The Watch - The Shelf Life of Beloved TV Shows and Breaking Down 'Succession' S2E8 | The Watch

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

In just over a week, ‘El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie’ will extend the ‘Breaking Bad’ universe, so we revisit some of our favorite episodes and moments from the show (1:51). ‘Stranger Things’ is leaving Hawkins for Season 4 (6:14) and ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ feels like it could go on forever (14:23). Plus, breaking down ‘Succession’ S2E8, “Dundee” (21:42). Host: Chris Ryan Guests: Andrew Gruttadaro and Jason Concepcion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and get 15% off your first order. Hey guys, thanks for listening to today's episode of the watch. Happy Rush Ashana to Andy Greenwald and everybody else who's celebrating it. Today's episode I had Andrew Grutter-D-R-O come on and we talked about a bunch of shows. We talked about our Breaking Bad episode ranking that's happening on the Ringer right now

so you can go and see every episode of Breaking Bad ranked. I wrote about Granite State and Fly and Boxcom. and see where they landed on the site. We also talked a little bit about the return of the good place. The announcement that Stranger Things is officially coming back for season four and that it will be leaving Hawkins, or at least that's the suggestion in the teaser that dropped. And we talked a little bit about, it's always sunny in Philadelphia, which I love,

but we don't get to talk about a lot on the show. And just about the way in which shows decide to end or go on forever in the cases of sunny. So it was a cool conversation about a couple of comedies and where we're at with the sort of shelf life of TV shows. And then, obviously, as every Monday, the audio from me and Jason Concepcion's succession after show, number one boys. I hope you guys are all feeling L to the OG today.

Let's get into the show. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line from the ringer's offices. in New York.

It's Andrew Gordadarro. What's up, man? Yo, Chris, what's up, man? Yo. I wanted to have Andrew on today because obviously the ringer, in case you didn't notice, we ranked every episode of Breaking Bad

in honor of the imminent release of El Camino, a Breaking Bad. Is it a Breaking Bad movie or a Breaking Bad story? Breaking Bad movie. Man, nobody has seen this, pretty much, right? Like, this is not, I haven't heard any advance word. I wonder whether or not it's going to get,

because it feels like they're just like this is something that we're just going to keep under wraps. We don't want any suggestion of what happens to Jesse in the press. Exactly. I think this is one of the few products in pop culture where they can just be like, we know everyone's going to watch it regardless of if anyone reviews it beforehand. Yeah, exactly.

So we did an entire ranking of Breaking Bad. I wanted to talk to Andrew a little bit about the legacy of that show because we discussed Breaking Bad a lot on the pod and I think in general on the site when we did our 100 Greatest Episodes list last year, correct? 2017, it's been a while. Oh, my God. What is happening to my brain?

I know. So many lists, but I wanted to discuss it again in relationship to the Jesse Pinkman movie. But first, I wanted to ask Andrew, if you saw that the announcement that Stranger Things is coming back for season four, which I don't think in and of itself is surprising. In fact, they may have said initially that they were planning on a five-season run for this. But you've been in and out on this show, right? Yeah, I would say I was a pretty devoted viewer until this season. And then I think a combination of the release plan for season three and then also just where the show was going,

I kind of became like an in and out viewer. What does it like to watch Stranger Things as an In-N-Out viewer? I think that's something that's so interesting in this day and age where you feel like you have to be such a completest and understanding all the Easter eggs and what it means for this and that and the other thing. And then I think there is still a very casual way to watch TV in some ways. Yeah, I mean, I sort of try and keep that discipline with a lot of things just because I feel like, one, for my sanity, and two, it's just a nice little rhythm to have. But yeah, it's a little weird because, you know, I obviously spend like 90% of my life online and like certain things were definitely spoiled for me. But, you know, it's also not the worst. I'm not one of those guys who freaks out over spoilers. So it was just a different perspective to come into it.

So they're going to do a season four at least, we know. This also was announced in tandem with a Duffer Brothers overall deal with Netflix, which adds them to the ranks of Shonda Rhymes, Ryan Murphy, the Beniof Weiss, all making deals with Netflix for production deals. And we'll talk a little bit about Ryan Murphy later in the week with his new show, The Politician. But they also dropped a teaser, which has immediately been torn to shreds by people, online sleuths about what it could possibly mean.

