FULL BEAST

September 18, 2021 10:10 AM

The third season of HBO's Succession arrives on October 17th. Trailer.

Previously. Fanfare.

posted by youarenothere (50 comments total)

Not usually one for Pepsi Blue but good fucking lord do I love this show. Some great comments in the Previously if you've been curious--I was someone hesitant based on what I thought it would be, but the text does not ask for some sort of simpering empathy toward the rich (although some viewers, naturally, experience it that way; peeping over at the subreddit for the show was an eye-opening mistake). Beyond that, it just pleasurable to watch: the acting superb, the soundtrack sublime, the cinematography rich and mesmerizing. Looking forward to seeing y'all over in Fanfare in a month or so.
posted by youarenothere at 10:17 AM on September 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

I really enjoyed this piece on Succession from Hunter Harris. I think it's a successful show because of great writing and amazing chemistry between the cast, and most importantly writers who understand that chemistry and put it on screen.
posted by muddgirl at 10:31 AM on September 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

I'm excite. I did appreciate watching Succession: Hawaiʻi Vacation in the meantime though.
posted by Nelson at 10:31 AM on September 18, 2021 [9 favorites]

We've binged through the first two seasons and watched the finale of S2 last night. I am glad we got spared the long wait for the third season. I have no way of predicting which way this show will go other than these people will act utterly horrible. I read someone saying they're betting on Greg the Egg emerging as last survivor of this game and it's as good of a theory as any other. As long as Logan suffers - that's the main thing.
posted by Ber at 11:13 AM on September 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

I was hooked on the first season, but when it ended I realized I didn't really want to watch anymore because I hate all of the characters.

The drama is really good, but I suspect there's no real arc and it's more of a soap opera. Anyone care to chime in one way or the other?
posted by Ickster at 12:25 PM on September 18, 2021 [4 favorites]

I read someone saying they're betting on Greg the Egg emerging as last survivor of this game

I'm going with Conner, the éminence grise of the Roy family.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 1:24 PM on September 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm going with Logan, living long enough to rule over a wasteland.
posted by biffa at 1:29 PM on September 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

Ickster… I somewhat agree. The writing (in terms of voice and character psychology) and acting are great, the production is high-value, but the story has zero suspense unless a viewer becomes super invested in the nuts and bolts of exactly how one family member will screw over one or more of their relatives (and, optionally, make catastrophic mistakes themselves) within a given episode. If you’re there for the machinations themselves, the show will work better for you.

I enjoy the show, but it is astonishingly predictable.
posted by verbminx at 2:11 PM on September 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

Conner, the éminence grise of the Roy family

That’s unsaid.
posted by Klipspringer at 2:56 PM on September 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

Thanks to Connor Roy, I now have the phrase "my readings" to wield.
posted by Ber at 3:12 PM on September 18, 2021

I realized I didn't really want to watch anymore because I hate all of the characters

Boy howdy! There’s gotta be a German word… let’s just whip one up - Hassefreude? Katastrophenfreude?
Ekelglück?

Watching it always makes me glad they‘re only fictional and sad that some set of people think they want that ‚life.‘
posted by From Bklyn at 3:19 PM on September 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

The drama is really good, but I suspect there's no real arc and it's more of a soap opera.

I love it and am counting the days to S3, but I think there's not much difference between my enjoyment of the Roys and my grandma getting really mad at Susan Lucci back in the day.
posted by betweenthebars at 3:45 PM on September 18, 2021 [5 favorites]

I was hooked on the first season, but when it ended I realized I didn't really want to watch anymore because I hate all of the characters.

I'm in sort of the same place, but don't at all mind when biscotti puts it on because she really enjoys it. It's sort of fun to vaguely catch snippets of.

I gotta admit I hope they'll have a season where it slowly morphs into The Revolution and the last third or so of the season is them running around trying to elude the Commissar for Public Safety or equivalent.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:18 PM on September 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

I suspect there's no real arc and it's more of a soap opera.

yes; it is almost exclusively about human relationships. this is its big selling point, besides the jokes. no need to suspect, I think they want people to know.

because it does not worry itself about "arcs" and "identification" (and because it has good jokes) it liberates itself to be somewhat less unrealistic than some dramatic art is, regarding the tendency of human relationships to go around and around in repeating, descending circles.
posted by queenofbithynia at 5:12 PM on September 18, 2021 [14 favorites]

Hey, it's OK if it's more of a soap, it's just something that doesn't work for me. I'm still scarred by the summer I spent with my grandparents watching me. I got really into the Luke and Laura story line and was hoping it would end before school started. It was only later that I learned that the stories never end. Much like Ralphie when he read the Ovaltine commercial, I went out into the world, wiser.
posted by Ickster at 5:20 PM on September 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

I think the best description I have heard of it is that it's extreme Shakespeare, with his worst impulses done better, to wit, more grandiose than consequential. Big set pieces, lot of time spent on character, and huge speeches, some even in verse. I mean, it's an epic about Rome but also an indictment of capitalism. With funny act breaks.
posted by General Malaise at 6:22 PM on September 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

Better than Shakespeare? Did I read that right?
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 6:57 PM on September 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

Better than Shakespeare

Conor would have killed for this review.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:43 PM on September 18, 2021 [7 favorites]

That looks like horrible people being horrible to each other.

