Succession: America Decides

May 15, 2023 4:34 AM - Season 4, Episode 8

On election night, Tom tries to manage an increasingly chaotic newsroom while Kendall, Shiv and Roman spar over the consequences for themselves, the company and the country.

Interesting tidbit from someone who played one of the ATN pundits.

posted by jeoc (50 comments total)

Oh Shiv... That's not how you handle Greg. Greg is the guy you buy, not the guy you threaten.
posted by Pendragon at 4:48 AM on May 15, 2023 [16 favorites]

Alas, Kentucky.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 5:05 AM on May 15, 2023 [8 favorites]

Greg is the guy you buy, not the guy you threaten

Exactly, and what were those threats? I’m going to disembowel you? Obviously she’s not going to do that. She’s got no stick and no carrot.

This episode killed any likability that Roman had.
posted by jeoc at 5:18 AM on May 15, 2023 [10 favorites]

Filming Shiv "trying" to threaten Greg (so empty!) from the POV of Greg's towering height was so tense. Similar to her empty pitch to Matsson for her role going forward.

Kendall seemed to realize that he can't make decisions and run the company.

Roman who is usually enjoyable to watch was just constantly in motion, working to get us all to hate him more.

I didn't love the episode overall, but it was compelling.
posted by armacy at 5:20 AM on May 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

Oh god this episode made me so tense! It was just too real, a nightmare of how Fox News has so much control over the perception of elections. The irony is that in 2020 it was Fox News that shifted the discussion in a big way by calling Arizona (correctly) for Biden. But here we get to see how it may play out if it went the other way. If Fox's election office decided to put their thumb on the scale, if Tucker Carlson got 5 minutes unedited to spread fascism during election night. Just horrifying because it could easily happen in the next election.

But while this episode was a great depiction of the uncomfortable political influence of a company like Royco, it didn't feel like a great episode of Succession in general. It felt too much like the writers had a plan, "this is the election episode", and everything in the script is in service to that. Emotionally this episode could have happened anywhere this season, or really in any season. (Plot wise it couldn't, it does depend on Logan's death and the state of things with Matsson).

The false note for me was mostly Roman. He's always, always been this weird mix of likeable and contemptible. Here he was just 100% contemptible, as folks have already remarked on, and it felt like a step backwards for the character. Tom also felt a little too simplistic.

OTOH I liked this version of Kendall we saw, the spineless guy who finally has power and no idea what he wants to do with it. Seeking approval from his peers: his ex-wife, the idea of his kids, Shiv, Roman. I was screaming at the TV when Shiv was so obviously manipulating him "you're a good guy, Ken"; at least he didn't fully fall for that.

The final development here is what seems a true rift among the family, Shiv betraying Kendall and Roman for Matsson and her getting caught out in a direct lie. Logan's kids are always in conflict, but usually in a stylized and ironic way where no long-lasting serious harm is done. That era may be over.

(Here's an explainer for Kendall's final line "some people just can't cut a deal, Fikret". It's a referencing a minor character and seems to simply be Kendall's regrets that he couldn't do a deal with Jimenez.)
posted by Nelson at 6:15 AM on May 15, 2023 [7 favorites]

Shiv threatening Greg gave off vibes of Malcolm Tucker — who also got caught in lies and had no power, in the end.

This episode reminded me of the escalating feelings of sickness and terror from 2016's election night — all the way down to Mencken getting help from the media, and his Trump-like sore-winner speech that promised some of the Fascism to come. The situation was spinning out of control for Shiv and Kendall, just as it would for the country after Trump's ascension.

Roman had been portrayed as a Mencken tankie for a while, so I didn't find the heel turn unpredictable or unexpected. The writers might have done more to show this relationship developing in the lead-up to election night, but withholding Mencken builds anticipation and drama for when he does finally show up.

