The Watch - ‘Succession’ S3E2: “Mass in Time of War”

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

Chris and Andy talk about ‘Succession’ S3E2, “Mass in Time of War.” They discuss the many versions of Kendall we have gotten so far (7:20), the play-like scene of all the siblings in a room (16:58), and the central power Logan still holds (36:29). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody, it's me, Chris Ryan. I'm the co-host of The Watch. And I'm also a huge football fan. And I don't mean the NFL. I mean world football. The football we play outside of the states. Soccer, and I wanted to tell you about one of my favorite shows on our network. Ringer FC. It's actually two shows. It's Stadio with Ryan Hunt and Muso Kwanga. And that goes on Mondays and Thursdays. And they wrap up all the major European leagues, the women's game, Champions League, Internationals, all the news, all the observations, all the hilarious. analogies to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You can find it on Stadio. Then there's Ritey's House, which is hosted by the Arsenal legend Ian Wright, and he has special guests. He takes a historical look at some of what's happening today, and he also has got incredible insight into what goes on in the Premier League and off the field with players.

Ringer F.C is your home for all things soccer on the Ringer, and this week they covered the Champions League. Champions League was back in session. You can find Ringer F.C every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

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Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line.

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I am an editor for The Ringer.com and joining me on the other line. The little man who started that big war. It's Andy Greenwald. I'm sorry. I know Kaya doesn't like it when I eat on Mike, but I'm just finishing up this delicious platter of snake linguine. Andy in the house, big things, big things. Succession, second episode of season two.

It's called Mass in Time of War. Man, shoot or shoot, Andy. And Kenny is a shooter. You know what I mean? Kenny went for it. Again, yes. So I think we should do what we did last week. Thank you everybody for listening.

We're going to be discussing exclusively this episode of Succession today. So I would watch that before you listen. And just some general thoughts and then we can get into the nitty-gritty, the plot breakdown. I wanted to say that this was probably among my favorite episodes of Succession. Really? But I thought it was remarkable. I thought it was another. put this on Jeremy Strong's awards reel.

Like, like, it was like basically watching a great stage play, watching Culkin and Snoke and, and, and Strong and, and Ruck, like in the room together.

I would like, as a personal request, to just now kind of like, do the rest of the season. Like, whatever, bring the new characters in, have some challenges, to have some,

some side plots or whatever's going to happen. I'm sure Kendall's, like, coo, his move against his father will be the, driving thrust of the season. But we have now done basically three straight episodes of people walking from one side of the room to the other side of the room to the other side of the room

trying to decide whether they're going to follow Logan or Kendall. And it's really awesome. It's really awesome. But this is as good as it can get. You know what I mean? I really agree with you. I think let's start here. Without question, I think everyone listening can agree that of all the episodes of Succession thus far, all 22, this is by far, the most COVID compliant. You know last week? Interesting point. You know last week when Kendall is like, I need a clean jar?

I'm like, episode 302, baby. This jar doesn't even have fingerprints on it. Like other than Peter Riegert and James Cromwell, which may have been filmed at a different time, we were, this was interior living room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interior living room, interior living room. I kid, although I do wonder, honestly,

that because of the production constraints put on this show in every show in the last year, if there was some thinking in that, I am in no way suggesting that Jesse Armstrong made adjustments to his grand plan to surface the viral realities of the moment. I don't think he was forced to. I think that they worked through it with the guidance of incredibly dedicated professionals who have come off the sidelines to know how to do this stuff and they got it done. But when shooting in COVID, there have been multiple cases. And I've heard this both professionally and anecdotally of like, if something goes down, we need to have other scenes and episodes that we can pull up. so we don't lose too many days.

And this episode was so contained. It did occur to me that maybe that was part of the reason for its construction. That said, let's talk about it in and of itself as a piece. And I think that instead of calling it COVID compliant, let's call it what it was as you did, which is theatrical. Yeah. You know, this was, honestly, this was the episode that I would, and I think this is actually going to be a hugely important episode for the series going forward. as the show has returned, with it has returned some of the whispers that have plagued the show from the beginning. Whispers that I actually probably expressed when the first two episodes premiered and then I eventually walked back.

This is your version of many people are saying. No, no, but I've seen this, and I think you've seen and heard it too, where there is a type of television fan who is like, I don't understand why I should watch Succession. Everyone is evil and sucks. Anyway, I have to get back to my Sopranos rewatch. So, you know, everyone has their contradictions as to what they termed to be evil. I have to closely follow the American government. Yeah, exactly. But the idea that these people are somehow, you know, cartoonish monsters that are not relatable

on a human level, this episode is the antidote for that. You know, what I thought was so brilliant about the episode was something that we could also, I think it's fair game for some light criticism, which is that it was, for a show that is generally up on the God-level view of the Titans of Industry. this was absolutely some people with a box of donuts in a room or in a Sarajevo airport hotel. And what was striking about it and I think brilliantly executed. And I'm going to keep coming back to this idea that I think this episode is important in terms of everything that's going to come, both this season and the series, is that we saw just on a human level what motivates these people and how deeply, deeply broken they are. And while so doing, I thought Jesse Armstrong, who wrote the script, also just did a really delicate and impressive job of making it clear how everyone is complicit in the economy of the moment and of the realities that we are all in.