And the tagline for the teaser for season four is we're not in Hawkins anymore, which obviously is a little Wizard of Oz joke, but it does beg the question, does this show have, I don't want to say like the courage or like that seems like a weird thing to say, but what does stranger things look like outside of Hawkins? And will they take these kids outside of their comfort zone of this town, even though the town is as big of a character as any of the kids in the, show and would you be interested in a stranger things that took place in florida or washington

dc or nicaragua or moscow or wherever the hell they're going i would say like on on one hand i think this this limited scale of the show up till now it's been one of the things that i've most liked about it and actually that's part of like season three why i think i was kind of off of it is that it is like sort of expanding in reach and what it's going for and it swings are getting bigger. But yeah, I think it does sort of need to like challenge itself. And I'm, I'm willing to see how the Duffer brothers want to do that and the sort of bar that they're going to set for themselves. Yeah, I think that obviously the end of the season ends with a, I guess I won't spoil season three in case I'm just casually listening to this podcast between one person who

watches all of stranger things and another who hops in and out. But, a main character, there's a mystery as to whether or not they are dead, and if they are alive where they are, and there is a scene at the end of the season that suggests that the character is still alive and that they are in a prison in Russia. It doesn't take a ton of guessing to figure out that I'm not talking about Dustin.

But, you know, it was a brief glimpse at this wider world outside of Hawkins. And Andrew brings up a really good point. For a lot of shows, part of the strength is the setting. You know, and the economic realities of television are such that usually a television, if they're not shooting it on sound stages in Los Angeles or wherever, they're shooting it in Louisiana or they're shooting it in Albuquerque or they're shooting it in Vancouver, places that have tax allowances that make it economically preferable for shows to shoot there. And they pick their locations and they return to those locations and you have the guy's office

and you have the bar and you have the police station and you have whatever. And, you know, in the best case scenario, you have something like Friday Night Lights where Dylan seems incredibly evocative in like a second hometown to the viewer. And then in other cases, it can feel a little bit claustrophobic. And I think Hawkins definitely is on the Friday Night Light side of things. But it would be fascinating to see them to just really jolt out of there. I was thinking about this. The reason I wanted to talk to you about this is I wrote about Granite State,

among other episodes, for the Breaking Bad ranking. And I was taken back to the moment when Walt gets out of the gasoline tanker and is in New Hampshire and you're just like oh my God, what if this what if there's just like, if they just done like five episodes of Walt like getting used to living in a cabin

and walking around in the woods of New Hampshire it probably wouldn't have been scintillating television but those kinds of setting changes can be really reinvigorating for a show. Yeah and it's just a way for a show to kind of like get out of its comfort zone and sort of prove that it can do things without sort of the night

nice, warm, fuzzy feeling of Albuquerque in this situation. Yeah. And so they're going back to Albuquerque,

obviously, for the Pinkman show. I guess we can talk a little bit about Breaking Bad now. Was there anything that you felt that you hadn't

already thought of? Was there any, like, new kind of takes on Breaking Bad that you encountered, whether in editing the writing that came in

or thinking about the show in general as we were ranking these episodes that you hadn't thought before about Breaking Bad? Um, I think like one thing that kept standing out was, you know, just how episode to episode strong this show was. And then again, just like, I think when Game of Thrones ended this year, there was so much talk about like the death of monoculture and all that. But I was sort of reminded, especially editing blurbs for season five, like I rereading summaries and whatnot.

I could remember where I was watching all these episodes, and I could remember them ending and what I did after them. And even more so than Game of Thrones, I felt like this was such a communal experience, and it became such a fierce thing that you watched with people or conversed with afterwards that I hadn't really reflected on in a long time. Yeah, when I was watching Boxcutter, which is another one that I wrote about,

I forgot that that was, I forgot that that was, was the season premiere. And I think it did, I think something like five million people watched that. And that's, that would be an astronomical number at this point in television history. But I was taken back to that moment of right after Gus kills Victor and that feeling of like, I don't think I can talk enough about this show. I think every single person I know texted me after that. I think I talked about it for like, you know, the full week until the next episode.

and that you're right, that grip it had on people who were watching, it was pretty impressive. I also, like, when I was watching Granite State specifically, it's really interesting to go back and watch that last season, especially those last few episodes. Ozzymandias is obviously considered one of the best episodes of television ever made, but Ozzymandias, Granite State, and Felita. Outside of the expectations that we probably had

or the sort of grappling with the idea of Breaking Bad ending, you can watch Granite State in a completely different way because Granite State it followed up Ozzymandias and it was the penultimate episode so I think it gets forgotten a lot but it is an astonishing piece of television. Yeah and for me I think that one is magical. Yes, yeah.

