34). Hosts: Wosny Lambre and Rob Mahoney Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You may find this hard to believe, but 60 songs that explain the 90s. America's favorite poorly named music podcast is back. With 30 more songs than 120 songs total. I'm your host, Rob Harvilla, here to bring you more shrewd musical analysis, poignant nostalgic reveries, crude personal anecdotes, and rad special guests, all with even less restraint than usual. Join us once more on 60 Saws That Explain the 90s every Wednesday on Spotify. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the final edition of the Succession Precab Show

on Big Was, Waz, a.k.a. Wazzy Lambray. And Chris Ryan is off in Sweden, hanging out with Lucas Madsen, eating all kinds of Swedish meatballs, enjoying free health care. It's ridiculous. But in his stead, we got the big dog. Rob Mahoney was going on, man. Wolf Woff Waus, look, I just wanted to grab a quick five with you, talk macro-Sylvania, micro-travel budget. What do you think? I think we can think about some stuff, man. I think we might be able to put some plays together, get you in some important rooms on the Eastern block. Love to hear it.

Yeah, man, so this was the penultimate episode. I think another stellar. episode of Succession on the writing side and just some of the performances I thought were just completely out of this world. Obviously, you know, everybody's talking about Kieran Culkin and what he did with Roman Roy's sort of breakdown and just like all of it just finally fell apart for him. And he was great. But like, I rewatched this thing this morning and I thought the scene between Shiv and her mom where the mom

sort of immediately recognizes that she's pregnant without Shiv even saying and they're not even saying anything. Yeah. Do you think it's almost like Succession's very British-ass version of that scene in the wire

where Bunk and McNulty are invested in the crime scene and only saying variations of fuck. Just a lot more blindingy and well-well involved, you know? Dude, it was just incredible. Just top to bottom incredible episode for me,

but I don't know, let me know how you felt about watching it for the first time and maybe even rewatching it. No, I feel the same way. And honestly, like, this is in a lot of ways the last real episode of the show. Right?

A series finale has to serve a lot of bunch of complicated purposes, which is often why in these big prestige series, the second or third last episode is really kind of the hallmark closing moment. I think what was particularly special about this one is one of the hardest things to do in television or in movies is to make the big important thing feel like the big important thing.

And by that, I mean, not only are we closing out a series here, but within this episode, the eulogies at Logan's funeral, we've been building up to all season, what this funeral is going to look like, who's going to speak, what those moments are going to feel like kind of in the room. And it's always easier to say, oh, Kendall killed it than to show Kendall killing it

and to really sell us that moment in the same way that you can tell us, us on a show that someone's a great writer or that a comedian's really funny, but then when you show it, it can be kind of flat. But the reason this works is that Kendall gives up and gives this amazing bit of oratory after Roman just kind of flubs the moment. But really the only reason that sells us is because Kendall and Jeremy Strong, to your point about the performances, I mean, he really sells it for us. He really drives home the fact that, oh, maybe Kendall actually can land this plane, which of course makes me as a viewer think he really cannot land this plane. Something's about to

get pulled out from under him. So I think the coolest thing about this show, and this episode in particular, you know, um, we won't be the first people to mention that life is a performance. But this episode was so dope to me because it reminded me that oftentimes is, as children of parents,

we are called upon to perform specifically for our parents. Um, like, you think about like when your parents, dress you up and you go to like some, you know, one of your cousins or classmates' birthday party. And the other parents are like, oh, my God, look at that shirt. Look at that dress. Look at that hat.

And you're made to spin around and do a ditty. You know, like, you're oftentimes performing for your parents, right? I think about my niece's Sweet 16 last year, my brother's secondborn. and my sister's firstborn had to, she made her do a violin routine. A whole ass recital at the Sweet 16. Dude. And I'm like, look, I love my niece.

Avi, I love you. You're not listening to this, but I do. Let's just say she wouldn't have made it in Tars Symphony. Damn. You're taking shots at your niece. I'm not taking shots. I'm just saying, let's just say she's not the best. She's not bad.

She's not the best. I don't think it was warranted for her to be up there at a sweet 16 where these kids clearly want to listen to freaking little baby in future and not, you know, some violin performance to be up there. But, you know, her parents like, no, I want you to perform. Yeah. And I think the eulogy and sort of serves as your last performance, right, in the sense that people who show up to the funeral do want to hear the kids speak. they want to watch them emote. They want them to sort of, you know, essentially bury the parent, right?