And that even powerful people can do the same thing that I do when I don't look too hard at the Thai food takeout container and just assume it's trash. like maybe you could scrape off the pad so you would recycle it, but maybe not, but it's not my fault that the world is going to burn. Am I ever really going to meet that dolphin? Exactly. Like that sort of like, well, what can I really do here? I'm just one butterfly and the beating of my wings won't do anything in Southeast Asia or whatever. That sort of thinking infects everyone. That's just a piece of being human. And so we get these beautiful set pieces that are about the fucked up family dynamic when everything is about optics and money. but it's also about Kendall being like, don't you want to be a good human and save yourself slash me slash planet Earth?

It's a sliding scale, and it's so great, and it's so wonderfully executed in this episode, and Kendall is the perfect avatar for it, because Kendall is so full of shit. Yeah, but even someone full of shit can be, right, twice a day. Help me with that metaphor,

but I think you know what I'm getting at. No, you're right. It's basically, I noticed when Kendall started talking about, you know, when they're in, when they're in his daughter's bedroom and he, you know, first when he starts talking to Shiv outside of his daughter's bedroom and he's like, you tell yourself you're a good person, but you're not a good person. I don't remember that coming up in succession before. I don't remember characters on succession taking a step outside of themselves and in any other way, but flippantly considering the impact of their behavior on the

wider world or whether or not they themselves were good people. I think that they, I always just assumed they were like, we're so rich we've actually elevated beyond that. You know what I mean? Right. Or like Logan the other week, last season being like, well, no real people were hurt when you killed the guy. Right. So, you know, one thing that you and I have always kind of noted about post-golden age or

anti-hero TV or this sort of wave of shows that we've had in the last five years is how often a character will say, I'm not a bad man, but I did bad things. Shout out to low winter sun. Yeah, you know, or bloodline or any of these things where we are, getting off on watching anti-heroes or watching essentially villains, but they, the villains themselves need to sort of tip their cap to the audience that they're aware of their villainy or that they're trying to explain away their behavior. Succession was kind of unique. It was closer to Veep in this way that it was just like, well, of course these people are just degraded, you know, mollusks on the,

on the bottom of the boat of society enjoying the trip down to the bottom of the ocean. I'm going to go too far feel with my naval metaphor there. But my point is, is that I had not heard that kind of self-reflection. And you're right. The reason the self-reflection works is because Kendall is only using the self-reflection to get what he wants.

Which, honestly, same sometimes. I mean, I think that's, this episode, and this is what I want to circle back to, like, this was a deeply human episode of television where the characters understand, even in their, like, richly pampered animal hind brains what's right. They all understood what's right. That moment when they do the round robin of, we knew, we didn't know, no, but we knew and you knew. It's every moment in life when we put

real suits on top of our skin suits, we walk out into an ocean of denial, right? Like we all are making, we are all making equations and that makes sense for us in the moment. But what was so exquisite about this episode is everyone called each other on it. And at the end of it, everyone made their decision in terms of what they can live with. And what's true for the Roy's is true for everyone. You know, when people say all politics is local, it's like Kendall goes global with his fury at the end to get everyone to stay in the room. Like, yeah, you're going to screw me, but you're also screwing the solar system. And he goes as large as you can get. But day-to-day reality for Shiv Roy or for any of us, I'm not checking for the status of Neptune. I'm not actually

thinking about the solar system. Like most people, she kind of just wants her dad to smile at her once. Right. Or give her a look. Yeah, right. And that's the currency of this. And I think that's also so artful that in a world where money is totally abstract, where money is just, you know, like on the boat last season, can you just, can you just give me 100 mil? Like, that's not an unreasonable ask. Money doesn't matter. So what is the currency between these people? And like for anyone, it is some kind of human validation. they're just looking for it in all the wrong places. Let's start by talking a little bit more deeply about Kendall. So by my count, I do want to ask you, how many, like, days do you think is a,

because it's basically four days in their sort of time from the end of last season. You know, it's like he leaves, he goes to New York, he does his press conference, the second, the third season starts the second the press conference is over. Yeah. And now I feel like by my count, Kendall has been. at least three separate people. He's been the shell-shocked person at the end of season two.