It's just like they were just like throwing fastballs in season five and just like so unbelievably confident with what they were doing. Like the fact that that episode opens up on this German laboratory where a guy is trying out like chicken nuggets seasoning. And like it comes after a really, a really intense moment in the episode prior. And, you know, I think you, you spend a whole week being like, how are they going to follow that up? Like what is going to happen here?

And then for it to open on this completely different setting that you have. no logical connection to for the whole scene pretty much is just like unbelievable confidence. Yeah, the same thing for opening with like Gail's speech and box cutter about perfection and professionalism

in meth cooking. Yeah, I thought that watching episodes without the context, outside of the context of how it serves like the week to week necessities of the show was really fascinating. And I obviously, like I also wrote about the fly

or fly, which I thought is still remains one of my favorite episodes of TV ever. Which ones did you write about? I only wrote about magical. So I... The editor's blessing. You just get to jump in there and do the one you want. Yeah, exactly.

I was just like, I need to write about French, so give me it. You know, I was thinking about the way that Breaking Bad ended after five seasons and the way that they kind of, you know, called their own shot, and they had all the room to do what they wanted. And obviously, have since returned to the universe of that show with Saul and now again with El Camino, I was thinking about that in relationship to this other show that had a slow burn, growing fan base that was aided greatly by streaming TV that returned last week. And that's the Good Place. You know, it's not exactly Breaking Bad, but in some ways I think it has more in common with Breaking Bad than it does Modern Family in terms of its construction.

What did you think of the season premiere of Good Place? I liked it I think it's For it to be ending right now I think is one I think it's right I think they should sort of You know put their own

On time limit on it And I think Going back to the well of season one Of this constructed neighborhood Is kind of their bread and butter And just sort of like leaves Leaves them the freedom

To dotted in with all of these Incredible bits that they do Yeah it has probably The deepest bench on it a TV show right now? Yeah. If you just have Manzukas, which obviously I'm in the bag for, but Manzuka's just kind of coming in and bullpen is pretty amazing.

Yeah, it's really smart. I thought season three sort of got bogged down a little bit in the plot mechanics of like where they were going and sort of the things that they needed to do, the bar, the hoops that they need to jump through. That I, a good place is never really a show where I really want to think about like how it works. Yeah. Like, you know,

so this, going back to this where we can, we can still have these philosophical discussions, but then also, you know, they can just have the freedom to play.

Yeah, it's pretty daunting when you think about how many different shows this show is. It's, you know, this sort of,

a community sitcom, a philosophical discourse about what is good and what is bad behavior. And then also a near- sci-fi story about,

the mechanics of the afterlife? Right. Yeah. I mean, they're trying a lot and they do it really smartly too, though. Like, they're not just throwing stuff at the wall here. They have an idea. You know, they have a, they have a, their own philosophy. Yeah, they have a roadmap. They're definitely following. I find it a little bit easier to watch Good Place once I've saved up a couple episodes.

Ironically, even though we're always complaining about the length of episodes, I would rather watch three good places than just one and then wait a week. It just, you kind of get into the flow of the jokes and also the cohesion. You can kind of track the storylines a little bit better.

There was one more show I did want to ask you about because we're talking about beginnings and especially endings for shows now. And I wanted to ask you about it's always sunny in Philadelphia because I know you're a huge fan of that. I am a big fan, but I honestly, I basically dip in and out

and sometimes we'll just kind of watch random episodes. without any idea of where they are in a plot line. And I saw an interview over the weekend with Glenn Howerton, who's obviously on the show, and he did this interview with GQ. And he said that they had had these conversations a couple of years ago about whether or not

they were arriving at a proper stopping place for it. And that I think it was either he or Rob McElheny had bumped into Larry David at a party in Los Angeles or like an awards thing. And Larry David came up to him and was like, if I have one piece of advice for you, don't end it. Don't stop.

And his point was more, rather than you don't have to do that. If you need to take two years off or five years off or whatever it is they took for curb, do it. But you can always come back to it and you don't ever have to start ramping it down where you're killing people off

or closing down storylines or giving people closure. And with it coming back, do you feel like that's the right recipe for this show? Yeah. I mean, it's, I, I don't see a world in which this is going to end. I think they do want to make it for as long as they want to make it.