And so watching the kids put on their last performance for their dad, I just found that to be fascinating, right? And of course, Roman comes up short. Kendall seizes the moment. And Shiv, I don't even know what that was that she was doing. But it was something. It was certainly something. I mean, it really was one of those sequences.

And this is all of the eulogies, including UINs, which I think deserves kind of a clear out to discuss in its own way. Yeah. But just one of these moments of television where the whole stretch, I'm just transfixed, like almost like hand over my mouth. Yeah. I'm just kind of stunned. I'm reading everyone's facial expressions on every pan to the audience. You do feel like you are pulled into that room and that all of the oxygen is being pulled out of it. And you were just solely focused, narrowed in on this one exact speaker at this one exact time.

and those things are so effective. And honestly for people who I think, especially after the last episode, we rightly probably have a lot of contempt for, people like Roman, for example, given some of the decisions they've been making lately, it's hard not to feel for them. It's hard not to feel for,

you know, like, I think Caroline is a really lonesome character, Shiv's mom. And I was kind of heartened by her whole like sisterhood of traveling pants situation, gathering up all the wives and sisters. Like, I feel like a broken man because I'm genuinely moved

by Marsha grabbing Carrie's hand in that moment, despite everything we know about some of those characters and what they've done. Well, again, that's why I think a lot of the show speaks, the writers anyway, are obviously pulling from experience and real life. We know that Jesse Armstrong has lost the parent. And I remember after the episode with Logan passed, I was talking to Chris, who liked me also lost the parent, right?

And I was like, man, this shit was so freaking accurate, right? And Chris is like, bro, like, I'm pretty sure this guy is pulling from his own experience of what it's like to lose someone in our day and age. And the other thing, the reason why I'm saying that is the capacity for people to bury a hatchet after a major death is so much higher. And so that moment, that like rang so true to me because people are always. more inclined to let things go. It's sort of like death can put things into perspective and be like, these petty grievances are not important. There are bigger things in life than, you know, our little gripes or whatever.

And so that moment felt so real and honest because that's how it happens in reality. Like, people will let things go when they realize that life is very finite. They sort of get a better understanding or get a better understanding or get more in tune with their own mortality and the finality of life sort of kicks in and people are more willing to move on. I thought that was what was particularly great about Ewan's eulogy was in a lot of ways he was bearing the hatchet on some of the pettiness with Logan, right? It was a huge speech about this very fraught relationship with his brother and his contempt wasn't really for Logan as a person, but with his legacy and what he had created and some of the results of his actions and

like what he brought out in other people. Not only, I mean, I thought it came with a strong game plan to begin with, just getting up to the podium. He really locked down that aisle seat. Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness. Was not going to be denied. Also got up there and killed it. I did wonder, you know, we see Roman looking a little shook toward the end of Ewan's speech.

And I kind of wonder if everything had played out differently and Roman is batting leadoff instead of Ewan. Does he get up there and crush it the way he intended? or wasn't a moment of like there's this big powerful moment and he feels a little daunted by it. Yeah, I think he will be able to go up there and bullshit his way through a speech without that. But I think what in the moment with Ewan is delivering and James Cromwell, God damn, bro. Just gravitas incarnate that guy.

So I think what hits Roman is the truth of his dad's life. and why he was who he was. And that realization of sort of humanizing the dad in a way that it's like, oh, I could finally grasp what was happening with this guy. And to be honest, it's way sadder. It's way more fucked up.

It's going to gut you more to realize how much your dad himself actually hurt in his own life. to realize in that moment, then to just be like, well, my dad was a cold-hearted bastard. That's almost easier to get over than to realize, wow,

my dad was somebody who hurt a lot himself in his life and I didn't even realize it. I think that ultimately, like the part about Logan being an asshole, that's not new to anybody. I don't think that's why Roman breaks down there. I think Logan being somebody who's felt immense pain

and deep sorrow in his, life as well is what ultimately set Roman off. It's like this realization of his dad who he looked at as this titan and lion. And it's like, man, he was once a scared little boy himself. Yeah, you know, we see this moment when Roman's rehearsing his speech of like, you know, maybe in doing this, I remind you the audience a little bit of my dad. But I think when he gets up there, he sees the opposite. He sees that relationship and sees the parallels of, oh, this Titan, this person I idolized, this person who's, you know, who's respect and attention. I was always craving and chasing after.

He was just scared too. He was just blamed by his adopted parents based on the situation that was beyond his control. He was held responsible for things that were never his fault. People were lashing out at him the same way that Logan always lashed out at Roman and the other kids. So it's, it's an incredible, you do get these incredible character beats for everybody.

