Succession on HBO (1 Viewer)

[Desert_Power]

Will be interesting to see how they land it tonight. The more I reflect, the more I notice the ways they've tried to telegraph Ken becoming more like Logan this season. The show is great at subverting expectations though, so we'll see,.

 

[JohnnyU]

Marsha will take over

 

[Ilov80s]

I think the President and Mattson double cross all the Roys and they lose the company completely. Tom is forced to choose between Shiv and Waystar. I think he chooses Shiv which leaves Greg SOL.

That’s my best guess

 

[JohnnyU]

I think the President and Mattson double cross all the Roys and they lose the company completely. Tom is forced to choose between Shiv and Waystar. I think he chooses Shiv which leaves Greg SOL.

That’s my best guess

Not a bad guess, Tom would choose the job over Shiv. He knows she is evil and doesn’t give a hill of beans for him. Plus he likes nice things. He said as much.

 

[Capella]

My guess is none of the big 3 get the job and one of them jumps off a building.

 

[Ghost Rider]

I suspect it will play out in a way none of us see totally coming in the micro sense, but in the macro, I definitely think the family will lose the company. Mattson will screw over Shiv and name someone else the American CEO (Greg? LOL), Tom will find a way to angle himself into a good position, and Ken will find himself with a lot of money, but the family company and everyone who was close to him gone.

 

[Desert_Power]

Having Greg end up the CEO would be a Bran on the iron throne level of stupid.

 

[Capella]

Having Greg end up the CEO would be a Bran on the iron throne level of stupid.

Board would never approve him. I guess if Mattson gets it he could do it but yes that would be extraordinairily stupid.

 

[identikit]

Ken's Chappaquiddick secret will undoubtedly be spilled tonight

 

[JohnnyU]

My guess is none of the big 3 get the job and one of them jumps off a building.

I told my wife the exact same thing.

 

[Ilov80s]

I think the President and Mattson double cross all the Roys and they lose the company completely. Tom is forced to choose between Shiv and Waystar. I think he chooses Shiv which leaves Greg SOL.

That’s my best guess

Not a bad guess, Tom would choose the job over Shiv. He knows she is evil and doesn’t give a hill of beans for him. Plus he likes nice things. He said as much.

Shiv is filthy rich though so it’s not exactly stepping into the poorhouse. He’s got a kid on the way too. I could see him wanting to make it work. Shiv is evil but it’s the devil he knows.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Ken's Chappaquiddick secret will undoubtedly be spilled tonight

I have seen many predict this, but I still don't think so. There isn't enough left for that to be exposed and then go through the you-know-what storm that would ensue.

 

[Ghost Rider]

I think the President and Mattson double cross all the Roys and they lose the company completely. Tom is forced to choose between Shiv and Waystar. I think he chooses Shiv which leaves Greg SOL.

That’s my best guess

Not a bad guess, Tom would choose the job over Shiv. He knows she is evil and doesn’t give a hill of beans for him. Plus he likes nice things. He said as much.

Shiv is filthy rich though so it’s not exactly stepping into the poorhouse. He’s got a kid on the way too. I could see him wanting to make it work. Shiv is evil but it’s the devil he knows.

Tom picking Shiv over Waystar wouldn't make a lot of sense given what we have seen. Even with a baby on the way, Tom has ZERO trust left in Shiv, who flat out told him she doesn't even like him. He will play the game and be friendly with her when it suits his needs, but if push comes to shove and it is side with Shiv or go another way and get more power, he is absolutely going with the latter option.

 

[identikit]

Ken's Chappaquiddick secret will undoubtedly be spilled tonight

I have seen many predict this, but I still don't think so. There isn't enough left for that to be exposed and then go through the you-know-what storm that would ensue.

Theyve been heavily hinting it

You could be right

Classic zag

 

[Ghost Rider]

Ken's Chappaquiddick secret will undoubtedly be spilled tonight

I have seen many predict this, but I still don't think so. There isn't enough left for that to be exposed and then go through the you-know-what storm that would ensue.

Theyve been heavily hinting it

You're could be right

Classic zag

Yep, yep, so many ways this could go. It's gonna be fun to see how it plays out.