I guess what changed was Roman losing all the uncertainty he had over firing executives and all the chaos he caused, suddenly showing a kind of hard, dismissive resolve that I wasn't sure was completely earned. But there are only a couple episodes left and the showrunners probably had decisions to make, to handle all the narrative threads of the numerous main characters.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:34 AM on May 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

It's interesting to me that this episode was hyped up as the most shocking of the season. I found it compelling and queasy-making (election night flashbacks), but I didn't find any of what happened surprising. Of course they were going to support the fascist.
posted by HeroZero at 7:42 AM on May 15, 2023 [7 favorites]

Yeah, I felt like they hit the right notes (the fascist guy planning to claim victory even when he expected overwhelming loss, the Dem releasing a "calming" statement even when he should be going to 11 to ensure the Dem-favoring votes get counted, the centrist cable news networks releasing huffy statements about how irresponsible ATN was being), and it was certainly unsettling, but nothing that happened was shocking. It's an interesting look at the tail wagging the dog. I don't know what Logan's ATN would've done, but it felt downright inevitable that a Loganless ATN would take this path.

I do like that so much hinged on Greg. I remember thinking -- during the Scandi retreat -- that against all likelihood, Greg had somehow become the main character most likely to be doing stuff. Following orders, sure, but still doing stuff. (The fact that Greg completely blew up Shiv's spot after one night with Matsson is yet another reason why Matsson sucks.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:58 AM on May 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Burned absentee ballots? Oh that’s good. I fear what this show will conjure into being.
posted by whuppy at 8:01 AM on May 15, 2023 [8 favorites]

Personally I've found Roman to pretty consistent - he's an awful person in terms of his politics and commitments, but he's also awfully fun to watch given his playful insults. What has changed is the stakes of his fuckery - normally it's just whether a "play" will result in a good deal for the company, which I imagine most viewers don't really care about (and we kinda assume most/all business owners are amoral psychopaths) - now it's about whether a white nationalist/fascist gets elected, which feels not only more consequential, but also, despite much evidence to the contrary, we kinda like to think that there is a line most people won't cross - and Roman basically bullied a whole bunch of people into crossing it. Roman foolishly thinks his wealth will isolate him from anything bad in the world impacting him - his instinct is always what will serve him best personally. After all, he bragged to Gerri once that he could make her "doesn't need to worry about climate change rich" (I'm paraphrasing).

But yeah, I wouldn't call this episode the most shocking - that was Logan's death for me. I would call it the most stressful though - and it made both my partner and I to contemplate how many high stakes elections await us - because of course, as the episode suggests, it's not just a potential rematch of Trump-Biden we have to worry about, but whatever the next fascist the Republican Party coalesces around - who may be even more evil than Trump. Mencken's acceptance speech, truly chilling.

As for WWLD (what would Logan do), Logan would have gotten the deal he wanted (i.e. to keep ATN), so he wouldn't have been so beholden to Mencken. I'm sure he would have done everything to give Mencken the spin he wanted, but less sure he would have crossed that line - maybe he would, but he also clearly wanted his news org to remain respectable, in the same sense that Fox is still considered a news channel that follows certain rules on election night. I am curious to see what backlash they'll face from the decision to call the election - I wouldn't be surprised if Tom ends up being a sacrificial lamb.

Finally, what were they thinking planning Logan's funeral the day after the election????
posted by coffeecat at 8:17 AM on May 15, 2023

The only reason this episode didn't trigger me was that I spent the week leading up to it being pre-triggered.

I kept looking around at my bedroom this week, thinking about how, after November 2016, I had to completely rearrange it. Literally rotated the bed 90º, changed the position of dressers, all that. Because I couldn't stop thinking of the way I woke up in the middle of the night, completely certain that everything was fine, checked the results for "confirmation," and suddenly the world felt surreal and terrifying.

I've got to believe that the "episode 8 will be the most shocking" was a misdirect to keep people from anticipating Connor's wedding. Right?
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 9:06 AM on May 15, 2023 [10 favorites]

I’ll say this for Jeryd Mencken; he’s more coherent and articulate a speaker than any Republican president during my 43 years on this Earth.

I feel like someone at HBO knows how good Justin Kirk is and they’re happy to get all the work out of him they can.

Also, because I’m currently watching The Great, seeing Adam Godley without a big, wild beard is throwing me for a loop.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 9:12 AM on May 15, 2023 [6 favorites]

Best line of this episode was Greg's: "I drank things that ... normally aren't drinks."

Con's concession speech was the epitome of cringe. It seems as if Willa's already done with him.

