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16 hours ago, Liquor and Poker said:

I think it's hilarious.  Tons of examples of pure comedy to me.  Here are just a few I thought of:

Shiv saying she's not declining, she's just not "clining."

Kendall telling Frank "Get your hard-on out of my soup."

Ronan saying during the proxy fight that "I can promise you that I am spiritually and emotionally and ethically and morally behind whoever wins."

Kendall saying his dad's speech could be "Drool.  Antisemitism.  A string of silk handkerchiefs."

Tom telling Greg "Of course you can trust me! To a point!"

Greg selectively shredding the cruise docs while saying "This saves the day" and "The other goes away." 

Ronan as the turkey in the amusement park telling the couple that they obviously don't have sex.

Then there's the running gags, like that Tom snowballs with a girl and brags about at his bachelor party, then Ronan starts dating the girl to spite him.  But he can't have sex with her - he can only get off to the general counsel telling him he's a piece of shit.  Or Connor the idiot spending millions on a presidential run while he lives with a callgirl and roleplays the Napoleonic Wars.  Or Tom in general.

All of this.

The show is certainly more drama-centric, but it's also quite hilarious when it wants to be.

The show is really hitting its stride right now.  It's so good.

P.S. The actor who plays Tom is absolutely killing it this season. I expect that dude will start showing up in stuff all over the place because he's fantastic.

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I haven’t watched the latest ep yet, but count me in the group that recognizes this as a comedy/business intrigue/family drama.hybrid, and they’ve never tried to mask it as anything else. I think it’s one of the most consistently laugh producing series on the tube. Greg and Tom are a fucking comic treasure as a duo. 

Vulture has a nice piece on the comedy aspect.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/08/is-succession-a-comedy.html

Quote

The baseline comedic feature of Succession is the simplest one. It is funny. It is peppered with jokes and absurdities, everything from the Vaulter headlines, to the Roy family insults, to the conceit of Cousin Greg’s presence in the show at allSuccession is often funny in the way slapstick can be funny, a humor that relies on the primal Schadenfreude of watching someone else get hurt, even if the pain in this case is nearly always psychic rather than physical. But it’s also funny in the way of satire, a more puncturing, slicing kind of humor. This is the humor of Cousin Greg asking, with concern, whether a news network should maybe not lie, and then being told to “man the fuck up” because this is not “fucking Charles Dickens world.” It’s the humor of Kendall announcing that Vaulter’s only profitable sections are “food and weed,” which is why they’ve each been assigned an editor and five interns. It stings, but it also earns a snorting laugh.

 

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2 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

Shiv shit the bed figuratively and Kendall shit the bed literally tonight.

And I watched those Gerri/Roman shenanigans through my fingers.

The daggers that the maid was shooting to Kendall as she was taking out the presumably dirty bed sheets was hilarious

Edited by Haphap
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10 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

Shiv shit the bed figuratively and Kendall shit the bed literally tonight.

And I watched those Gerri/Roman shenanigans through my fingers.

 

Shiv over played her hand and clearly pissed off her dad. As for the Gerri/Roman stuff I don't have a problem with it but they need to be careful as they are tiptoeing the line. 

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Really surprised at how shitty at the game and insecure Shiv has been this season. After watching her broker a deal with her Senator and dad on her wedding to save her husband and position her boss for the general election, she’s just fucked up everything she’s touched.

How hard is it not to insult someone at that cocktail party after you’re told how important it is?  Play your dad’s game. She didn’t and now she (and Tom) are likely proper fucked.  

Oh and the Roman + Jerri stuff is super creepy and disturbing 

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Unpopular opinion:  I don't like Shiv.  She's smug and arrogant.  So I am enjoying watching her eat a ration of shit.
Also, while she is striking of face, there's a hefty chonk about to splode out that gal.

Rewound during that walk of hers to point out her fucking giant ass to my wife. It didn’t look real
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The debate about whether this is a comedy set me to thinking (what the hell is Goofy?).

It's whatever the Big Short was, without the benefit of real-life events and characters.  Comedy superimposed on srs bidness.  Everyone seems to think that big business is serious and intellectual and it is frequently anything but.

That it's a family-owned business with all the pathology that the children of the very rich (among others) exhibit, make fertile ground.

Dramedy doesn't seem to be a sufficient term.

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2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

The debate about whether this is a comedy set me to thinking (what the hell is Goofy?).

It's whatever the Big Short was, without the benefit of real-life events and characters.  Comedy superimposed on srs bidness.  Everyone seems to think that big business is serious and intellectual and it is frequently anything but.

That it's a family-owned business with all the pathology that the children of the very rich (among others) exhibit, make fertile ground.

Dramedy doesn't seem to be a sufficient term.

It’s a voyeuristic parody of Fox News and Murdoch family.

Everyone wants to imagine they could be the one riding in the helicopter, that they are so fucked up makes it almost possible.