 

[Desert_Power]

Love the wisdom at Warner Brothers to roll out this stupid Max app (bricking their old one) the week of this big finale

 

[Ilov80s]

Tremendous episode, wrapped it up beautifully

 

[TLEF316]

The ending they all deserved.

Roman the only one with even a sliver of happiness. Despite being an absolute mental mess, he knows he can just sit around being obscenely wealthy for the rest of his life.

 

[Ilov80s]

The ending they all deserved.

Roman the only one with even a sliver of happiness. Despite being an absolute mental mess, he knows he can just sit around being obscenely wealthy for the rest of his life.

That’s the funny part. Losing for them means making an absurd amount of money.

 

[TLEF316]

Obviously they left some of it open-ended Sopranos style. Guess I'm glad they didn't go for the overly dramatic "Kendall walks out into the street and throws himself in front of a garbage truck" ending. At the end of the day, they (Shiv and sort of Roman) decided that walking away with the money was better than spending the next 25 years following Kendall.

Roman ends up drinking alone, which is probably what he'll be doing the rest of his life and Shiv slowly comes to the realization that she's now stuck following a man (a man she doesn't love or even respect) for the sake of her child. A victim of her own delusions of grandeur and being a woman in a male-dominated world.

And Kendall a completely broken man, both professionally and personally (Roman throwing the likely idea that "his" kids aren't even his was the absolute death-blow)

 

[Ghost Rider]

I can live with that ending. Ken ends up a broken man; he has all the money he'll ever need, but has no one in his life.

Shiv ultimately couldn't live with Ken having it all and her having nothing, plus she can stay close enough to Tom to still wield some power and bring their kid into the fold many years later.

 

[Capella]

GD, Jeremy Strong can act

 

[GordonGekko]

Tom is the bumbling executive who we have all had and wonder "How the F did he ever het this job?"

If you isolate each character out of the overall narrative, the only one with progressive consistent growth is Tom. He's the one that the writing so far is indicating will eventually take over the company.
The show is trying to paint Kendall as the traitor, but the real traitor will be Shiv.

https://forums.footballguys.com/threads/succession-on-hbo.767886/post-23645699

October 13, 2021

 

[Capella]

That last scene with Tom and Shiv was awesome. Complete change in the power dynamic. She’s now Tom’s wife. He used to be Shiv Roy’s husband.

 

[Desert_Power]

Think Tom getting the company is a really cool way to end it.

Roys pretty much fumbled it. As Logan said, they are not serious people. Kendall tried to be at least.

 

[Yo Mama]

That last scene with Tom and Shiv was awesome. Complete change in the power dynamic. She’s now Tom’s wife. He used to be Shiv Roy’s husband.

Plus, Tom getting CEO and Shiv getting back together with him keeps the bloodline succession intact.

 

[Biff84]

The only surprising part was Shiv being the one. My thought was that they would finally come together only to have everyone else bail on them.

Great ending though. Letting any of them seem to win would have been a mistake. I was thinking there would be a dramatic moment or two (suicide, miscarriage, etc) but I think it was clearly better that they didn’t.

 

[Capella]

The only surprising part was Shiv being the one. My thought was that they would finally come together only to have everyone else bail on them.

Great ending though. Letting any of them seem to win would have been a mistake. I was thinking there would be a dramatic moment or two (suicide, miscarriage, etc) but I think it was clearly better that they didn’t.

I thought for sure before the season Kendall would kill himself but I think him having to live his life knowing he failed at the only thing he ever wanted is probably even worse.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Great ending. When push came to shove, the kids would sooner have the family empire taken over by outsiders than see one of their siblings "win." So they all lose. Perfect.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Kendall tried like hell to be like his dad, but his inability to rally the troops in a sense was glaring. In both the "no confidence" scene in Season 1 and last night, he was unable to get enough people on his side to win the vote.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Thinking it over, this was probably my favorite ending to a series ever. It's definitive, it all makes sense given the characters and the way the show played out, and it gives the audience a lot to chew on. I wouldn't say that this is my favorite show of all time, but I could see myself settling on the view that this was my favorite finale of all time. In particular, this show leaves me thinking about The Sopranos and Breaking Bad -- two all-time great shows that I could watch on repeat almost indefinitely -- and how much I prefer this style of conclusion to either of those.