He's been, you know, whoever he was in the first episode, which I think you could describe as basically having a bit of a manic flight. Who he was in the bathtub and then the sort of manic episode afterwards when he's like checking the BoJack Twitter stuff. Yeah. And then he seems to have like leveled out

in this episode to an incredible moment of both not only clarity about, at least forward-facing, clarity about the moral position that he's taking. And also how to execute it. Like, even though it's bullshit, it's really always fascinating because this is a show essentially,

I think a lot, you can learn the most about these characters by watching other characters react to what they're saying. And you could see in his bedroom proselytizing that he was doing, different members of his family reacting to different tenets of his new philosophy about how they can leapfrog Amazon and become the information hub of the post-American world and not tied to any, like, physical, you know, office or whatever where it is.

He's pitching this stuff and Shiv reacts to one thing and Roman reacts to another thing. And Connor reacts to something about, you know, he had that, he goes, Amen, brother, when he's like, everybody's just killing each other and shooting dope. What did you think of this third Kendall that we've seen? Well, I think, and I think we touched on this last week, it's partly attribute to the writing. It's primarily attribute to Jeremy Strong's performance. It's always all the same Kendall, you know, but there has. have been, as there are even in manic episodes or drug binges, whatever.

I mean, this is not a drug binge, but in real life, like, there can be moments of clarity. It doesn't make everything else better. It's just another piece of information that has emerged from the spigot that is this character at this moment. The scene when he says at the end of all of it, and I believe, I don't know if this happens right around the same time when he starts talking about 323 BC. Yeah, Alexander is dead. Let's divide the spoils, yeah.

at the bottom of that deep Wikipedia reference, he's like, well, I love dad, I hate him. I'll save that for my therapist. Outsourced it to my therapist. I love that. But he was going to send me to jail. And so I think they all kind of nod to that. That is the realest of the real that they cannot say because underneath all the posturing and the references to historical greats and how Connor's going to run, you know, the rest of it maybe.

yes, that's true. Their father would send them all to jail except maybe Shiv, which I thought was an interesting little hedge. I think that that moment was incredibly revealing, but in many ways I thought the most revealing thing of the entire run from Kendall was when he says something about how there's like, he's going to talk about the one true truth, right? He's sort of proselytizing.

And then he gets a phone call right after he talks about those, there being one truth. he says, you know what, I just want to go hug my kids. That's all this is. And of course, that's, that's the biggest lie. Right. I mean, he is in deep denial, but it doesn't mean he can't be right occasionally. And it's, when I think about Kendall's journey, I was thinking also about Shiv in this episode and how we walked out of last week's episode being like, well, she's on a car on her way to Kendall. And we were referencing, or you brought up, you know, a scene that I know is one of your favorites, which is the like, let's actually have a human hug scene.

Sure. Yeah. Between them last season. And And she's just like, yeah, fuck you, like whatever. Yeah. But our minds still bending into sort of traditional heroic TV narratives, we're like, well, yeah, she'll join up with him, which makes sense. And we have a moment of that when Shiv actually draws blood with Roman and Roman leaves and Connor goes after him. And he's like, can't this just be nice?

And we see that Kendall and Chavon for all their differences, they have the same blood in their bodies. You know, they are both kind of monsters and they can connect on that level. there is this sense that, you know, they're going to team up because that's where we've been headed and that's inevitable. But no, because at the root of all of them is just this, you know, vicious throbbing ego monster that wins out over absolutely everything. And I read something this week and I'm kicking myself that I can't credit where I saw it. If you wrote it on Facebook listener, let me know. I'm sorry, I thought this was just really apt. Let me know where you read this. This is not my original thought.

but someone pointed out something that kind of flew under my radar, which is that from the first season, the predictable narrative arc for Chavon was that she was outside the company. She's the black sheep in that she's actually a white sheep in that she's good, right? She has real friends and a real life and all these things. And she's liberal and she's in different circles. And that the arc of the show would be Logan being unable to see that, that his daughter is actually the good one and the deserving one, et cetera, et cetera.

And what's happened over the last two seasons is she sucks too, right? I mean, this isn't news where people have watched the last two seasons, like when she went to the park and threatened the witness. But she is just as fallible, just as driven by ego, just as monstrous as everyone else, and also in totally over her head, despite her bluster. And when we see her flop sweat, when we see her neediness, when we see her on the phone with Tom for the umpteenth time being like, but you could see it, right? Right?

Yeah. Right? That makes sense. We understand them just so deeply. So that the end is both devastating to Kendall, but also inevitable. I mean, they're only ever looking out for their own interests and their own positioning and they can't see past their own noses. So much of this show in general, but this episode, it specifically was about barely perceptible

changing power dynamics. It starts, this episode starts out with Logan and complete disarray, you know, and then it, and then it ends with him in kind of pretty much back in the seat of power, back in New York City, Marsha on his arm, back with his kids, has a plan. Kendall starts this episode with all the people coming to him, you know, with everybody coming to Kiss the Ring, even if they're not really saying that, and ends with him alone again. But I loved how... Not just alone, wearing a cap being like anonymous guy, meeting with his new lawyer, you know, and just basically subsuming himself into someone else's system.

