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Post by Lord_Buscemi on May 29, 2023 6:07:24 GMT
I dread to imagine the takes from Kendall stans on Twitter who treat the show like it's Game of Thrones and not some dark satire. A genuinely solemn ending from a show as big as this in 2023 is bold, even if the kids tearing themselves apart should be the obvious conclusion. That said, I'm glad Greg was saved. He's like a cockroach surviving the nuclear holocaust.
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Post by Lord_Buscemi on May 29, 2023 6:10:40 GMT
going to need to sit on this one for a bit. not too sure what to think exactly. definitely a gloomy final but that was to be expected. the whole last minute or so felt really weird especially, that final shot.. i don’t know. i like the ending (i think lmao) but not sure that i like *how* they got there. Agree on the last shot. Tom reaching out for Shiv would have been a perfect Graduate type ending instead.
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Post by DaleCooper on May 29, 2023 7:49:40 GMT
Fantastic ending, they really stuck the landing here. It was a fitting ending the way it turned out, and sort of tied back to the first episode in a nice way. I used to be root for Kendall and hope he'd get it, but he's really grown tiresome to me over the past season or so. In the end neither of them were fit for the job, which to me was ever so clear in the finale episode. I also think this was the right time to end it, because I'm not sure there were much more to explore here, and already treaded the same water a few times. Great show overall, but not really something I will revisit anytime soon.
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flasuss
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Post by flasuss on May 29, 2023 12:34:14 GMT
With a little more time to think about it, I'm thinking the original plan was to end this season with Kendall winning, only for him to be undone next season with the scandals and drug abuse, with later Armstrong deciding "Fuck, let's just end now". Which explains why everyone involved only realized the show would end in the table read of the last episode.
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LaraQ
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English Rose
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Post by LaraQ on May 29, 2023 12:56:02 GMT
A pretty perfect final episode in my opinion.
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Post by mhynson27 on May 29, 2023 13:43:39 GMT
Yep, I loved it. Doesn't hurt that I won $500 betting on Tom being the CEO at the end of the series.
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Post by Allenism on May 29, 2023 16:47:23 GMT
On one hand I applaud the show for going with the the most grim, sobering, unvarnished finale to what's been a gripping 4-season inter-familial power struggle. On the other hand, I'm going to need time to fully digest Shiv's final decision, because right now it just doesn't feel fully realistic in light of the 12 hours which preceded it. That being said, a throughline of the show has always been the principal characters choosing themselves at the end of the day, and so perhaps this moment was just another bleak realization of that.
In any event, farewell to a towering piece of television. I don't know how the Emmy/SAG categories will shake out, but I just hope Strong, Snook, and Culkin are all awarded in some form or another. MacFadyen was wonderful too, but if someone has to lose out I do think it should be him.
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Post by Joaquim on May 29, 2023 17:11:58 GMT
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Post by Billy_Costigan on May 29, 2023 18:34:57 GMT
On one hand I applaud the show for going with the the most grim, sobering, unvarnished finale to what's been a gripping 4-season inter-familial power struggle. On the other hand, I'm going to need time to fully digest Shiv's final decision, because right now it just doesn't feel fully realistic in light of the 12 hours which preceded it. That being said, a throughline of the show has always been the principal characters choosing themselves at the end of the day, and so perhaps this moment was just another bleak realization of that. In any event, farewell to a towering piece of television. I don't know how the Emmy/SAG categories will shake out, but I just hope Strong, Snook, and Culkin are all awarded in some form or another. MacFadyen was wonderful too, but if someone has to lose out I do think it should be him. This is kind of where I'm at right now. I don't understand Shiv's motivation at the end. Why would Shiv side with Ken the night before if she didn't want him? She knew who he was. It felt like this scene only exists to "trick" the audience. I can get behind the idea that she had a change of heart once she found out it would be Tom, the father of her child. But I wish they would have articulated that better. Instead, she randomly brings up that Kendall killed someone. So the execution didn't feel as great as it could have.
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Post by Billy_Costigan on May 29, 2023 18:41:25 GMT
Fantastic ending, they really stuck the landing here. It was a fitting ending the way it turned out, and sort of tied back to the first episode in a nice way. I used to be root for Kendall and hope he'd get it, but he's really grown tiresome to me over the past season or so. In the end neither of them were fit for the job, which to me was ever so clear in the finale episode. I also think this was the right time to end it, because I'm not sure there were much more to explore here, and already treaded the same water a few times. Great show overall, but not really something I will revisit anytime soon. I don't really disagree but.. ending the show on the exact same note as Season 1, EP 6 isn't that interesting to me. There were plenty of ways to have Kendall lose but having him try and fail 3-4 times throughout the show isn't really a satisying arc. It would have been more interesting if he wins, but has his Graduate moment, where self doubt starts to creep in and he realizes he might not be cut out for the job. He got what he wanted, but now what?
