#like the scene with matsson and mencken

[comfycel]

I absolutely loved how they showed that shiv is also willing to cross the line, take that mask off about caring about others and show her damn teeth in the game like when she said the line about actions got consequences last episode you'd think she'd bring down the kingdom but nope she's heading straight to the crown

#like the scene with matsson and mencken #that was something #shiv roy #succession

[toastytrusty]

so i rewatched church and state yesterday--

and i can't stop thinking about this scene. like. rome was breaking down and out of everyone in the audience it cut to lukas and then mencken; lukas looking genuinely concerned and sympathetic and mencken looking kinda amused and dissapointed. and there were Multiple scenes of it cutting directly between lukas and mencken. and after the funeral is when lukas goes to mencken to make sure he can get ahold of waystar. after seeing roman crying and knowing what kind of person mencken is. like. he Does care about roman he does he does he does roman's well being is a genuine motivator for him i'm not delusional its real it is

#romkas died and romencken was real but then romencken died and romkas is real again #romkas has always been real to ME #everytime i remember lukas' face in that scene my mind feels like its collapsing in on itself #you ever think about lukas' “i love you roman :D” from the finale. because i do #anyways #succession #lukas matsson #jeryd mencken #roman roy #romelukas #maybe i'm a little bit delusional

[endiness]

i find the idea that mencken shaking kendall's hand at the funeral was oh so significant to be so funny, though, because like. that's not even how their next scene plays out? like, mencken very obviously did not like kendall at all lol. his disdain for him was so clear. he didn't like that kendall thought he had any right to give him any input on what he says and does ("oh, i thought you were the sound system. now you wanna choose the track?") and he told kendall that he was only going to 'try' to help with the deal but he did so in way that sounded like he wasn't going to try to do anything for him at all.

#jeryd mencken #succession #!txt: succession #also honestly same thing w matsson #like mencken might've even liked matsson LESS than he did kendall lol #and he didn't seem receptive to his and shiv's deal either #which makes me wonder wtf is going on w mencken agreeing #like if matsson's not lying or mencken isn't #or tbh at this point if something hasn't been lost in translation #due to the clearly significant amount of scenes being cut esp ones that involve him

[homostacis]

An interesting thing to note is that both Roman and Shiv made the same mistake - they both tied themselves to men who promised them nothing, just like their father did. Mencken’s role as a new Logan in Roman’s life is pretty clear, and Shiv offers herself up to be a puppet CEO just like she once did for Logan (plus, the behind the scenes highlighted Matsson as a Logan-esque figure as well). The only one not caught up in replacing their father is Kendall, and that’s because Kendall is Logan - replacing him with somebody else wouldn’t be enough, anybody else would be a pale imitation for Kendall. Kendall once told Shiv, “If dad didn’t want me, I don’t know what exactly I would be for.” This is what he settles on, and why he stops trying to be good - keep your father alive by becoming a vessel for his ghost. 

#they make me ill like truly #i cant say goodbye #succession

[watchfuldeer]

“in the alternate universe where eps 8-9-10 didn’t get rewritten”

Wait, rewritten how?? May I ask? Should I?

i wrote way too much sorry

they were rewritten to include shiv being pregnant, which hadn't been written into the season until that point. everything in 8-9-10 relating to shiv's pregnancy was an extremely hasty last minute addition, which is why it made no damn sense narratively when they dropped it into the beginning of 4.04, in a scene they filmed towards the end of shooting. every person who said in the interim between s3 and s4, shiv is not fucking pregnant, was in fact entirely correct, and they didn't plan to write it at all and it sticks out like a sore thumb in terms of succession's otherwise quite delicate plotting. which is especially disappointing given the huge payoff that paying close attention had during s3.

so, it scuppered their plot big time, but they just about clawed it together, if you ignore like. every emotional beat between episodes 1-7 lol. which is a real shame! i'm sure jesse had good intentions. but yeah, that's why they were rewritten. i think 8 and 10 weren't even rewritten to a substantial degree, but 9 is hanging by a thread in terms of cohesion - it's the only episode where they had any time to put 'oh shiv is also having a baby' scenes in, and reading the scripts it's just so clear that other stuff not only hit the cutting room floor but got swept away completely. connor is pretty much a non-entity after 4.08, for instance.