And there was, at the end of season 12, we're on 14 now. There was this whole plot line with Dennis where he was going to leave the bar. And, you know, I think after that there was a whole lot of like, is this the end of Always Sunny? It was around the same time as Caitlin Olson's show was going, AP Bio was starting. Like, everyone, everyone's getting other deals. so it's like maybe they're going to move on to other things. And then by the beginning of next season, Dennis was back

and they had already figured out a way to integrate them back in. The show now, it's really interesting because it's been around for so long and they've done so many episodes that the show is really sort of like self-reflexive at this point. Yeah, where it's become its own Reddit thread, kind of, right? Yeah, yeah. They're going back to things that didn't even have. happened, didn't even happen in like 2006. They happened like 2012. And they're sort of riffing on those things. And the show's gotten unbelievably meta, but sort of in a way that still works.

And obviously, they still have the core cast. And with those five, I think they can do whatever they want. How is the sense of humor changed over the years? Because I, you know, when it started, you know, back in 2005, but, you know, I, I didn't ever get to see like the home video. stuff that they were doing. But when it started back in 2005, it was obviously a very different country. And it was a very different, like, sort of atmosphere surrounding humor. So, you know, you get episodes like Charlie wants an abortion and this kind of like edge lord, you know, just pushing the limits kind of humor. And now I feel like some of the episodes that have really jumped off the page have been somewhat, like, for lack of a better term, like more humane and

sensitive and progressive? Yeah, I mean, the big thing at the end of last season was Mac had finally come out, and the last season or the last scene of the season was him doing this sort of like interpretive dance to express his struggle with coming out. And it was like, it was unbelievably heartfelt and well done and like, you know, not really in a place for a show that has had. like Frank Reynolds running sweatshops in Vietnam, you know? Yes.

Were they eat human meat? Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I think they, so this show was always sort of like this, this kind of like aggressive, extreme Seinfeld, where no character learns anything, no character ever improves who they are. And that's been sort of the shtick for the whole thing.

but now, so it kind of put them in this position where they're now able to use those characters to comment on how those characters kind of exist in real life. And it's gotten pretty heavy on the social commentary in that sense, but not in a way that feels preachy just because you already know these people, you know, and you've already spent years with them seeing how terrible they are. and now they can just sort of like fit in as avatars of real life. Yeah, I mean, there's so much conversation around the idea of whether or not comedians feel censored and whether they feel hemmed in by PC culture, which I find to be like about as interesting as talking about like refereeing decisions in football games because it's just like. Right. It doesn't really seem like anybody like has like a reasonable explanation for why that like, you know, when you see something. like the Saturday Live situation.

It's just like you just didn't have to say that, you know, because you're, and it's pretty hacky to say it. But with Sunny, it feels like they are actually engaging with the changing of the times in a pretty sincere way. Yeah. I mean,

they have, they have thoughts on it. And I think they, using Mac, using, especially Dennis, who I think Dennis is, is probably,

uh, he's pretty toxic. Yeah. Using him, because he's, he's someone who sort of like, cloaks his toxicity and intelligence and uses that. They use them as sort of these mirrors.

And if you watch quickly, it might seem like they're condoning the behavior. But if you listen a little harder, you can see that they're spoofing it. Yeah. So that's on now. We've got Sunny back. Sunny's never going to end.

El Camino comes in two weeks, but I bet it won't be the end of Breaking Bad. Although it could be, I think Saul could be the end of, Breaking Bad. Then we've got Good Place Ending, and we've got Stranger Things Leaving Hawkins. So a lot of change in the TV world. Andrew,

thank you so much for calling in, man. Absolutely, Chris. Thanks for having me. Take care. Hello, and welcome to number one boys, a succession after show from The Ringer. This is Jason Concepcion. I am Chris Ryan. We are here to talk to you about Season 2, Episode 8. It's called Dundee.

Yeah. It's Logan's homecoming to where he grew up in Scotland. Right. And it's, I would I was actually I was a little bit of a confusing episode because there's a lot of really dense business and plot mechanics being discussed in terms of the ascendancy of Rea to the CEO position, the leaks of the cruise. Characters being mentioned that haven't showed,

which is kind of like a Succession thing, that haven't showed up yet. Obviously, like, there's, I think Succession's really good at seeding an idea and then letting that kind of like fester for a while. I definitely think that we're going to hear more about Rose, about Ewan and Logan's sister, late sister. The Ulsterman is a character we've been hearing a lot about over the last year, and we didn't get him.