Why would I want to spend time with them?
posted by happyinmotion at 8:50 PM on September 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

This recent New Yorker article frames the show as an exercise in fairly vicious satire. What do people make of that claim?
posted by Paul Slade at 12:04 AM on September 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

When Logan dies, my wish is that his brother and fellow board member Ewan Roy launches his own secret coup, takes over Waystar Royco, and follows up with some Royal payback.

First things first. He imprisons Kendall in white rapper rehab with Kid Rock. No Icelandic spa treatment, just desserts.

Then Shiv gets a permanent stint at CNN getting Wolf Blitzer's coffee; two sugars, no cream. Tom comes to his senses, leaves Shiv, and joins a monastery in Tibet. Roman is left to be the assistant to the assistant to Ted Lasso, who has been relegated to be the assistant coach on a third-rate Scottish football team, after Apple cuts him for bad ratings.

Ewan gets to look Greg in the eye and ask why his grandson didn't do anything with the rape and murder documents, except to get leverage over a clown like Tom. Greg is subsequently fed to the federal government on conspiracy and blackmail charges, ending up in a Supermax for 25 years.

Ecowarrior Ewan then burns ATN to the ground, sells the Waystar stock for whatever he can get, and uses all the proceeds to buy Conor off -- who has recently been promoted up, Trump-style, to our latest President of the United States. Conor makes a mysterious and sudden, yet personally profitable push for climate change reform, instead of flat taxes for the ultrawealthy. The Green New Deal ends up saving the country and the world's humanity from near-certain extinction.

I suppose this would change Succession from a soap opera to pure, hard science fiction. But I think it is the only way any of these characters get redemption, or at least what they deserve.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:27 AM on September 19, 2021

Why would I want to spend time with them?

This recent New Yorker article frames the show as an exercise in fairly vicious satire. What do people make of that claim?

I think it's the best TV series currently running, so I'm a little biased. It's black comedy - a character driven psychological drama where characters are defined and driven by their dysfunctions, which also drives their coalitions / adversarial relationships.

As opposed to, a story where characters are defined by their superpowers.

Or as opposed to, a plot driven story (Westworld, etc) where characters exist to the drive forward the plot.

So to some degree, the outcomes / events of the story don't matter, what matters is the characters responses to them.

I don't know, maybe I'll just give two clips as an example (SPOILERS)

Kendall and Roman give a pitch to their dad Logan on what to do with Vaulter (basically, an analog for Tumblr / Myspace). Ken overpaid on the bid on Vaulter while his dad was indisposed, so he feels like it's his baby, his responsibility, and it's struggling financially right now. Roman then tells Logan to liquidate Vaulter just because that's what these siblings to do fuck with each other. Logan says to liquidate, as a test of loyalty for Ken (Ken had previously tried to wrest control of the company away from Logan but was outfoxed).

Ken goes and liquidates Vaulter laying of all their staff immediately, basically betraying his "friend" (CEO of Vaulter). Now it just looks like Waystar bought Vaulter to prevent nascent competition, and wanted to destroy the business all along, liquidating it and keeping only the few valuable parts. A cautionary tale of how a CEO could build a billion dollar firm as a passion project from the ground up, be tempted to take money from an even bigger firm, and then see it be pointlessly and ruthlessly destroyed just because two billionaire siblings had a rivalry and their father wanted to make a point. A tiny detail there that I loved: in the first season Ken is late to a critical meeting with devastating consequences because he gets stuck in traffic (hence the repeated black comedy of how despite being billionaires, their lives get disrupted by the same banal issues everyone faces), so this time, he drives a motorbike to the Vaulter liquidation.

I've made the same analogy to Katawa Shoujo, which is not a typical story about how a group of people with different strengths and talents work together to overcome some trial, it's about how a group of people have different disabilities and dysfunctions which end up defining their relationships, coalitions and adversaries.
posted by xdvesper at 2:38 AM on September 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

That looks like horrible people being horrible to each other.

Why would I want to spend time with them?