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Post by Lord_Buscemi on May 29, 2023 19:18:22 GMT
On one hand I applaud the show for going with the the most grim, sobering, unvarnished finale to what's been a gripping 4-season inter-familial power struggle. On the other hand, I'm going to need time to fully digest Shiv's final decision, because right now it just doesn't feel fully realistic in light of the 12 hours which preceded it. That being said, a throughline of the show has always been the principal characters choosing themselves at the end of the day, and so perhaps this moment was just another bleak realization of that. In any event, farewell to a towering piece of television. I don't know how the Emmy/SAG categories will shake out, but I just hope Strong, Snook, and Culkin are all awarded in some form or another. MacFadyen was wonderful too, but if someone has to lose out I do think it should be him. This is kind of where I'm at right now. I don't understand Shiv's motivation at the end. Why would Shiv side with Ken the night before if she didn't want him? She knew who he was. It felt like this scene only exists to "trick" the audience. I can get behind the idea that she had a change of heart once she found out it would be Tom, the father of her child. But I wish they would have articulated that better. Instead, she randomly brings up that Kendall killed someone. So the execution didn't feel as great as it could have. Apart from the baby situation and her complicated feelings for Tom, how Kendall was acting on the day was such a massive red flag and so indicative of why he has constantly failed to outmanoeuvre the opposition; smugly kicking his feet up on the desk, talking about bringing Stewy in, calling the girl "other Jess". Whenever Kendall has previously almost reached his goal, narcissism was the downfall. And Shiv was right, he was not fit to run the company and recognising this behaviour, maybe out of concern for him, she thought what she was doing would prevent her brother from becoming like their dad. It was evident in the way he immediately reacted that the CEO role is a morally corruptive poison for the Roy family. That's why I don't think the ending is as depressing as it might initially seem, even if it's humiliating for Kendall.
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Post by DeepArcher on May 29, 2023 19:31:59 GMT
Re Shiv's decision, I think there's a pretty critical scene that isn't being considered in a lot of conversation where, before the board meeting, the siblings convene in Logan's office and Kendall sits at Logan's desk and you can see a change on both Shiv's and Roman's faces. It's one thing to consider the hypothetical where Kendall seems like the most logical choice but another thing to actually face the reality, and for Shiv the reality is too much. I also genuinely think when she walks out of the meeting she hasn't actually made up her mind yet; it's only once she sees Kendall disintegrate and especially when he claims he lied about the waiter's death that she becomes certain in her position. It might be a little rough around the edges but I think it ultimately flows pretty logically.
I definitely always thought the ending would be "Kendall comes out on top, but at what cost" and honestly still thought that's where it was headed until like the last 20 minutes of the finale when it became clear we were headed elsewhere. I'm still wrestling with whether that would have been a more satisfying conclusion, but Kendall and the siblings failing yet again rings true with the characters they've always been. As Logan said, they are not serious people, and as Roman has the clarity to see at the end, they're bullshit. They were never cut out for it and the series follows the long road of them being faced with and having to accept that reality. It's repetitive, yes, but I've always felt that almost all of the best television is about the cyclical nature of human behavior and in the end, Succession is no exception.
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Post by Lord_Buscemi on May 29, 2023 19:34:51 GMT
Fantastic ending, they really stuck the landing here. It was a fitting ending the way it turned out, and sort of tied back to the first episode in a nice way. I used to be root for Kendall and hope he'd get it, but he's really grown tiresome to me over the past season or so. In the end neither of them were fit for the job, which to me was ever so clear in the finale episode. I also think this was the right time to end it, because I'm not sure there were much more to explore here, and already treaded the same water a few times. Great show overall, but not really something I will revisit anytime soon. I don't really disagree but.. ending the show on the exact same note as Season 1, EP 6 isn't that interesting to me. There were plenty of ways to have Kendall lose but having him try and fail 3-4 times throughout the show isn't really a satisying arc. It would have been more interesting if he wins, but has his Graduate moment, where self doubt starts to creep in and he realizes he might not be cut out for the job. He got what he wanted, but now what?
