Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 10:36     Subject: Re:Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:I don’t really care what happens to Shiv’s baby, and I doubt they will spend much time on this plot point.


Agree. The pregnancy was a little bit of a bombshell, but I don't think it becomes a big, dramatic point with an abortion story. Because that would suck up all the air in the room, and I don't think that's the goal here.
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 10:21     Subject: Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I personally saw this episode as a possible foreshadowing of 2024 and it made me sick. I was down all night.


I agree. I found it very sickening to watch.

I agree. It was disaster porn and lazy writing.


This episode was far from Lazy writing. It touched us all so much, a terrifying idea of what could happen in the next election, and brought up history from 2016/2020. It was a great episode, perhaps the best one I've seen on Succession (Logan's death was the best acting).


Agree, and I also appreciate how much this episode refused to soften any of the characters or make any of them sympathetic. There was a moment when I felt bad for Shiv (when she tells Tom about the pregnancy and then he asks if she's just using this as a tactic) but I didn't find her very sympathetic. But even in that moment, I can recall a million times when Shiv was very cruel and terrible to Tom and I kind of get where he is coming from.

It reminds me of Veep, which could also be a hard watch even when it was very funny, because it's incredibly cynical about the people it portrays. But that cynicism allows them to be honest in a way a lot of scripted series are not. It's brutal but, I think, revealing. This episode was miserable to watch but will also stay with me a long time in a positive way, in terms of shaping how I think about media and politics and who has my best interests at heart (hint: none of the people in charge).



IMO Shiv used that moment to tell Tom she’s pregnant as a manipulation tactic. She starts out asking him to meet privately during an enormously frantic and stressful time period at work when he has no extra time. Yet she picks RIGHT NOW to take him aside and say “hey, I’m sorry for the way I spoke and what I said last night”. And then expects he to get in line and apologize to her. When he doesn’t react the way she expects, she uses the other information in her toolbox: her pregnancy info. She weaponizes this info and blurts it out. Right there and then. She’s had plenty of other chances in much less frantic moments and knowing the person she is and all her history of being so mean to Tom she uses this as a way to get him to act like she wants. Of course he’s suspicious of her motives and truthfulness. Anyone would be.
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 10:18     Subject: Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:The last line by Kendall about how some people just don't know how to cut a deal.

i was confused for a bit but I think I now get it and it's so brilliant.

He is wracked by guilt b/c of his role in getting a fascist elected and he is assuaging that guilt by blaming Nate/Jimenez for not agreeing to block the deal.

Anyone have a different take?

The writing on this show is just amazing.


This is an example of the lazy writing. In the world that Succession has established, there is literally zero chance that the Jimenez campaign would not agree to block the deal at that point. Killing one merger is a really small price to pay to keep a fascist out of the White House, right? Instead we are asked to believe, what, that they were just too honorable to make that kind of deal? The idea that a major political candidate in that world would not be compromised enough to jump at the opportunity is absurd. When did Succession turn into The West Wing?
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 09:55     Subject: Succession - Season 4
The last line by Kendall about how some people just don't know how to cut a deal.

i was confused for a bit but I think I now get it and it's so brilliant.

He is wracked by guilt b/c of his role in getting a fascist elected and he is assuaging that guilt by blaming Nate/Jimenez for not agreeing to block the deal.

Anyone have a different take?

The writing on this show is just amazing.
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 09:55     Subject: Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I personally saw this episode as a possible foreshadowing of 2024 and it made me sick. I was down all night.


I agree. I found it very sickening to watch.

I agree. It was disaster porn and lazy writing.


+1. Succession has gone from a delightfully cynical take on corporate America to preachy political message fiction with an After School Special level of writing nuance, and all the ominous music and pensive close ups don’t really make up for the crude and simplistic storyline.
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 09:26     Subject: Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I personally saw this episode as a possible foreshadowing of 2024 and it made me sick. I was down all night.


I agree. I found it very sickening to watch.

I agree. It was disaster porn and lazy writing.


This episode was far from Lazy writing. It touched us all so much, a terrifying idea of what could happen in the next election, and brought up history from 2016/2020. It was a great episode, perhaps the best one I've seen on Succession (Logan's death was the best acting).


Agree, and I also appreciate how much this episode refused to soften any of the characters or make any of them sympathetic. There was a moment when I felt bad for Shiv (when she tells Tom about the pregnancy and then he asks if she's just using this as a tactic) but I didn't find her very sympathetic. But even in that moment, I can recall a million times when Shiv was very cruel and terrible to Tom and I kind of get where he is coming from.

It reminds me of Veep, which could also be a hard watch even when it was very funny, because it's incredibly cynical about the people it portrays. But that cynicism allows them to be honest in a way a lot of scripted series are not. It's brutal but, I think, revealing. This episode was miserable to watch but will also stay with me a long time in a positive way, in terms of shaping how I think about media and politics and who has my best interests at heart (hint: none of the people in charge).
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 09:19     Subject: Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I personally saw this episode as a possible foreshadowing of 2024 and it made me sick. I was down all night.


I agree. I found it very sickening to watch.

I agree. It was disaster porn and lazy writing.


