The Watch - A Cultural Roundup and Breaking Down ‘Succession’ Season 2, Episode 9 | The Watch

Episode Date: October 7, 2019

Andy is back in the studio to catch up on all things entertainment, including ‘Joker.’ Martin Scorsese’s recent comments about superhero movies, the return of ‘Mr. Robot,' and the state of modern TV and consumerism (0:40) before your number one boys break down Season 2, Episode 9 of ‘Succession’ (47:30). Host: Chris Ryan Guest: Andy Greenwald, Jason Concepcion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, a first-time guest. It's Andy Greenwald. I love what you done with the place.

We're in the big room because we got big personalities, and this is the big show. We're here in the chapel. Craig's here on the decks. And Andy Greenwald, for the first time... Months. When's the last time we did this in person? In Albuquerque, a few weeks ago. I mean in Los Angeles.

It's been months. It's been months. I came in a couple times during the writer's room. Otherwise, I called in, right? It was coming on Mondays for like January to, probably since May? Since Thrones. Yeah. And now here you are refreshed.

Yeah. You look like a million bucks. And I know, as our listeners do, you've spent all this downtime in between the rap of production and the beginning of post, just catching up on TV. The rap, so the time between the end of preempts. production in the beginning of post, you mean the Jewish holiday of Roche-Shana. That was the one... That was supposed to be our first show back, but you were like...

I was like, I can't wait to do Monday. It's going to be great. Succession. We'll get into it. Like Madonna, I'm embracing Judaism later in life. Anything for a day off. What else are you doing like Madonna? Boy, it's a great question. My new cabaret show confiscates your phones before you come in to see it. That's pretty much the extent of my Madonna knowledge. Are you posing for provocative photo? photographs with Big Daddy Kane? No comment. Do you remember though? Remember erotica? Did you buy that book?

No, I was too young to buy the book. Did you ever like look at it at borders? No comment. I did. I did. Who did? Who among us? I did it to be informed. You know, I wanted to be part of the conversation even back then. Can you imagine what an innocent time that was? Is this just going to be a full throwback pod? Like, do you had some shows you want to talk about? Yeah. I'm doing my best. We can listen, listen, let's let's let's take it back for a second. First of all, it's great to be here. Yeah. Good to see you. By the way, later on in the show, we're doing number one boys. We'll have the audio from that.

But Andy did watch success. You have your number two boy here. We were, you know, little curveball. We were supposed to do Mr. Robot today. We can still talk about Mr. Robot in the larger scheme of things. But I do want to say, in the spirit of succession, I'm realizing my role here is first pancake. I am the Conor Roy mistake. Like, you know, a little underdone.

Everybody remembers me, but maybe we got it right the second time. I'm thrilled to be here. I want to thank you, Chris, for keeping the show afloat during the many months that I wasn't here. I also want to thank Chris for keeping me afloat because I was almost even later today due to a lack of a startling lack of caffeine. Chris opened a vein and shared his Starbucks coffee with me. Gronde Blonde bros, a little almond milk. Chris asked me if I liked almond milk and I said, let's find out. How's it going down?

Smooth. Nutty? It's a little bit nutty on the palate. Why don't you make coffee at home? Um, it's a long story. Is it? No, it's just not a good story. But like buy some coffee grounds and make coffee in the morning.

I... Because you often are like, I'm dying. I need caffeine. I have tea in the morning. But like, who are we kidding? Nobody anymore. Yeah. And so like an hour later, I get the darkness.

Unless you have like hardcore British builders tea that the stuff that built Yorkshire. Yeah. I don't know what you're doing with tea in the morning. I take tea in the morning. afternoon. You take a tea. Well, I have an iced tea. Yeah. Well, this is great content so far. Let's talk about a couple things. The first thing I know you wanted to talk about. You drive the boat. You want to talk about Joker? The number one movie in America. Do you want to talk about a Joker? Well, you said that you wanted to talk about, I mean, look. Honestly, I'm going to share my thoughts on the big picture,

so we don't have to do this. No, no, it's not just the movie. I thought we were going to talk about the whole thing around the movie, because let's be honest, I've not seen this movie. But this is, this is great content. What I wanted to talk to you about was Martin Scorsese. Uh-huh. The great Martin Scorsese. The director of The Irishman. A movie that sounds much, much better than anyone thought it was going to be. Wade in. That is if you base your life entirely on A.O. Scott reviews.

So far, he's been... Remember when we got in like a weird fight about the Manchester by the C review? With him or with each other? With each other. You were like, that was beautiful work. And I was like, fuck that review. Oh, right. Because you thought it was too woke.

I didn't say that. That was your thing, right? I did not say that. You canceled Tony, Tony. Scott. I remember you were like... That's a reverse cancel. If you cancel somebody for being too woke, it's a reverse cancel. Chris... I disagreed

with his take. Remember when we could just do that? I disagree with your take. No. Respectfully. Chris texted me the morning of that Manchester review dropped and it was like, remember when film critics could like review movies before this woke PC culture? I don't know if that's an accurate representation of what I said. I do remember that you said, hard disagree.

It was a beautiful piece of writing. That's true. Yeah. Boy, we really used to be engaged in culture. What I wanted to say was, Martin Scorsese The Great. Yeah. The great Martin Scorsese

weighed in with his hot take. I'm sure this is exactly the context of it, right, and said that Marvel movies. Someone asked him about Marvel movies. I think he was talking about superhero movies in general, yeah. Ask my father about Marvel movies. What are we doing here? Anyway.

And he said that they were not cinema. And the Internet dragged him. They dragged Marty. It was sort of a, what's the thing like in like cold war movies where it's like mutually assured assured destruction. Sure. That's also in the cold war not just the movies. Where it's like

the missiles launched at the same time. You know, it was like as soon as anybody was like who's Martin Scorsese and like doing like I don't know her gifts. Cinema nerds were like finally the prince who was promised has arrived and we can go back to watching Christoph Khrastovovsky movies Do you pronounce that right?

No, but I take your point. You know? And it was like this war of like, no one actually like knows who started it, but it was, there was no middle ground. It was just the two sides. Well, here's why I'm glad that I'm here today

to finally check, check everybody. Because I have a thought about this. Immediately it reminded me of something. And I was going to share it with you over text, but you said, for God's sake, man, save the crumbs for the podcast. So I did. And so what I wanted to ask you was,

here was my take on this. Do you remember this idea that like Marvel movies, despite making billions of dollars and being the defining lifeblood of global movie theater chains and culture basically at this point, also need to be blessed by Pope Scorsese as quote unquote cinema? Like, do I ever remember that meeting to happen before this? So this is my comment on this. And this is what it made me think of. Do you remember Chris Ophela by the name of Tiger Woods? I do. Yeah.

