Succession - Season 4

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have a read on Shiv's drinking during the episode? It felt emphasized in the scene with Matsson and also on the plane home when everyone was having champagne. Like they made a point of showing her taking drinks and tossing her head back. Curious if people thought was really drinking or making it look like she was, and if she was drinking, if that has any bearing on her feelings about her pregnancy. I'm not sure what to make of it.

I thought it was interesting in the scene with Matsson when offers her the cocaine and she acts interested but then the conversation shifts and she never has any. It made me think if she was just skillfully making it look like she was partaking in alcohol/drugs by holding alcohol, saying yes to things offered, even appearing to take sips of things, but actually managing to avoid it somehow. I think that would be pretty hard in that environment but Shiv was doing a good job generally of playing it cool when her brothers, Tom, and the grays were not doing such a good job. Maybe she's just better at this stuff because of the time she spent in politics and outside of Waystar. She's less of a bubble baby than most of them are.

I don't have a read and I don't want to go down a total rabbit hole, but it was noticeable. And one reason I say that is because on the boat for Kendall's wedding Shiv refuses champagne and asks for water, which seemed odd. And that was before we knew she was pregnant. I predicted a pregnancy for her in this last season so I admit my radar might be up more than normal.

I almost wonder if Shiv is still pregnant? She's really the least maternal person, like ever. I refuse to believe she just oops! got pregnant, but maybe it was before Tom betrayed her.

DP. When did Tom get Shiv pregnant? It's not at all clear to me when they were "together" last - but it seems like they've been separated/estranged for quite awhile.

Maybe that's why she's now asking Tom to dinner...gonna bang him and make him think it is his.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems obvious that Matsson offered the $$ to f*ck with Kendall and Roman. That’s why he asked Shiv to send him the photo of them. But does that mean Shiv understands that Kendall and Roman are trying to tank the deal? I wasn’t sure what to make of her take on the situation, besides trying to maximize it for herself.

My read on Shiv right now is that she is just looking for opportunities to stay relevant and leverage power. She feels shut out with Kendall and Roman as interim CEOs (and IS shut out, that's clear). During this episode, we saw her variously cozying up to the old folks (acting chummy with Frank when the email from Matsson came in, recommending Gerri to Matsson to help with his Ebba issues), getting closer to Matsson, and even maybe protecting/allying with Tom somewhat. We did not see her interacting with or allying with her brothers much, nor did we see her utter a single negative thing about either of them either. She's not scheming against them directly, she's shoring up her support elsewhere and looking for opportunities.

Contrast this with Kendall, who is throwing his weight around at the Waystar offices, getting very aggressive with Matsson, trying to freeze out the old guard, scheming even behind Roman's back (with Hugo, who is now on Matsson's kill list, which is relevant here), trying to torpedo this deal and using Greg and Jess as pawns to do so.

Shiv is quietly making friends, Kendall is loudly making enemies. Roman is acting emotionally, going along with Kendall's schemes, its he go-between with Connor regarding the funeral -- in a very in-between place.

If you did a power ranking of Roy siblings by week, last week it would have gone 1-Kendall, 2-Roman, 3-Shiv, 4-Connor. This week, it's 1-Kendall, 2-Shiv, 3-Roman, 4-Connor. Shiv's on the rise, Roman's on the decline, Kendall's lead is on thin ice and he might not realize how thin.

I would already put Shiv about Kendall after her convo with Matsson, and her brothers meeting with him on the mountain top.

+1
Definitely, Shiv is #1 right now. Matsson trusts her.

I feel like Matsson is using Shiv. He may even have made up the story about the 1/2 liters of blood just to make her think she had power. I have a hard time Matsson would confide such a weird story in anybody that easily.

He got information out of Shiv--that he'd seal the deal if he bumped his offer, and who at Waystar could help him spin whatever pr problems his own company is apparently having. But if all he gave Shiv is a fake weird story, then at the end of the day she has nothing.

There is speculation on the analysis articles written that he made it up to see how she would deal with something so bizarre and if he could trust her.

He's so weird though, I could see it. I read they were basing his character on Elon Musk and the guy that started Fortnite.

https://www.vulture.com/article/succession-kill-list-lukas-matsson-swede-analysis.html

It’s fun to play the “Who inspired this character?” game with Lukas. One can detect obvious traces of Elon Musk in his erratic market-moving tweets, not to mention the GoJo chief’s casual, um, “political incorrectness.” Any fictional tech billionaire naturally evokes the usual antecedents: Zuckerberg, Dorsey, the Google boys. Because he’s Scandinavian, there is the temptation to bring up Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, but that wouldn’t really work, because Ek’s public persona is defined by a thoroughly uninteresting opacity more than anything else. The more precise Scandinavian reference point that comes to mind would be Markus Persson, the Minecraft creator also known as “Notch,” who sold his video-game studio Mojang to Microsoft for a cool $2.5 billion in 2014, after which he proceeded to party himself into oblivion, slip into wealth-induced loneliness, and tumble into a perfectly predictable transformation from online troll to QAnon conspiracy promoter.

