The Watch - Breaking Down ‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 7: “Tailgate Party”

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

Chris and Andy break down the latest episode of ‘Succession’ and talk about the potentially hall of fame scene between Shiv and Tom (1:00), how it became apparent in this episode that Lukas Mattson may need the Roys as much as they need him (25:04), and whether or not they’re watching this show through a different lens knowing it’s the last season (31:48). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line, the number one TV podcaster in India, if there were two Indias. It's Andy Greenwald. I thought you were going to ask me how I was doing so I could say, I don't know, who cares? Andy, it's great to hear from you, man. I'm doing this pod from Philadelphia, pretty happening town famously. We were recapping the latest episode of Succession, which everybody just watched. It's great to see you. What an episode. man. Feeling Virginia Wolfie tonight. Do you think, well, yes. I mean, this was one of those, for a minute, I was like, okay, so this is the pause before

the storm. We're just sort of going to circle the political wagons. We're going to get some good conhead content. We're going to do the thing that Succession does better than any other show, which is just gin up a reason for an international billionaire to just be in an apartment in New York in November, and the sparks will fly, but they won't fly too high because we'll be. We've got a bunch of episodes left to really light the conflagration that will end the series. And then Tom and Chiv stepped out on the balcony.

And you can't sleep on this show. You know, just like the Celtics offense in the third quarter, you never know when fire is going to rain down. So we're recording this a couple of days early. You really have no idea. I mean, Friday night, Malcolm Brogden could just forget how to shoot, you know? This is wonderful. Yeah. Could we speak things into existence?

I hope. Let's hope. I hope so, too. Usually, Andy, what I do is I watch the episode and I watch it again and I write down everything and then I present to you a neatly little packaged recap. But today I'm going to do something a little different. A little different. Recap in the form of questions because I'm here with my mom in Philadelphia.

We've been watching a lot of jeopardy. So I thought I would ask you a few questions about this episode of Succession as a way of recapping it. So this is not entirely chronological. But I thought I would start with this one because I feel like, I know you pretty well, you know, and I think that you don't really, there's not two Andes. It's like the Andy you get on the pot is largely the Andy that you would get in a bar or at a dinner or something like that. Like India. There's really just one. There's just one. So my number one question, I think you might be the best expert to answer this is why is Tom so tired?

I really, I really felt seen by that. And I knew that the first question would be Daddington related, even though Tom doesn't, in fact, no still that he is potentially about to become a father. I thought maybe you were going to start with, why is Kendall the best dad? But we can circle back to that. I really, really respected both sides of that argument before it really, really escalated, like the anchorman fight. Because I, too, have been extremely tired at social events that I was responsible for. And I have been partnered with someone who had absolutely no tolerance for my constant references

to my current state of exhaustion. I also am someone, Chris, as you know, and you've seen, who used to live a little fast and loose with caffeine. Like, you still talk to be. I've heard you talking to people about the time we shared a gentlemanly dinner and I ordered an espresso after dessert. I know. That was a legendary move by me.

And so I really, really connected to Tom being like, tomorrow is going to be a big day. And I am pre-concerned about my sleep levels. So I'm going to tank tonight. in the hopes that it will guarantee me a richer tomorrow. And Greg's like, drink a coffee. Like, nobody actually cares how you're feeling. Yes.

Or, you know, as my therapist once said to me, you don't actually need that much sleep. So, you know, you could argue that the people who were working at Chernobyl probably need a different advice than that. But, you know, I get it. I get it. So the serious answer to your question is he is emotionally exhausted. Yeah.

So do you feel like basically he's, he's, this is an. accumulation of emotional trauma from the last however long months a year with Shiv and the ups and downs and the betrayal and the counter betrayal. And then finally it seems to culminate when his cheeky gift of a scorpion is not exactly received with glowing reviews. Yeah. I mean, I think two things. You and probably all of our listeners have had experiences like this. You're like, I'm not really sure if I should go to this event or if I should do this today. Like I'm a little tired. And then when you go, you get as much energy as I got that fateful night from the espresso just by the enthusiasm and energy of others. And by losing your sense of self, you're present with what you're doing and you're not thinking about how you're feeling in your bones and body.

But what's going on with him, yeah, is that he is no longer capable of he can't be present because everything is haunting. I thought it was interesting. They have a thing that they've done this season. I feel like more than seasons past, where even though we've got this compressed timeline and the episodes are essentially, mirroring, I think that the Norway retreat episode was different, but for the most part, the episodes are matching up to a day and the life kind of thing.

And the previous episode ended with Shiv and Tom kind of being like we have now found like a kind of stability in our cheeky, bitey, like barbed repartee and deciding

that maybe we do need each other and that we can be a power couple and we can be king and queen makers. and in the back of the car, it's like, we're going to do this, and it's like, I love strategy. And they're,

they're very, like, fired up for this tailgate party that happens, which is what the, I believe the episode is called tailgate. And, and then it's,

it kind of does, it doesn't wind back the clock at all, but Tom obviously wakes up with a kind of sobriety, an emotional sobriety that I didn't really expect throughout this episode. And then it,

obviously, the damn breaks. Like, I think that that's one of the things that's so amazing is, This season's been, in a lot of ways, a portrait of their marriage. I mean, it's been one of the dominant storylines and one of the consistent beats that they return to. And to see it all accumulate and then kind of overflow there was really awesome.