Tiger Woods. 2019 Masters Champion. True. Had a nice little run of it this year. But there was a moment, you know, a few years ago, when he was just not just the greatest golfer in the world, but inarguably the biggest sports celebrity in the world, right? The most bankable, the most lucrative for everyone involved. Possibly the most just generally, I don't know, beloved is the world, but his cue score was

very, very, very high. Arguably the most well-known athlete in the world, sure. And later we found out that during this period, when he was at the peak of his powers on the links, is that what you call it? Yes. The courses? Yeah, this is great. I feel like you're pandering, but okay. No, I'm not.

I'm not. I'm setting this up. We found out what he really wanted to do and what he leveraged his fame, celebrity, and money for was to train with Navy Seals. Oh, okay. I thought you were going to say something else. Well, we were other things, too. I thought he was going to say something else. During the Navy Seals, yes.

he was obsessed with training with Navy SEALs. He would invite them to Florida and then like, you know, take them all out and then go like deep sea diving and do strenuous, you know, beach runs and training with them. Do that thing where you lie on the sand and let the waves crash over you? Not in like the from here to eternity way. The Burt Lancaster? No, it's like a training exercise. That sounds terrible. Although my two-year-old does that.

So is she? She's super joached now. Anyway, that's what he wanted. it to do. That's what mattered to him most, right? And they all paled around and like he went on training missions with them and they came and supported him. And it was this beautiful symbiotic relationship. That's like when Barack Obama got like the Ray Felton, Sean May, North Carolina team just to like do pickup runs. Right. I don't know if that actually happened, but there was like the gist of it. And then do you remember this was also came out in like in the books after his

semi fall before his recent comeback? There was a, okay, quite quite considerable fall. there was like a war. And he was like, what's up, guys? And they were like, yes. And he was like, it's me, Tiger Woods, your Navy SEAL buddy. I'm ready to go war now.

And they're like, no, no, no. You're a rich golfer. You can't fight in war. We do war. That's what this is. That's my metaphor for this. In this metaphor, Martin Scorsese is the Navy SEAL. Yes.

Right. Okay. He's global cinema. James Gun is Tiger Woods. It's like, and I don't. even mean this pejoratively. It's just like you are already the greatest and biggest and most successful at what you do and you bring joy to everyone. You don't also need to be the other thing. You just don't need to. It's fine. It's fine. Can you trace a line from Ozu to Kislauski and Varda

to fucking Ant Man and the Wasp? I mean, they're all moving pictures, baby. It's fine. If you subscribe to the theory of director bullshit when these guys are just like, yeah, it was deeply suicide Squad is deeply inspired by Antonioni, then, like, sure. But you're right. I think that there's a certain insecurity that seems to come with the narcissism of superhero movies where it's like they not only need to be accepted as blockbuster, you know, absolute ironclad, the only thing that makes money in the world anymore in theaters. And yes, they need to be acknowledged as part of the continuum of cinema. And it's not just Scorsese who is the Navy SEAL in this. It's also also like Anthony Hopkins or Mark Ruffalo or even Natalie Portman to a degree, right?

They're like, we'll come play around with you, but we know the difference here. Anthony Hopkins notoriously discerning. Discerning these roles. And for the record, Thor Ragnarok is a much more enjoyable and pleasurable use of movie cameras than Kundun in my experience. I'm just saying it's okay for them to be different. It's okay for them to be trying to be different things. Yes. And I do think, and I've long felt this way, like, just you get into trouble when there is a mismatch of what you're trying to make and what you make.

You know what I mean? It's not a... I think right now we're in an interesting place where when you are operating in, like, quote-unquote, a free market. Does that mean... By the careful, Gerald Morey. Does that mean a healthy sense of options? Or does it mean domination? Doesn't it mean a monopoly?

Is the end point for these things always going to be there's only one kind of thing. There's only one kind of service to use on the internet. There's only one kind of company that will deliver books and paper towels to your house. There's only one kind of car service to order. And is there only one kind of experience to have at the movie theater? Or three, maybe.

But not, I'm going to go see silence. I'm going to go see a cool thriller. I'll see a superhero movie. And there's also a comedy. and there's also this and there's also that. There's, the, the mix is kind of in jeopardy, I think. And I think actually in some ways, Scorsese's whole thing was like, to boil it down,

he was just like, when I think of cinema, I think of this sort of representation of human psychology. Right. And the grappling of emotion and physicality and that being represented through camera. And he's just not seeing that in Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor or whatever. And I think the big thing that kind of perpetuated

a lot of this stuff on the day that this happened, I think it was Friday, was James Gunn being like, I supported Martin Scorsese when Last Temptation of Christ was being boycotted and he was getting death threats. This is a slightly elaborate version of what James Gunn said. But he did say, I supported Martin Scorsese through Last Temptation of Christ. Even though people hadn't seen it, they were, they were ridiculing the movie. He was exiled. We all remember 12-year-old James Guns strident stand on I want to say... He was on the cover of time.

He had a crown of thorns on. And he said, who will protect this movie? Yeah. But he was like, you know, Martin Scorsese was like, I just haven't seen these movies. Like when I see, I don't want to go see these movies. And he's like, it's too bad Martin Scorsese didn't do the same thing for me.

It's weird. There is a... And we've talked about this before. We are fans of things. I love being a fans of things. But there is a fan entitlement that's built into this that you spoke to, which is that it's not just that I like it.

Everyone has to identify this as the greatest thing. And we even saw a little bit of it trickle into the coverage of Joker, which is just like, how brave. How brave of Warner Brothers to release a movie based on the most popular comic book villain ever and make a ton of money doing it. I don't see the bravery there. I'm not even saying that as a, you know, movie might be good. Right. I haven't seen it. But it doesn't seem particularly surprising to me that this was an enormous success. It's a Batman movie. It's a Batman movie. And so what do we need this extra, extra hit of validation for?

It's okay. But the bigger point that you're making that I think is interesting and actually can dovetail pretty nicely into both the Roy family and a little bit about Mr. Robot that I wanted to get into is this idea of end-stage capitalism affecting all of our entertainment choices, which has been, you know, the heavy shadow over everything we've talked about for the last few years when we talk about streaming wars and all this. we are really talking about in real time,

entertainment choices, if we're feeling high-minded, and this almond milk is kicking in, I will. It seems like it is. Art being, you know, more clearly just widgets in the Shineheart Whig Company portfolio. You know what I mean? Yeah.

These things have never been separate. The movie business has always been business. but it does seem more and more pronounced, and it's affecting our choices of what we watch, how we watch, and even how we talk about it. It's very true. So how do you see that connecting to succession? Oh, well, let me just say the thing about Mr. Robot.

And so obviously all of the caveats exist. Sam is the executive producer of my show, Briar Patch. We had a trailer for our show last night on USA. How did that go? I couldn't be. Did you get ads? Seems to have gone well. You got some menches?