And I think that there's a lot of stuff that was sort of sprinkled around in this episode that's going to wind up coming to fruition later. Just broadly speaking, did it make sense to you how everything played out as we got to the end? Rea being announced. Obviously, the kids kind of agreeing to allow that to happen

so that she would take the fall for the cruise weeks. It made sense in the context of it being a chaotic and I think chaotic by design episode where a lot of things are happening. Logan really for the first time is stepping away from the heartbeat of the company because he wants to. He's, you know, he tells them when they're telling, when Carolina is telling him about the cruise, the latest cruise news. and that someone is not going to take a payout and seemingly going to go for with a lawsuit. He says, like, stop putting this stuff in my ear.

Like, I don't want to know about it. That said, this was an episode in which you felt, at least I felt like, now we're really kind of reaching for ways to get everybody in the same room together at the same time. But I think the chaos kind of worked, even though I got to say, like, I don't know.

For instance, why people are going to Shiv who doesn't work for the company and being like, make a call on this is really like a, other than people not wanting to own the responsibility of a particular thing, but why go to Shiv? I think that there's possibility that everybody is kind of aware that Roman, Shiv, Kendall, and Ray are all in various points being considered to be the CEO and to be the successor to Logan.

So they're kind of like They're diversifying their bets on people For sure And bring Shiv in as somebody who can make a family decision In a way Kendall and Logan can't I kind of Kendall and Roman can't I get The thing that's sort of hard with this episode Is that this has been a season

Especially in the second half of the season I would say especially since Safe Room Where Jason and I have wondered a lot What's real and what's a performance? Right So what do Kendall and Shiv have cooking in the background And when it seems like Kendall may be kind of faltering a little bit

and saying, well, maybe I do want to be considered to be the successor, or maybe it would just be best if Reya took everything over and all this shit went away and I got to just go live my life as a techno-Gatsby. It's hard to tell sometimes what's performance and what's real, and now I think that's getting into Logan. Because Logan seems

really sentimental in this episode, obviously because he's going by the bandstand and he sees his brother and he's in this place where his name is spread everywhere. And it seems like he almost wants to maybe start to step away like you're saying, Is that just setting up Rea? Is that just setting up his kids?

Like, what is he doing? What's the angle here? That's a great point. Something that we have noticed, re-Kendell, you know, we've talked previously about, you know, what happened to that moment with Kendall and Shiv? Yeah. Where he said, you know, it's not going to be me,

and they embraced in that really, like, gut punch, heartfelt, sincere moment. And then... And then after... We come back to Ken, and he's, like, doing this playboy thing, where he seems like he's on Molly all the time, just like swimming through oceans and lakes and various waterways of vagina. But another thing that I've noticed is there's that kind of performative Ken,

but then when he's in these private spaces, kind of private spaces like on the plane or traveling place, he's just scrolling through documents, what they are, I'm not really sure, but like, you know, just like hard at work, very diligently at work. It has his noise-cancelling headphones on. And then he gets that call from Shiv on the plane. I believe that's after our justies. I can't remember. Yeah.

But they gets a call from Shiv, and she's like, we have a problem. And, you know, and it's about Rea. And he, he, she, I just think that that suggested that there had been some in-between episode communication between Kendall and Shiv. But then every episode seems to start at zero where Kendall is back to being like, I don't know, man, like, whatever. So at the end of the season, we're going to find out what's real and what's faith. But it's almost to the point now where we're like, on like a caper level. planning on these guys' parts. So I want to see how the caper ends up.

Let's get into Buy or Sell for this episode, Dundee, episode 8. What are you buying? I am buying, and this is very important, I am buying desert sand, not construction sand. Okay, the play is called Sands. And, you know, that gypsum white

that you can get anywhere, you can go at any construction site and see bags and bags and bags of that stuff, forget it. It's laying around. There's creatures living in it. And by the way, the fact that I'm saying that I'm not taking... It's not an admission that I know that to be true.

And as your lawyer, I'm just going to kind of suggest that we wrap it up there. Right. Okay, sorry. Desert sand, that's all I'm going to say. Go to the go to the goby, go to Death Valley, and just start filling bags. Really nice starting lineup performance from Connor this week. Incredible. Great job by him. What about you? I'm going to go Marsha.