[Anonymous]

^ sorry meant Minecraft, not Fortnite

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have a read on Shiv's drinking during the episode? It felt emphasized in the scene with Matsson and also on the plane home when everyone was having champagne. Like they made a point of showing her taking drinks and tossing her head back. Curious if people thought was really drinking or making it look like she was, and if she was drinking, if that has any bearing on her feelings about her pregnancy. I'm not sure what to make of it.

I thought it was interesting in the scene with Matsson when offers her the cocaine and she acts interested but then the conversation shifts and she never has any. It made me think if she was just skillfully making it look like she was partaking in alcohol/drugs by holding alcohol, saying yes to things offered, even appearing to take sips of things, but actually managing to avoid it somehow. I think that would be pretty hard in that environment but Shiv was doing a good job generally of playing it cool when her brothers, Tom, and the grays were not doing such a good job. Maybe she's just better at this stuff because of the time she spent in politics and outside of Waystar. She's less of a bubble baby than most of them are.

I don't have a read and I don't want to go down a total rabbit hole, but it was noticeable. And one reason I say that is because on the boat for Kendall's wedding Shiv refuses champagne and asks for water, which seemed odd. And that was before we knew she was pregnant. I predicted a pregnancy for her in this last season so I admit my radar might be up more than normal.

I almost wonder if Shiv is still pregnant? She's really the least maternal person, like ever. I refuse to believe she just oops! got pregnant, but maybe it was before Tom betrayed her.

DP. When did Tom get Shiv pregnant? It's not at all clear to me when they were "together" last - but it seems like they've been separated/estranged for quite awhile.

Maybe that's why she's now asking Tom to dinner...gonna bang him and make him think it is his.

And then give birth to a full term baby 4 months from now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have a read on Shiv's drinking during the episode? It felt emphasized in the scene with Matsson and also on the plane home when everyone was having champagne. Like they made a point of showing her taking drinks and tossing her head back. Curious if people thought was really drinking or making it look like she was, and if she was drinking, if that has any bearing on her feelings about her pregnancy. I'm not sure what to make of it.

I thought it was interesting in the scene with Matsson when offers her the cocaine and she acts interested but then the conversation shifts and she never has any. It made me think if she was just skillfully making it look like she was partaking in alcohol/drugs by holding alcohol, saying yes to things offered, even appearing to take sips of things, but actually managing to avoid it somehow. I think that would be pretty hard in that environment but Shiv was doing a good job generally of playing it cool when her brothers, Tom, and the grays were not doing such a good job. Maybe she's just better at this stuff because of the time she spent in politics and outside of Waystar. She's less of a bubble baby than most of them are.

I don't have a read and I don't want to go down a total rabbit hole, but it was noticeable. And one reason I say that is because on the boat for Kendall's wedding Shiv refuses champagne and asks for water, which seemed odd. And that was before we knew she was pregnant. I predicted a pregnancy for her in this last season so I admit my radar might be up more than normal.

I almost wonder if Shiv is still pregnant? She's really the least maternal person, like ever. I refuse to believe she just oops! got pregnant, but maybe it was before Tom betrayed her.

DP. When did Tom get Shiv pregnant? It's not at all clear to me when they were "together" last - but it seems like they've been separated/estranged for quite awhile.

Maybe that's why she's now asking Tom to dinner...gonna bang him and make him think it is his.

And then give birth to a full term baby 4 months from now?

It makes me think of the Modern Family episode where Sal (Mitchell and Cameron’s drunk friend) says to her white boyfriend of a few weeks: “sometimes when babies come early they are Black” …you have to see the episode to appreciate the hilarity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given that all the season finale titles have derived from Walt Whitman's Dream Song 29 in some way, I wonder what line of the poem the finale will derive from, and what that will say about the series?

https://www.distractify.com/p/all-the-bells-say-succession-meaning

Here's the poem fwiw:

There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart / so heavy, if he had a hundred years / & more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time / Henry could not make good. / Starts again always in Henry’s ears / the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime. //

And there is another thing he has in mind / like a grave Sienese face a thousand years / would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of. Ghastly, / with open eyes, he attends, blind. / All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears; / thinking. //

But never did Henry, as he thought he did, / end anyone and hacks her body up / and hide the pieces, where they may be found. / He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody’s missing. / Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up. / Nobody is ever missing. //

Maybe "Too late" -- but he's already used This is Not for Tears and All the Bells Say, which surround that. So maybe, if one of the kids really does betray everyone else, "And hide the pieces, where they may be found." Or maybe "In the Dawn."