I got a couple menchies. I hope people like it. Check out that trailer. I just posted it on the Sosch. So I probably am in no position to talk about it at all. Mr. Robot. I mean, I'm a fan, and I was a fan, and we will talk about the season,

and hopefully Sam can jump on too to talk about it with us. But I was interested, particularly in the review of it. I'm not sure if you read this of the season. And so far, stay tuned. I'm not spoiling anything. I don't know if you intend to spoil anything. I think it's like, I think I'll, I might talk a little bit more in depth about stuff that happens on Thursday, just because so much was going on last night that I want people to be able to see the episode and a lot happens in the episode. I feel the same way. And maybe Thursday, I'll be in post right next to where Sam is still posting robot and maybe I can grab him and he can, he can jump on the phone with us. But, so Alan Steppenwald, friend of ours, friend of the pod, one of if not the best TV critics out there. His review of this season was really interesting to me because,

he was very positive about the show, but he framed it in a way that was sort of elegiac and it was basically like when this show premiered four years ago, it seemed like it was going to change everything and now it's become a period piece.

And literally the show is a period piece. Sam very intentionally put the whole action of the series within a short period. So this season is at Christmas time 2015. Nothing has advanced past that. But more profoundly, he was talking about how it hasn't really changed the landscape of TV

and in fact it's just sort of become an island. Has it not? And I don't, that's my question. I mean, I personally, we like to say, well, this is the cause and effect of a show when in fact, behind the scenes and studios, maybe a show's been done and there's already hot buzz about it and the director gets hired and, you know, all these things can happen in the shadows that we don't see. We just look at it and we're like, well, Fleabag came out and now Phoebe Waller Bridge

is really important. But it's hard to imagine something like, say, maniac coming out. It's hard to imagine a lot of the more tourist stuff happens. without Sam in some ways. Now, I mean, I think you Carrie Fuganaga directed all these episodes of True Detective for Season 1 and David Fincher worked on House of Cards, and there's plenty of examples, Steven Soderberg and the Nick, but there's something about the style with which Mr. Robot is done in and the way it was increasingly and was increasingly shot like a film over the course

of its run. That I think is hugely influential. I completely agree. And in fact, I would take it a step further. I would say that it's sort of archipelago nature, that it is hemmed off from the larger culture or TV, is the influential part about it. Especially once Sam took over directing every episode, as he did in season two, it became a hermetically sealed, aesthetically sealed object, right? That is delivering a very, very specific vision that is Sam and his writers write it, and then he directs it. Obviously, he runs it, and I can attest, you know, micromanages in the best way every detail of it.

that in and of itself is a legacy. Yeah. Separate and apart from the content, you know. I wonder if Alan was talking a little bit about the show's willingness to really just poke the eye of culture in general and of the moment. You know, it is a very political show in a really compelling and perverse way. And we haven't seen that echoed nearly as much. and maybe what part of the reaction he was having wasn't just that the show hasn't influenced

a generation of other politically minded shows. It's that as it's drifted into the rearview mirror, it feels less and less political about our moment. I think that might be because of the accumulation of plot. Yeah, there's a lot of plot. So I think, you know, when you watch last night's episode, I mean, this is not blowing smoke up Sam's ass to say, like, there's no shots taken off.

Like every single shot in this show has a certain level of virtuosity. That's pretty rare, like, in film. You know, I mean, Sam squeezes the most out of every setup, out of every camera movement. All the settings look like they cost a billion dollars because of the way he stages things. It's, there's like a huge sequence in Grand Central Station in the season premiere that is one of the best things I've seen on TV this year. But it took me a minute to remember what the hell was going on. Yeah. It's been two years.

It's been almost two years. Yeah. And I think Mr. Robot is, if anybody feels like it's hermetically sealed, I think it's because it has to do so much stuff in the Mr. Robot world, which is just storytelling. But it's not necessarily about Lindsey Graham. You know what I mean? It's not necessarily about Edward Snowden. It's about Elliot and these characters.

Right. You know? Well, what is the other thing, though, and this is interesting. because something that I always, we often advocate for, and I actually just heard our pal Chuck talking about this on Bill's podcast too, is this sort of yearning for the monoculture and missing it, basically because then we could all watch the same things together and talk about them.

But flipping it for a moment from the creator's point of view, like what obligation does this show have or any show have to capture the moment? Because so many of these shows now, all shows, honestly, if we're thinking about them, are being built for a much different timeline, not the darkest community timeline, but meaning to exist for a long time. And for as much as it...

Are they? Well, they're going to exist and you're going to be able to watch them. I mean, it's not TV of 20 years ago where everything would either disappear into a sinkhole of oblivion or syndication. Right? Like, when Mr. Robot ends,

in a couple weeks, eventually all four seasons of it will live in perpetuity, whether it's on Amazon or Peacock or... whatever it might be, right? And so the obligation is to just finish the story in a satisfying way for people who want to watch it. Right. That does contrast with our very spirited engagement with succession, which, you know, I think is the best show on TV at the moment. But definitely is benefiting in terms of the hot take industrial complex. It's benefiting from its week to week. deployment. Yes. I don't know if that gives it a stronger foothold in the future or not,

but it definitely is... Well, it does... And it has the benefit of being a... If not completely... It's not necessarily totally rooted in this reality, but it is very much like they obviously wrote about Me Too this year. It feels a little bit more of the moment. And I think in season three or four,

of succession, there will probably be an accumulation of succession plot that will constantly be referenced and there will be, we'll have some exhaustion at if Logan is still sitting there and we're waiting for, you know, oh, you can feel a coming. It's the Connor season and we're, you know, we'll have like, there will be fatigue with it, just like there's fatigue with everything. I think that there's, it's a real challenge to make multi-season television anymore that, I mean, you can read it in, and David Lindelof's interview from New York Comic Con about Watchman where he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, talks a bunch about the making of the show and a lot of his, I think, you know, fair to say,

anxiety about the release of the show. And, um, the interviewer asks him pretty, a pretty like normal question about like, well, maybe that'll be, you'll hit that in season two or are there future seasons planned? And he's just like, I don't know. And, and I don't know if I want to make them. Yeah. You know, uh, he's like, we've made it so that it's a contained season, but I don't know that I want to keep making Watchmen. Well, and it does seem like there's a little bit more, or emphasis on starting something and having, you know, a new show, then there is like, hey, season four, pretty good job. Oh, I mean, there's no question about that.

I mean, the obsession with newness has trickled into everything, right? I mean, you have to have a response. You have to have a take. I mean, the argument over Joker had four or five life cycles before the film even released. You know, there is no patience for the slow burn anymore across anything. I do think that one of the things that that conversation reflects with Damon that I definitely think people should check out. And I know you and I are both super psyched to see watchmen.

Very curious about what he's done with it. But there is something fundamentally off about TV right now. And I say this having now come out of at least one of the trenches, there are multiple trenches still to go. Yeah, try watching it. Dude, I just might. That's the only thing left for me. Is that the expectation now from a certain audience, a certain segment of the audience, and certainly from industry gatekeepers, is the highest cinematic quality, the riskiest and boldest and freshest storytelling,

the glossiest of talent in every facet of it, and the best sexiest ideas. all done essentially in the same factory setting framework as TV has always been made. Sure. Both budget-wise. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's not possible. It just simply isn't possible. It's not sustainable.