Personally I thought a similar conclusion, albeit with higher stakes, to the defeat of the vote of no confidence demonstrates the clinical nature of failure that the siblings were set-up for. Kendall had been told since he was 7 years old that he was to take over and just when he was finally about to have it, another family member swept it out from under him. From a logical perspective, I also don't see how one can say that anybody but Tom deserved it. His arc from an ambitious social-climber who genuinely loved his wife to a stoic, strictly business-orientated husk, highlights in contrast Kendall's inherent emotional immaturity and inability to learn from his past mistakes.
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Post by futuretrunks on May 30, 2023 5:04:59 GMT
Meh. What Shiv did was not acceptable. The show just created another insufferable cunt like Skyler from Breaking Bad. What a letdown.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on May 30, 2023 9:43:13 GMT
Meh. What Shiv did was not acceptable. The show just created another insufferable cunt like Skyler from Breaking Bad. What a letdown. Are you in junior high?
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Post by notacrook on May 30, 2023 18:15:47 GMT
Of all the powerful, devastating scenes in the finale, the two that stood out to me were the two big moments of physical contact between Kendall and Roman. What first seems like a hug/moment of brotherly affection becomes the deliberate rupturing of stitches, which is deliberate for its presentation at the board meeting but also feels like a moment of masochism/self-harm on Roman's part that is indulged by Kendall. Really fucking disturbing and sad. The second moment was of course when Kendall grabs Roman's head and yells in his face, which would be devastating anyway, but when you recall Kendall yelling at Logan for slapping Roman a few seasons ago, it really breaks your heart. It's hard to imagine the relationships between any of the Roy siblings will ever truly heal after this. I honestly feel worst about Shiv's fate - they all just needed to get out out of the traumatic shadow of their father and his company, and Shiv now seems more buried in it than ever. Roman's small smile gives me genuine hope for him, more so than for anyone else. I think it was a perfect finale, refusing to go down the easy-satisfaction, 'wrap-it-all-up' route of something like Breaking Bad's ending. Armstrong went for something far more complex. The last 20 minutes felt genuinely unpredictable and dangerous, with season's worth of simmering tension suddenly boiling over. None of it felt rushed, however, and everyone gets a perfect and fitting final shot. Incredible work from absolutely everyone. Long live Succession indeed.
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Post by Pavan on May 30, 2023 19:24:03 GMT
"Woof woof." It's always been one of this show's great super powers that they bring in James Cromwell once per season to bring down the house, but holy shit was that monologue next level. Arguably career-best work from one of our great talents. And that immediately followed by the Culkin breakdown ... sheeesh. And at the end of the day, we are one plausible chess move away from a Greg as CEO finale I think its Tom. Glad i got it right. I love that they showed the trio being wholesome with their twisted sense of humor and just when everything seems like it is fine, they self-destruct themselves and show they are not fit for the job. I can understand Shiv's decision but the whiplash of it is hard and not quickly digestible but in retrospect her decision makes sense. A fitting ending to a great show.
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Post by Allenism on May 30, 2023 19:25:04 GMT
Upon further reflection, it is a rather hard pill to swallow that none of the Roy scions got what they wanted, and in some ways ended right back where they were at the start of the series: Kendall disillusioned by how his father's shadow looms perpetually large; Shiv resigning to the reality that all independent efforts to make her own name will be undercut by another man; and Roman an odd piece of the puzzle still finding a place to fit.
The closing moment for all of three of them feels like a bleak surrender, but it's still left to the viewer to conjecture what their respective trajectories could look like after the fact. Armstrong's refusal to spoonfeed the audience a finite resolution is admirable (and also explains why the finale was rather divisive).
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Post by Lord_Buscemi on May 31, 2023 11:22:12 GMT
Meh. What Shiv did was not acceptable. The show just created another insufferable cunt like Skyler from Breaking Bad. What a letdown. Casual misogyny aside, why are your opinions so consistently awful?
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Post by PromNightCarrie on May 31, 2023 19:02:53 GMT
Great series! I called it from season 1 that it would be "I'm here to serve" Tom because the signs were all there with that character. Men like him go the distance. The moves that eager puppet continued to make throughout the series just reinforced my belief. Not only that, I just couldn't picture it being ANY of the Roy children. This was an excellent closing season. The episodes of Succession I loved most were when the entire cast is caught up in a situation that couldn't be more chaotic. This season had that with "America Decides" and "Connor's Wedding." My favorite character was Greg. So precious.