I think we should probably note to your point about every episode basically being a day this season. Like, one of the reasons why he's exhausted might be the fact that he's flown to Sweden at least halfway twice and to Los Angeles and back and one of the major news network on the eve of an election all in a span of a few days. Like, that can really, you know, leave someone feeling a tad winded. I get it. I think the pivot to Tom and Shiv is really crucial to understanding the project of the series. And I also think it's just been a brilliant showcase for two of the show's best performers. One thing that the show has consistently reminded us of and continue to do this episode is that all relationships, professional and personal, are contractual. They're all based on mutual agreements, even if the agreements are not ever said. if you think about what Lucas is doing in this episode as he's sort of doing this sort of casual fuck boy, nothing really matters, apology tour, is he's just like, well, we can fix it, right?

Yeah, there's a little problem there. Okay. And this is bad, but we can fix it. We can fix it. We can fix it. And by the end of the episode, all of the relationships, you know, are in tatters, but which ones are going to continue and what causes them to continue? Because what causes them to continue is that people are going to agree to stay in them, whether it's for their own benefit or whether it's for like proprietors. like propriety or the eyes of the assembled power brokers or whatever, Tom and Shiv hit a

breaking point where all of the things that had been agreed upon verbally or nonverbally were brought into the light. And it was hideous. You know, it was excruciating and it was devastating. And it was the kind of truth telling that I guess, you know, the Gill's regulators in DC would probably want from companies on the up and up doing business in America don't have a lot of faith that that's what will happen. So it was really interesting to see that it was a personal bond, a personal arrangement that fractured and splintered so violently before any business one ever did. And I think that that is a reflection of what the show's kind of cynical worldview has espoused. So here, that leads perfectly into my second question, which is actually a two-part question.

Oh, good. Okay. Well, I'm on the, I didn't realize. I'm under the gun today. Is Shiv the Joker? And is everything a bit with every character in this show? And I, mean that as a compliment. Like, one of the cool things about this show is that everybody is sort of playing a character while also being exactly who they are because there really are no consequences. If you're a Roy, Kendall can kill someone, Roman can send people pictures of his genitalia. Shiv can go around and essentially betray every single person who's close to her. And nothing really comes of it. Tom points this out where it's just like basically, you know, like you're a tough, a tough woman who's never going to have any real consequences the way I was.

I was going to go to prison. I was going to lose my job. Everybody who's close to me is trying to cut my throat. So do you find it difficult to locate Shiv's True North, or do you think that that doesn't exist for this character right now? Well, one thing I think is going to be interesting in the last few episodes is how the pregnancy plays out, because it is absolutely reductive and unfair to the writers and the performers and everything about this show to be like, she has something more meaningful that she's holding back than the other characters at this moment. But it was interesting. And it was interesting to consider the role this pregnancy played in that scene, right? When even before Tom says the most unspeakable thing you could say to someone like Shiv in this moment, which is that, you know, you would be a terror, essentially you're a terrible mother.

So it's really good to be. I thought that would be I voted for Yokic. That would be the most unspeakable thing. To me, that would be the most unspeakable thing. but I wasn't in that circumstance. She has something that she is keeping in reserve. There is not just a... She's got a secret. There's not just a grease slide down to a bottomless bottom,

which is what Kendall and Roman are revealing themselves to be. There actually is nothing there. There is no depth to which they won't sink. There is nothing they will not leverage or do a 180 on. There's nothing. But Shiv has drawn a line, you know, by not throwing it back at Tom in that moment, a line was drawn.

He doesn't understand that, and it's her right not to share it with him, but that was interesting. I was watching that scene wondering if he was digging so deep into her with his claws at that moment that he would strike the part that she's holding back or that she would then weaponize it

or throw it back at him. And then she would win in a kind of cheap, potentially, you know, I was going to say potentially unhealthy. Most of this relationship is unhealthy way. but she didn't. So I think that that makes her pretty interesting to watch going forward because it also brings the conversation back to do any bonds matter, which I think is what the show is on a very primal level actually about. And what's your answer? I really don't know. I don't know. I mean,

I didn't see this part coming. You know, I think this is also a testament to how strong the show is that there's so many moves to make. It's such like a vibrant chessboard with Logan off of it, with all these, you know, in terms of allegiances and strategies and backstabbing, I didn't realize,

I didn't expect the Tom and Shiv emotional story to kind of blot out the sun or the sons or the fail sons in this case for almost an entire episode. I think it's really interesting that it did. But I also just love the way this episode was very unsparing in its, analysis of a very, very corroded and toxic relationship that at any point in that argument,

like, you could, if you press pause after one of Tom's most devastating lines, you could pause and be like, well, he's hit bottom. That's it. Yeah. He's right. There's no coming back from that. Right. And she said something that took it even deeper.

And she was right about him, you know, and then you go back to that scorpion at the beginning. And if you just keep rewinding the tape, look, they're both. they're both guilty. They're both right about each other, and they both agreed to just kind of move past it for however many years they were together. And the deal foundered.

This is what happens when a deal breaks. Do you think when you watch Shiv operate throughout the episode, and I think that her on the balcony is a 95% sincere version of herself, to the extent that that one exists? Because she has to spend most of this episode, essentially pretending to pretending not to know what's going on.

You know, when they first have that little breakfast about and talk about their dad's funeral, she's like, breakfast where no one eats or orders, by the way. Yes. Well, except Roman who wants coffee and then gets ignored. But, you know, she has to constantly be act surprised about things.