I mean, I say this as someone who did 10 episodes of a show that tells one story. So we're trying to leave it all out on the field. With five, no, we worked ultimately with seven directors. over 10 episodes, I think. Fantastic, talented people who had eight days to make their episodes. That's why Scorsese turned you down.

That is why Scorsese turned me down. Also, to be fair, I spent the majority of the interview talking about Dr. Strange and the perils of the multiverse. I thought you had him, and then you just kept saying, I am Groot?

Yeah. And it just seemed like you maybe lost him right there. Honestly, it was my commitment to the bit that pushed him away. It was the 11th minute. It was. I am group. But it's like, no, Andy, see, I love the script and I'd love to make it.

And I just do it like this and this. And you're like, in retrospect, it was a mistake. I'm not going to lie to you. But, you know, but all of it is part of that, too. The whole like, well, what are you going to do next? What's your next season? What's going to happen next? What's going to happen next?

Like, I was, we wrapped last Friday. And people were asking me about future seasons or future plans on Monday. And I was like, today is the Jewish New Year. sir i have apples and honey in my mouth this is a jewish church sure this is a synagogue please don't ask me that um yeah it's i i completely understand where damon's coming from you know and i and i also understand why sam wanted to take a break and do homecoming you know to sort of recharge and try something completely different in the middle of a season is directing every episode of homecoming right of a paranoid thriller starring movie star i mean that he is wired different

leaving the rest of us. But what's the, what, so robot is back. You're talking, I think I saw some other conversation about whether or not like it was grabbing, it had, it still had its place in the central part of like the television landscape. What is that place? Well, I mean, I think that that's really hard. Is it, I think in some ways it's, it's quote unquote, it's Netflix or it is, it is whatever like us, whatever Sunday night on HBO is still.

you know, but I think whatever that place is, it's much smaller, it's a much smaller like landing zone than it used to be. And it's a very different experience. But I was going to ask you, like, what's the last show? So Thrones, I think you can make an argument for Peky Blinders, although I think there's like,

it's, I don't know if Peky Blonders is winning a lot of new fans aside from me. You're trying hard, yeah, you're working on it. What's like a show that's on season four or five and people are like, it's back, season five of this? No, I don't know. I mean, I was going to say, well, let me answer your question by not answering your question.

Sure. I was going to say that this idea of something grabbing the zeitgeist or the psyche of a nation or whatever is just, it's a fundamentally different process now. I think the best show of the year, in my mind, full stop over the whole year. I can't imagine anything changing in the next two months is Fleabag season two. And I know I'm not alone in that. And even so, the experience of that taking over really felt more like, reading a fantastic book and then lending it to someone. Yes.

It has spread in a very different way. Like, here's a secret joy for you. Check it out. Yes. At your own pace. It did not, it did feel removed from that week-to-week scrum. What was one of the main selling points on that show? Hot Priest.

So easy. So easy to get through. Oh. It takes three hours. Yeah. Right. The running time and the contained aspect of it without question. Or two hours or whatever it is.

To your point about multiple season things, I mean, that is, I think, think you've really nailed it. It's actually something that we've avoided talking about for a while, partly because, you know, I don't watch television anymore. But in general, there haven't been that many returning shows that we've covered. And we can sort of go through the reasons why. It's interesting to give John Landgraf credit again for something, but I think we should. He's the, as ever many people who listen to this podcast know, he's the, I think he's chairman now. His title keeps going up at FX, the network in the studio. And a couple years ago, he was the one

who identified miniseries, event series, whatever you want to call them, as kind of this great market inefficiency, at least was out there saying it, and really led the charge in turning his drama development in that direction. He's also been very upfront about what is the next drama hit?

What would that even look like? And he has shows on his air that he's very happy with and that I know the fans are very happy with we haven't really engaged with. Shows like the Mayans, the Sons of Anarchy spin-off, and then,

Snowfall, which has just been renewed for another season. These are steady performers for him and the network, but they are different, not just different from, you know, madmen or sons of anarchy in terms of their year-to-year growth and their episode-by-episode conversation, but also different from the Americans, which feels like there's no way that could have launched in this landscape, in the way that it did, building to its Emmy nominations in its final season.

Absolutely. I'm thinking about that statistic that that was getting wildly dragged on Twitter this weekend, which is like 15% of people under the age of 25 have ever listened to a whole album. Like people's way of consuming music is different. People listen to singles or they make their own playlist. The album as the end-all be-all is quite different. And it does seem like that is affecting television as well. The idea of a multi-volume body of work doesn't seem to have the same appeal.

It's actually the shows that we, started podcasting about originally. Down Nabby. You know, absolutely. Terriers. That showed us don't wait to use your best material. So the idea of plot, I mean, Mad Men was probably the last thing where I was like, obviously

there were these beats that he was going to hit every season until he got to the end. And I know that there was probably like, oh, should we go this long or this long or split the season or whatever, but when you think about the big key moments in that and the way they were parceled out over the course of of those seasons, and the same thing goes for breaking.

bad, working towards, working backwards from an ending almost. The idea that you would wait, that you would think, I know I have three seasons. So what I'm going to do is make sure that season two has this. It seems like people burn through that stuff. The Americans, if it was made today, would be so much more breakneck, I think. They would, because they would have to capture everybody's imagination. And likely it would be on a streaming service so that it would be, you know, you would want to have that much more addictive, kind of turn the page narrative aspect. Whereas a lot of Americans was,

it was still a more traditional drama in some ways. I mean, there were some, in some of the reviews that we got for Briar Patch coming out of Toronto, a lot of the reviews, and I understand why, were kind of more about our network than the show, about USA,

and talking about the different eras of USA and blue skies, characters welcome. Yeah. And then Mr. Robot kind of changing things, but then some of the reviewers were asking, well, where's the rest of that change? Is Breyer Patch going to be that? What else is on tap?

And the majority of shows that USA has or has coming up are, I don't want to say majority, because I don't actually have the numbers, but there are a large number of them are anthology shows. Speaking to the way people consume TV these days, maybe in season-sized chunks and wanting to commit knowing that there's an end in sight. But also, I believe this to be the case, selfishly, it's great for me with Briar Patch

if we get to do another season of it and tell a different story because it essentially has to be marketed and promoted like a new show. So every season is a new show. That's what happens with Fargo. That's what happens with Fargo with American Crime Story.

The first two Fargoes are these completely treasured experiences. I feel like the Ewan McGregor season, people were like, yeah, cool, Fargo, they're still doing Fargo. And now this Chris Rock season that's coming, I've had like five conversations

people can't wait for far ago to come back. It is embracing the event part of it, you know, and I think that the more successful and once again the UK was kind of leading the way with this, but turning shows that very easily could have and maybe in the past one would have argued

should have been standard serialized drama, whether they're on the British model of six episodes or eight episodes or the HBO model or whatever, have sort of reimagined themselves as event series, meaning whenever we get back to it.