Marcia is one of the central mysteries of this show. Her presence in... You know, this cast of characters, they go into these... different buckets. So you have like Jerry and Carl and Frank and Roman and a bunch of these people who are on the business side, but are essentially almost like a Greek course and their function is there to sort of commentate on the mural of crap that they're seeing in the Logan family, the Roy family. But I kind of feel like Marcia is this outlier. She's not part of the business. She's not a comic character. She's not a tragic character like Kendall. So what is she? And what's,

what's her story? Where was she, who was she before Logan? What does she want now that she's with Logan? Because sometimes it seems like she's trying to prop him up. And sometimes it seems like she's trying to tear him down. She seems pretty practical about the reality that he's not going to be faithful to her. Yeah. But she seems almost more annoyed that she just didn't know. You know, she seems more annoyed that she doesn't know about Logan's decisions from time to time. And I think that she betrays to Raya a pretty gnarly other side where she's, like, listen, I have fought and I have lost and I have fought and won. But when I lose, the other one will generally lose an eye or so. So I feel like she has a lot, a big role to play

in the last couple episodes here. One of the thing we've seen since Rhea has entered the orbit of the Roy family is we've gotten some background through various conversations about Logan's propensity to become fascinated by various people. The girl you bought a harp for. What a harp for, and there's the horse thing, and there's possibly Jerry, and they keep saying, but this one seems different. And clearly, Marcia and Logan have some kind of understanding regarding these relationships. And clearly Marcia feels like she needs to, not necessarily, stake out her territory, but at least say, hey, I didn't get here by not understanding. what's going on. Yeah, and you can see Shiv's still playing her. She's still taking her seriously on the plan she goes to her. It's a great one.

What are you selling? I'm selling just like romantic relationships with the Roy's in general. I think it's, they're all fraught. Like who, I guess you would say Tom and Shiv have the best kind of relationship, although an open one, that kind of like came back to. It's weirdly honest. Weirdly honest. Yeah.

Came by it to, came back to. to bite Shiv a little bit in this one. And then I guess you would go, Connor and Willa, another weirdly honest relationship. Sure. Although I think the bottom is about to fall out if he doesn't get that bridge alone.

I don't think that's going to be a tough one. Roman and Tabitha, all kinds of problems there. Roman and Jerry, off the books. Can't really mention that. What's up with the marriage proposal? I think, I think Roman has caught sincere feelings. Yeah, I think that was a very sincere thing to say. I think he legitimately is in love,

With Jared. Whatever that means. Why wouldn't you be? I think he is. And then there's Kendall. And then there's Kendall who, you know, for all his talk about being concerned about the optics with Logan and Rea, basically does a miniature version of what he's concerned about with his father in this episode where he's just like becomes fascinated with Jennifer and actress in Willa's play and runs extremely

hot for a period of like 24 to 48 hours and then basically is like I'm done get her a get her a plane ticket home. She says one wrong word and she's out. And she's out. We never really got a full explanation for what happened with Naomi Pierce. I would say Chekhov's dick pick is still out there that he took a couple episodes ago. That seems like it could come back to bite Kendall in the future. I'm a fan of Naomi Pierce. I'm a fan of Naomi Pierce too. I would have her still in the mix. What a roller coaster. Let's get into number one boy. So this is basically who who is who is who? Who is you selling. I agree with you. I think that the romantic relationships are suffering

of all the stress for the Roy's. And then there's Ray and Logan, which is a whole another thing that is clearly fraught. Yeah. So for number one boy, it was great to see Cromwell back. I'm going to go Ewan. Yeah. Because we find out at the very end of the episode, although we don't get the explicit

link, Ewan betrays to Logan that he is at least aware of, if not behind the leaks about the cruise crimes. I've gone over the years to say nothing of Mo Lester's dalliances. And he alludes to that in talking to Logan. And it seems like he's saying, this is what's going to take you down.

And I was behind it. Somebody is out there. He's saying, when they ask the weasel to take $10 million, $20 million, there's no number. And then just, yeah, name a number. It would seem that that's you in backing that guy. Right. Ewan is saying whatever the number is, I've got you. I've got you.

And I got your legal bills. and I got whatever damage is incurred by them coming back at you, I got you. And there's some sort of brotherly love that happens when they kind of recall the bird watching moment. But that goes away when U.N. says, in terms of the lives that will be lost by his hoaring for climate change deniers, there's a very persuasive argument to be made that he's worse than Hitler. And Gregory stunned at that one. A lot of Nazis this season. Listen, they're out there.

Yeah, they're out there. Let's go to Biggest Burn of the Week. Oh, my God. All right, Biggest Burn of the Week. Why don't you hit me up here? Some really good ones, some more subtle ones that I really like. But I'm going to go with Roman to the producer of the video tribute to his father. After the producer's like, a great take, Roman, what about another one? You know, maybe with more feeling.