I could feel myself becoming more and more tense as the episode went on. I'm not surprised by Roman's full-on awfulness this episode. I've always found him repellent. Ken seems lost without having Logan there to seek approval - or disapproval - from. Shiv seems to have dug herself into several holes - with her brothers, her husband and Mattsson. Of all the characters, I'm most interested in seeing whether she is capable of redemption by the end.

A couple of weeks ago someone predicted Greg to come out on top. After seeing this week's episode, I wouldn't count that out, provided everyone else around him continues to implode.
posted by essexjan at 9:24 AM on May 15, 2023 [5 favorites]

This was one episode where it felt like they (finally?) broke the “sitcom” mold. Doesn’t seem there’s a reset available for the siblings after this?
posted by boogieboy at 9:25 AM on May 15, 2023

Roman burning down the country to kill a deal he was the main defender of in episode one of this season. They were all so excited about The Hundred!
posted by paper chromatographologist at 10:30 AM on May 15, 2023 [5 favorites]

Kinda feel like the women in the episode were all the voices on conscience - Sophie, Rava advocating for Sophie, Shiv (yes, she wanted Jimenez to win because of the implications re: Gojo but also she fought Mencken’s rise from the beginning), Pam (arguing against interviewing someone who wasn’t well even though they would be good for ATN), and ultimately Jess getting Greg to pause and think about what was happening.

That also made me think that Jess has long been the stand-in for the audience, whether rolling her eyes at Kendall or … okay, that’s about it.
posted by kat518 at 10:57 AM on May 15, 2023 [7 favorites]

The false note for me was mostly Roman. He's always, always been this weird mix of likeable and contemptible.

The very first thing we see Roman do in the series is dangle a million-dollar check in front of a worker's kid if he hits a home run, then tearing that check up in front of him when he's tagged out, an act so monstrously cruel even Logan was embarrassed.

Roman is funny, but he's always been the most openly monstrous of the kids. In fact, his humor and his cruelty stem from the same place: in some ways he's the most-clear-eyed about the family's wealth and how it basically makes them aliens apart from the rest of the world where the other two deny it to varying extents. Unfortunately, Roman's way of dealing with this reality is retreating into a studied nihilism where nothing matters but himself and to a lesser extent the family.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:21 AM on May 15, 2023 [23 favorites]

Yeah, the softball check thing was hilarious! And awful, of course. That scene really set the tone for Roman and the whole show. Seppinwall's review is interesting because he mentions it took him a couple of seasons to get into the show's humor. I appreciate monstrousness so I thought it was funny from the start.

Anyway this episode we didn't see Roman be funny much. Mostly we saw him being awful. And yeah, absolutely nihilistic. And his actions have terrible consequences we the audience can relate to personally since we've all lived through a coup attempt in the US in recent memory.
posted by Nelson at 11:52 AM on May 15, 2023

Succession and Wisconsin Voting: What they got right & what they got wrong. (good twitter thread from the State of Wisconsin Election Commissioner)
posted by General Malaise at 2:01 PM on May 15, 2023 [6 favorites]

I think we saw a Roman as we’ve pretty much always seen him. It’s just he’s normally fucking with other terrible people from a position of subservience to a domineering father, so there’s limited stakes and we can enjoy the ride. Here, a weight lifted from him, he is fucking a country in ways that have a very recognisable and very unfunny historical precedent, and that is jarring.
I admired this episode but I didn’t particularly enjoy watching it.
posted by chill at 2:44 PM on May 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Roman is funny, but he's always been the most openly monstrous of the kids. In fact, his humor and his cruelty stem from the same place: in some ways he's the most-clear-eyed about the family's wealth and how it basically makes them aliens apart from the rest of the world where the other two deny it to varying extents. Unfortunately, Roman's way of dealing with this reality is retreating into a studied nihilism where nothing matters but himself and to a lesser extent the family.

Yeah, that's exactly it. You can even extend some empathy his way and say that his nihilism is, on some level, a way of his trying to reconcile the monstrous fact of his family's existence. Not to "cry for help" this, but so much of what Roman does is that on some level—and he does it this way, in part, because every time he expresses genuine vulnerability, his siblings immediately shoot him down. Kendall and Shiv both, in their ways, perform empathy in a way that Roman doesn't; in both their cases, it's real empathy, for all it rarely leads to them actually doing empathetic things. But Roman has reached out to the both of them at different points across the show, and their respond is to mock him and make baby voices at him, and you can see Roman immediately retreat back to his "fuck you, fuck everything" mode.