Yes. I love, though, how at the end of the sort of the meeting of the minds, it was the Roy Kids, I think the reason why Shiv and Roman jumps ship is because Connor goes first. And it's like if it's not good enough for Connor, it can't be good enough for us, you know? And I kind of was like, that's great.

If Connor had gone last or if Connor hadn't been invited or something else, like I think at various points, he has Shiven Roman's attention. He has their vote essentially. I mean, she makes a really compelling case where she's just like, if all of us go against him, then there's just really no way he can survive. But the fact that Connor,

who can't concentrate on what's in front of him beyond the donut is like, yeah, I don't want to do this. I don't want to kill Dad. That's like... That's a bad look, historically. Yeah, but he's just like, that's what convinces... You wonder what happened if he had gone like second or third. But also, maybe they don't...

outsource enough to their therapist, but only Kendall wants to kill his father. You know, the rest of them want something much more immediate than that. Connor wants the $100 million to bail out his Broadway debts and everything else. Roman wants Jerry to succeed and he wants his father to love him. He doesn't want to kill him. And Shiv just wants the power. She wants the job. And, you know, the whole stew is complicated by the fact that like Jerry, I think as a character is often

a font of good advice or at least a correct read on the situation. I mean, we'll see how complicated that gets in her new role as human skin suit, the shield for Chavan. But when she's just like, yes, that would be terminal to Logan, but your family's not going to be there to pick up the pieces. I think that's all, that's all fairly accurate. But I guess I'm not surprised ultimately because Kendall doesn't know how to communicate with his own siblings. I mean, none of them know to communicate with each other other than, you know, mockery and cruelty and et cetera, et cetera. But he never gives them, maybe this is why he's not going to be ultimately a good CEO in this world.

He doesn't understand the carrots that each one of them want. And he offers them the wrong thing and then he grabs the biggest stick. He offers them a chance to save the planet or control Asia Minor or something. That's not what any of them actually want. They want many different things and some of them are intangible, whether it's or affection or legitimacy. And he's not even thinking with that because he's so caught up in his own psychological. You could also make the argument that they decided that the other two kids decided to be out

when Kendall's immediate reaction to Connor rejecting him is like, get out of here. You're irrelevant. Yeah. I mean, he goes back to his. I think they were also, yes, all of this. Every time you get the family in a room, it's a stress test of a sort. Yeah. Kendall is basically a Buddha for the entire episode.

Like people are trying to knock him off. He's changed. I can't. Yeah. They have come through. I've come through this. I've been transformed and I believe in saving the whales

and I believe in expunging this like rot, this tumor that's inside of us. And now instead, as soon as he gets one red light, he's just like, fuck you, fuck you, get out of my house

or get out of my ex-wife's house. And I think that the most compelling acting in the episode was each of the children's performance of hunger. Not just Connor looking at the donuts, but the kind of just the masks drop when they are face to face with the thing that they want, whether it's Chavon having her father offer her what she

actually wants, whether it's Roman potentially having an honest moment with anyone in his family or, you know, being the closest version of himself to true to Jerry, despite that, you know, he has to say a couple things about jerking off, but somewhere in there is, you know, his true self, and it's, and it's revealing. It's very exposed. It's an intimate kind of acting that they're all so good at. And I also just want to, at this moment, give them enormous credit for something else, which is, it's very hard to play a family in anything, you know, especially, it gets, I would imagine it gets easier in a long-running series where you actually get to know the people and you develop a comfort level and a rapport that Penn can translate on screen. But,

So often it's like you get thrown together on day one and you have to fake it. The way that these actors who don't actually really look alike at all have sold me and I think everyone on it from day one is they're so viciously good at imitating each other in a way that I think siblings, I mean, look, we're two only children. We are not the experts on this. But I would imagine, and I've observed in my own children, like that is the most savage form of communication because the things that siblings do all day, it's not necessarily get along and play or quarrel, it's watch each other. They are constantly aware of where the other is

and what the other is doing and also the status bar of who's in favor and who isn't, you know, and the way that they are tuned into each other as much as they're tuned into what's trickling down from their father's Mount Olympus, I think is crucial. One of the coolest ways that's manifested is the fact that this might be the, it's pretty easily the best written show on television, I think, but that doesn't mean that every line is perfect on purpose. I just did Color of Money rewatchables. And when I was researching that, there was this whole Richard Price thing.

Richard Price wrote screenplay for Color of Money, this Scorsese movie from 86. And he was like, the thing that I learned working with Scorsese and Newman and his everything is just not every line can be a bumat. You know what I mean? You can't have every line be this home run piece of dialogue, which is Sorkin, Sorkin does that.