And Roman says, okay. What up, Pricklix? It's me, Dr. moron. I'm a ding-dung doodlebug dip shit with a tit-mouse dick and my dad hates all of you. Fuck are you going to bye-bye! How is that? That was really good. Roman had a couple of

good ones this week. I also liked What's Wrong? Are you all wedgied up because Reyes stood on your back and rode your arms like an elliptical? That was pretty good. Yeah, so Roman got the biggest burn of the week. For line of the week, it's a special edition this week. Oh,

it's bar of the week. It was a pretty tense episode. A lot of stuff going on. And then we had a musical interlude. And for line of the week this week, we give it entirely to Ken W.A. DJ Scribbles hit it. Let's read this down.

Born on the North Bank, King of the East Side, 50 years strong, now he's rolling in a sick ride. Handmade suits, raking in loot, five-star general y'all best salute. L to the OG,

this is the chorus, Dude B the OG. A and he's, He playing. Playing like a pro team. A1 ratings, 80K wine, never gonna stop baby. Fuck father time.

Bro, don't get it twisted. I've been through hell. But since I stand dad, I'm alive and well. Shaper of views, creator of news, father of many, paid all his dues.

So don't try to run your mouth at the king. Pupker up, bitch, and go kiss the ring. L to the OG, dude be the OG. A. And he playing.

Playing like a pro team. Shouts to Ken. It's an amazing performance. It's incredible. You just have an out-of-body experience when this is happening. But let me tell you why this is so perfect. Yeah. This is straight up James Murdoch shit.

Right. This is, you know, there's been a lot of conjecture about this being, the Roy's being in a lot of ways based on the Murdoch family, Robert Murdoch and Fox News. And James Murdoch has a particular history with... With hip-hop. With hip-hop. Yeah, so James Murdoch was one of the original, like,

the founders of Rock. Rockis Records. He founded it with a bunch of guys he knew from Horace Mann. And Rockis Records was this seminal underground rap label in New York City in the mid-90s. And it's basically where like people learned about Most Def and Tilly Kali and Company Flow and all these great rappers that came out of New York in that decade. L.P. Most Def. And James Murdoch was just out here with that with that Rupert money seeding up these labels and putting out Shabam Shadiq 12 inches and El Fudge 12 inches. And this is like real. James James is the one, when you see pictures of you,

Google pictures of James and Rupert, James is the one where it's like, Rupert's walking along and James has like the cool forearm tat. He's the black belt and karate. He's the one who donates to the Clinton Foundation. He's the one who's like, he's the cool one. Yeah, not so psyched about Fox News.

Lockland's a little bit more like, fuck yeah, Fox News. But this is such a perfect James Murdoch moment. You can almost imagine Kendall standing outside of Fat Beats in 1996. And this has been here since season One, there's that moment from the first episode of Succession where Kendall is in the limo heading to the meeting, rapping along to the Beastie Boys. He and Stewie going after the rap show to hang out with rappers and be like, man, that was Imperial.

I love the idea that, because that's the thing about these people need to spend their money on something. Yes. And that's what they just like, Connor spend. all this money on the play to the point of bankruptcy. Roman is going to buy, want it to buy a soccer club. The only person who's in any way responsible with her life is shit.

Right. Although. And she's the most emotionally raw. Outside of the company from most of her professional career. Yeah. Or not all. It's maybe personally reckless too.

Yeah. I mean, not reckless, but she's just out there. Yeah. All right. So let's get into Finance 101. You know, there's a lot of talk out there about another recession. I'm knocking on wood.

This is fake wood. But, you know, it looks like wood. You've got to diversify if that's going to happen. Because you're going to want to be both in the housing market. Right. And you want to short the housing market at the same time. I saw a big short. That's what I got from that is that you just want to be on both sides of that.

Diversity, a lot of talk about diversity and how important it is. You got to have a lot of different views about loans and about money. and you want to have a lot of different kinds of people talking to you about things so that when maybe a recession happens? Absolutely. And so here's the thing. I talked about the housing market. Right.

One house, and then you got a river. And then there's another house. Next to the river? No, like there's a river and then on the other side of the river. There's these two houses. What are you going to do? I mean, that's great. That's river views are just incredible.

You've got to have a bridge. And to make the bridge view it, you got to have a bridge. You got to have a bridge loan, and that's Finance 101. All right. So this was an incredible Let Them Eat Cake Week with crazy rich moments. We could go to so many different directions. But the thing that this show, I kind of wonder now if there's a bunch of that moments on this show, on Succession that other people have kind of reacted the same way I did to Eddie and Roman buying a European soccer club.