Maybe it's that Roman's attitude here was so reminiscent of his "What It Takes" behavior—maybe I'm just jaded—but I didn't have as viscerally negative reaction to him as I was expecting. And in part that's because, while he clearly plays the nihilistic villain foil to Ken and Shiv, I couldn't help but notice how little that ultimately matters. Ken's genuine worry about his family doesn't stop him from making the "good deal" at the end, but that's not even it: it's that his need to fuck Shiv over outweighs his need to keep his own child safe. It's not just business: Ken is so juvenile and so petty that his weightiest emotions are still rocked by the slightest resentment or mania. And Shiv, meanwhile, is genuinely revolted by Mencken and horrified by what his victory means... but what we've seen from Shiv, again and again, is that her revulsion is fundamentally aesthetic in nature. The idea of democracy collapsing, the idea of virulent racism and misogyny, horrifies her... but the practice isn't important whatsoever, since she'll screw over any woman or break any norm that even mildly inconveniences her.

That's not a justification of Roman's behavior. But I don't think Roman's actually much different, in practice, than his siblings. Even his instigation doesn't strike me as that much different from what ATN is inevitably going to do: their default is to ignore the arson or both-sides it, they'll probably be pushing Wisconsin's vote count whether or not it's fair to do so, and the only difference Roman's instigation makes is that it's that much cruder and more heavy-handed. He doesn't pretend, or see the point in pretending, that his family isn't this monstrous or this willing to abuse the world. With Ken and Shiv, you get the pretense of decency, but you never get the real thing.

I don't know if Succession would ever really stoop to label the siblings as political archetypes, but Roman feels like the alt-right, Ken feels like a never-Trump Republican, and Shiv feels like a more cynical interpretation of the center-left establishment. (Throw Connor in too as a libertarian stand-in.) They all claim to have ideological differences, but at the end of the day, they're part of the same family and they all birth the same world. It's horrifying and disgusting that Roman's version is as blunt as it is, especially because it drives home that he's operating at that level of clarity and still not doing anything about it, and at the same time, he's of a piece with everyone else here.

I guess that what I'm saying is: it's not that I think Roman's a good or even sympathetic character, but I'm not sure I see him as worse than Ken or Shiv here, even though the other two feign caring much better. I still empathize with him, in the sense that I think he's a deeply damaged person trapped in a hell of his whole family's making, in the same way that I have a lot of empathy for Ken and Shiv and Tom and maybe, on some very abstract level, Logan. Would still send 'em all to the guillotines, but I try to take note of when my own revulsion to people's behavior feels aesthetic rather than material, and I think that Roman's overt disgustingness here is more aesthetic than material reality. Remove him from tonight's episode, and I think Mencken still wins. The beast is bigger than all of them, and they all willingly let it eat them alive.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:06 PM on May 15, 2023 [15 favorites]

Best line of this episode was Greg's Tom's: I drank things that ... normally aren't drinks. "and just because something is on fire doesn't make it news"
posted by chavenet at 3:18 PM on May 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

Greg: [sips] “It’s not that lemon-y! It’s just a HINT of lemon!”
posted by Crystalinne at 5:14 PM on May 15, 2023 [6 favorites]

Greg: [sips] “It’s not that lemon-y! It’s just a HINT of lemon!”

As someone who occasionally drinks LaCroix, that line really cracked me up.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 5:41 PM on May 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

I also think the three of them are losing their minds because Logan's funeral is "tomorrow." Roman's surely not going to take that well. (Edited to add that I think that his inability to accept it is what's fueling his cruelty spree and giving him this sense of urgency.)
posted by heyho at 5:51 PM on May 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

So was Menkin’s speech taken from one of Hitler’s, just cleaned up, some slurs replaced with modern code words, and delivered by a guy not pounding on a podium?
posted by oldnumberseven at 6:17 PM on May 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

Man, Mencken was scary. Imagine someone that terrible but with coherent sentences and a brain.

(The Trumps and Desantisi of the world are bad enough without being truly smart!)