And then, you know, almost in a Scooby-Doo fashion, like as soon as those guys leave the restaurant, she calls Lucas, she's essentially running this double game I think that the version of her that shows up on that balcony, and she's like, I've nailed myself to Mattson. He's got a bomb inside of his numbers that it's going to explode all over me.

And then, you know, at the same time, she sort of wants Tom's undying loyalty while also trotting out his possible professional execution as yet another price tag that she's going to have to pay to get what she wants from Lucas. Do you think that that makes, there's a track for you that she is essentially

betraying, I guess her brothers, but like I'm doing this whole thing, this weird anti-shiv rhetoric in a weird way. And then at the end, it's like, Kendall distills this down one crown, one head. You know? They, children just model what they're shown. And she has no moral compass.

I think she would like to have one. I think she would recognize the value in one. I think that her longtime commitment to socially progressive, causes, you know, on the background and margins of the show suggests that, you know, that, that that, that, that, that, that's important to her, at least for appearances sake. But one of, but this family's core belief that was modeled for them is that every, everything is a, everything is a game. Everything is expendable. Everything is a pawn.

Nothing really matters. You can say anything to anyone and everyone bounces back up again and understands it. And that's the real ego of it. It's not that she's rich and Tom's provincial. It's that if you hit him or scratch him enough, he bleeds. And you're not supposed to do that, right? If you look at the relationship between the siblings, the things they say to each other, in one scene, in one episode, would fracture most well-knit families. And that's just one scene in one episode and we're upwards of 30 episodes of the show. You know, it is just, it's incomprehensible. Yeah, it's like, it's almost impossible to speak Roy unless you're a Roy. Exactly. It doesn't sound right coming from other people. It sounds like what it should sound like in

the real world, which is horrifying. The other thing is that they were living in a like monotheistic universe where God behaved a certain way. And so they were behaving like God did. And everyone fell in line. God's dead. God died on a plane, an airplane toilet. And so we're starting to see these little flickers of pushback from people who are like, I don't have to live under those rules anymore. And what you assumed was not just the way families are run, but the way businesses are run might not be. And that's in the Jerry and in Roman scene. It's also, Also, just fundamentally, and I'm sure we're going to talk about this more, Roman and Kendall are catastrophically bad at this, especially Roman. Like, it is shocking to see, right?

Yeah. It's really being revealed. You think Ken's bad, too? Ken, Ken, look at, I wish people, I wish we were on video because you, you bought some Kendall stock and you're holding it. I thought Kendall stock in the first season. Yeah, he's bad at it. He's bad at it. And, you know, he's trying to like horse trade, like, news coverage with your man.

What's his name? Ash Zuckerman's character. Oh, Nate. We're so excited with Nate. First of all, thrilled to have Nate back. Did you have closure on the Nate arc at Fandul? Because the numbers were really good at the start of the season. Well, I was just going to say, like, later on in the pod, I was going to mention that, like,

the fact that this show still can grab people from IR and bring them back into the game, like grab Nate, grab Rava. And it's not like, oh, well, this actor is busy or can't make it. So, Robin has one scene in like two seasons, and it's a great scene. Yeah, I mean, actors like to work. You know what I mean? Like, I know Nate is also Robert Langdon on Peacock, but like he could clear some time in his schedule.

Right. But yeah, like that, like I guess what I mean is specifically, and we should talk about the Kendall of it all, but just the way that he behaves in the party with Nate is another scene of people being like, hey, hey, man, this isn't how we do it anymore. You know, he's like, you're not Logan. He says, I'm not Gil, but the one that lands is that you're not Logan.

And he's like, that's a good thing. that's a good thing that I'm not gilling you're not Logan yeah he's a piece of it for the world yeah can we before we move on I mean maybe you're the one driving the ship so I no ships get driven uh yeah um by a captain usually yes I think that um we're co-piloting but I think in my understanding of airplanes there's two steering wheels but like it's kind of like in the movie flight where Denzel's character needs to sleep off his orange juice and vodka hangover

so he flips it over to the other dude to Brian Gerty yeah my guy Okay, I did just want to pause and say the Tom and Shiv scene is extraordinary. It is absolutely extraordinary. And you and I have been on the front lines of this and people have heard this that like, you know, over the last 10, 15 years. We've done such important reporting on this matter. We have done important reportage. No, but this idea that, oh, all the good writing went to television and all the people used to write movies and whatever and playwrights that are all writing for television. And, you know, we could discuss that whether that's true or not or whether that's born out.

in shows like the Robert Langdon Mysteries, whatever. My point being, this kind of scene, this kind of emotionally searing scene that is an accumulation of two fully realized characters being brought to life by brilliant performers just ripping the skin off of each other, that's movie shit. That rarely, rarely happens in TV, even though, as we've said, the accumulation of character work over time can lead to incredible discoveries and incredible revelations like this. Part of it is that in a final season, you know, they're playing at the clock. They don't need to walk any of this back. And you can feel it in the writing and in the performances. And that's

usually something that's only the providence of movies. But like if you think about scenes like this, we're like, you're like, Virginia Woolf, you're talking about like marriage story. You're talking about like basically any movie with Michelle Williams, not the fableman's for the last 20 years. Like that's where these scenes exist. Yeah. Before midnight. You know, like like, yeah, right. Before midnight, blue Valentine. Like that, that was wild. It was great to see. this and a TV show really, I don't know, it was elevating even though it was devastating. I hope you're right. I think that there are certain moments on this show that are so significant even to the fictional world and the fictional reality of the show that they wind up standing

the test of episodes and actually changing behavior. But there are lots of moments that don't. You know, like I think a lot of those moments actually have to do with action. So whether it's Kendall participating in the death of another human being, or Logan passing away or whatever it is. It needs to be something that takes place outside of the rooms where these conversations happens. Because I think one thing you do is you go around on the carousel and it always starts again.