They also deserve a lot of credit for ending this show when they did. For this particular story, four seasons was perfect. They needed that many episodes to get the character development right, and a fifth season would have been redundant/pointless. The Sopranos would have been a touch better if they had pruned the weakest season-worth of episodes to make it as tight as Succession.

 

[identikit]

'Face eggs'

 

[Dan Lambskin]

feel like if you make someone drink your spit you have to vote for them

 

[JohnnyU]

Shiv couldn't stomach Kendall beating her /thread.

 

[Ghost Rider]

In retrospect, Ken probably should have tried to win Frank back over (or one of the other "yes" voters) instead of wasting the last evening before doing a victory lap with his siblings. Trusting that both Roman and Shiv would stick to their guns and support it when push came to shove was his fatal mistake. Shiv had already shown that she was extraordinarily disloyal.

 

[Ilov80s]

That last scene with Tom and Shiv was awesome. Complete change in the power dynamic. She’s now Tom’s wife. He used to be Shiv Roy’s husband.

Cassic "keep your enemies closer" situation. She can try to spin it as she was never in the running for CEO because she wants to focus on her child. Maybe even run the back channels that she was Mattson's 1st choice and she recommended Tom, essentially the kingmaker for Tom. Then once her kid is a little older, Tom has done the dirty work and is facing trouble she can stab him in the back and go for his role. She obviously still has the romantic interest card to play with Mattson. She's in a pretty strong position longterm relative to her brothers.

 

[Ilov80s]

Shiv couldn't stomach Kendall beating her /thread.

It was the triple winning move for her. Got to screw over Kendall, made an absolute f-ton of money and is still in the loop of Waystar Royco and ATN.

 

[JohnnyU]

Shiv couldn't stomach Kendall beating her /thread.

It was the triple winning move for her. Got to screw over Kendall, made an absolute f-ton of money and is still in the loop of Waystar Royco and ATN.

I could see her poisoning Tom and try to position herself with Mattson. She turned out to be the most hated character on the show and I liked her in the beginning.

 

[dkp993]

Fantastic close to a really good show.

Here’s what Jesse Armstrong says happens to the Roy’s after the ending….

Roman Roy​

Armstrong explains that “In a reductive, brutal way, Roman ends up exactly where he started. He is that guy still. And he maybe easily could have been a playboy jerk with some slightly nasty instincts, and some quite funny jokes. He could’ve stayed in a bar, being that guy. And this has been a bit of a detour in his life, I would say.”

Shiv Roy​

“Shiv is still in play, I’d say, in a rather terrifying, frozen emotionally barren place,” Armstrong says. “But she has got this kind of non-victory, non-defeat. I mean, there’s gonna be some movement there. There’s still a lot of that game to play out, but that’s where we leave it. And it feels like it’s going to be hard to progress for them, emotionally, given the things they’ve said about each other."

Kendall​

Armstrong reveals that “For Kendall, this will never stop being the central event of his life, the central days of his life, central couple of years of his life. Maybe he could go on and start a company, or do a thing. But the chances of him achieving the sort of corporate status that his dad achieved are very low. And I think that will mark his whole life.”

 

[Chaz McNulty]

Shiv couldn't stomach Kendall beating her /thread.

It was the triple winning move for her. Got to screw over Kendall, made an absolute f-ton of money and is still in the loop of Waystar Royco and ATN.

I'm not sure about the last one. I think that shipped saield for all the Roy's.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Shiv couldn't stomach Kendall beating her /thread.

It was the triple winning move for her. Got to screw over Kendall, made an absolute f-ton of money and is still in the loop of Waystar Royco and ATN.

I'm not sure about the last one. I think that shipped saield for all the Roy's.

I agree. In many ways, Shiv ends the show worse off than she would have been if she had supported Kendall. Her only real consolation is that at least it's not Kendall. She and Ken both got pitch-black endings, which makes sense because they're the two who were most invested in "winning."

 

[Ilov80s]

Shiv couldn't stomach Kendall beating her /thread.

It was the triple winning move for her. Got to screw over Kendall, made an absolute f-ton of money and is still in the loop of Waystar Royco and ATN.

I'm not sure about the last one. I think that shipped saield for all the Roy's.

She may not have power but she’s married to the CEO and the owner still has a thing for her. She’s not dead yet.

 

[Desert_Power]

Shiv couldn't stomach Kendall beating her /thread.