I thought Roman was consistent, he's always been a nihilist who cares more about how things will affect him personally than affect the country or his company. It kind of makes him better than his siblings to me -- he says it out loud, and invites us to mock him as he mocks himself, knowing how ridiculous he sounds but not caring.

Kendall is just as bad, if he has any conscience about the election at all it's about how it will affect his kids. And he would never say things out loud like Roman but he'll make literally the same decisions that have the same effects.

Shiv, on the other hand, has a veneer of do-goodery, wants to be seen doing the right thing... But really, she's making deals with Mattson for her own well being, and the only reason she won't help elect a fascist is that she's financially tied to the Democrat.

Greg might have a conscience still but he realizes how powerless he really is...

Their Tucker Carlson stand-in was perfect, he did his own thing while making it very clear who we should be reminded of.

I loved Tom's drama with the touchscreens and all the arguments with the "Numbers Guy" on the staff.

Yeah, though, the 2016 triggering was real and it's definitely Too Soon.
posted by mmoncur at 9:07 PM on May 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

I love that, after all the speculation about how Shiv's pregnancy will play out, she chooses to tell Tom - not in last week's balcony row where we might have expected it - but in a rushed conversation with him on election night - and in a context where Tom seems genuinely unsure whether to believe her.

For all the dislikable traits of the siblings, I think this series has really shown the pressure upon them in the few days between Logan's death and his funeral. In particular, things seem to be going badly for Shiv and Kendall. I'm note sure I would put my money on all of them making it to episode 10.

Psychologist, and writer on narcissism, Dr Ramani, has reviewed this episode. Her favourite line is Roman's "maybe the poison drips through"
posted by rongorongo at 1:19 AM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Shiv, on the other hand, has a veneer of do-goodery, wants to be seen doing the right thing... But really, she's making deals with Mattson for her own well being, and the only reason she won't help elect a fascist is that she's financially tied to the Democrat.

I don’t think this is a fair characterization. Shiv opposed Mencken since his introduction. She fought against his selection as the Republican nominee.
posted by kat518 at 7:22 AM on May 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

I don’t think this is a fair characterization. Shiv opposed Mencken since his introduction. She fought against his selection as the Republican nominee.

Sure, but when push comes to shove she refuses to call Nate to get him to commit to blocking the GoJo deal, because she's working with Mattson and wants that deal to go through. Shiv has always been the most vocally principled of the kids, but also is always willing to throw away her principles the second they get in the way of what she wants (see also: her meeting with the cruise ship abuse survivor, her non-action in the face of Mattson's harassment of Ebba, etc).

Even when she fought against Mencken's nomination, she then immediately posed for a picture with him because her father told her to.
posted by Ragged Richard at 7:30 AM on May 16, 2023 [8 favorites]

Wanted to highlight Mencken's victory speech. So well written, so awful. There's a transcript and analysis on Reddit that I liked. The particularly chilling part:

The democracy I believe in is where a leader emerges from the people, willed almost, into being, brought forth by the great sweetness of the virtue of the combined wisdom of the good people of this republic.

Don’t we long sometimes for something clean once in this polluted land? That’s what I hope to bring. Not something grubby with compromise. Something clean and true and refreshing. Something proud and pure.

The writers absolutely nailed that way American fascism comes cloaked in language that both sounds noble and yet also egomaniacal and thinly-veiled racist.
posted by Nelson at 7:48 AM on May 16, 2023 [7 favorites]

I don’t think Shiv could have persuaded Nate to block the deal. He left the tailgate party to reduce the appearance of a potential conflict of interest. I don’t think he’d agree to a quid pro quo.
posted by kat518 at 10:18 AM on May 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

Yeah, it seemed like a losing prospect for Shiv to make that request of Nate. Unlikely to be successful and it would have diminished her standing & credibility for any future asks.
posted by knotty knots at 10:57 AM on May 16, 2023 [5 favorites]

I'm not so sure - I think there's a real material difference between "we'll go easy on you in the first 100 days if you block this deal" and "we are going to declare your opponent the winner of the election if you don't block it." Really, the consequences here are so far out of proportion to what's being asked that he'd be much more likely to agree this time around.
posted by Ragged Richard at 11:56 AM on May 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Her favourite line is Roman's "maybe the poison drips through"

That was Kendall, but yeah. Gave me chills, because it felt almost like a callback to his convo with Logan, season 2 finale, when he said, "Maybe I deserve it," in reference to the Chappaquiddick kid. And Logan and Shiv had almost identical responses in the two interactions... "Nah, NAH! Nah, you're a good person!"