You know, Sorkin, every single person in a room, in a Sorkin show is dealing. You know, they have like this deep well of references, and they always have the right thing to say, and everything is written. You can feel it all moving towards this place where Jeff Daniels or Martin Sheen can make a big point. Jesse Armstrong, on the other hand,

has that in his bag, but we'll also have two minutes of really uncomfortable dialogue between Shiv and Roman, where they're like, yeah, like, dad's like fucking fine. whatever, like, what are you doing here? I'm fucking spying. Like, what do you want? Like, I'm fucking spying too. Like, what do you, like, this kind of like, you guys are trying to act cool, but you're both hurt, but you're both not sure what the other person is doing there or why you're there and you're not ready to admit anything to anyone, much less yourself. And that is manifested in

the fact that not all your dialogue is cool. You're not always going to say the coolest thing. I love that observation. It also reveals something essential about the characters, which is that their children and Kendall is sitting there composed and performative and insightful and talking about Alexander the Great and talking about you know the the the global stakes of everything and as soon as people start bailing on him he's like you will you you're you you you you you're you you you you fucking suck you know he he's that's what's at the root of it and I think your point about writing is exactly right I mean it's it is a very hard thing to learn for anyone writing professionally because partly it's ego but also it's like

I have a chance to shape and craft these things. And then in the case of succession, it's famous for its shaping and crafting and heightened dialogue. And the temptation must be so great. And you can only imagine the alts that are getting pitched in the writer's room for some of these insults, you know. And yet there can be a great restaurant out there, Chris. Remember when we used to go to restaurants and, you know, you'd be like, oh, well, the flowerless chocolate cake. It's the richest bite you'll have. It's to die for.

Well, there's a reason that the restaurant doesn't serve eight courses. of plated chocolate cake. Yeah, it's to build towards something. You'd get sick, and also you wouldn't notice it anymore. And so because so much of this, because Jesse Armstrong does seem to understand when to take your foot off the gas, Roman saying, you know, it's a scrotum over a timpony drum. Like, that rings out. That's the flowerless chocolate cake of the episode.

But the protein, honestly, is them fumbling because it's in a place beyond words. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. manage your activity with our consumer protection tools.

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Speaking of flowerless chocolate cake, any thoughts on Romans' gift of cinnamon Danish? I was trying to figure out where the donuts were from, and I was trying to figure out where the cinnamon Danish were from. I think we're going to make a habit of this. We were able to almost nail down where Naomi got takeout,

but I thought he said from the river place, so I was like, did this guy stop at River Cafe? It was an airport. We got it in an airport. Yeah, but he's flying PJ. He's not going to do you free, is he? He's not flying scheduled as Conner said. Incredible. Incredible line. I'm struggling with this because what I, of course, I paid very close attention, but to that moment, but it struck me, I couldn't tell you what it is.

I don't, I generally don't, don't fly private, you know, for ethical reasons, for definitely that's the only reason. Yeah. It's an epiphanominal thing for you. Thank you. Thank you. You see me. I took it to be like the bare minimum of a gift, you know, like someone's like, I remember that one time you were on an airplane and they served those Biscoffs and I know you liked them. So I brought you to. Or it's just really like, they handed you those two. Because I want credit for giving you something. Yeah. Yeah.

Totally. So we have all this Kendall. That said, sorry, if we're just briefly on Food Corner. Please. Logan, I guess after an episode has had his fill of saliva and was just eating. like a vague meat salad. It was a funny chef salad. It was like iceberg with chunks of pepperoni in it.

Like that didn't see. Yeah, ham. It looked like it was just like a straight up like swim club chef salad. You guys know that I am here for like an accurate representation of the glories of Bosnian cuisine, even if you're not getting like the highlights at the airport. Sure. Yeah. But this seemed like a mistake.

I'm just saying this seemed like a mistake. You know, he's still in a position where you can get anywhere. on the phone and buy his wife back via, you know, via text message. Like, I feel like he could get something brought in. Yeah. So, we'll leave the, the Kendall group aside for a second, and let's get on to Logan.

So Logan is still in this fucking hotel room. In the same way where it seems almost a little unbelievable how refreshed and, and quick-witted the kids are after 8, 12, 16, 24 hours a week, flying across the world.

Multiple continents, yeah. Yeah. Logan definitely looks like a guy who has spent four days in a Bosnian hotel room not having left and is worried about being extradited. Like he basically is like, I'm not going to sneak out of this country. Anyway, what did you think of like basically the Logan on tilt to Logan in control by the end of it with the Marsha reemergence? Well, I think that it does speak to this idea that has been reinforced throughout his adult life, which is that money isn't the thing, but money is the thing that gets you the things that

you need in any moment. And in this case, what it gets him is something that you don't usually equate with money, which is, you know, a reassertion of stability and optics. And that's all possible and doable. And you realize how important that stuff is, you know, I think that if you or I were on the run and risking extradition, you know, I feel like maybe we would be more focused on the, like, I promise you I didn't do it or like let's build a defense or something. I don't think we would be as focused on like let's get me, let's get some candids on a tarmac. Yeah. You know, but he's correct that all of those things matter and that, you know, you act strong and you are strong and people react to you as if you are strong.