It was the triple winning move for her. Got to screw over Kendall, made an absolute f-ton of money and is still in the loop of Waystar Royco and ATN.

I'm not sure about the last one. I think that shipped saield for all the Roy's.

I agree. I can imagine a world where Shiv thinks that she still has some kind of play here, but the rest of us know that she's deluding herself. Waystar-Royco is no longer owned by the Roys. They're all done. When Tom is no longer useful for Mattson, he'll be tossed aside and that will be that. This is supposed to be like Fortinbras showing up to take control of Denmark at the end of Hamlet.

Agree with the bold a lot.

Tom used this family chaos to elevate himself to a big role. Even if gets canned down the line, he'll have plenty of future opportunities.

Since half the purchase is in GoJo stock, the kids are still going to somewhat large shareholders if they keep it.

 

[JohnnyU]

Spinoff with Kendall getting revenge?

 

[phandango]

"I'm the eldest boy!"

Kendall with the absolutely most perfect line to illustrate why he deserves something -- not because he earned it, but because he was born before Shiv and Roman.

 

[JohnnyU]

"I'm the eldest boy!"

Kendall with the absolutely most perfect line to illustrate why he deserves something -- not because he earned it, but because he was born before Shiv and Roman.

He was desperate at that moment and was throwing poop at the wall. I still like him a hell of lot more than Shiv. She was someone I wanted to lose more than anyone. The last season she played the true villain to perfection and Kendall was too stupid to see it. Hell, she already showed disloyalty multiple times. Like @Ghost Rider said earlier, Kendall should have went after Frank instead of taking for granted he had Shiv's vote.

 

[dkp993]

"I'm the eldest boy!"

Kendall with the absolutely most perfect line to illustrate why he deserves something -- not because he earned it, but because he was born before Shiv and Roman.

He was desperate at that moment and was throwing poop at the wall. I still like him a hell of lot more than Shiv. She was someone I wanted to lose more than anyone. The last season she played the true villain to perfection and Kendall was too stupid to see it. Hell, she already showed disloyalty multiple times. Like @Ghost Rider said earlier, Kendall should have went after Frank instead of taking for granted he had Shiv's vote.

Frank wanted his payout. Zero percent chance he was flipping.

 

[phandango]

No, I don't normally read Cosmo, but this popped up on my Google News feed:

How Tom Wambsgans' Last Name Literally Lays Out Succession's Shocking Finale

So, turns out the folks at Nameberry are absolute geniuses.

www.cosmopolitan.com

Prior to the finale, Nameberry dropped a theory that Tom would become CEO literally based on his last name and...it came true. The website's editor-in-chief Sophie Kihm explained via TikTok that Succession's names are very intentional—for example, "Shioban's nickname, Shiv, can also refer to a knife, and the family's surname, Roy, literally means king." So basically, the writers aren't just picking names out of a hat—which brings us to Tom.

As Kihm noted prior to the finale, Tom's last name literally translates to "goose with the big belly"—but that's not why its significant. It's significant because the most famous Wambsgans in history is Bill Wambsganss—who's best remembered for "completing the only unassisted triple play in world series history."

"He took out three players at once in what is essentially the finale of baseball," Kihm explained. "It's no coincidence that Tom shares a surname with Bill Wambsganss, so you have to wonder if Tom will complete an unassisted triple play and take out all three of the Roy siblings to become the leader of Waystar Royco in the Succession finale."

Again, this video was posted before the finale—making it all the more impressive. Now excuse me whilst I go analyze literally everyone on this show's first and last names.

 

[identikit]

Love the unassisted triple play angle, but let's not forget Greg....

 

[CletiusMaximus]

Shiv couldn't stomach Kendall beating her /thread.

It was the triple winning move for her. Got to screw over Kendall, made an absolute f-ton of money and is still in the loop of Waystar Royco and ATN.

I'm not sure about the last one. I think that shipped saield for all the Roy's.

I agree. In many ways, Shiv ends the show worse off than she would have been if she had supported Kendall. Her only real consolation is that at least it's not Kendall. She and Ken both got pitch-black endings, which makes sense because they're the two who were most invested in "winning."

Also some good irony in that when she was trashing Tom behind his back, she was unintentionally describing exactly the guy Maaston wants as his puppet stooge.