Yep. So Sherlock or Luther, right? These are, these are essentially, they're just drama shows, right? And when you show up, when you watch Luther on Netflix or whatever, however many seasons of it there are, they're all there. You don't feel the two-year gap while Idris went and filmed six other things, right? There's just another season of it. That's probably a smart way to play it.

And it's certainly smart for network like FX when you're dealing with Noah Hawley who, you know, goes and makes a movie or, you know, works on Lidje. or whatever, I don't know, and we should call John Landgraf and ask, what that does to his bottom line because he needs repeatable, dependable content, right? And that... But for him, doesn't he have that by being able to show Transformers all day? Well, I wonder. I mean, I don't know. I mean, it, this brings, this is a, this is a free-flowing and wide-ranging conversation, but... I think one of the things that's been hanging over this pod and, you know, ultimately hanging over like conversation about culture in a lot of ways

is it's never been a better time to just be the average consumer because you've so much choice. There's so much good stuff out there. You can put together an incredible suite of entertainment for yourself. Right. And it's never been harder to follow it. Yeah. And it's never been harder to feel like you're a tastemaker or like you're curating or like you're actually have a real, your hands around, the critical landscape of what's happening. It is actually, like I was thinking about this this year, when we do a 10 best, it's not going to be 10 best. It's going to be our 10 favorite things that we saw this year.

Because inevitably, there will be hundreds of hours of television that we just didn't get to, which is unlike almost any other year, even the peak TV years that we've come through, we are now way beyond that. We are now at a point where, like, I openly acknowledge that there are phenomenal shows that I just do not have the time to get to. What's crazy to me, and I think,

think this is not going to be groundbreaking anyone, but now that I just live through it, I think about it a lot, which is, you know, we just spent four months making, making the season of the show with just, you know, dedicated crew and professionals who are so good at their job and working so hard in the desert, at crazy hours. There's no, there are no days off. I mean, we shot for... Just one side, love it if you were like, and we, you know, we were out there and we were shooting with just the biggest, laziest bunch of layabout Teamsters. Couldn't wait to punch out. You think that's the smart take for me? Speaking of cancel culture.

Speaking of the Irishman. That's right. Well, all things come to an end. Yeah. And thinking that every show that gets made has a crew like this, you know, working for 15 weeks without a day off, just making something for it to be slotted into Netflix's algorithm. That's actually, if you do the case against Richard Jewell, you're done at like 2 o'clock. every day. Oh, if I work with Clint? Yeah. If you're done, if you're working with Clint, that's lunch. It is wild to me. Now that I have some filming perspective, what he does,

because for people who don't realize this, Clint Eastwood does like two takes max of everything. And he shot, he started shooting this Richard Jewell movie in June, and it's coming out at Christmas. I mean, it is, it's kind of amazing. Yeah. But just that all this work, all this effort, all this writing, all these things to just be potentially lost is wild. I think about that a lot. And you see this need for the content just to fill the space is so, it's so outrageous. I mean, the big beneficiaries, of course, are the, you know, the executive producers and points holders on, like, Big Bang Theory and Seinfeld and friends who are actually, I mean, these shows, the old shows really are the, they're the load-bearing walls of all this.

But that's the thing. It's like the old shows are when the old way of doing things have actually proven to be really useful. And what I meant by, there's never been a better time to be a consumer, has never been a harder time to be a follower or a watcher. Yeah. I wonder whether John Landgraf's bottom line is just fine. I wonder whether or not, like,

he has like the old school day of like, oh, hey, a few good man or, you know, Transformers, Dark Side of the Moon is on FX for an hour before it's always sunny comes on. I'll just like leave this on. Yeah, I mean. Like, I wonder whether or not, like, We're overthinking it in some ways, which would be bad for the podcast, because obviously we need to overthink things.

Overthinking is good. I'll say that when I was set in the old DVR, like an old school person for Mr. Robot last night, I was scrolling through the options on USA right before. And it was like six hours of Law & Order SVU. Yeah, my mom was definitely watching that. That is very popular show. That is the longest running show in the history of network drama, I believe. Now it's 21 seasons or something, 22 seasons. That's still what works. And all this other stuff is, I mean, are we just the icing? You know what I will also say, and this is a much longer conversation, but I don't think we talk enough probably in terms of, I don't want to talk about this,

but I don't think we talk enough about the role, how the real monoculture and the real show that everybody's watching all the time now is the news. Right. And I do feel like that has taken up a much larger part of people's lives than it used to, obviously, because of the way that they've kind of mechanized like we can just give you an update every 15 minutes.

Right. And there can be something else and then there's something else and then something else. And that's the show that we've been watching for three years, regardless of how you feel about it. Like, that's the show that people have been watching. I mean, I watched it on Sunday with the China NBA stuff. Right. And then Turkey at the end of the day.

And it was like, these are two of the biggest news stories of the year. They're just like scrunched together on a Sunday, aside from the fact that there's also a day of NFL content. Like Succession and Mr. Robot, how are you supposed to like step up to that? Yeah. Yeah, and I think people's levels of what they want out of TV in this landscape have shifted a lot, too. Would a show like Mr. Robot that is intentionally provocative offer people the kind of, I don't want to say comfort, because I don't want to diminish shows that are doing very well this year? And I don't want to say escapism either, but I do think that watching Fleabag or Big Mouth, which has returned this weekend, those engage with different muscles.

than a demanding or difficult or, you know, relevance of wrong word too. I'm choosing all the wrong word today, but I think you know what I mean. I wanted to turn quickly to succession. Sure. I know you guys have a whole show about it. But I wanted to get, and if this is a sneak preview of what our listeners are about to hear, stop me. I'll take my answer offline. Your thoughts are always valued on this show.

Well, I was going to ask you. The show has been such a jacuzzi of pleasure this season that the last two weeks turn towards I don't want to say plot because there's always a lot of plot but turn towards, you know, back towards the sort of dramatic narrative of this in a different way. The background radio chatter is now the main storyline of this. of this show. Correct.

Felt. Like the stuff where it's like who's Lester and it's in the back and there's cruise ships and the documents. Oh, we're going to do this now.

It was interesting. And, you know, it didn't feel, conventional is a good thing, honestly, when it comes to shows like succession, but it was noticeable. Mm-hmm.

What I also appreciated, though, was that even in an episode that was kind of conforming to some degree with a conventional penultimate episode where there's, you know, there are betrayals

and plot twists and characters abandoning other characters and things really seem to be on the line, and now we're into blood sacrifice, so now it's just like Game of Thrones, that it's still stuck to its core value, which is something that if we get Jesse Armstrong back on the pot, I'd love to ask him about. He just seems to understand that the DNA of the show is to pick an event and do it like Gosford Park. It's upstairs, downstairs. Or sometimes

there's no stairs. But whether it's that, you know, the strange Scottish ballroom where Dundee took place last week or the United States Senate this week, people are always walking in and out of rooms conspiring and then dumping on each other and conspiring and dumping. And understanding that that's the structure of the show in the same way that the structure of Cheers was people walk into a bar and talk about stuff. Yes. Is in its nature conventional. But I really, really, really appreciate it. And I do think that that's an underrated aspect of why the show is connecting with so many people

because people do want to know what they're in for when they sit down and turn it on. To make event television, you have to have the television be an event. You have to have the story be an event. And every episode of succession feels like an event. It's the ones that are a little bit more conventional that I think slip away a little bit.