The Marsha thing was interesting to me only because, and no disrespect to Hayam Abbas, like she's out of the main cast. the season and then made it one episode before just returning essentially with as much screen time as she had had it in the other point in the two seasons. We spoke about this a little last week. I find her intriguing. I like her as a performer. I don't always love her role on the show and the bandwidth that it takes up primarily because, as we said last week, it kind of generally serves to either humanize Logan or suggest there's

another level of dealmaking that we're not privy to. Yeah, right. In a way, like because they have an arrangement, they have an understanding. there's a very loaded moment in this episode when they've been reconciled and she says basically like there's another card to play and he's like if you, I don't know, he's like you fuck around

in an inner grenade factory, you let yourself on fire. That was alluding to Kendall's. I assume so as well and that's the second week there's been an allusion to that. So but you know there's no question that she plays a stabilizing force role in his life and it is

interesting that she is the one who does it. And I also just think that in the episode's larger meta point about how, you know, there's all this talk about who's clean, who has blood on them, blah, blah, blah. No one's clean. Absolutely no one's clean. And in some ways, Marcia is perhaps the most successful person because it does appear to be almost effortlessly transactional for her.

It is pure, pure capitalism to the degree where she brings her business manager to negotiate her payout and doesn't stress or dally, the details. She just gets up and lovingly puts her supportive hand on Logan's shoulder, which, you know, as we've seen with with Connor and Willa, like, maybe that, maybe transactional is right. It's working for them, you know, it's taken some of the other stuff away, the messier stuff, and it's working. Yeah, I mean, she just doesn't want to be embarrassed. That seems to be the only stipulation she has about their marriage. Poor, she doesn't want to be more. I don't think she's in any danger of that. How do you think that, I guess it's like, there's just like this rush of

momentum towards Logan at the end of the episode. Right. What did you make of that? Like, did you think that that made sense coming out of Kendall's apartment that there would just all of a sudden be this like, let's just get behind dad because we don't want to kill him, but also because he's the whale and Moby Dick and you can't take him down with a dozen harpoons? I think, well, one thing that is just true, and we see it in literature and we've seen it in our own lives. And since becoming a parent, I absolutely see it is there is power like chairman of the board or CEO of a world, one of the world's largest media conglomerates. But then there's the effortless power that a parent has over a child, which even a powerful person like Logan might not even understand

the depths of it. And he understands it better than most in a truly, you know, manipulative and Machiavellian sense. But all he has to do is remind them of his existence by sending donuts and they collapse. You know what I mean? Like, it's not actually hard. That was my favorite scene, just them being like, there's like a 98% chance those are fine to eat. Don't, I mean, he stresses over. I mean, remember how almost debased he was on the roadside FaceTime with the guy that one of the board members last season, like somewhere off the autostrata? Like, he is not infallible.

But in this particular personal fiefdom, aka his family, like he is a god. And I think that there was an. almost metaphysical transference of energy and power. You know, it's like in Greek myths, it's like fucking Kronos eating all of his babies. Yeah. He gets bigger and stronger. You think you're having like some secret meeting.

It's like I'm in the room with you. And then when he finds out that, you know, he says to Roman, is she solid? All of a sudden, the ground beneath his feet seems to become solid. And when he gets off the plane, we see him with his swagger back.

I mean, we talked last week. And I don't think we meant this. seriously, but I think we were like, did Brian Cox lose his fastball or is this a very smart actorly choice? It was an actually choice. Because now that he has the ground beneath his feet again and he gets off the plane, I mean, the way that he was swaggering through all of the extras and all of the other actors on the show and the gravitas that he was bringing in that, I mean, that is, that was a, speaking of, you know, knowing when to write, overwrite or not right at all, I was essentially wordless. He opens the door to, you know, the 19th Mercedes SUV.

he's been in in the last two weeks. And Tom just gets the fuck out. Yeah. Yeah. There's a certain orchestration to that. Speaking of which, you know, the idea that he needed a photo op, that he needed to spend X amount of dollars

to get Marcia back in the fold, and that he needed all his family to greet him at the private airport. It kind of goes in line with when I think it's in season, I can't remember if it's season one or two, but when he's like, my big push is going to be to buy a bunch of local TV news stations. And Stewie's just like, oh, cool. TV, like they have one of those in my gym.