as for tom and greg (and shiv and matsson, and greg and matsson, and that whole mess of a love square) i think reading between the lines there are things missing. i can't say for sure what they were, but the script books were highly edited for publication, and no way is jesse ever going to personally give me a straight answer to the question 'what was shiv's actual arc in s4, before it became She Is Pregnant', or 'why did you prevaricate in the edit on tomgreg and tomshiv to the detriment of both, but mostly at the expense of tom, which felt really weird while watching the season because where the fuck did he go'. and yet, i think the denouement for both was really fucking good. stuck the landing despite taking a bizarre, last minute route there.

but yeah, if tom and greg did bang, it was 4.09. because the final scene for tom and shiv in 4.09 > first scene for tom and shiv in 4.10 makes very very little sense for either of them. it's like something else happened for tom at the end of 4.09 than what we saw. because the beginning of the finale he's with greg like yeah we're divorcing byeeeeee, and like wouldn't that have a lot more weight if he'd done anything other than be so eepy at logan's wake, while greg was crawling on his knees for tom to mencken and had that deleted scene with ewan. wouldn't greg almost betraying tom in the finale be higher stakes if they'd slept together, wouldn't it be more obvious and devastating that tom invites shiv into the car because she's suddenly more useful as his wife because of the decision she made at the vote... i simply think it would have been delicious.

huge caveat that this is just my thoughts. just my lil ol theories and thots. i read scripts and think about this stuff alot and have kept an eye on behind the scenes shenanigans. maybe shiv slept with matsson instead! maybe greg did! idk! but there are hanging threads that were snipped imo, rather than wonky plotting from the outset.

#tomgreg #succession #anon

[transmutationisms]

roman roy... in bathrooms with men several times... piss motif? is this anything

yes definitely. i wrote some longer posts about this in my bathroom motif tag and my roman psychosexual issues tag, but here's the précis:

bathrooms on succession are places relegated to the social margins, where the characters can speak more openly/intimately about certain things, specifically things otherwise considered too taboo or disgusting to be spoken of in polite civilisation. for roman in particular, bathrooms also have a homosocial and homoerotic function: they're literally Man Club. thus, roman being cock-shy (with matsson) and coke-shy (with asgarov) are both ways of conveying his fraught relationship to masculinity, and the way he can never live up to the dominant, powerful ideal that his father expects of him. succession portrays coke as the drug that makes you act like a man, and piss is a double-edged sword: pissing on purpose demonstrates dominance, like a dog marking territory, but losing control of your bladder symbolises emotional incontinence and weakness. so, roman refusing to do coke with asgarov or to piss with matsson symbolises his impotence and the way that he makes business deals by essentially acting as a pricktease. in the mencken bathroom conversation, this coquettishness and seduction are even more blatantly displayed, as roman, acting as the avatar for waystar/the roys, literally flirts with fascism. that he does this in an ornate bathroom tells us, again, that this conversation is too disgusting to happen out in the open, but also that wealth and spectacle can pretty up even the blatant violence mencken espouses. and while all of these convos clearly play with some signifiers of cruising, with mencken this is especially important because roman is attracted to him specifically as a powerful father figure (sovereign = ceo = patriarch) and the scene is a depiction of homonationalism and the hypermasculine aesthetic posturing of fascism.

#if i get the shits we're fucked #you eat me i eat you

[secondhand-snow]

*Stalker!Lukas finds her Spotify, and them listens to all of her Playlists before he even meets her.

*I'm dreading the reason Lukas has been acting all cagey it's because he's already talking to Shiv on the side.