Like, return the London episode was very good. but had A, B, and C plots kind of happening, like a normal television show. It's like, you go see your mother and we're going to go see the victim's family. And then there's going to be some Rea stuff. And it's like, it operated like a kind of traditional drama. It's when they have everybody in two rooms walking in and out and motherfucking one another. Yeah. That's when it's like, this is electric shit.

And I have to be on hand to watch it. But I think it also speaks to the fact that Succession is successfully satisfying two. different types of fans. Because for me, Return was one of the best episodes of the season because the other stuff sort of fell away and it was just emotional storytelling and acting, which I'm a sucker for and I love. And this episode left me colder than that one, last night's episode, D.C., left me colder than that one because, you know, the central question of the show, who will take over this company? Will this company survive? Is fundamentally less interesting to me. That is not why I'm watching the show, even though it is why the show

exists. Yes. If that makes sense. Yes. And that idea, and we talked a lot about sustainability and succession is one of those shows that I think has probably gained more followers and gained more fans in its second season. It's an example of old school, first season, beloved, people catch up with it. Second season comes out. People are fanatical about it by the end of the second season. It becomes like the thing everybody's waiting for all. But the sustainability of this show is is going to be complicated. Because I've talked, when we talked a little bit about it,

would the format of every season be, Kendall was season one, Shiv was season two, would Roman be season three in terms of the person who were following through their possibly failed attempt at unseating Logan.

How much longer can you just do Logan in rooms telling people to fuck off? Well, how much longer can you just do the beloved people, same people in the same room? Well, that's why I think Holly Hunter and Cherry Jones and the people

that they bring in are so brilliant. Because it's just, It's just the right mix. Is the blood sacrifice, Tom? Which it would appear to be. See, I thought it was Kendall. I think it's obviously Kendall. It's like why he's had Kendall around the whole time.

Oh, like actual blood? Yeah. It's good to talk to someone who's watching the show closely. Yeah. Is there any sort of show... They cut away to Kendall's performance on television as he says we need to have a blood sacrifice. Is there any show that I could watch after the show

that could help me navigate these choppy waters? That's a great segue. Well, my point being... one of the things, the interesting thing to me, looking at succession, which, you know, and I stand by everything I said a week ago, a week and a half ago, which is that you can see a lot of the fault lines that the show has not chased yet that are exciting, like all the various things that are going to break apart in relationships and things that story is still to be told in terms, you know, in terms of these people and their relationship to power into the company. But how

bold will they be in terms of the hard reset? Yeah. Will they kick someone out of the core group and then that person's storyline is separate. Will it be a separate plot line, separate supporting characters for that person? Will someone be in exile for a season? Will someone be off the show for a season and come back? Unclear. One thing that we've celebrated the show for rightly is it's absolute understanding of our love of community that even Frank, who is on the outs,

comes back. Because we want these same people in this room. And also it's got that VEEP energy of like, hey, we got a really funny guest star this week. You know what? Stick around. Hugh, Lori, just be here for a season and a half. We can always find room in this half hour show for 16, 100 mile per hour fastball throwing hurlers. Yes.

And that, we're on that trajectory now, right? With just adding, adding, adding, adding, adding, adding. And the question for this finale and then going into future seasons will be who gets subtracted. It's been great to have you back. How do you feel okay? Yeah, what was in this coffee? caffeine. Was it?

It's cool. It's great to have Andy back. We're going to take a quick break, and then we're going to go right into the audio for me and Jason's after show number one boys, which comes on after every episode of Succession, but next week we're going to be doing it on Monday, the finale. So we'll do Succession After Show on Monday next week.

Thank you for inviting your number two boy back. It feels good. It's great to see you, honestly. It's good to see you, too, buddy. Good to talk to you, Branskis. Hello, and welcome to number one boys. A Succession After Show from The Ringer. This is Jason Concepcion.

I am Chris Raya. We are here to talk about the penultimate episode of Season 2 of Succession. It's called D.C. Things got a little dark. It got a little serious in this one. So let's talk about it from the top. Before we get into By Your Cell,

I want to talk about the Curious Shipson. Because I think that's going to be what everybody is talking about after this episode. Just the broad strokes of it, Senator Evis, played by Eric Pogian, I think, is sort of supposed to be a kind of Bernie Sanders stand-in. He has a witness, Kira, who used to work under Lester, aka Mo Lester.

It was a very long and torturous scene with Tom, breaking down whether or not that's a joke or not. It obviously isn't. He has this witness named Kira who can personally attest to Lester's sort of reign of terror. While at Cruises, he sexually assaulted her, he sexually assaulted other people. There's some very unflattering business about not real people. Right. You know, potential murders and certainly deaths that occurred? Yes.

And it turns out that Raya has an inn at Senator Gileard, who is Gilevis's sort of peer- co-chair of this committee, Gileard, not Gila Brand. Because I did a double-teak. And Reha orchestrates it so that she and Shiv can go visit Kira before she's supposed to testify in front of the Senate committee. And right at the last second, Rea bails. She's just like, I can't do this. I can't be a part of this.

She gives an explanation as to why, because if this person testifies, it's the end of my family. She goes out there, and she essentially lays it out. She's like, if you testify in front of these people, this will be all you are for the rest of your life. Every time they Google, if somebody Googles you, every time your kids Google you, every time anybody, your obituary leads with this and ends with this. If you work with me on this, not only will you get paid, but you and I can work together to destroy the men who did this to you. And she says, I will kill them for what they've done. And then she said, can I trust you to Shiv? Kira asked Shiv. And she just trusts her.

She says no. So, question here is the question that kind of dogs this show. And it'll definitely be the conversation between DC and the finale as to what extent Shiv is being sincere. Right. What was your read on the scene just in broad strokes? I think that, you know, I think she, the one time she was being purely truthful was when she said,

you can't trust me. I have my own personal aims that I'm going for, as is everyone else. I don't think, I think she's being sincere after a fashion. Is she going to literally murder these men that did it? No, no, I mean, yeah. Like, she's, I, to what extent is she going to ruin them? Like, she'll fire them certainly, but they'll probably walk away with some significant severance packages

in order to keep their mouths shut about how far this really goes. I think that she's trying to save her company. What I was really struck by is the extent. to which she's willing to compromise her morals or what her political ideological stance is or, you know, in order to further her aims which are saving her family's company. Or ascending to the top of it. Is it the same thing? Yeah. It is the same thing. I guess it is the same thing. This is a pretty fluid situation because I think when Shiv is making these promises to Kira, the idea is to put the

face of the scandal, make it Bill Lockhart. Who was this guy who we were introduced to earlier in the episode, who everybody seems to like, tried to clean up that department. Coins the term death pit. But is essentially, is essentially like the easiest patsy for all of this. He's retired. He goes up to Logan at the end of the episode and he was like, you know, just wanted to support you, you know, remember the old times.