This is very cool! I did not know this before. I love these kinds of things. I like "And Hide the Pieces, Where They May Be Found" as a last-episode title, but it might be too long. Maybe just the first or second half of that line.

Or perhaps, "He Went Over Everyone" -- a sort of metaphor for Logan's spirit/influence reaching from beyond the grave.

I also like "With Open Eyes," or "A Thousand Years Would Fail to Blur," but no specific ideas of how those lines would relate to the plot.

[Anonymous]

It is Tom’s baby, and they’re 75% of the way to getting back together.

I’m on the fence about the blood thing. I’m leaning towards it being real.

[Anonymous]

I love this show and I love this season, especially episodes three and four, but Matsson is becoming tiresome. I just hate that guy and am losing interest in him. I care not one bit about that woman who works for him and don't see why we need to be adding new characters at this point.

I hate that they seem to be ruining the character of Greg by turning him into a complete a-hole. The best Greg lines we got this season were when he was describing Logan's visit to ATN on the phone to Tom: "It's like if Santa Claus were a hitman?"

Hated Greg's behavior at the apartment, with his snide comments about Kerry and the people "crawling out of the woodwork" as a desperate way to curry favor with Marcia.

Tom is pretty much my favorite person on the show now.

I also tend to see the good sides of Kendall, Roman and Shiv. I like them all. Of the three of them, I am rooting for Kendall the most. In the beginning, he was the most central character in the show (besides Logan), and it would be nice to see it come full circle with Kendall finally succeeding (in whatever form that might take).

[Anonymous]

It would be funny but not very realistic if they sell to Mattson, all the blood stuff comes out, stock totally ranks and Roy kids are left without money. Unrealistic because they have surely diversified and would still be filthy rich in that case. But it would be funny that they mucked it all up within a week after dad dying. There’s no succession.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems obvious that Matsson offered the $$ to f*ck with Kendall and Roman. That’s why he asked Shiv to send him the photo of them. But does that mean Shiv understands that Kendall and Roman are trying to tank the deal? I wasn’t sure what to make of her take on the situation, besides trying to maximize it for herself.

My read on Shiv right now is that she is just looking for opportunities to stay relevant and leverage power. She feels shut out with Kendall and Roman as interim CEOs (and IS shut out, that's clear). During this episode, we saw her variously cozying up to the old folks (acting chummy with Frank when the email from Matsson came in, recommending Gerri to Matsson to help with his Ebba issues), getting closer to Matsson, and even maybe protecting/allying with Tom somewhat. We did not see her interacting with or allying with her brothers much, nor did we see her utter a single negative thing about either of them either. She's not scheming against them directly, she's shoring up her support elsewhere and looking for opportunities.

Contrast this with Kendall, who is throwing his weight around at the Waystar offices, getting very aggressive with Matsson, trying to freeze out the old guard, scheming even behind Roman's back (with Hugo, who is now on Matsson's kill list, which is relevant here), trying to torpedo this deal and using Greg and Jess as pawns to do so.

Shiv is quietly making friends, Kendall is loudly making enemies. Roman is acting emotionally, going along with Kendall's schemes, its he go-between with Connor regarding the funeral -- in a very in-between place.

If you did a power ranking of Roy siblings by week, last week it would have gone 1-Kendall, 2-Roman, 3-Shiv, 4-Connor. This week, it's 1-Kendall, 2-Shiv, 3-Roman, 4-Connor. Shiv's on the rise, Roman's on the decline, Kendall's lead is on thin ice and he might not realize how thin.

I would already put Shiv about Kendall after her convo with Matsson, and her brothers meeting with him on the mountain top.

+1
Definitely, Shiv is #1 right now. Matsson trusts her.

I feel like Matsson is using Shiv. He may even have made up the story about the 1/2 liters of blood just to make her think she had power. I have a hard time Matsson would confide such a weird story in anybody that easily.

He got information out of Shiv--that he'd seal the deal if he bumped his offer, and who at Waystar could help him spin whatever pr problems his own company is apparently having. But if all he gave Shiv is a fake weird story, then at the end of the day she has nothing.

There is speculation on the analysis articles written that he made it up to see how she would deal with something so bizarre and if he could trust her.