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Post by Billy_Costigan on May 31, 2023 19:04:51 GMT
Upon further reflection, it is a rather hard pill to swallow that none of the Roy scions got what they wanted, and in some ways ended right back where they were at the start of the series: Kendall disillusioned by how his father's shadow looms perpetually large; Shiv resigning to the reality that all independent efforts to make her own name will be undercut by another man; and Roman an odd piece of the puzzle still finding a place to fit. The closing moment for all of three of them feels like a bleak surrender, but it's still left to the viewer to conjecture what their respective trajectories could look like after the fact. Armstrong's refusal to spoonfeed the audience a finite resolution is admirable (and also explains why the finale was rather divisive). The finale has a 9.6 rating on IMDB with over 13k votes. This would be the 4th highest rated episode of the entire series. I don't think it's as divisive as it appears on social media. It was a great hour a television. The ending will be talked about for a long time. Here's my upon further reflection.... While some variation of Kendall winning and (likely) ultimately failing as CEO would have been an interesting ending, what we got also works. It's a story of a dysfunctional family and that dysfunction would never allow any of them to "win". Succession could have been resolved in Season 1 Episode 6, but the family was never on the same page. There could have been a clear succession path they weren't always looking out for themselves and trying to destroy each other throughout the show. Shiv's decision seems shocking in the moment, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Even Roman was wavering before the vote. I think there are many factors that led to her decision, even though the show doesn't clearly spell them out. The decision is complicated by hearing Tom will be named as CEO. Earlier in the episode, she asks him if he wants to rekindle their relationship. He doesn't seem so sure. Knowing she has the final say, she decides this is the last chance to save her "new" family. I also think what she says is true. She doesn't think Kendall will be good at it. All of their choices up until this point have led to this moment. I don't dislike the ending as much as I did when it first aired. Part of it is the realization that show ending. There's always a bit of sadness after a finale knowing it's over. As we look back, this type of ending may help it stand out from the rest of the shows of the era. We only see the immediate aftermath and it's definitely a downer. But darker endings tend to take more time to digest. It doesn't appear that anyone is really "happy" by the end. Even in shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, there is a sense of victory for the characters before the ultimate end. It kind of feels like if Mad Men ended after "Time and Life" or if Breaking Bad ended after "Ozymandias". Jesse Armstrong and Jeremy Strong have talked about the cyclical nature of the show (and life). If we want to think about their trajectories going forward, let's look at the episodes in Season 1 after the same thing happened. The plots of episodes 6-8 are interesting.
S1:EP 6 - Roman and Kendall attempt to sway the board S2:EP 7 - The Roys gather for a family therapy session S3:EP 8 - Kendall and Roman eye new business opportunities.
While there is more finality this time, I don't think their relationships are irreparable. This is who they are and this is who they have always been. Roman and Kendall were able to "reconnect" after the last time this happened. Roman seems to be the most at peace with his realization that “we're all bullshit". He's finally done and doesn't have to deal with the pressure anymore. Shiv is attempting to save her marriage. She's trying to have some influence but may be more likely to end up like her mom. Kendall will probably take the longest to recover because this was his ultimate goal. In the end the kids couldn't work together. It was probably best to cash out and move on.
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Post by PromNightCarrie on May 31, 2023 19:49:05 GMT
God, this season is incredible. It's definitely going on a high note. It has surpassed my expectations (so far) and I've come to terms with it ending this season is a good idea rather than drag it further out. Culkin and Snook are MVPs of the season so far. Culkin and Snook are my acting MVPs of the excellent last season as well. Sarah Snook at her most intense, adding so much to the flightiness of her character in crucial moments. It also seemed that in this particular season, the writers gave Culkin noticeably stronger material to allow him to shine in a way he hadn't before (meaning, beyond his expected snark).
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Jun 1, 2023 20:19:41 GMT
Thought the ending was aces and also... well, logical. And this is one of the rare ensembles where almost every single actor has a serious gift for comedy... I'd like to see more Justine Lupe, J Smith Cameron, Nicholas Braun...
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Post by PromNightCarrie on Jun 1, 2023 20:33:12 GMT
Will miss the show's only true romance: Nero and Sporus btw Tom/Matthew Macfadyen was by far the funniest person on this show .
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Post by President Ackbar™ on Jun 6, 2023 17:31:03 GMT
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