Right. I remember the old times. I have all the diaries. I could write a book, but I won't because who has the time. And so Bill is essentially off the project now. You can't really blame this on Bill because he's immediately going to tell all if that happens. And so they are running out of Patsy's, and that leaves presumably Kendall, which is we're going to get into the blood sacrifice part.

But I just wanted to touch one more time on Shiv. I think the thing that was really interesting about this scene is often what you see with Roy's is they're being vicious to one another behind closed doors. Yeah, like, they'll mock people and there's obviously moments where they shout down a waiter or yell at somebody. But for the most part, their viciousness is kept in the viper circle of their own family. And this is the first time that we actually see like a Roy out in the wild bending reality to their will. Yeah, I think one of the things I was struck by is...

One of the reasons that we love Greg is because Greg early on, or at least up to now, has been the kind of regular person's avatar, this kind of like normal-ish person who has entered the orbit of these Titans. And it is much less flattering or funny when someone without the family connections, just like a work-a-day person enters the orbit of these people. Like Akira, who's able, enters the orbit of the Roy's Waystar, enters the orbit of Shiv, these people who can literally, with a snap of a fingers, change someone's life monetarily, and say, listen, we'll give you millions.

not an issue. We can do that today. Book deal. Easy. And that is frightening and quite sobering to think of the ways that normal people lack agency in the world that is succession and in the world that is the world. Yeah, it's like the pond that this show skates on is pretty thin. Yeah. The ice is pretty thin. It's essentially trying to entertain you and make you laugh while also presenting these like objectively pretty despicable people. It's often been held as like the person who's outside of that, that she was working for this Democratic candidate for president. She kind of looked down on her family.

She kept her distance. She wanted to become the CEO when that wasn't the case. I think we assumed based on her conversations with Kendall, I think after our just easily when she's like, you know, Reya seems to be in the cut here. Right. That, that she had some sort of other plan for Waystar Royco,

but she's got her hands dirty now. So I think that'll be an interesting going forward see how people relate to Shiv if, in fact, she goes back on her word on Kira. I thought it was a fascinating moment when Rea essentially found the last shreds of her reputation and decided to keep those intact rather than... At the very last moment, rather than tarnish herself with this really tawdry and pretty evil scheme to pressure the victim of a crime into not testifying. That was fascinating.

Let's get into By Yourself. We've sort of handled the chivine curestine. My first thing that I'm buying herself, I am buying blood sacrifice. Hello. What an amazing final moment. So the implication here is obviously that Logan is talking about Kendall. They cut away to the television.

They're talking about Kendall. And that he has been keeping Kendall prop up this whole time. For this moment. For this exact kind of scenario. Not literally because of cruises. He knew that he would eventually need a fall guy. He starts pushing him out on the plank when he's being questioned by Gil Evans

and Gil Evis and he says, hey, well, in fact, my son... My son can answer those questions. Can answer these questions. And Kendall quite masterfully parries that moment by feigning this indignation that anyone would even ask the question, sir, you're biased against my family. And this is why this investigation is happening.

But I think that quite obviously presages the knives out for Kendall. Yeah, and I think that Logan's leverage over Kendall is essentially you can either take the fatal bullet, which would be manslaughter charges against you for killing this guy. How'd you like to go to jail? Or you can take all the bullets for this family and maybe one day survive them. Now, whether or not Kendall is in just as deep amount of trouble as he would be if he had just copped to what happened on the night of Shiv's wedding in the first place is a completely other story. but I think Logan can still be right about blood sacrifice

and we can still be wrong about who the lamb might be because I think there might be a blood sacrifice but if Shiv and Kendall are still aligned the way we think that they might be it might be that Logan is the lamb I agree I am buying an umbrella

it's going to rain one day and you want to have one as Bill does you know when Bill shows up in D.C. He's saying, oh, you know, it's like Magic Johnson's retired, but he's still part of the Lakers. No, no, no, no. When Bill handed off the reins to Tom, he did so using an air-gapped computer, talking about files, being very careful to use vague language. Always have an umbrella for that rainy day. I think that Ken certainly wishes he had one now, and I think one of the things that's that I find intriguing is,

the strongest position at this point is almost who decides to flip first. Who decides to go public first and say, okay, all my cards on table, here's what I did, immunity, and I will tell. Will that be Bill? That's a great position for Bill. Turn around and say, hey, they're trying to screw me, let me get there first. Could Kendall say, hey, I want immunity for crimes, and I will tell you everything? Right. I think that that is an interesting opportunity for a lot of people right now.

Who has those insurance policies? Greg took a few pieces of paper from the barbecue grill on Tom's balcony when they were hilarious and trying to light it. Certainly does not have the amount of material that we assume Bill has. Right, right. Tom has nothing because he burned it all and also is culpable for most of it. And also, like, lied before Congress. And it's also perjured himself before Congress. Yeah, it's essentially, like, you're right. It's not enough people have insurance, so it's essentially now who jumps off the board. Who goes first?

And who anticipates what Logan is doing to Kendall? Because the one thing that Shiv doesn't know is why Logan would do this to Kendall. Correct. I am selling congressional hearing prep. I love the line of, like, you are murder-bordered out. You're fully prepped. You're good, baby.

Clearly, Tom was the wrong starting pitcher to send out there for the wild card game. Because he got lit up. A guy, listen, the way he... The meat sandwich. Considering his performance in front of the law firm that was supposed to be the softball law firm, there was never ever going to be any outcome

except for Tom melting like soft serve ice cream under a heat lamp. He was not ready for this. It's going to not be remembered because so much other stuff happened in this scene, but I think one of my favorite moments of the season was all of them watching the 60 Minutes style report in the beginning of the episode and trying to be cool. Yeah, she'd be like, oh, Jerry!

Yeah! And it's just like, oh no. Your mother's going to be very proud of seeing that, like, or, oh, now, now he doesn't remember, you know, like all this kind of, like, as if they're watching, like, a football game. Yeah, what else are you selling? I'm selling shamelessness.

I think that, you know, there's never been a better time to just be like, yeah, I did it, so what? Yeah. The moment when Kendall turns the tables by, you know, faking this indignation. Bias, yeah. That how dare you ever come at my family in this way, sir?

Have you no honor, sir, this kind of like a fun house Keith Olberman act. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm selling it in the sense of like not... You will die in jail, sir. You will... How dare you, sir? Have you no self-frey. respect!