He's so weird though, I could see it. I read they were basing his character on Elon Musk and the guy that started Fortnite.

https://www.vulture.com/article/succession-kill-list-lukas-matsson-swede-analysis.html

It’s fun to play the “Who inspired this character?” game with Lukas. One can detect obvious traces of Elon Musk in his erratic market-moving tweets, not to mention the GoJo chief’s casual, um, “political incorrectness.” Any fictional tech billionaire naturally evokes the usual antecedents: Zuckerberg, Dorsey, the Google boys. Because he’s Scandinavian, there is the temptation to bring up Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, but that wouldn’t really work, because Ek’s public persona is defined by a thoroughly uninteresting opacity more than anything else. The more precise Scandinavian reference point that comes to mind would be Markus Persson, the Minecraft creator also known as “Notch,” who sold his video-game studio Mojang to Microsoft for a cool $2.5 billion in 2014, after which he proceeded to party himself into oblivion, slip into wealth-induced loneliness, and tumble into a perfectly predictable transformation from online troll to QAnon conspiracy promoter.

I’ve never heard of Persson, but both Matsson and GoJo seem juuuuust similar enough name-wise that I’d be surprised if he wasn’t part of the mix.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems obvious that Matsson offered the $$ to f*ck with Kendall and Roman. That’s why he asked Shiv to send him the photo of them. But does that mean Shiv understands that Kendall and Roman are trying to tank the deal? I wasn’t sure what to make of her take on the situation, besides trying to maximize it for herself.

My read on Shiv right now is that she is just looking for opportunities to stay relevant and leverage power. She feels shut out with Kendall and Roman as interim CEOs (and IS shut out, that's clear). During this episode, we saw her variously cozying up to the old folks (acting chummy with Frank when the email from Matsson came in, recommending Gerri to Matsson to help with his Ebba issues), getting closer to Matsson, and even maybe protecting/allying with Tom somewhat. We did not see her interacting with or allying with her brothers much, nor did we see her utter a single negative thing about either of them either. She's not scheming against them directly, she's shoring up her support elsewhere and looking for opportunities.

Contrast this with Kendall, who is throwing his weight around at the Waystar offices, getting very aggressive with Matsson, trying to freeze out the old guard, scheming even behind Roman's back (with Hugo, who is now on Matsson's kill list, which is relevant here), trying to torpedo this deal and using Greg and Jess as pawns to do so.

Shiv is quietly making friends, Kendall is loudly making enemies. Roman is acting emotionally, going along with Kendall's schemes, its he go-between with Connor regarding the funeral -- in a very in-between place.

If you did a power ranking of Roy siblings by week, last week it would have gone 1-Kendall, 2-Roman, 3-Shiv, 4-Connor. This week, it's 1-Kendall, 2-Shiv, 3-Roman, 4-Connor. Shiv's on the rise, Roman's on the decline, Kendall's lead is on thin ice and he might not realize how thin.

I would already put Shiv about Kendall after her convo with Matsson, and her brothers meeting with him on the mountain top.

+1
Definitely, Shiv is #1 right now. Matsson trusts her.

I feel like Matsson is using Shiv. He may even have made up the story about the 1/2 liters of blood just to make her think she had power. I have a hard time Matsson would confide such a weird story in anybody that easily.

He got information out of Shiv--that he'd seal the deal if he bumped his offer, and who at Waystar could help him spin whatever pr problems his own company is apparently having. But if all he gave Shiv is a fake weird story, then at the end of the day she has nothing.

There is speculation on the analysis articles written that he made it up to see how she would deal with something so bizarre and if he could trust her.

He's so weird though, I could see it. I read they were basing his character on Elon Musk and the guy that started Fortnite.

https://www.vulture.com/article/succession-kill-list-lukas-matsson-swede-analysis.html

It’s fun to play the “Who inspired this character?” game with Lukas. One can detect obvious traces of Elon Musk in his erratic market-moving tweets, not to mention the GoJo chief’s casual, um, “political incorrectness.” Any fictional tech billionaire naturally evokes the usual antecedents: Zuckerberg, Dorsey, the Google boys. Because he’s Scandinavian, there is the temptation to bring up Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, but that wouldn’t really work, because Ek’s public persona is defined by a thoroughly uninteresting opacity more than anything else. The more precise Scandinavian reference point that comes to mind would be Markus Persson, the Minecraft creator also known as “Notch,” who sold his video-game studio Mojang to Microsoft for a cool $2.5 billion in 2014, after which he proceeded to party himself into oblivion, slip into wealth-induced loneliness, and tumble into a perfectly predictable transformation from online troll to QAnon conspiracy promoter.

