Succession Spoilers - Blog Posts

I will say I am so fucking glad we get to finally see some of shiv's rage this season. it's been blubbering under the surface for the entirety of the show and it's finally coming out, slowly, in small increments but it is. but it's still really fucked up how even now, even after everything that's happened, everything that's been done to her, there isn't really a response there from other people, mostly. when she loses her shit at tom on the phone this episode because he FUCKED HER OVER, he doesn't even acknowledge it, it's just 'I don't know what you mean, I don't know maybe Sara made a mistake. I want this to be amicable' literally gaslighting her and making seem as if she's the crazy one for freaking out after he did this to her. same goes for her outburst at the karaoke bar. no one really knows how to respond and she's just left with this ever-simmering rage, that, if she lets it out, proves to everyone around her that she's just the hysterical woman. and if she doesn't it just eats her alive without anyone even taking fucking notice

thinking about "everyone hit me I was annoying" and how all the violence we've seen between the siblings involves Roman. likely because they saw their own father "beat him with a slipper until he cried" just for ordering lobster (though I think the real reason Logan targeted Roman with so much violence is obvious at this point), thinking about how they claim he liked the violence too because it became so normal for them that it was mythified into a joke, into something so unremarkable they claim not to remember. Roman's pain is a joke at most, something for Kendall to use against Logan when Kendall chooses to acknowledge it all. so, he tries to beat them to the punchline, beat them to the insult, to the abuse with loud vigour, but sits quietly in fear when there's no garuntee someone won't hurt him and deny it if it goes wrong. Roman isn't going back to Logan because he has some hope Logan is changed. He's going back to Logan because Kendall and Shiv assumed he would. Not only did they not trust him, but they threw his greatest pain and shame in Logan's face, not out of a sense of justice, but just to spite Logan. He's going back to Logan because he knows to expect that kind of unpredictable cruelty from him and so it hurts less than staying with Shiv and Kendall and getting it from them. He's not going back to Logan looking for denied love, he's gone back because he's given up on believing anyone in his family can give it and better the devil you know.

tom wambsgans line deliveries that are always rotating in my head

the thing about Shiv is that she will only feel secure in a relationship if she’s the dominant one but - at the same time - she won’t respect people who are submissive to her. When she married tom, she felt secure but she didn’t really respect him - she didn’t see him as an equal. Now that he sold her out to Logan, she’ll respect him but she won’t ever feel secure with him again.

Yeah, but merger of equals? Like… No such thing. Always a top dog, right?

SUCCESSION ↳Prague (1.08) | Chiantishire (3.08)

tom wambgans telling his assistant he wants to marry him then trying to baby-trap his wife mere days later is why hes one of the fictional characters of all time

this episode really gets you to sympathize with basically everyone except logan. you see that roman and connor actually care that the letter would hurt kendall and therefore abstain from signing it despite the possible wrath of their father. you feel for how embarrassed and upset and angry shiv is after she is undermined yet again and her big moment is stolen from her by a strategic nirvana song. you learn that connor stepped in to take his younger brother on a fishing trip that roman has had to substitute for a happy memory of his father because he never gave him any. you feel bad for kendall as he hides himself away in a server room while the whole world reads an incredibly hurtful statement from his own sister. you’re made to watch as roman tries to improve his father’s image by expressing affection publicly (something he was asked to do) before logan himself calls him a slur for it. even tom has his moments, as you worry about his potential incarceration and see the increasing loneliness he feels after greg doesn’t show up and his wife appears to be at least partially in support of him taking the fall for her father and heading off to prison. idk man you can just see they’re all just sad and scared and want love from people who do not know how to (or won’t) give it to them.