And I agree with you. And we haven't seen the scenes from next week, but I wouldn't be surprised if Tom and Shiv were somewhat arm and arm in next episode. But I think that's significant. Because I think the show is saying something about people's willingness to accept the familiar, even if it's painful. and what we cling to, you know, and how actual change is incredibly hard, even in the face of, you know, devastating revelations like the ones that we saw.

I don't think it undercuts the strength of the scene. I guess what I mean is, I guess I'm arguing two different things at the same time. And so take away the, like, what this means for these characters in the larger project of the show. I just mean that if you were to do a really, really bummer city supercut of the major Tom and Shiv scenes from the last few seasons, you know, her asking for an open marriage on the show. wedding night, the time when they were on the, having the picnic on the beach when he's like, I just think maybe it would be a little less sad without you, up to the stuff this season when, you know, they're playing bitey and talking about earlobes to this scene. It's just some of the best emotional screenwriting, character-based screenwriting that I can remember. It's just stunning.

And it's so cool. And the difference between TV and movies is that you can have Tom and Shiv be a C or D plot for three seasons and then make it an A minus plot or a 1A plot in the fourth season. You know what I mean? And I really, I mean, I texted this to you after we both watched the screener that like, I thought this was a B episode of succession, which, you know, probably goes to that saying. But with a Hall of Fame scene. Yeah. Yeah.

But a B succession is, you know, if you're grading it on a curve compared to other shows, it's probably automatically an A. But I'm just saying it was a B episode, which they've earned, take a pause, take a a breath, circle the wagons. And then this, yeah, this A-plus scene in the, near the end of it kind of blew up the whole thing and really reframed what I thought I had just been watching. There was, I think, another A-plus scene, maybe not one that's going to be dissected the way that Tom and Shibs was, but the Lucas Kendall Showdown in this apartment was going to, is going to go down as one of my favorite moments on the show for a variety of reasons.

Maybe because you should put that on a cup is definitely going to be like a line I integrate it into my daily. I also, and I did say this to yesterday, but like, since we both moved to Los Angeles, like we both go back to New York whenever possible and we, you know, revisit some old haunts, but we also like explore the city as tourists in a different way. And there was a time when you, when you and Phoebe went like over the holidays and you're like, we took a handsome cab ride in Central Park. We did not do that.

And then we had a cocktail at Bentlemen. And you were like, what a town. And I was like, you are Kendall in this moment. You should put that entire experience on a cup. Yeah. You love it. You sell it in a head shop in Rotterdam. Yeah.

Here's my thing with Kendall. Did Kendall even the series with Mattson after coming home down one? I don't know. I mean, they drew blood. I think they're both bullshit artists is the truth. But that's the thing. It's all bullshit. And I think that what saves the show again and again,

because look, if you take out some of the fireworks, and you take out some of the performances and you take out the Tom and Shiv stuff, you're left with a lot of characters week to week doing wild 180s to keep the party going, whether it's literally having a party week to week or it's to just keep throwing doubt on this deal that really should be a done deal.

I think broadly speaking, you and I are in agreement that the fact that we are noticing that and feeling that might be what Jesse Armstrong was noticing and feeling and why he made what continues to feel like the right decision to end the show. But I think largely that is also what this season is trying to show us, that it doesn't matter who buys who. It's all bullshit, right?

Like AOL bought Time Warner because in 2000 when that happened, AOL was the future. Like this isn't even like cutting edge, you know, becoming the metaverse shit. This has just been happening in business for the last 20 to 30 years. It's just all valuation and optimism and bullshit and who swallows who. It doesn't really matter. You're going to end up with hundreds of people on the wrong. end of a Zoom call from Greg. Like, that's the real result. And I thought that was very intentional that that was there. But as long as you have these forever rich douchebags just cockfighting in a

penhouse, who cares? Literally, who cares? And that helps kind of me buy into the fact that even Frank is like, okay. Like reverse biking. Let's do it. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Right? The action's the juice, right? This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something. Like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for, that's when Prime's same-day delivery as you're back. Getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably

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enjoy the fresh flavors of spring, save at Whole Foods Market. I thought it was great. That moment when it kind of becomes apparent via Eba that Lucas is inflating his subscription numbers in India and that he needs this ATN or this waste or this waste or deal because he needs to distract from the fact that he's goosing his own numbers and that he's like he's sitting on a pile of sand here, right? like that there's not actually a there there there and there's not a there there for living plus. Like these guys are just like, if I just keep things moving enough and set off enough fireworks,

the street believes it, people believe it. It doesn't matter what the reality is. Well, one thing that we're seeing in our actual real life and the trend lines were there for this before they wrote this season, but it does seem particularly apparent at the moment with companies like balloon companies like Vice suddenly declaring bankruptcy and some of the fallout and language surrounding the writer strike. Hollywood is like for as much as the idea became orthodoxy that, you know, brick and mortar business, the tactile business was the past. And, you know, this is what Logan thought. And when they were saying why they needed to do this deal is they needed to lean into the future and like chase

that and stop being so hidebound by old people on cruises or making movies that cost too much. Like there's a reason why bullshit unicorns like Gojo need to actually tether themselves onto bricks. Because otherwise they'll float away into absolutely speculative shareholder nothingness. There's nothing there. There's this whole second India. It's all made up, right? And so they need each other

each to protect their own illusion, which, Chris, is kind of like why Tom and Shiv need each other too. Boom, done. Podcast over. Thanks. I'll see you next week. I love how, you know, you can say like,

oh, characters do 180s or things reset in different episodes. But it's so cool how the characters are forced to behave differently, depending on the location or the setting that they're in. So environmental factors play into, like, I saw Lucas in a different light in this episode that I did when he was in Norway and kind of lording over the mountain and wearing his hooded windbreaker and being like, you know, I need this deal to go fast and like manipulating those guys

and speaking Swedish and making them feel alienated and everything. And he shows up to this party and tries to kind of pull the same act where he like interrupts the moment of silence and you know is wearing this big gold jacket and his he's a disruptor yeah smoking smoking he's vaping and and kind of but then you can also see the the sort of the veneer come off a little bit where his his co-workers are not actually like these sort of like gleaming cyborgs of Scandinavian efficiency it's like ebba's really socially awkward and is knows she's going to get fired and oscar seems like like a dick bag and is just basically calling Greg a Dingleberry, but in a weird, aggressive way,

not in like a funny, playful way. And Lucas himself is like, ooh, I'm feeling socially awkward, so I'm glad that this whole experience is going well when Shiv is sort of telling him. The one thing I wanted to ask you, though, is they have that meeting kind of in the cloakroom where Shiv is like, you're doing good, you're doing good, but before I do any more work, like, I basically have to ask the Stewie, what's in it for me question. And it's a really delicately written and performed scene because on one hand, I just don't think Lucas has any interest in working with her at all. I suppose for the sake of the show, he might,

but it just seemed like in that moment, there was the opportunity for him to be like, yeah, you know, I'm going to need somebody here to basically run the American operation and run the media side of this business, and that's you. And he doesn't say that. No, I mean, he's a very, very broken, lonely person, right? Like, even Eb is, like, he's not even a coder.

Like, we just propped him up. he's traveling with these two people who are supposedly his closest business associates and de facto friends, aka the ones that he sends blood to or maybe would if Oscar asked nicely. And when Lucas finds out about the India thing, he's like which one of them talked?

Right. Because he doesn't trust. Yeah. He doesn't trust either of them, right? So it's not happy. It's not like it's a very pleasant thing at the top. It's not like it's a very, it's not like this new model of business is is is better in any way. I don't know if anyone listening, check this out,

but I don't even know if you saw this. Maybe I sent you the link. But like the, the writer Ben Smith, who was at BuzzFeed News and then as a columnist of the New York Times has a book coming out about his time at BuzzFeed. And there was an excerpt in Vanity Fair that I read about the time. I'm not laughing at you. Well, I think you were surprised. I think you thought that I was going to say I heard it on fresh air. And I thought you were going to say that too. I know. I know. Here's the thing. My commitment to legacy means. isn't a bit. I are a brick and mortar guy.

You're a commitment to exactly four sources of news. Yeah. And one of them is Facebook news. And the other is Bill's Pod. So the only things I know about is that the Cavs shouldn't have bought out Kevin Love, right? And I know which Instagram stars posted a stunning look six days after they post it because that's when it gets aggregated by Facebook news when it's written about it. It is honestly one of my favorite things is when you send me like a comicbook Digest.com blog post

that's finally been aggregated into your Facebook news feed. And it's like, did you hear that Jason Mamoa wrote a version of Aquaman too? And I'm like, yeah, dude. You had heard about that? Yeah, I'm fucking working the fields, man. I'm out here. I'm just like, I'm trying to find out what's going on with Aquaman. You out there on Blue Sky?

Just searching? Is that where you're at? That's right. Anyway, my point is about this piece. It's about when Bob Eiger and Disney were going to buy BuzzFeed. And Jonah Peretti was just like, I'm not sure if it's a cultural fit. and like walk to Orlando and like they flew to Orlando and he made like very inappropriate jokes at the investors meeting and like all of these people coming from the you know top down or bottom up just

kind of seem like slightly damaged bullshit artists and maybe that's just the way business is done and maybe it's the way business has always been done but it continues to be remarkable to me that just like how psychologically acute succession seems to be in its understanding of these titans that in past iterations of fictional entertainment tend to lionize them. But the more we know behind the curtain, it's just a lot of this. I think once they announced

that this was going to be the final season, I started watching this show with a slightly different lens where it was like kind of, and I know that I shouldn't do this. I know that you're supposed to, or ideally you just watch what you're seeing and you read the text. But imagining different versions of this show.

And one is obviously the one that goes on in perpetuity, or at least for a few more seasons, and you have like seven more mergers and five more ups and downs of Kendall's like addiction and, you know, Tom and Shiv happily ever after or not. And like, there are all sorts of ways that this could have been, you know, kick the can down the road.