 “Hey, they’re just like me and my brothers.”

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Two episodes ago, after meeting with the Pierces, Tom remarked something like, “What a weird family!” Might have been strange or odd, but the subtext was obvious. The Roys have everyone topped on the weird/strange/odd scale.

And I’ve felt this way since perhaps the first episode, but I’m 100% certain that when the final episode of this series airs, the person sitting at the top of the Succession won’t be Shiv, Kendall, Roman, Tom etc., but will be Greg “Call me Gregory” Hirsch.

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12 hours ago, Incredulity said:

It’s a voyeuristic parody of Fox News and Murdoch family.

Everyone wants to imagine they could be the one riding in the helicopter, that they are so fucked up makes it almost possible.

 “Hey, they’re just like me and my brothers.”

There's a Sumner Redstone angle going on, too.

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Have there been any indications that I've missed over the last 1.5 seasons about the ages of the children?  There was an obvious reference to Logan turning 80, so we can assume he's about 81.  Connor is 63 in real life, but let's assume he's supposed to be about 55 on the show...Logan having him around 25 when he was just getting going which is reasonable.  Rest of the kids make sense, Kendall in late 30's, Roman in mid 30's, Shiv in early 30's.  Making the gap between his first and second marriages rather long.  And him being a slightly older father during the second brood.  Just curious as it mirrors and matches (and sometimes does neither) real life tycoon ballads.  

Show really went from a high production value summer stopgap to being the best show on television, IMO, rather quickly.  

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The second one.

And Rhea played her like a fiddle.

Throwing Shiv completely off guard by acting like she was seeking her approval to fuck her dad so her offer of help RE the Pierce CEO job just seemed like her trying to get in good with her lover’s kids.

Shiv thought Rhea was angling for Marcia’s job - the wife. Not realizing she’s after much a bigger job - Logan’s.

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Shiv didn’t - she got set up.

Rhea made the offer and Shiv hesitated and ended the conversation with “let me think about it”.

Rhea floated the idea to The Pierces and probably leaked it to competing media. Nan took the opportunity to crow about it to rub it Logan’s face.

Logan - who knew what Rhea was up to - used Shiv’s “disloyalty” and possible collaboration with the enemy as the reason to cut the strings on his promises to her about her being the successor.

Shiv didn’t do anything but have lunch with Rhea and listen to her pitch.

Shiv got played. Hard.

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Shiv didn't get played, she got fucked.  She didn't agree to sit for the Pierce job -- she was intrigued and maybe flattered but hardly gave Rhea her blessing. 

Logan knew what Rhea was doing and was happy to use the deception to pull back the CEO job.  I was surprised Shiv didn't at least fight back a bit.  She'll probably come after her Dad now.

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Yeah he is terribly degrading to old friends and extended family, lords over his sons with every type of deception, And commits numerous Felonies and immoral corporate behavior on a regular basis.....but yeah, telling shiv to wait a few more years is just beyond the pale for him.  

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Yep it had nothing to do with Shiv’s feelings, it was all about him not looking wishy washy.

And Shiv, Kendall, and Roman are definitely gonna team up and fuck up Rhea, with an assist from Marcia.

Whether Logan ends up as collateral damage remains to be seen.

And remember the subtext of Kendall’s warning to Logan about “looking like the old foolish man” - that’s going to be foreshadowing. But it won’t be Rhea that does that to him directly - it’ll be his own damn kids.

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But who knew she was tapped?  No one except Shiv and Logan.  If it was well-known that she was tapped, why would Pierce have tried to make it a condition?  It would have been "accelerate the change of power," not make Shiv CEO.

It's not that big a deal, just an inconsistency.

Also, how pathological was the Logan/Romulus scene?  "Because I would never do that."  

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Yeah Shiv’s meltdown at the Pierce dinner ended any secrecy.

“For fucks sake Dad, just tell them it’s me.”

And once Nan Pierce told Logan to fuck off, no way that hot little piece of gossip wasn’t getting pulled out by every person in that room at every Manhattan cocktail party and Hamptons clambake.

“And then the loud daughter just up and declared she was taking over; much to the shock of everyone named Roy! And then her father didn’t back her up! It was a disaster! And considering how he undercut the oldest son when he was tapped as the heir, Logan Roy cannot seem to make up his mind. And not for nothing, I get the feeling he doesn’t even like his kids!”

And at least one of those guests - Nan herself most likely - would likely call a friend of a friend of Stewie or Sandy and the story ends up as a very obvious blind item in Sandy’s tabloid.

Just like the “Logan Roy Bullied A Poor Waiter To His DEATH!!!” story did.

Which, incidentally, is probably exactly what Rhea did with the “Shiv Roy Is A Candidate For The Pierce Media CEO Job” story.

Y’all are thinking too much like regular men.

My history with Deep South sorority and Junior League politics have served me well.

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