Logan's old school. Like, Logan is like photo ops, TV news, like getting people in their hearts and their minds and in their crotches. It's like he is, he is what Kendall thinks he's rebelling against, which is this idea that he's this dinosaur, great white rolling off the stage. So in that sense, Kendall has a point, you know? Yeah, and I think it's another really smart way that the show continues to be about the Trump era without mentioning him or talking about it in that we have these two generational figureheads

of the company. I mean, there's no, no one is saying that Kendall has as much power as Logan in the real world, but the TV screens or CNBC screens are all showing the footage of the two of them with their hands raised with like a, you know, a jagged line between them as if they were. And on the one side, yeah, you can make fun of Logan. He's an old bastard and he wants to buy, you know, the New Orleans Times Picayune or whatever. but actually we just had an old cranky old man tabloid president who just had rallies where he yelled at people and everyone was like,

and always just wanted photo ops. And even though we knew it was a photo op, people would be like, check it out. And this is great. And like, why did Brexit happen? Well, there's a million reasons. But one of the reasons probably, well, what was on the tabloids every day for two or three years? You know? And so I love the viciousness and honestly the accuracy with which the show uses Kendall to just eviscerate

the idea that new media is somehow our shared existence or somehow more powerful, that, you know, having a really jazzed up and savvy Twitter feed is somehow going to topple emperors and change the course of human history. Like, not yet, man. I haven't really seen that. You can cancel a minor cooking celebrity that my parents have never heard of, but I don't think you can take over a multimedia corporation. Also, the most benevolent thing that Kendall could do is just to simply destroy the company.

Do you know what I mean? It would just be to get rid of it to spin off whatever you can spin off, bring it down. And he's like, no, no, no, no. That wouldn't suit me if we're going to do the right thing, but we're also going to help me in the bargain. Well, remember Greg's thing that he says to his new attorney, like Peter Rieger, and we have to talk about this. But he's basically like, well, my main concerns here are protecting, like, my job and my position.

Like, they all want to kill the cow, but keep the. teat. And as Kendall says, teets are in. Like, teets are where you get your value these days. Right. So we can do, uh, let's do Greg briefly here because he was the third string here. And it's one of the things that the show does really well, which is to it starts out as a gag and that it's very important. Like I even think cruises in and of itself was this like, they keep making this joke about cruises. And then all of a sudden, cruises becomes the central plot device of the entire show. Greg kind of being like, I would really like to not spend this much time in Congress as a young man is probably going to be one of the things that forms this show because

he is the one wild card. Greg, getting legal advice from a person he knows who just started law school was so choice, so good. I mean, he... Do you want me to text my professor? It's pretty funny that this company that is all-knowing and omnipotent and et cetera, et cetera, think so little of Greg that they don't even keep eyes on him at all when he's the one that had the papers, like he's the one that's been in all the rooms. I mean, they're kind of setting us up for something here, which is amusing to say the least. So we get Cromwell back as old uncle Ewan. Yeah. Those two, great chemistry. Wouldn't mind another road trip episode anytime. But the fact that it's all being set up that, you know, everyone, of course, is manipulating him for their own

interests and that the lawyer he brings him to played by the great Peter Rieger, check out local hero if it's still on Criterion Collection. And he plays basically a William Kuntler-esque, you know, sort of hippie civil rights lawyer, it seems like. Yes, and he's just like, what does he say about like, this is our opportunity? You're our little wedge, Greg, to like crack the door a little bit and like see all the dark secrets of late stage capitalism.

It's like that wasn't really the plan, but I love it. The show is an equal opportunity satirist, you know, Armstrong is. And so I like it when he sinks his teeth into the left as well as to the right. I think when you're playing, once you're under the circus tent, I think everybody is a clown. And I think it's really, really exciting that, well, two things. One, that he's going in that direction of that plot line. But two, and this loops back to the one other thing that I wanted to make sure we touched on, the casting bench of this show is so unprecedented.

So clearly, so we get Peter Rieger, fantastic actor for years. Haven't seen him in a while. Love what he's doing with his hair. There's another situation, which is, and I haven't read anything. Maybe you have. I'm curious. But it appeared from his non-appearance in this episode that Larry Pine, the great New York theater actor who plays Sandy, is not participating in the show or not.

Davis is going to be replacing him somehow. I don't know whether that's health or his COVID era or filming or conflict or whatever, but he's not in the episode. They didn't even cut to him on the screen. So that was very noticeable. And it's a shame. I hope he's well. I love him in anything.

But Succession is just like, okay, next man up. And they call one of the goadiest of the goats of character actors of the 21st century, Hope Davis. Yeah. And she's just sitting there in a car. And I'm like, that's Hope Davis. She's not a decoy. She's going to be on the show. She's going to regulate.

It's pretty exciting. And you imagine, again, I'm always. projecting just because making stuff is fun and the vibes on the show just seem impeccable. But like, okay, they're shooting in a limo and you have Arian Moyette and you have Hope Davis and you have Jeremy Strong. And I'm like that. Yeah, I would love to see the what's the director's cut of that footage would be awesome. But also it's just like part of the fun of fireworks is right before they go off because you know there's a big box of fireworks and they're going to go off. And I think the show manages that kind of tension wonderfully. Great to have Arian Moyed back. It's the line about

I was going to get you a horse's head with the paperwork. It's so good. And I do think the show remains fascinating. Once you exhaust all the other reasons to like it, but the machinations of credited cast versus non-credited and how they worked this out and what the agents did and didn't do because people have fallen out of the main cast, like our guy who was in charge of Volter, like Marcia.