Because they're horrible people and horrible things keep happening to them?
posted by biffa at 3:50 AM on September 19, 2021 [8 favorites]

I tried watching this show. But it's just wealth-porn for our current zeitgeist. Nicely-written, well shot and expertly acted wealth-porn for our times—with that HBO production/marketing sheen—but that's what it is at its heart. I'm not begrudging anyone's enjoyment of it, but it's just not for me.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:03 AM on September 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

Yeah give me a show with poor horrible people being horrible to each other.
posted by Nelson at 6:55 AM on September 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

For anyone who would prefer watching wealthy people somewhat enjoying their wealth, although of course with plenty of interpersonal drama, perhaps "Billions" is a better choice.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:18 AM on September 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

I can see how some people aren't keen on watching the Horrible 1% acting horrible to one another, in the same way some of us are absolutely fatigued with watching sprawling franchise treatments of costumed superheroes destroying city blocks while "saving the world." Then again, Why Not Both. There is always Ken Loach or Herzog.

I enjoy Succession because I imagine it's highly enjoyable to the people involved. I imagine it's fun to portray these terrible people, it's fun to deliver the lines, and all without the wirefu and much reduced fight choreography and cgi. If the series had only ever produced the Greg character, it would have been a hit for me.

Edit to add: some comments point to the soap opera-esque qualities.. I can guarantee we all greatly enjoy some entertainment products that can be reduced to their soap opera characteristics. It's not like that observation is damning, if we're hear to share our opinions about Succession then it's safe to say we share some baseline appetites for entertainment.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:41 AM on September 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

I only just started watching the first season, and have only seen three episodes, so I am reading this thread with one eye squinted to avoid spoilers. But I have to agree that this is satire of the highest quality, so far nothing has really happened like things would happen in, say, "Billions," yet little tiny things are happening all the time and the characters, while they have obvious "characters" are inconsistent enough to make them seem extremely real. In conclusion, I am liking this show.
posted by chavenet at 9:27 AM on September 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

chavenet: look away.

You can also watch it for the simple fact that Kendall's rap in S2 was so unbelievably well done in making it seem like a credible thing that the character would do within the context of the show, the lack of introspection, the build up, the reaction. Genius writing and performance really.
posted by biffa at 9:31 AM on September 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

I agree this show is more of a dramedy/satire vs. a soap opera, look at the background of the showrunner Jesse Armstrong - he is a co-creator of the amazing comedy Peep Show which is about two horrible twenty-somethings and the horrible things they invite into their life through their own foibles. He also worked on In The Thick Of It which was a comedy about horrible politicians and the horrible things they invite into their life through their own foibles. Armstrong has said that basically nothing is going to really happen and the characters aren't going to change or grow, that will probably frustrate a lot of viewers but its a genre I enjoy. Soap opera is a melodrama where thin characters react to over-the-top, extremely charged situations. Succession (and armstrong's other shows) are the opposite, the situations are very realistic but and the drama (and comedy) are driven from the characters own flaws.

It's wealth porn in that any depiction of something inherently glorifies it, I guess. No one in the show is particularly happy and their money can't prevent any of their misery. I suggest Peep Show if you want the same genre without the wealth.
posted by muddgirl at 9:53 AM on September 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

the characters aren't going to change or grow

That was one of the great things about Peep Show: watching the El Dude Brothers squander or outright reject opportunities to change and grow.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 10:10 AM on September 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

Is the show really predictable? I take it for granted some people are much better at reading and watching things, and paying attention to signals and signs, but how is this series more or less predictable than some other (ostensibly well-written and performed) series? I could say It's All Predictable in that we can hypothesize the inevitable heat death of the universe, but I'm not sure that is saying much. I don't think I could predict all the detailed ways these characters screw each over every episode or so, and isn't that what life is? The details, Blake's particulars, etc.
posted by elkevelvet at 11:30 AM on September 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

I love this series, but I have to admit that part of its appeal for me is seeing it as Arrested Development, only taken seriously and also Michael’s wife divorced him instead of died making him more broken and bitter.

Satire. Dark, dark satire all the way down.
posted by Mchelly at 12:08 PM on September 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

That looks like horrible people being horrible to each other.

Why would I want to spend time with them

Because it’s very funny.

But if you’re looking for a show with good people being good to each other, there’s always Ted Lasso. (Unfortunately, it’s not very funny.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:55 PM on September 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

I am glad Armstrong has gone on to bigger things but I tried a couple of episodes of this thing and I just can't. Maybe I need to be in the right mood.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:26 PM on September 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

Why would I want to spend time with them?

I haven't spent any so far, but my motivations to do so having now become aware that this series is a thing are (1) Sarah Snook is wonderful and anything she's in has got to be worth at least a look (b) the more unambiguously vicious skewerings of Rupert Murdoch that exist, the better off we are as a species and (iii) I love love love The Thick Of It and am willing to have a crack at this despite the lamentable fact that I can't find Armando Iannucci in the list of writers.
posted by flabdablet at 9:50 PM on September 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

It got Hibs and Hearts wrong. Unforgivable!
posted by gnuhavenpier at 7:25 AM on September 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

It got Hibs and Hearts wrong. Unforgivable!