But then I sometimes watch this show and imagine what would it be like if the show slowed down to explain everything. And you could say that about the honestly, like enormous amount of information and backstory that we're given inside comments in the opening 15 minutes of this show between the political tenor of the country,

like Ravenwood fans and anti-ATN groups at Kendall and Rava's kids' school. You can take it from Jimenez's like slight lead over, I guess, Mankin, right? Like is the Republican frontrunner. But Connor is obviously like mildly eating into like Megan's base. We have to talk about this, yes.

Oh, we will. And then everything about like where Nate wound up with like that campaign and, you know, or just the fact that Logan has this party every year. Yeah, exactly. And that there's like a thing where if you guess the electoral account, you get kettle corn. Right. Classic. I mean, you know, it is, we joke and we were talking not jokingly last week about what the actual real life stakes are for any of the people on this show from from their vantage point. There was some real, fiddling Nero's about this, right? That it like is all a cocktail party game. It doesn't actually matter.

Everyone in that room will still have power and money and agency. And you talk to the Nazis and they're all here drinking Tom's bad German wine. But there's a version of this show where over the course of this episode and especially over the course of the last two episodes, Kendall says to someone or has some sort of acknowledgement of I can feel my siblings either backing off of me or I can feel that this is the moment where I need to sort of seize control and become my father essentially.

So in that last scene with Frank, when he's like, we're going to do this reverse biking, we're going to pillage them, we're going to buy Gojo, yada, yada, yada. And Frank's like alluding to the power sharing agreement and to whether or not Roman and Shiv would be into this.

and Kendall's like one crown one head like he's like it's going to be me which even though he had said long before it's not going to be me I don't necessarily need there to be a moment where Kendall looks at Roman and is like I don't trust you anymore or gets wind of Shiv basically

within the same party running a double game on six different people do you ever feel the absence of that connective tissue or that exposition? No because everyone is true to who they've always been Like Kendall has always been relatively dismissive of Shiv. I think he likes her, but he is continually for this many years, including up to, you know, when they were arguing over literally the succession plan, you know, you were doing, it was phony work, made up work for dad, right? Like, you've never actually worked in this company.

You don't belong here. Like, he's been consistent in that. The Roman thing, I mean, there was a betrayal at the Living Plus event that is, that was interestingly hinted at here where Romans, like, sorry about getting. wobbly, but you know, blah, blah, blah. He says it at the breakfast where no one needs the pastries. So that's always, I think that's been there. And I think they all seem to understand that it's always a game of individuals, but that they like to pretend to be together. There was that moment when they were buying Pierce when maybe it was real. But once their dad crashed that party, that was over with. I think the other thing that is worth noting here is that the show, I think,

has always been pretty savvy and consistent in its portrayal of Kendall as an addict. And what I mean is he doesn't need to be using to be displaying delusions of grandeur, you know, or he could not possibly be more lost in the sauce at this moment. It's really not that different than when he was almost drowning because of too many limoncello's, right? Like, you see it. The beginning with the Rava scene was really important. And I would be really curious about the conversations in the writers room about that because

we left last week being like, oh, maybe he is the prince who was promised. Because his performance with the Living Plus stuff was remarkable. It was charismatic. The street loved it. It also was not like his father, right? Because it was exactly what he thinks that he is. It was kind of a little bit new agey. It was a little bit disruptive.

It took his weakness and made it a power. His weakness being his vulnerability. Yes. His erratic kind of wide-eyed dreamer bullshit. And it turned it into an asset rather than a drop. back. He moved markets with it. I mean, that is exactly right. And it felt like, oh, this is final boss form, Ken, like he figured it out to turn his weakness into a strength. And then we begin this episode with a scheduled meet on a West Village street with his ex-wife about their

daughter being harassed because of something that he is responsible for. And it ends with him yelling about how busy he is and how important he is and how he's doing it all for the children that we may likely never see again. Of course, they may have been in the next week on succession at the dad's funeral. We don't know. But he is who he is, and they all are who they are. And what's kind of interesting and damning about that is that's why Logan succeeded is because he was absolutely, unfailingly, exactly who he was always. Right. And who he was is the poor bullied kid who wanted to get revenge on the entire fucking world for thinking he wasn't good enough. That got him to where it got him. Yeah. And it's why he doesn't like people telling him what to do in Living Plus

advertisements when they're giving him direction about like, oh, sound happier or sound warmer or whatever. He's just like, fuck off, you know? And he died alone and hated in an airplane bathroom, but also worth billions and et cetera, et cetera. And so everybody just is who they, I mean, that makes me think of what you were saying before about where Tom and Shiv may end up at the end of it. I do think one of the most, like, kind of subversive things this show could say is that no,

what was the Seinfeld mantra? Like, no learning, no growing, no hugs? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's actually the human condition. condition of watching modern television that we're expecting there to be growing. Do you think we need somebody to look and say, I'm not a bad person? Like, do you think we need those easy lessons? Or do you think it's the show try to have its cake and eat it too, where it has these searing emotional moments like safe room or even the fight between Tom and Shiv tonight? And then it can also be like,

but let's sort of like, sort of wipe away the whiteboard here. You can see the outlines of the writing, but we're going to now start again at zero. Like, I'm not saying that the show isn't consistent. Jerry is acting consistent with someone who has been harassed by this guy, who she also has this weird codependent relationship with. And even her sort of suggestion of like, I basically could have gotten you there, right? She's like, I could have gotten you to the top here.