And this season, Willa is in the main cast, and Frank is in the main cast. And what's his name? David Rache. I'm always forgetting his character's name. Carl is in the main cast. Arrian is not in the main cast this season, but still in the world. Is Fisher Stevens in the main cast? Fisher Stevens has been added to the main cast the season. And Carolina still in the main cast, even though she's in the main cast, but Jess isn't, but they have the same amount of screen time. I'm always interested in the machinations behind that. But all that

really matters, top line is they're all on the show. It's great. Any other observations about episode two? Any thoughts about where we're going? I feel like you're asking me because you know, you get excited when I actually take notes. And so you like it when I'm looking at other things while we're talking. Well, I wouldn't want any effort on your part to go to waste. Well, I wouldn't want any effort on my part, period. So that's where we're at an impasse. No, I will circle all the way back to something you said at the beginning.

I didn't want to leave it hanging, which is there is a credible line of criticism for this episode, which is, as you put it, this is, this is, is now the third straight episode where the principals have gathered in small places to audition themselves for the powerful position. And I think that because the show inevitably, the season is going to explode into bigger places, as you alluded to, there's more cast coming. I mean, there's more to do. But it's an interesting experiment. A lot of like season two's into season threes, I think, there's a lot of like testing and sounding. How seaworthy is this vessel? Where can it go? How big can this get and as we're seeing now, how small can it get?

And part of the fun of the first few seasons was that the threats were coming from all sides and there was always another bit of spicy business going on, whether it was the hostile takeover or Volta or the wedding, the bachelor party, Kendall's sobriety, always something else bumping up against the hull of this great ship. Ever since the yacht, and then certainly ever since Kendall's press conference, it is zeroed into just these people and what the fuck are they going to do? in these three or four days. And I think that it's been very rewarding

and it's done a lot of really good, just from a purely structural level, it's done a lot of really good character work that's going to serve the show well going forward. But I think we are ready to move past it because what it's discovered by drilling this deep is that all of these people are, you know, ego monsters and super fucked up,

incredibly indecisive and flopping around like fish who have recently been pulled up on the dock. And we can't make a season of TV out of that. Something else has to come in to put them forward. The thing that, like, I think you mentioned at some point earlier in our conversation, this idea of like, we're trained by TV shows to expect certain things. And I think

that's what I try to like untangle myself from when I'm watching Succession is that because of the moment Shiv and Kendall have in Safe Haven in Season 2, I am expecting at some point there to be some recognition of that experience. And like,

everything changed since this TV moment that we had where we hugged. And it's not. The page is not turning. Kendall is like, you're who I want, but then also tries to recruit two other people and make Shiv go last in terms of like asking. Like you have to not expect the expected here.

Well, I think Turnhaven is the episode, right? And then I think that it's a reminder that language... Oh, safe room. My bad. Yeah, safe room. It was safe room, not turning. Yeah. I think that language serves a different... Obviously, it serves a different function for Jesse. Armstrong in his elevated writer's room, but I think it serves a different function for these characters. It is often less about what is said, because what is said is often cutting or cruel or sarcastic or just mean.

What it is is sonar pings. You still there? Yes, pinged back to me. You still there? Great. And are we on the same place? We're in the same level. And what was so, I think, important about that very small, in the scheme of things, moment when Shiv says something too raw and real to Roman.

about how he's very, he likes to talk about sex, but he doesn't actually, he's incapable of actually having it. And he storms off showing real emotions, which is the greatest possible sin in this family. And when Kendall and Shiver left alone, and we referenced the scene earlier in this conversation, they sonarping each other. They sonarping each other. Is it okay to talk like that? Are we still? Is this safe? Are we safe? Is this still what we do? And Kendall, in that moment endears himself mortis Chavon at any other point in the episode when he's talking about like breaking down the whatever patriarchy that has ruled our blah, blah, blah, blah. He almost wins her over when he's like, yeah, he's probably jerking off into my ex-wife's

underwear right now. That brings her in. That's saying, you're fine, I'm fine, we're the same level of fine. Yeah, yeah. And that's a, you know, it's a, it's a beautiful piece of scene work and character exposition, but it is also very, very telling about who these people. people are, what their values are and on some level, how hopeless it kind of is. I can't think of an image I'd rather end on than that one.

Andy, we will be back on Thursday to do the regular watch programming and we'll be back with you guys every Sunday night with succession, at least for the next few weeks. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks to Kai McMullen for producing. And Greenwald, thanks for joining me. I'm just going to go hug my kids. It's all I'm going to do for the rest of today. footing off replacing your window treatments because you think it's complicated.

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