My only, like, my only misconnection here that I wish we got, I really wish we got Conner's eulogy, the overwritten, formally, I really wanted to see him just riff up there. That would have been quite the same. But to stay on Ewan's speech, man, that hit me in a lot of ways because it's a conversation we have all the time about prominent people when they pass away. Jim Brown just passed away this week. And, you know, all of the shit this guy has done.

in, you know, impoverished and disenfranchised communities in Los Angeles with the gang stuff, stuff that he did for civil rights, all of this stuff. And I remember when he died, I was like, man, I wonder how people are going to deal

with the fact that he, like, was pushing his girlfriends downstairs and shit, flights of stairs. And then it was like, I actually read an obit, and it was like, no, he didn't push his mate down the stairs. He threw her off a balcony.

Jesus. You know what I? I mean. And so this idea of how do we confront people's humanity in a more 360-degree view, especially when they're prominent people who might have achieved incredibly great things? And I think that's what Ewan was trying to do in his eulogy. He was trying to, like this conversation that we're actually having as a society all the time. about imperfect people and love the man and not the music or vice versa or whatever, right?

And he was really trying to do it. And I got to say, Rob, in that moment, being right and truthful is not an excuse to be an asshole. And maybe I don't think he should have put all that vinegar in that damn eulogy. But this is the contradiction of this whole situation, right? Because as you're saying, just as people in the. the world who have seen someone passed away, whether up closer at a distance, you do want the family members or the people who are close to them to speak to their life and their importance, to turn that into a three-dimensional figure who you can understand and grapple with the entirety

of who that person was, especially with someone like Logan, who or any other famous person, to your point about Jim Brown, or anyone who passes away who has a certain level of fame, from a remove, those people always do look two-dimensional. They always do look, oh, this is an icon. This is a legend. This is a titan of industry. And so really the only people who can add dimension to that are the people who are close enough to probably not want to do it in most of those circumstances, which is why at these funerals, at these

services, you do get a lot of just like speaking to fond memories, speaking to the beautiful person they were in their best moments. You don't get a lot of U-Ns out there in the real world on the podium at the funeral. Maybe you get some people after the facts, you know, bring in some context, but this is just another one of those things that would not happen in real life. You know, Succession does dip into that territory, a little bit of a parallel universe situation. But man, it makes for interesting theater in the world of the show.

Yeah, I was, I was just, I was blown away. I was at the edge of my seat. I was just like, this guy is going nuts. And so, aside from the funeral and burying Logan and all the things that we just mentioned attached to that, some of the pieces did move, right? We get this idea is like, oh, maybe we could talk to, you know, the future president about just letting you do the deal but keeping an American guy on. And, you know, Kendall is like, oh, okay, they're trying to push me out of the way. And everybody sort of gets to moving.

And the episode ultimately brings us to the point that, all right, It's going to be this battle of wills over who gets to sort of put their arms around the company and shepherded going forward. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve

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I have to say, just to reiterate to people, it is not my belief that any one of those three damn kids are going to be running the company. The show has explained to us, Logan had three seasons and three episodes. to pick an air, to pick his succession. He would not do it. The last time he spoke to these folks, he let them know exactly how he feels, which in my estimation is exactly how the show actually feels,

which is, I love you, but you are not serious people. They're not. And so I just do not believe they're going to end this thing with these guys, with one of these kids onto the throne. I think we've already discarded Roman. Like, they've just disabused us of that notion. He's done. He's dead in the water.

Yeah. He's had his Emmy submission episodes. Like, I think that is, that's sealed up for Kieran and for Roman in particular. You know, making, you know, made fun of him for crying and all of that. He's done. They basically set it up where it's like, all right, it's going to be Shiv and Kendall trying to do. this out. Again, this is the precap. I'm going to give a prediction. I haven't seen a screener. I didn't even get screeners this year. Yeah, same.

It's my belief that Chavon is going to make it so that Kendall doesn't get it. And then she's ultimately going to be pushed out herself. And like, every time Madden talks to is like, oh, who should I? Like, who should I? You have suggested an American CEO. Who do you think that should be? And she's like, you know, mm-mm. Me, Chavonne Roh. It's like every time he's talked to her about actually empowering her, he is fucking condescending to her the entire time. No doubt. Right? So I find it hard to believe that he is going to knight her.

You know, it's like, as Jay-Z once said, the same sword, they knight you, they're going good-night you with. So, yeah, he's going to chop her head off at the very end. And that's my prediction. What do you think about the sort of music? chairs and where do you ultimately see this going? Well, I think they've done a great job with it because they put you in a position where your opinion, you want to change your opinion by the minute.