Shiv, too, has got a moment where she's just like, I think I bet on the wrong person. I nail myself to the mats and cross. Kendall's the only person who's like, I bet on me and I'm either going to float or sink. I think that, look, I love the show. I'm excited for the last few episodes, and I'm excited because it's going to be Jesse Armstrong's vision,

his writing, and what he wanted to do in his decision-making. But if you pull back a step, this really is, to my mind, one of the most fascinating finales ever. Because your question brings to mind something that we've referenced before in the podcast, which is, what does a show owe its audience, and what does the audience expect of a show

and when the bill comes to? And we often reference, the kind of fractured or bifurcated ending of Breaking Bad, which in the spirit of Vince Gilligan, like, let's make everyone happy and let's solve every problem, gave us both. It gave us granite state for the people who were like, he deserves to be lonely and punished. And it gave us Felina for everyone who's just like, let's go out with a bang. Or a series of banks emanating from a car. I don't think anybody watches succession for a happy ending, though. But that's the thing. What would a happy ending even be on this show? And in the same way

that what would a happy ending be for something like Mad Men, which was also about how people are people in any era and kind of can't get out of their own way, it tried to have it both ways. Like, I'm sorry, I'm going to give a very, very general spoiler for the end, but just to say that, like, I think a truly happy, but maybe not satisfying ending for a rapacious character like Don Draper probably would have been going to a new age retreat for a very, very long time and learning to live with himself. It wouldn't go, it wouldn't be going there to live with yourself to then invent a jingle that will revolutionize advertising around the world to sell sugar water.

Sure. And maybe that is, in and of itself, is interesting because that's the human condition, blah, blah, blah. So, but what is the correct ending here? It would be these people fucking walking away. Well, I know that I have TV brain because I am now doing the same thing that I was doing during the end of Mad Men where it's like, anytime a character is in a car, I'm like, don't get in a car accident.

And just even watching... Like a homeland when it just gets T-boned, no matter what? But I was just like watching Tom on the balcony. I was like, is this guy going to jump off the balcony? You know, like, I think because you're kind of getting towards this point where it's like, it's not that death is the only resolution, but it is sort of like in the air. And I think because the show has played with these images of people falling, people drowning, people contemplating their existential sort of place in the world while staring out at this abyss of Lego land that they are both

the master of and also completely subservient to like I I don't even know I mean like obviously I think that there was a through line through this episode of like this stuff about the uh firebombing of an election of a of a campaign office in Arizona that gets joked about just some firecrackers and I think a file cabinet you know had to go to the ICU or whatever but like they bring that up multiple times obviously the election is coming we're coming out of a very tumultuous election in our own country that served as a backdrop, at least for the writing, if not the production of the season of television. So clearly, like, there's going to be some stuff in here, but this show has never been about the quote-unquote real world. You know, it's always been about the world that this,

the reality of this family. I think that's an important thing to flag, because, you know, you and I were just, we're just grabbing our popcorn, waiting for the Justin Kirk episode, both because we like Justin Kirk, but also because that means that the politics are being brought to the four. And anybody who lived through one of the words, days of my life in 2016, knows that, like, being up a couple points in the polls the day before the election isn't necessarily a harbinger of awesome things to come. This is why you got to follow Haralabab on Twitter, man. Yeah, the two of you, you were looking at the futures market. No, he was just like, it's over. Yeah, that was, I mean, it was just a cool night in a lot of ways, but I appreciated

his, his clarity of vision. I appreciated knowing about 15 minutes before most people. And, you know, knowing that was also, that was what, 12 hours before my nose just started bleeding when I was driving my daughter to school the next morning due to like just intense stress. So I showed up looking like fucking Creed, except just someone who was punched by Creed. Anyway, there's a version of the show where everything we're talking about, that these characters have lived in a manufactured environment where it's okay to talk this way, be this way, behave this way. all play money and none of it matters and their feet never actually touch the ground when suddenly the bill comes due because they've elected a fascist and there's violence in the streets. Now, they're not on those streets. They're in the penthouse. But again, it was telling that the episode began with Rava, who I think is one of the few characters who have been inside

the circle and then left the circle, right? And so she is actually living on earth. Just hanging out at Birch Coffee. Yeah. But, you know, she has an incredible incredibly nice place. Remember we saw it when Ken was hanging out there. Oh, that's right. But it's touching his kids. You know, the fire that they are playing with is spreading. And I think it's, and again, I'm not advocating for a show that's just like, you know, essentially it ends with like a bunch of reply guys, like the Krasnstein brothers being like, I told you so. Like, that's not the politics of the show and that's not good drama. Yeah. But it's interesting that there are, that the fire is spreading and, you know, look at Roman. Like, it's not as if there are consequences in a traditional punitive sense for him in this episode

or in any episode. But it's not working anymore. You know, remember when we were talking about in episode three that it seemed like they had reached the end of their language? Like, his whole shtick is fucking he fuck fuck fuck stuff. Yeah. It's kind of done. You know, like he gets beaten by Connor. He gets beaten by Jerry. He's just, he's got to. And he keeps getting it, he keeps running into people with almost with principles. You know what I mean? Like Connor just being like the one person here who doesn't treat me like a joke, I'm going to listen to that person.

