Succession (HBO) TV Show • Page 93

I find it incredibly unbelievable for someone like Shiv or Ken to give a shit about Menkyn winning to the degree depicted in this episode, and her incredulity over him the whole ep really distracted me with how forced it felt. Like these are not the kind of people who would care about his “rhetoric” like this. They would be offended by a vulgar person like Trump, and this guy is not vulgar. I know Shiv was like a Dem operative but she is also literally helping run their world’s News Corp!

Trying to make obvious parallels to real-world political figures was always a really weak point for the show. At one point their Bernie character was wheeling and dealing with their Rupert Murdoch character, like come on

 

Shiv’s rhetoric about Menkyn is also so shallow when you consider she could have just called Nate and gotten the dems to block the deal. But that didn’t benefit her so here we are.

 

agree, that scene early on with Roman felt fake as hell, but I am assuming that was on purpose, because it seems that Shiv's political stance is entirely virtue signalling (remember when she silenced a rape victim?)

these writers and actors are too talented to not take this into account

 

I think Mencken is a reinforcement to both of them that Logan Roy still runs the world. Kendall would prefer to rebrand as woke and Shiv wants to think she can girlboss her way to the top, and Mencken is such a repudiation of all that - they are more interested in shallow aesthetic visions for themselves. Roman thinks “what would dad do” and never feels like that’s the wrong answer, so he is 100% in with Mencken. So to me, their concern about him is not so much societal as it is deeply, deeply personal/psychological. That’s part of why neither of them can reeeeally sound anything more than superficial when commenting on it. Kendall flat out says part of his concern is that Rome and Mencken are tight and that makes him less inclined to make the call.

I do think that Ken and Rome listening to his speech at the end and trying to convince themselves that they didn’t just do something horrifying which will result in catastrophe was pretty effective. ”Hes a guy we can do business with” “we just made a good night of television” “market will have him on a leash” they don’t even sound like they buy those things when they’re listening to what he says.

 

Mencken is also Andy from Weeds and i just cant get passed that

 

Yeah it’s impossible to take him seriously after that lol

 

Both presidential candidates are unrealistic because neither are old and senile enough to be on today’s ticket :(

 

Haha I honestly thought the same thing. Like if only we had candidates that age.

 

So someone made this point to me about Greg and it dawned on me after the point that Tom made about information being like fine wine. He might be one of the few people that have dirt/information on damn near every character right now.

 

Greg's smile/shrug directed at shiv as he's walking down the hallway is one of my all time favorite moments of the show.

Her acting in those moments was absolutely insane. I could feel her stress.

 

This might be the best Greg episode.

 

Do we think Shiv could lose the baby in the next two episodes too?

 

Pretty sure Shiv is not so much virtue signaling but genuinely fearful for her future child and the state of the world they’ll be brought up in. She probably doesn’t even realize that herself

 

I mean there was that fall, though I am not sure if that is enough for that to happen and in such a short time frame that we are being told that these episodes are taking place. I have zero experience or expertise in this area.

 

Same. It also just seems like an insane amount of stress and a wild schedule that she’s been keeping. Kind of a morbid thing to speculate on, but if the show is insisting on her “losing,” it’s something to take into consideration I suppose.

 

She's also continued to drink every day but idk if we'll get that far in the timeline to learn if she loses it. Seems we are sticking with "one day at a time" but who's to say what happens once we get to the funeral this week

 

Yeah I think people are assuming both realities can't be true. I think Shiv genuinely is worried about Menkyn and fasicm and etc. Like she's been established as being liberal since the show started, I think she's the only one of the non-Con Roy children that has legit political beliefs, etc.

However she was still raised by Logan Roy and clearly her own business interests and self advancement supersede her political beliefs and worries, and she seems to be constantly trying to justify her actions to advance her own career at the expense of her political beliefs. Which isn't far off from what a lot of very rich liberal people do!

 

There is also the battle between siblings in there as well. She also gets a legit win notched in her belt against the brothers which she has been seeking the entire time.

 

When people were talking about the potential "event" happening last episode, that was one possibility that came into my mind.

 

Like its funny that we have all this hugging from the siblings now and on the surface we have them more united but in reality the election is them fighting that battle below the surface.

 

Which reminds me, when they had their little meeting about Shiv being kept in the dark about wanting to tank the deal, I cracked up at Roman awkwardly saying "Should we...like...do the huggy thing?"

 

How Jeremy Strong delivered the line of, "You're a piece of dirt", had such venom and force behind it. Like that is far worse than having someone curse you out or even just saying you're a POS.

 

One of Shiv’s limitations in her pursuit of her goals is also her failure to recognize none of the men around her will ever take her seriously because she’s a woman.

 

it happened in the year 2000 and inarguably made the world worse

 

I just assumed the reason they kept focusing on her was because she was pregnant and the fact that she might have to raise a child in a country with fascism, when all the men in her life are already constantly pushing her down and belittling her. It scared the shit out of her and made her go into full crisis mode.

Career-wise, after all this time she finally had a clear chance to get elevated because of matsson and now all those same men that never gave her a chance are actively trying to shut that down too. Like, obviously she’ll always be rich no matter what but her storyline has always been that she’s smarter than all of them and wants gratification for it. Regardless of what she does they always sabotage her and the more it happens, the more she wants it.

They all have an individual, disgusting hunger for power but it shows up in different ways.