I've actually been shocked this season how much Shiv is like Logan, down to her non-committal "ah-huh"s whenever she's involved in a negotiation. I think don't think Shiv is the moral equivalent of Logan, but I think her actual business skills are similar, and also that her skills are consistently underrated! I mean, she screws up (like with Greg this episode)--but Logan screwed up, plenty, as well. People do seem to forget that Logan did not ALWAYS win, did not come out on top in EVERY negotiation.
posted by torticat at 2:24 PM on May 16, 2023

They all do the "uh-huh" thing, even Tom. It's like "poor you" in The Sopranos, a way to use language to show the way that toxicity seeps into the next generation.
posted by Ragged Richard at 2:35 PM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I read Shiv's response to "the poison drips through" as also a panicked denial of that possibility for potential future child.
posted by supermedusa at 3:18 PM on May 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

They all do the "uh-huh" thing

Yes, they do (well, I'm not so sure about Rome, but the rest of them, yes). I think part of that is the British writing coming through. But the way Logan and Shiv say it--that skeptical, non-committal, "sure, dude... we'll see"--esp when someone is asking something of them--I think is special to the two of them. I also think this season has intentionally played up that Shiv is similar to her father.
posted by torticat at 3:54 PM on May 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Shiv opposed Mencken since his introduction. She fought against his selection as the Republican nominee.

Shiv also worked for Gil up until she got a job offer from her father. And job offer aside, the moment that defines Shiv for me is when Gil shakes hand with a random person on the street and, afterwards, Shiv jokes to him that he needs to sanitize his hand.

It's not even the joke itself. It's the way she tells it: almost conspiratorially, like she expects Gil to be working with the same mindset that she is. She'll embrace the political left for identity purposes, but it's all a show for the hoi polloi, no different from what ATN does. It's just another tool for the elite to steal power from one another, in between stealing it from everybody else.

A fun game to play with Succession—and one I played on my rewatch—is to try and spot moments where Shiv articulates a genuine liberal position at a moment when it's not explicitly for her personal gain. When we see her at work, she's almost always talking strategy—and almost always strategy that has nothing to do with actual political positions. When she advocates her political beliefs around her family, it's invariably being said to advocate specifically for Siobhan Roy getting more power and privilege.

I had to think this last episode over, since she does genuinely get distraught and I identify with her distraughtness... but it turns out it's hard to tell whether the emotions she's displaying are really about Mencken being awful, or if they're about her fucking up her alliance with Matsson. At no point does she get upset in a way that couldn't be directly connected to her own interests. And that's true of the entire show.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:34 PM on May 16, 2023 [10 favorites]

I'm not so sure - I think there's a real material difference between "we'll go easy on you in the first 100 days if you block this deal" and "we are going to declare your opponent the winner of the election if you don't block it."

The election was close enough that it was going to go to the courts. Jimenez still had an path to victory. If it had been an obvious victory for Mencken, ATN wouldn’t have been the first to call it. Moreover, agreeing to a quid pro quo sounds legally dicey.
posted by kat518 at 9:11 PM on May 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

A fun game to play with Succession—and one I played on my rewatch—is to try and spot moments where Shiv articulates a genuine liberal position at a moment when it's not explicitly for her personal gain.

Fighting Mencken when he surfaced in season 3 was not explicitly for her political gain. She had a preferred candidate but she wasn’t sold on him but she was dead set against Mencken and spent most of her time arguing against him rather than for anyone else. Her opposition to Mencken cost her with Logan. It wasn’t about business or strategy.
posted by kat518 at 9:21 PM on May 16, 2023

Yeah, it seemed like a losing prospect for Shiv to make that request of Nate. Unlikely to be successful and it would have diminished her standing & credibility for any future asks.

Absolutely! Nate wasn't gonna play; that had been made crystal clear last episode. Shiv did the only thing she could do, and it's ambiguous whether her motivation had more to with self-interest or civic interest, but almost certainly it was some combination of the two.