I am selling it, not in the sense of getting rid of it, but I'm selling it in the sense that this is what people are selling right now. This is what Kendall sold, this kind of like, shameless, how dare you act in front of the world? And it's clearly working. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so who's our number one

boy this week? Oh, man. This is a tough one because it's like, congratulations. You're the number one boy of this shit show. Absolutely piece of shit. Like, you can make the argument that Raya she like hit eject like right before like it collided with the ground yeah like she had a great

turn of phrase which is like I don't know where the bottom of the pool is right I can't see the bottom of the pool or whatever yeah I think that she'd be a good one I think you might say that Senator Gill number one boy for actually forgetting his enemies

basically where he wants them giving over you know telling about the witness was an own goal of Titanic proportions that didn't need to happen. Just keep your mouth shut and let it go down. They didn't show that on camera. Right. The actual exchange of information like that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, obviously, Schiff will come out of this episode in like the kind of

poll position because she can break either with Logan or Kendall, but it's hard to give her number one boy because she is essentially like put her soul in escrow and whether or not she gets it back is the question. Let's go to Biggest Burn of the Week. I really enjoyed... Man, what a comeback for Nate. Nate Dog. you, dog. Back in it. Like, Nate's like little like war room Stephanopoulos thing. Like, I loved it. I wish we still have more of it. Um, I'll give you a clue. It actually rhymes very precisely with your fucked. Good job. Nice one, Nate. Welcome

back. Yeah, you know, Nate's kind of petty transgressions, really pale in the light of, uh, the other things that are happening in this show right now. I am going Nate as well. I'm going to go with to Shiv says the person whose husband was just called a smirking block of domestic feta by the Atlantic. The Atlantic wishes. The Atlantic wishes they had bars like that. Come on!

All right, so line of the week, I just thought we had just an amazing, amazing Roman situation. Like, I honest, I don't want to separate Roman from the family at all. Competent Roman is... But globe-trotting Roman with Laird? Wild shit, right. In war zones, I will... Laird and Carl as his little minions.

Add $5 to my HBO subscription, if that happens. Roman in the war zone is amazing. Can I ask not to make this all about us, but are they going to shoot us at any point? And then Laird being like, I am also intrigued on that way. Unbelievable, unbelievable line from Laird. What did you have for the line of the week? I'm going to go with Tom under the Kleege Lights.

Asked about a footstool. Yeah. Yeah. And human furniture. And human furniture. He says, Senator, I use a variety of target-oriented incentives to enhance optimal performance. Great bullshit answer. Unbelievable bullshit answer from our guy Tom.

And runner up for Roman when he is hostage with Laird and Carl. And he asks, let's play Mary Fuck Kill in the executive suite. then Laird says he's Mary Jerry. Laird said is he's married Jerry. And then Roman says, you marry Jerry? You marry Jerry? You like Jerry? Oh, that's hilarious. You're fucking disgusting.

Jerry, ew. Hot. Ew. Oh, man. Let's do Finance 101. Oh, yes. Sovereign wealth funds. Right.

This is one of my favorite terms because it's really just three words that all say the same thing. sovereign, wealth, and fund. Just say money, more money, and money. Dirty money, man. It's king money. It's just when you get money from a royal family that is using basically the whatever tax base and gross domestic product of their country as an investment fund and turning it into like and becoming a hedge fund essentially. There's royalty, royal titles, cast.

There's never been a better and more socially acceptable way to launder money that you got from like killing people 500 years ago. And this is like actually really ties in with what we'll do is let them eat cake, which is the rich moment of the week. Yeah. Roman has co-bought this soccer team, which is actually something that happens all the time now. Hearts? I actually now I'm like, wait, is it hearts and hips and Logan likes? They actually went through with the buy. They bought hearts because they had obvious, I don't know how they decided to buy hearts.

And in the time before they told Logan made the purchase, but they did. And now they're in Edinburgh, like, just giving team talks. And that's what you can do when you let them eat cake. You have your rich guy of the week just gets to give team talks to soccer squads. There's that great moment where Edward has to correct them on it. He's like, hip, hearts. Yeah.

And they both are not sure which one it is. I know. It's to the point now where I'm actually like, wait, which one is it? In the same way that there's Roman in the war zone spinoff potential, I would just love like Edward firing a manager every three weeks in Scotland and having to hire a new guy. So Roman gives this team talk. Do you want to do it?

Sure. Hey, really proud to be associated with you guys. well, what the fuck can I tell you that you don't already know? You got all this guys, don't worry about it. You guys are a team. And when a team is a team, they actually can't physically be beaten.

It's impossible. So go hard, go fast. Go, you lovely bastards. I hope we at the ringer cut Roman's team talk in with the footage from Miracle where the guys are sitting in, the USA team sitting in the locker room at Lake Placid. Let's get into predictions.

Yes. So season finale. Usually we cut yada yada this. not because we don't care about predictions, but we are at, like, the end of the road here. Succession is a very successful show. We will get a season three, I guarantee it. But what do you...

How much of a cliffhanger do we get? How much closure do we get? At the end of this next... At the end of the finale, has Logan been deposed? Like, is he out? I don't think he's... He's not out.

I don't think he can be out. But I do think... Where's Marsha still? Yeah, I do think what you'll see. See, I predict Kendall telling Shiv that he killed a guy. Okay. I mean, that has to happen. Right.

At some point, it's got to happen. I think she would at least give him the heads up that you're about to get your throat cut. Right. He's like, this is why this is something. Yeah, I think he'll say this is why. I will make a further prediction that, like... So the hotel hostage situation is a really interesting call back to a thing that happened a couple years back when our good friend,

Mohammed bin Salman, MBS, the crown prince, nominal crown prince of Saudi Arabia, was on the rise and he basically took all his opponents within the kingdom and gathered them at the Ritz Carlton and Riyadh and made them stay there? I think there might be some of them still there right now. And kind of said, oh, everybody's, we're just having a meeting of people.

Like, and very little information could come out. A very shaky cell phone video came out. But it was essentially his version of, like, the Corallione Baptism Day. Right. I think we're, I think as we go forward, we're going to see more things like that pulled directly from events that happened. Yeah, I mean, like the soccer club stuff is very much like in the air right now. Like you're saying, that's a very good point. And the tenor of where they took this show and where they took the Roy family and putting them in the kind of the Me Too era and also

the era of like, I think an increased awareness of congressional oversight on big businesses, which is like obviously become a major talking point in the presidential campaigns. I think that's going to continue to happen. I mean, this show will continue to draw a lot of vitality if it's able to draw from the real world without getting, you know, I mean, like whether or not Trump exists in this world or Logan Roy is responsible for him is, is not made clear. But I do think that they can pull a lot from the world that places like Waystar creates. Yes.

All right, next week, we'll find out how bad it gets for Kendall. For Jason, I'm Chris. We'll be with you next week after Succession's season finale. We will be coming to you on Monday next week. So join us on Monday. You can find us on the ring or Twitter account. You can find us on YouTube. We will be coming to you with our reactions in season finale of season season two in succession.

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