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31.05.2021 6:38:24
Connor and Willa talk out her play’s buzz and finances, which are both just horrible. HBO here
See full version: 5 winners and 7 losers from a Succession that had much more embarrassment than usual
Connor and Willa talk out her play’s buzz and finances, which are both just horrible. HBO here
To start, there’s Willa’s money-losing play, which Con tactfully tells anyone who will listen is full of temporary dialogue. The production’s titular sands (and what a title) cost $529 per bag, aren’t even from the desert, and are seemingly full of mites (“I don’t know about that or bear legal responsibility,” Connor tells an itchy Greg, who sat too close). He can’t keep the actors from running off to bone his siblings, or grab his dad’s ear about the financial hit he’s taking. [links]
Emily: For starters: Ewan is clearly the big money behind the source for the cruise line story, right? Succession all but comes out and says this in the closing moments of “Dundee,” but it’s still delicious to see Ewan carrying this grudge against his brother as far as he has. It likely takes a Roy to defeat a Roy. more
Emily: Look, you and I both know that if we ever met Shiv Roy, she would absolutely destroy us in a way that would be described as “sick” and “awesome” by bystanders, and I do wonder how much of my love for her character is defined by the fact that she would absolutely smother me in my sleep if she wanted my pillow.
At least he doesn’t try to rap. [links]
She will have the money. She came from nowhere. Now she is the right hand of a very powerful man. here
She protects him. Like therapy she was scared of what would happen. Kids ganging up on him. Or not letting the kids see him at the house during recovery because he was a mess. Protecting his image and pushing his recovery. [links]
The show has at numerous times subtly implied that she controls Logan and her actions seem to be driving a wedge between Logan and his kids - but it's just subtle enough that you don't really know whether it's her. more
What is Marcia's endgame? I just can't figure it out - simply going after money or power in the company seem too obvious. Given that she's married to Logan, she (and her family) will undoubtedly be looked after financially irrespective of what happens.
She knows the power of an unstable family. She organizes the dinners. Tries to keep things cool. Part of it is she wants the kids to sign the trust papers. Also, wants peace on some level and allies. She invited Logan’s brother under a false pretense hoping they would connect. [links]
We learn about Rose in a pretty awful way, as part of a manipulative effort on Kendall and Shiv's part to upset Logan and make Rhea look bad. When Rhea asks Ken for advice as she prepares a toast for his father's retrospective honors, Shiv suggests that Ken should "try Rose out on her." Accordingly, Ken makes the mean-spirited suggestion that Rhea should include two specific women from Logan's past in her toast: his later mother, Helen, and Rose. "I don't know, maybe mention Rose, his sister Rose who is no longer with us, he might appreciate that," Ken suggests. here
Rhea, of course, doesn't know the malicious backstory behind Kendall's suggestion, and she takes his advice, including both Helen and Rose in her speech. Logan's reaction is easy to read: he's immediately upset, and he even puts down his glass rather than participate in the toast at that point. We've always known that he has a sibling, his estranged brother, Ewan, but until now, we had never heard that there had been a third sibling. [links]
The Roy family tree on Succession has just gotten even more complicated with the introduction of Rose. Who is Rose, anyway? We never even see her on screen, but the mere mention of Rose's name is enough to be a major plot point during Logan's retrospective event. That's because she's actually Logan's sister — and she's apparently been dead for quite some time. more
There's more to the story, though. Despite the major bad blood between him and Logan, Ewan actually makes a somewhat comforting statement to Logan after the debacle with the toast. "All those years blaming yourself for Rose. That really wasn't your fault," he tells Logan. From that statement, we can assume Rose apparently died a long time ago ("all those years") and that whatever it was that actually took her life, Logan blames himself for her death. Logan is very reticent to discuss anything about his past, but perhaps we'll learn more about Rose — and more about Logan himself — as the story continues.
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The writers’ room for Succession’s third season has already started, and Strong says he will return to Kendall in May, after he has finished the Sorkin film. “Then I’m heading back to Copenhagen with another new baby.” He describes the city as a place where he can “cocoon”.
After the episode aired, there was a surprising new entry to the Halloween costume canon. People kept sending Strong pictures of people wearing the LOG50 baseball shirt that Kendall had revealed underneath his tuxedo. That was Strong’s idea – he sketched it out on a piece of hotel notepaper after studying videos of rappers to work out what to do with his hands. “Then, all of a sudden in New York, there were hundreds of people walking around in those jerseys. That was really wild for me.” more
Succession is brilliant at cooking up moments of operatic grandeur, but even by its own standards, the season two finale was immaculate. Naturally, fans debated the last scene, in which Logan witnesses his son’s betrayal, and twists his face into a hint of a chilling smile. Did it mean that Logan had engineered this all along? Or was he impressed that his son had finally become as ruthless as him? “Really? There’s been debate?” says Strong. Politely and apologetically (“I’m not being cheeky”), he says he’d rather not offer his own opinion on what it meant, because he feels that everything is there, in the scene. “But, of course, it is an act of strength, of defiance, of ruthlessness that is of the kind that probably [Kendall’s] father has wished to engender in him his whole life.” He also knows what has to happen next. “We’re probably going to go to war with each other, on some scale.” [links]
Strong puts the show’s success down to Armstrong. “All of the credit is due to Jesse and his group of writers, and their little squalid room in Brixton where they cook all this stuff up,” he says. Just before the first season began filming, Strong visited Brixton, and found a wall covered in note cards, plotting out the story. “All I remember is that there was one card which became prescient: Kendall wins but loses.” The reverse was true of the second season, which came to an epic conclusion when Kendall finally rose up against his father, with bombastic timing, publicly blaming him for a disastrous corporate cover-up, potentially ending his father’s reign and career. Having previously failed to depose the king, thanks to distractions such as manslaughter and cocaine relapses, Kendall finally stuck the knife in. Strong knew the big betrayal was coming from the start of season two. “I knew that Kendall was going to be in a submissive, deadened, subjugated place, inwardly collapsed and sort of frozen,” he says. “And I knew the final scene of the season was going to be a reversal, turning the tables against my father.” here
O ne of the most exquisitely embarrassing moments of 2019 centred on a rap, and it wasn’t Michael Gove quoting Stormzy. Late in the second season of Succession, Kendall Roy, the son and possible heir of the monstrous media titan Logan Roy (Brian Cox), paid tribute to his father’s 50th anniversary in the business, not with a watch or a touching speech, but with a burst of hip-hop: “L to the OG, dude be the OG, AN he playin . ”
Strong is calling from the US, where he is currently shooting Aaron Sorkin’s latest movie, The Trial of the Chicago 7. “I have a giant, wild beard and a different voice,” he explains, half-apologetically. He is the kind of actor who likes to fully immerse himself in his characters. Time spent as Kendall, who has to make his way through a cut-throat corporate world while navigating his own complicity in some of the Roy family’s darkest deeds, can be taxing. After season one finished, Strong, who is from Boston, moved to Denmark. “I immediately decamped to Copenhagen, where my wife’s family is, and we had a baby. I had to insulate myself from any response to the show.” here