I’ve never heard of Persson, but both Matsson and GoJo seem juuuuust similar enough name-wise that I’d be surprised if he wasn’t part of the mix.

It was pointed out on one of the TV podcasts (I think the Ringer's Prestige TV podcast) that the rumor about Matsson having sex with headphones on is one that has circulated about Leonardo DiCaprio, and the thing about the blood is somewhat similar to a story that Jared Leto sent Margot Robbie a rat (unclear if it was alive or dead) when they were doing Suicide Squad together, and also there were rumors he drank blood at some point. So they may be pulling from more than just the tech billionaire bros for his character -- he's kind of an amalgamation of a bunch of weird young-ish rich guy behavior. His business/media choices are very Elon Musk-like but his personality doesn't really make me think of Musk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have a read on Shiv's drinking during the episode? It felt emphasized in the scene with Matsson and also on the plane home when everyone was having champagne. Like they made a point of showing her taking drinks and tossing her head back. Curious if people thought was really drinking or making it look like she was, and if she was drinking, if that has any bearing on her feelings about her pregnancy. I'm not sure what to make of it.

I thought it was interesting in the scene with Matsson when offers her the cocaine and she acts interested but then the conversation shifts and she never has any. It made me think if she was just skillfully making it look like she was partaking in alcohol/drugs by holding alcohol, saying yes to things offered, even appearing to take sips of things, but actually managing to avoid it somehow. I think that would be pretty hard in that environment but Shiv was doing a good job generally of playing it cool when her brothers, Tom, and the grays were not doing such a good job. Maybe she's just better at this stuff because of the time she spent in politics and outside of Waystar. She's less of a bubble baby than most of them are.

I don't have a read and I don't want to go down a total rabbit hole, but it was noticeable. And one reason I say that is because on the boat for Kendall's wedding Shiv refuses champagne and asks for water, which seemed odd. And that was before we knew she was pregnant. I predicted a pregnancy for her in this last season so I admit my radar might be up more than normal.

I almost wonder if Shiv is still pregnant? She's really the least maternal person, like ever. I refuse to believe she just oops! got pregnant, but maybe it was before Tom betrayed her.

DP. When did Tom get Shiv pregnant? It's not at all clear to me when they were "together" last - but it seems like they've been separated/estranged for quite awhile.

Maybe that's why she's now asking Tom to dinner...gonna bang him and make him think it is his.

I read that he impregnated her when they were in Italy.

She's twenty weeks along. No way could she have sex with him now and then convince him the baby arrived 20 weeks early....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have a read on Shiv's drinking during the episode? It felt emphasized in the scene with Matsson and also on the plane home when everyone was having champagne. Like they made a point of showing her taking drinks and tossing her head back. Curious if people thought was really drinking or making it look like she was, and if she was drinking, if that has any bearing on her feelings about her pregnancy. I'm not sure what to make of it.

I thought it was interesting in the scene with Matsson when offers her the cocaine and she acts interested but then the conversation shifts and she never has any. It made me think if she was just skillfully making it look like she was partaking in alcohol/drugs by holding alcohol, saying yes to things offered, even appearing to take sips of things, but actually managing to avoid it somehow. I think that would be pretty hard in that environment but Shiv was doing a good job generally of playing it cool when her brothers, Tom, and the grays were not doing such a good job. Maybe she's just better at this stuff because of the time she spent in politics and outside of Waystar. She's less of a bubble baby than most of them are.

I don't have a read and I don't want to go down a total rabbit hole, but it was noticeable. And one reason I say that is because on the boat for Kendall's wedding Shiv refuses champagne and asks for water, which seemed odd. And that was before we knew she was pregnant. I predicted a pregnancy for her in this last season so I admit my radar might be up more than normal.

I almost wonder if Shiv is still pregnant? She's really the least maternal person, like ever. I refuse to believe she just oops! got pregnant, but maybe it was before Tom betrayed her.

DP. When did Tom get Shiv pregnant? It's not at all clear to me when they were "together" last - but it seems like they've been separated/estranged for quite awhile.

Maybe that's why she's now asking Tom to dinner...gonna bang him and make him think it is his.

I read that he impregnated her when they were in Italy.

She's twenty weeks along. No way could she have sex with him now and then convince him the baby arrived 20 weeks early....

This made me lol.

[Anonymous]

If she did it in a kind of mean and thoughtless way, though, it would kind of fit her character. Ha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to like Greg as comic relief, but they're writing him so cringey this season that I can barely watch him.

Agreed. Greg is no longer Greg.

Yes, they changed him completely and his lines are awful.

He’s a problem in real life….