Like you ask me at some points, I'm going to say Kendall, you ask me at some points I'm going to say like you're saying none of the Roy's. Ultimately where I land is, I think by the end of the final episode, Waystar itself will be crippled and unsalvageable, specifically because of the things that the three Roy kids did. I think Kendall, like, like, gooseing the numbers and Roman thinking that he had Mencken in his pocket when the opposite was true. Shiv letting the wolf in the door with Madsen, I think those things are going to demolish the company.

Ultimately, the question is like, who is at the top of that pile by the end of it? I think a pile of ash. And this is where I think the two main threads of this season intersect, because there's obviously all the drama going on with Logan's passing and who's going to run the future of the company. The other major story, as we've been told with both screen time and from the creators of the show and the participants in the show,

and the participants in the show and interviews is Tom and Shiv's relationship. And so it feels like one of those two is going to be running the company by the end. And my guess is Shiv is a purely puppet CEO of a dying company. And one of the first things Madsen tells her to do

is fire Tom. And you get this kind of direct confrontation of these two major plot lines. That's my feel, but honestly, with this show, who the fuck knows? And that's the beauty of it. Yeah.

Yeah. And again, if you're watching the show, So, a friend of mine recently had to take, oh, succession is mid. Oh, isn't the show supposed to, isn't somebody supposed to succeed the dad? And they do all the musical chairs and blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, okay, breaking bad, one of the, some people's Mount Rushmore, Prestige TV, that's how you watch the show. It was meticulously put together plot that like every single dominant know was connected and in the end it made like this beautiful figure eight and just told this tight story whatever. I will confess to you, Rob, I've never gone back to Breaking Bad because I felt like it was

too much of that. It's like once you already know the ending, it feels less rewarding to rewatch the show. Because it's kind of only about the plot and not really about much else in my opinion, right? I think shows like the soprano, shows like the wire, who to me, neck and neck for number one. But I think the sopranos is about a lot of things. It's about, you know, family. It's about late stage American capitalism. It's about masculinity in the 21st century. It's about all of these fucking themes that you can sort of grab onto, right? And the same thing with the why. Like how institutions fail, who they end up failing, why they do, why we can never fix them, et cetera, et cetera.

There's just these themes. And I think succession is in that tradition. I think it's about the people who ultimately run our lives and why they fucking suck. Right. Like, that's what the show is. It's about power, how it works, how it corrupts, and how immovable. this shit is like it can only be one way. I just think the show is about way more than ultimately

which one of these dumb ass kids gets to run this media company. Right. And so that's why I think to show it like I don't see the show pulling some switcheroo on us and being like, surprise, Kendall's gonna be the next Steve Jobs and it's gonna be incredible. Oh my God, happily ever after. I don't think that's,

That's the temperament of the show and that's why I don't think any of these kids are ultimately going to quote unquote win. And the show has demonstrated to us like, these people are fine. Whatever becomes of Way star Royco, they are good. Their lives will only be mildly affected by the fires happening outside of their bubble. I think that, I thought that scene where they're driving in and, you know, some protesters sort of bang on their window lightly. And they're like, and that is the extent to which they feel any of the bullshit that they've done of the chaos that they're wrong. That brief, mild moment of uncomfortability. And then that's it.

They're past the barricades into their lives of perfect comfort. And I think the show is saying, like, that's where they'll be ultimately. And yeah, these kids are too fucking stupid to actually run a successful company. Yeah, it really is not about who's on the throne at the end. It's about how does that moment sit when they get there? Because you're right. It's about theme. It's about ideas.

It's about character. That's what the show is. This is not a breaking bad level plot show. To the point that, look, I mean this genuinely as a compliment. The performances on this show are so compelling. And Sarah Snook and Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin in particular are so, like, pyrotechnical in the way they perform. They distract you from the fact that sometimes

there are character beats and plot threads between episodes that just like disappear. Like, Shiv and Tom just spent two episodes telling each other the kinds of things people do not come back from. And now she wants Tom to go back and take a nap at their apartment. You know, Shiv just spent a whole episode lying to Kendall. This episode is the next day, and there's not a trace of resentment between them.

Greg just sold out Shiv to Kendall. and there's not a single side eye about it. And I'm not pointing these things out. He still got to be the wheelman. And she signed off on him being the wheelman. And I genuinely am not pointing this out to take shots at the show. I'm pointing them out to say that when I watched the episode, I didn't even really think about him.