I remember Roman buying the wrong one for Logan — but did the show get them wrong too? Suppose it was never quite explained why a Dundonian would be a Hibee.
posted by Klipspringer at 9:56 AM on September 20, 2021

Nelson: "Yeah give me a show with poor horrible people being horrible to each other."

You're looking for Shameless.
posted by team lowkey at 10:13 AM on September 20, 2021 [2 favorites]

I reveled in Shameless for a couple of seasons, but the story arcs for the characters started to lack some punch by the end of S2 (imo). I went from unrestrained delight in the Macy/Cusack dynamic to just totally losing interest. Would you say the series is solid over time? I could totally revisit it if you think it's worth it. It will be very cold here soon, the books and the shows help a person through it.
posted by elkevelvet at 10:57 AM on September 20, 2021

I couldn't really say Shameless is solid over time, it gets less and less punch as it goes. There are some interesting plotlines, and you could do worse if you're looking for something to watch, but it definitely winds down and not up.
posted by team lowkey at 11:06 AM on September 20, 2021

I absolutely love Succession. It is, by far, my favorite thing on television.

But this: "I gotta admit I hope they'll have a season where it slowly morphs into The Revolution and the last third or so of the season is them running around trying to elude the Commissar for Public Safety or equivalent." is exactly how I felt trying to understand why no one else seemed to think it was inevitable that the staff would end up burning down "Downton Abbey" and was deeply disappointed that it never happened.
posted by thivaia at 11:38 AM on September 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

If you don't understand why the staff didn't burn down Downton Abbey you missed most of the intent of the show. The staff were written as part of a social structure that, on the whole, they were content to exist in. Occasionally they strived for me, particularly the younger women in the kitchen, but always within polite and constrained ways.

The show did flirt a bit with some actual "someone will burn this down" ideology. The plot of the final movie most notably, but then the radicals were outsiders. Tom had some fire in him back when he was still an Irish Republican but they tamed him down.

A basic social theme of Downton Abbey is people are captive in their environments. It's quite depressing. Given that I think Downton Abbey did a good job depicting the tradeoffs of that even if it was an idealized view of the remnants of the feudal system. Occupy Downton, it definitely was not.

Going back to Succession even in an environment as lurid as that with people as awful as that, no one's going to go burn it all down. Ewan, a little, but even he is compromised.
posted by Nelson at 11:46 AM on September 20, 2021

Some of us watch it for the thrilling M&A
posted by overeducated_alligator at 2:55 PM on September 20, 2021 [2 favorites]

The cinematography if the show astonishes me. Every shot establishes scope and clarity, and even in a certain sense, beauty. I find it uncanny. Crappy people living in their crappy world, though.
posted by Chitownfats at 3:48 AM on September 21, 2021

I can only speak for the British version of Shameless, but that certainly took a sharp turn downhill once show creator Paul Abbott stopped writing so many episodes himself. The first two seasons were superb, full of bite and clear-eyed social commentary, but it declined to broad caricature soon after that. It's no coincidence that nearly all the show's best actors had bailed out by the end of season three.
posted by Paul Slade at 6:07 AM on September 21, 2021

The fascination for me is that ... it is too real.

Shitty people behaving in shitty ways enabled by their insane wealth to be uninhibited or constrained in any way.

Soap or not ... this is the banality of the rich and powerful.

In the same way that Silicon Valley (by Mike Judge) had to tone it down because actual reality would not have been believed, Succession has to tone it down because those with no exposure to that world would just not believe the banality of that reality of extreme wealth.
posted by MacD at 9:17 PM on September 21, 2021 [2 favorites]

Some presser quotes:

• Jeremy Strong quoted Carl Jung — "Where love is absent, power fills the vacuum" — in how he approaches Kendall.
• Matthew Macfadyen wonders if wealth is the corrosive element in the Roys or just plain dysfunction?
• Keiran Culkin says he never even considers the fact that the Roys are wealthy as wealth is all Roman knows. Armstrong adds that makes sense as the Gregs and Toms of the world would notice the wealth.

(source)
posted by Klipspringer at 10:56 AM on September 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

I can see why the writers went for the Edinburgh football teams rather than the Dundonian ones. There’s a clarity to Hearts not being Hibs that isn’t there with Dundee/Dundee Utd.

Anyway, it’s my only silly gripe with this show and not all all important!
posted by gnuhavenpier at 11:11 AM on September 23, 2021

Brian Cox Has No Sympathy for His Filthy-Rich Family on ‘Succession’
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:48 PM on September 28, 2021