Because everything that Eddie says to Roman in that pub is true. is happening in European soccer right now. So let me give you a little bit of background. Over the last 10 or 15 years, it's become really fashionable. I would say since what Roman Obramovich bought the London Soccer Club, Chelsea. It's become somewhat fashionable and common

where incredibly rich people buy these soccer clubs. Now, partially because they like soccer, partially because it's like a feather in their cap to be like, I have this club, I own Chelsea. and partially because it's good branding. Because they become, rather than a guy who maybe got rich off of mining, they become a guy who's just the owner of a professional sports institution. And we've seen this happen.

Abramovich bought Chelsea. Manchester City were bought by the royal family of Abu Dhabi. Paris Saint-Germon was bought by basically the state of Qatar. The country of guitar. And the Russian mining magnate, Dimitri Rivalov, he bought Monaco, FC. because I heard that's a good place to put your money in Monaco. Sure. So Edward, Azzagoff, and Roman, they decide to go half on Hearts of Mythlothium,

Midlothium, which is a Scottish football team in Edinburgh. The two big Scottish football teams are Celtic and Rangers. Those are the Glasgow teams. Then Edinburgh, they have Hearts and Hibs, Hibernian, basically. Not to put too fine a point on it. So they buy hearts because they think this is Logan's team. He'll be excited. This will be a great gift for him.

This will be achieving sort of a childhood dream to own this club. Also, like, he could have, if he loved it so much, wouldn't he just buy it himself? I bought it already. Right. So the idea here is that they're going to buy this club, they're going to invest in it. They'll get one of the Champions League places. Champions League is when you go and play all the other great teams in Europe. It's like 20 million euro. If you make it to the finals, it's like at least 100 million euros come into your coffers. But what's been talked about recently is the idea that they're going to make a permanent European Super League, which Edward mentions in the show. And the idea is basically, you know, Real Madrid and Barcelona and Manchester United and all the big clubs in Europe are going to form their own league like the Champions League.

Juventus, Inter. And closed off. And then when this happens, the broadcast rights for this Super League are going to be worth billions. Yeah. And you'll be able to basically make tons more money on your investment. That's Edward's idea. Roman's ideas. He's just going to get something nice for his dad.

What winds up happening is they buy the wrong club. Or at least they offer to buy the wrong club. The plan theoretically could still work. Yes. But this is essentially like going up to Bill Simmons and saying you bought him the Yankees. It is absolutely so funny that he's like, no, dad, I'm pretty sure this is not the team you like.

You like him? You like hearts? And he's just like, oh, I don't know that I don't remember the team. I've cheered for my entire. There's also the thing that Edward says where he's like, I got this hot shit agent in Spain. He gives me eight or nine really good players, which is another undercurrent in European soccer right now, which is like the strength of certain agents within clubs and the direct, possibly shady relationships that clubs have with certain agents. That's why there's like half a dozen amazing Portuguese players on Overhampton Wanderers. It's like, why?

They did a little bit of the maximum. You know? So this is actually, like, it was an incredibly accurate moment. Yes. It was pretty amazing. Let's get into our predictions for next week. Oh, man. So the next week's episode is called D.C.

Raya is now the ascendant CEO of Waystar Royco. And there appears to be a coming expose on all the corruption and misdeeds of the company over Logan's reign. on the way. Who will be standing at the end of this? I don't know who will be standing, but I think I'm going to guess by the title that we're going to see Rea in front of Congress answering questions about the long history of Waystar Royko covering up various crimes, possibly murders related to their cruise division. Yeah. I think that's what we get.

That would be pretty amazing if they have Holly Hunter in front of a congressional committee. I think something it's too good of a plan for it to go right for the kids. The fact that Roman, Shiv and Kendall are like, this is a great idea.

Let's let her take the fall. Something bad is going to happen, whether it's Kendall's dick pick, whether it's Shiv's flandering, whether it's Roman blowing up a satellite. Something bad here is going to happen to the Roy family, because I don't think they could just like

completely ride this out for two more episodes and then one, like, Shiv becomes CEO. Yeah, one thing I really did appreciate about this episode is, you know, Rea, such a viper, but once she gets on territory that's basically owned by the Roy's, she's on enemy ground,

and she can't control what happens. She's trying to play them off of each other, and she's trying to build each one of them up, like it's you, it's you, it's you, it's you, yeah, yeah. But I think that, I think she's on too shaky ground. It'd be interesting. I can't wait to see how this blows back on someone. HBO seasons tend to peak with her penultimate episodes,

so episode nine is sure to be, dozy, we'll be back right after that on Sunday after the East Coast airing of succession for Jason. I am Chris. This has been number one boys. Catch you later.