This episode was far from Lazy writing. It touched us all so much, a terrifying idea of what could happen in the next election, and brought up history from 2016/2020. It was a great episode, perhaps the best one I've seen on Succession (Logan's death was the best acting).
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 09:15     Subject: Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:I think the ending will be something like The Sopranos - we won't really find out what happens and it'll be left to our imaginations.


This whole show has been about how these horrible people are constantly trying to break free of the ruinous cycles they live in - just, over and over, and over and over, they try to do something new and end up doing the same thing, stuck in the same luxurious trap. I think the ending will have to be that everything has changed, and nothing has changed, and they are still stuck - and because they are so powerful, we're stuck, too.
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 09:11     Subject: Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I personally saw this episode as a possible foreshadowing of 2024 and it made me sick. I was down all night.


I agree. I found it very sickening to watch.

I agree. It was disaster porn and lazy writing.


Disagree. I thought it had shades of the 2016 election, shades of 2020, and really captured the chaos of a newsroom on election night.
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 09:11     Subject: Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I personally saw this episode as a possible foreshadowing of 2024 and it made me sick. I was down all night.


I agree. I found it very sickening to watch.


Same. I felt sick and sad from start to finish.

Gd Trump has really done a number on us, in every possible way. And he's not even over. Jesus.
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 08:51     Subject: Re:Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Anybody else catch that there may be some sort of twist with Alaska? They mentioned that it was the last numbers to report (and still hadn't reported at the end of the episode) and it's there that Connor actually had some votes......


I found it absolutely hilarious that Connor actually gave a concession speech. Don't people at his (low) level usually just drop out? Or am I thinking about the primaries. Regardless, his sense of self-importance is a riot. He is so deluded. I loved the wheeling and dealing of the possible ambassadorial positions in the episode last week.


I had a similar thought, I mean lower level people probably give speeches to their volunteers/staff, but not televised. However his family has a network. So that was probably a bone thrown to him to concede to help Menken.
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 08:49     Subject: Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:NP here and I can't imagine Shiv "nursing" her baby...that's too intimate for her, she'll have the nanny bottle-feeding the baby.

But...I have a vibe that she and Tom may stick together after all that. BC they are in some sort of bond of toxicity, and the baby is the latest excuse to intermingle again.


I think Shiv has a very developed sense of wanting to be ... something. "Something" meaning someone of importance with a particular label applied. She was the family outsider with a career in political advising. She was the young female CEO to be that was going to take Waystar into the future. Then she was the behind the scenes player that would cement her father's legacy while she started something new.

She has no desire to fade into the background. I think half the reason she kept this baby was for her father to have a grandchild from his favorite to dote on (or so she hoped). I think she stays with/allies with Tom in order to stay relevant. I think it's also possible that Tom coerces/blackmails her into this. The series closer should be the opening credits but with the kids edited in as adults, including this baby.


This is an interesting theory that could work. She is clearly now on the outs with her brothers, and Tom may have some resentment for being forced to “make the call.” They may both find themselves on the outside and brought back together by this. I wonder if once Tom crashes from the coke the reality of having a baby on the way will change him.
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 08:46     Subject: Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:So I am very anti “shiv is going to abort!” because I think it’s a huge reach and there is like 1-2 posters obsessed with that idea who keep talking about it.
BUT!
Two episodes left and shiv has only told Tom so far (who didn’t even seem to believe her). And it seems each episode only lasts a day (or two). Which means the series will end way before Shivs due date.
I could totally see the end of her arc being that she either leaves Tom/ leaves her entire family (or is kicked out), aborts, and goes off somewhere alone.
Or, commits suicide. She took some big blows this season.

I don’t think it’s realistic to end the series with a main character being pregnant and not having the pregnancy be resolved either by a baby being born or by the pregnancy ending. It’s not a neat closure otherwise. I think the series will somehow need to complete her pregnancy arch- either by shiv having the baby, miscarrying, aborting, or committing suicide.


I keep expecting her to miscarry from the immense stress she is under. That is a neat way to wrap it up without any real decision being made. And will always leave her with the what ifs.
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 08:33     Subject: Re:Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Anybody else catch that there may be some sort of twist with Alaska? They mentioned that it was the last numbers to report (and still hadn't reported at the end of the episode) and it's there that Connor actually had some votes......


I found it absolutely hilarious that Connor actually gave a concession speech. Don't people at his (low) level usually just drop out? Or am I thinking about the primaries. Regardless, his sense of self-importance is a riot. He is so deluded. I loved the wheeling and dealing of the possible ambassadorial positions in the episode last week.


I’m guessing only ATN carried his concession speech
Anonymous
Post 05/16/2023 08:30     Subject: Succession - Season 4
Anonymous wrote:If Shiv doesn’t terminate, I think we’ll see a flash forward of a nanny taking care of her baby. Just like the Roy kids were raised by nannies.

It’s too bad Connor and Willa aren’t the ones having a child - I actually think they’d be doting parents, especially Connor who never received love or attention from his own parents.


Or we’ll see Shiv interviewing nannies at least.

I agree Connor and Willa would be doting parents, but Connor at least has zero common sense and the kid would be spoiled terribly. I wouldn’t be surprised if Willa isn’t pregnant by the end of the season.