Yeah, it's bigger than that. It's not about that in the same way that, you know, when the initial go-jog deal was struck. Has Pierce come up since? No. They left that damn retreat and came up with a break. It doesn't matter. matter. None of that stuff matters. Just like when the initial Gojo deal was struck, and it serves your

point about the fact that the Roy's are going to be okay. They're on the plane. When they find out that they've struck this massive deal in which Mattson is wildly overpaying, Kendall and Roman are sad boys sitting in their private jet because they just got richer because they didn't get richer in the way that they wanted. Right? Like that is what the show is. I'm going to miss it. We don't need to eulogize the show here and get all weepy-eyed about a TV show. But I do want to talk about just a couple of things from the episode. As a recovering Catholic, the Catholic nature of the service, I was like, wow, they fucking nailed all of that.

Like, so, it's so good. And I think they did do it at St. Regis. That's not like some made up. Like, they actually did go to the actual. spot. I thought that was just incredible. Kendall sort of doing the whole, all right, I'm rounding up the troops

and getting all of my dad's guys, right? It sort of reminds me of like Jeannie Bus only ever hiring Lakers, like former Lakers. Or MJ with the Hornets only hiring UNC guys. Yeah, exactly. That's what it felt like Kendall's doing with Hugo and the driver homie and all of that. I thought that was a,

cool beat. But yeah, man, just to me, this was just, again, we lost my mom last year and so like, under, like the whole fucking shit that happens when somebody passes away and the reminder that the world does not fucking stop. The funeral home is not only that they're trying to get your services situated for your loved one who just passed. They're trying to fucking upsell you on upgrades and this. No, did you think about this? Wouldn't your mom want to be sent off with Bob? It's just like this reminder that, you know, people just like, yo, my dad just died, but like in real life, the show does not stop.

It goes on, on, on, on. And so this season just reminding me of that truth about just life and like, I would just one cog in the fucking machine and even a, a Titan, like Logan Roy, this shit just keeps going and going and going. And yeah, the show was just brilliant about all of that stuff. And yeah, I will obviously be rewatching this show from now until Kingdom come because the hilarity of all of this is just crazy. But yeah, man, just excellence.

I'm not a loss for words. It's just so excellent. I can't wait for the finale. And I'm so happy that they've made this show. I'm completely with you on all the funereal aspects. of this. I keep thinking back to that that great Kendall line earlier in the season about how he's on two tracks, one dead and one alive.

Yes. I mean, it really speaks to what you're saying about the fact that this stuff does not stop. And really from the time Logan has died, everyone, people have come out of the woodwork toward Kendall and Shiv and Roman, and some of them are grabbing at them for things. Some of them are lobbying for power.

Some of them are just like opportunistically trying to like worm their way in. Some are very genuinely like concerned about them. And the fact that especially Roman just like has not really shown any signs that he has processed this or grieved at all to the point that he just breaks down in the moment where he's supposed to be eulogizing his father. But it's it put all three of them in just this emotional crucible all season when they're supposed to be making these gigantic continental world level decisions that are now affecting the entire country that are now leading to protests in the streets that are that have incredible ramifications on everyone around them except for them. they are still contained in the world of their father's death. Everyone else is pretty concerned about what is going to happen when this crazy Nazi is running our country.

I know Succession never has problems with real world tie-ins. But why do you think a Republican presidential candidate getting in bed with an anarcho-capitalist is a little two on the nose after the Twitter announcement this week? Bro. First of all, if we can just pause for a moment, the hilarity of DeSantis and Eli. And then I'm sorry, but my favorite moment is 45 dropping a meme

on his true social of a rocket shit failure to launch and the rocket is called Ron. So it's like a double entendre diss of Eli and Space X and Ron DeSantis. I'm like, that's the thing. Truth is even stranger than fiction these days when it comes to what these guys can portray on the screens, right, Rob?

And so, yeah, that shit is my perfecto. Just incredible. You know, Elon is going to have to step it up. We're going to need it to escalate the uncertainty of our real lives even further, I guess. Oh, my goodness. Anyway, man, that's our show.

Of course, this is the, the last of the succession precaps, we will have a fresh recap right on Sunday after the episode airs with Bill and Sean and Joanna. Of course, they've been doing an excellent job with those. Of course, TV don't stop, Rob. Like, there's plenty more incredible prestige TV coming down the pike. We keep it moving. Yeah, we keep it moving.

So stay locked to the feed. Thank you, Chris Sutton, for being an excellent. producer all season long. Shout to Chris Ryan for tapping me on my shoulder to even want to do this with him. So much fun. Just, you know, just one of my favorite shows of all time, obviously. And yeah, man, we will talk to you guys soon. Peace out.