Jerry being like, here is like all the five things that you need to do. And if you don't do them, I am going to like sue your brains out. Like he's actually running into, he thinks he's the immovable object, but he's actually running into, you know, an unmovable force. Did you also clock the return of Roman satellite face that like when he kind of like a black hole opens in his sternum and he becomes a concave, uh, creature, no longer standing in a straight line. Him going from Jerry to Connor to being like, I've been defeated by one person.

So I now, I must defeat someone else is, was just such great writing. And this is what you get to do when you set these things in these condensed areas is that it's not like, I don't mean a bag on Ozark, for instance, but Ozark would be like a scene would happen and then a guy would get in a car and drive around the lake to go talk to somebody that he could text, right? But if you always are putting these people in these rooms together, they have no choice but to interact with each other in person. Also, the show, you're talking about like bread come trails or like, are people behaving in ways that are consistent with things that have been set up before. Let's just clock what's coming.

Like at his lowest moment, Roman has now circled delivering the family eulogy at his father's very public funeral as his redemption arc for someone who apparently has pre-grieved, but is behaving like an absolute fucking. lunatic for a number of weeks now. I just can't imagine it's going to go great. I feel like that's something to be aware of. Yeah, you know, that's that kind of goes back to the question of whether or not you would want, or have I missed some sort of subtle recognition on Kendall's part that Roman is spinning out? So he's up on the mountain.

He's up on the mountain with Roman when Roman changes the play at the line and goes up to Mattson and is like, you fucking killed my dad. he was in the dressing room with Roman with the flight jacket when Roman's like, I'm going to let you do this one because it seems like you're losing your mind. And he conquers that. And he's like, okay.

Firing joy, firing Jerry. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So, I mean, I think that I have to imagine if you're going to take it, if you're going to assume that Kendall knows that Roman is behaving that way, that does Kendall also know that Shiv is kind of double dealing here? He assumes.

Because, like, what is a kindness like on a on the most human basic level, what kindness can we give each other, particularly within a family, is just to be present and to listen. What a Roy family member does is listen and take notes for the rat fuck dossier.

Yeah, right. Everything is, you know, co-intel. Like everything. Everything, including, I mean, I don't know if it's going to come back again, but at the end of last season, at his lowest moment, Kendall was like, hey, bro, hey, sis,

I killed a guy. Just FYI. I did that. So that's probably going to come back. You know, this stuff doesn't stay down. It's all fissile material for them to use against each other. And it's wild. And, you know, in the spirit of, like, what I was trying to say about Rava stepping away with, you no doubt, an enormous fucking alimony package. Conner, what Connor did, Conner's kind of the hero of the season. I mean, because first of all, I really appreciate his humility when talking about nation states like North Korea because the truth is, we don't know. We don't know. He's also really, he's really

zeroed in on Oman in relationship to Saudi Arabia and Yemen. It was, the poor man, Saudi Arabia, the rich man's Yemen. Yeah. It's just, all of that. All of that was absolutely incredible, as was the return of Mark Lynn Baker from Perfect Strangers as his political guru who's just like, for like 45 seconds, you know, like it. The slows are out. He wants a nuclear power? He wants South Korea. I don't want to go anywhere where I don't have nuclear weapons. All of that was phenomenal in my favorite stuff other than the intense Tom Shiv's scene.

But like, it's funny. Like I think coming out of last week, well, coming out of last week, I made a comment that I think not everyone agrees with, but like TV brain kind of makes us root for people, even root for people that we might not ordinarily be aligned with or might actually, you know, we don't actually think that they're doing a good job. we're kind of rooting for them due to familiarity. Coming out of last week, I think perversely rooting for Tom and Shiv's relationship took over because we like those actors, we like those characters, and we would like them to find some kind of negotiated truce. So something could matter in this world.

Weirdly, it's the Connor Willa relationship, and I feel like it's been there from the beginning. It has always been purely transactional. And that's been understood. And somehow it's cleaner for it. So that now we see what the quixie. pro quo was, right? Like he gave her money and he put her terrible show on Broadway. And when they make the Hall of Fame moments on succession loops on YouTube at the end of the season, Willa throwing the iPad into the ocean has to be top five. Or I think the list is illegitimate. Well, I think that he was like

Lucas saying, she just don't want me to scream people or data while I put my dick in their quack is also in the Hall of Fame. Also true, we should probably make a list. But he gave her money and put her bad show on Broadway and she doesn't treat him like a joke. That's the deal. Yeah. You know, and he comes out of it weirdly credible. Weirdly credible. I mean, there's no world in which he's ever going to be president,

but nor should there be a world where a man with a Y and an unexpected middle place in his name should be elected president either. No offense. I think that's the one thing that that's the one thing that Jesse and the Brits got wrong about America. I think the name Jared, J-E-R-R-D, would be disqualified. So the next episode is called America Decides. So I have to imagine that that will be the election. Whoa.

Where do you jump to that? Just deducing it. I can't wait to find out who our next president in Succession Land is. Thank you so much to Kai and MacBullen for producing us. Chris, you buying Jimenez stock? You really think you think... I love that you're acting like, boy, I really think the Dems got a shot in this universe. That's where we're going.

We will be back on Thursday to discuss all things TV, and then we'll be doing, obviously, the last couple episodes of Succession. Andy, thank you so much for joining me, man. Thank you. I know it was a game time decision, but thank you for extending the invite. And thank you to all the Branskys for your support in this difficult hour.