Another thing--what about Kendall's spectacular hypocrisy? Less than 24 hours before he discovered that Shiv had a plan to go it alone, he had said to Frank that he loved his siblings but was not in love with them; one head, one crown; etc. And then today he chooses to back Mencken (against the interests of his own daughter!) out of sheer pique, because Shiv had lied to him? Ugh, Kendall!
posted by torticat at 9:43 PM on May 16, 2023 [4 favorites]

She had a preferred candidate but she wasn’t sold on him but she was dead set against Mencken and spent most of her time arguing against him rather than for anyone else.

Her preferred candidate was the guy who specifically told her that he'd back her attempt to make moves against her father. He's more explicit in offering Shiv a quid pro quo than Mencken is in offering anything to Roman.

If it was just that one incident, that would be one thing, but with Shiv there's a pattern. She never, ever talks about her political beliefs unless there's a motive attached. Ever.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:08 AM on May 17, 2023 [3 favorites]

Her preferred candidate was the guy who specifically told her that he'd back her attempt to make moves against her father. He's more explicit in offering Shiv a quid pro quo than Mencken is in offering anything to Roman.

She was more upset about the fascist winning than her guy losing.
posted by kat518 at 5:59 AM on May 17, 2023

If we're talking about which interpretations the show enables, I think it's fair to say that both of our takes are plausible and defensible. Succession is great at finding those ambiguous realms where there's no singular interpretation.

But it's interesting that, when Shiv gets this upset, it's almost always while Roman is needling her. She gets emotional in both this episode and "What It Takes," but she gets just as worked up in "Too Much Birthday," where nothing political is at stake. And like you, I'm inclined to interpret Shiv as getting upset at the rise of fascism etc, because that's my own feeling too. But that's what's so interesting, and it's a part of what I meant about aesthetic versus material politics. Shiv absolutely displays upsetness, in moments that synchronize with her political beliefs—but she only ever does it when there are also personal stakes for her, when she's angry at her siblings (especially Roman) for disregarding and disrespecting her. And at times when she's genuinely capable of taking a stand for her political beliefs, she fucks other women over, threatens them, blackmails them, slut-shames them, and does so with that attitude of, "I'm the elite in this room, what else do you expect?"

I feel similar about her political orientation as I do to her marriage. She has, on many different occasions, performed empathy towards Tom—but only at points when performances of affection are what she needs to win him back over. The moment she feels "safe" with him, she goes back to casually disregarding him. Similarly, she absolutely shows signs of being afraid for democracy and upset at the rise of Nazidom—at moments where those displays are politically convenient for her. The same way her conversation with Kendall about what choice he ought to make leans on how good a person Kendall is, we're both good people, we know this is wrong for democracy... while at the same time she's working on backroom deals with Matsson and lying to Ken's face.

I don't think it's as simple as Shiv not believing in the things she claims to believe in. I think the trickiness is that "belief" itself is not black-and-white. Shiv believes in what she believes in to the extent that she needs to believe in them, to the extent that she is capable of believing in them, and to the extent that her material position in the world allows her to believe in them without being affected by them in any way. Tom flat-out brings this up with her in Living+: neither of them is going to lean into their idealistic notions about the world if the choice is between that and an expensive watch. It's impossible to extricate Shiv's political orientation from her family business, or from the extent to which she defined her beliefs in opposition to her family's, or from her deep-seated recognition that none of this will affect her in any way, ever. For her, it will only ever be a spectator sport; the collapse of democracy is purely hypothetical, in part because she belongs to the family that's powerful enough to subvert democracy here and now.

It's not that Shiv and Shiv alone is like this. They all are. Kendall is genuinely distraught at the thought of what this change in the nation will mean to his daughter, but that doesn't stop him from going forward with things anyway. Greg feels genuinely uncomfortable at the thing he's asked to do, but even when Jess confronts him, he knows there's no way he'll push back even a little. They're all human, to the extent that they're permitted to be human. But they can't extract themselves from material circumstance, whether or not they're able to admit this to themselves.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 8:37 AM on May 17, 2023 [9 favorites]

They made Roman's haircut particularly fashy this episode, I thought.

In the post-show fluff bit Culkin says that Roman's opportunistically aligning with Mencken because it serves his own interests in the deal. I ... kinda didn't see it that way? I mean yeah, Roman's clearly having a lot of fun needling his siblings with alt-right talking points -- "false flag, false flag" -- in an exaggerated we-picked-different-horses-in-the-race way -- but underneath all the surface puckish banter there's a cold core of oof, he really has bought into Mencken's stuff.

I think the business of feeding talking points to Ravenhead to present on-air is kind of the key here, I think? The siblings are all kind of oooookay with wielding ATN's influence in backroom ways -- the decisions to call were very much political decisions -- but only Roman was willing to directly put his thumb on the scale.

My favorite line this episode was maybe Conor's "how about I concede in his direction?"
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:23 AM on May 17, 2023 [6 favorites]

In the post-show fluff bit Culkin says that Roman's opportunistically aligning with Mencken because it serves his own interests in the deal. I ... kinda didn't see it that way? I mean yeah, Roman's clearly having a lot of fun needling his siblings with alt-right talking points -- "false flag, false flag" -- in an exaggerated we-picked-different-horses-in-the-race way -- but underneath all the surface puckish banter there's a cold core of oof, he really has bought into Mencken's stuff.

Roman is absolutely, 100% the guy who's an "ironic Nazi" for a few months before going full-on fash.
posted by Etrigan at 9:36 AM on May 17, 2023 [14 favorites]

Yeah, I don't buy Shiv behaving much better--in terms of one's responsibility toward democracy--than the rest of them in this episode, except maybe Roman of course. Maybe she wouldn't have been able to get Nate to play, maybe Jimenez pulls it out in court regardless of ATN calling it (most of us are old enough to remember networks uncalling their calls in 2000). But given that Jimenez still does have a path, it's certainly better for the country if their universe's version of Fox holds off. She can't unburn ballots but she could call Nate, at least make sure he knows what they're giving up. She could try. It's the only move she has but to her, it's worse to have both of the potential presidents against her deal with GoJo. She'd rather try a pathetic lie than risk that.

Shiv hates Mencken, Kendall is worried about his daughter, even Roman looks uneasy during the victory speech. But all three have given up on sibling unity in favor of something more selfish and much more tenuous. Shiv's alliance with Matsson, Kendall's play for being the only CEO, Roman this political alliance. They all choose it in the end. It's all they each have left. In all three cases, it's rotten at the core, not just morally but quite possibly on a practical level as well. It's quite elegant, but not if the viewer is not willing to see Shiv's actions for what they are.
posted by lampoil at 11:43 AM on May 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

Roman is the particular kind of fascist who goes, "It doesn't matter whether there's a reason that I have more power than you. It doesn't matter whether my power is fair. I have power, and no, I'm not going to bend over backwards to examine it or undo it. Why would I? You wouldn't do that, if you were the one with power here."

I dunno if he'll ever really believe in white supremacy or male supremacy or whatever. He'll recognize, on some level, that his privileges are institutional and societal. But he'll exploit and abuse the fuck out of them, and shed very few tears over the people who suffer because of it. Same as Logan acknowledging Britain as a festering incestuous hive of colonialism, then shrugging it off because, eh, it's the way of the world.

On the podcast, Kara Swisher asked Jesse Armstrong whether he more fears the "true believers" or the "power players." Jesse's answer was that he fears the true believers more, because they don't act rationally; Kara's answer was that she fears the power players, because they're often more effective at wielding power. But it doesn't matter whether Hitler was a Machiavellian psychopath or a genuine supremacist, just like it doesn't matter whether the Nazis under him were true believers or mere bureaucrats. The fetishization of power is the fetishization of power, no matter what narrative underlies it.

Personally, I find the true believers more viscerally repulsive and, on some level, more sympathetic. The Machiavellians are generally the ones who I could get along with better at a party and the ones who I find utterly, irredeemably vile. But all that's just theory too: in practice, to paraphrase Ken, it's all the same poison, and it all wells up the same.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 2:30 PM on May 17, 2023 [6 favorites]

Interesting Guardian article which points out that the first full-cast table read of Succession took place on November 8th 2016 - election day. After the event, the cast were invited to a party at the home of executive producer, Adam McKay, to celebrate the expected victory of Hilary Clinton. When... that did not happen.. McKay remarked "we're making the right show".
posted by rongorongo at 4:45 AM on May 26, 2023 [2 favorites]