*Hot take: I love how Matsson dresses. It's all good quality pieces and accessories that suit his body type and his personality, even the controversial gold jacket lol. That being said, him on that suit at Logan's funeral was perfection. Alternatively, Justin Kirk in casual clothes is something to dream about. It's a shame we didn't get any Mencken dressing down for a rally.

oh stalker!lukas finds every single account online she has ever had and goes through everything on it. he listens to your sexy playlist and jerks off to it imagining you.

eeeeek!! we are the the point were canonically they start talking, so that's not an impossible theory!!

matsson's style is everythinggg to me. the way its so different than the roys and serves his character so well? he's not afraid of name brands like they are, he loves sportswear and loungewear, he never wears their trademark business casual. honestly he would want you to wear the gold jacket and nothing else while ur riding him.

i would actually combust if we saw mencken in casual wear. i already go so feral for him in the bathroom scene with roman, with his sleeves all pushed up and the top of his shirt unbuttoned. i feel like he'd love a polo shirt, very country club esque.

#asks #succession #lukas matsson #a body of impulses #jeryd mencken #snow's headcanons #stalker!matsson

[brookheimer]

been watching the trailers and there’s at least like 2 episodes we have no content of yet i think. like there’s what i’m calling the house party scene/ep (matsson in animal print jacket, nate appearance, tomshiv balcony argument), the politics scene/ep (connor debate, rome asking afterwards if he can quit bc mencken, sibling brunch in very white background, gerri threatening to sue roman, rome getting drink w shiv), and also the mencken roman scene which could come anywhere im not sure. but yea nothing that looks like a funeral at all, for one thing. ik jesse said ep 8 is the shocking one so i wonder if it’ll drastically change things such that showing extended moments from last two eps wld be spoiling

#there are small moments that cld come from later episodes - rome at protest ken in water etc - but all the dialogue and srtuff seems like #it’s mostly up until episodes 7/8 #idk tho this is pure speculation #succession #succession spoilers #i guess #succession speculation

[tomwambsmilk]

Who do you think is getting it on in episode 7? I feel like it's Matsson, no idea why. Maybe him and Shiv. They look kinda flirty in the stills, and the mid season trailer.

Wait, has there been a specific leak about someone banging in episode 7?? Or are we just assuming this is what the title "Tailgate Party" is about.

Without any additional context... yeah, I can see the argument for shivlukas based purely on that mid-season trailer. I'm hesitant to go all-in on it though... there's something about it that just rubs me the wrong way? I'm not even sure what. I think a lot of it has to do with how I perceive Lukas Matsson as a character... I just feel like any sort of shivlukas thing would feel slimy to me, maybe even more than romelukas? I think because the idea of Roman having some kind of interest in Matsson was set up in season 3, whereas Shiv has always had a lot of disdain for Matsson, so them suddenly getting it on would likely be purely due to the emotional turmoil she and her sibs are feeling in the wake of Logan's death, which makes it icky to me in a way romelukas wouldn't necessarily be. Not in a bad-writing way, just in a.... gah. I don't know. I want better for her.

romelukas and romanmencken have been tossed around enough I feel like I need to throw them out there, although I think romelukas is more likely. I think an explicit Roman + Mencken sex scene isn't really necessary for what the writers are trying to get across in the Roman-Mencken dynamic. I also think Mencken is homophobic. There's absolutely no textual evidence for this, he just seems to me like the kind of guy who would be homophobic. So if it's a Roman sex scene it's probably romelukas (I keep thinking about the Georgia Pritchett interview waaay back when they were writing season 4 when she said they'd been discussing Roman's sexuality recently. Why?)

Honourary mention to kenstew and tomshiv and tomgreg as options as well. Of all of those, I think tomshiv hate sex is probably the most likely. But the truth is - I don't know! People don't actually have a ton of sex on this show, and when they do it's for VERY specific narrative and character purposes. I think this is where I keep getting stuck - I'm not at all sure where the season is going to go, and what the key themes and character developments would be, so it's hard for me to really nail down any kind of prediction.

#asks #anon #I guess this is kind of the boring answer. I dunno #I'm hesitant to make predictions in general atp but predicting who's going to bang also feels particuarly... dicey #I don't know! I don't! We don't have enough info for that yet I think

[catinfroghat]

About THAT succession filming location

Possible spoilers for season 4 below!

Succession was filming a funeral scene and there's been a lot of speculation about whose it could be.

Characters present on set: Kendall, Logan, Shiv, Roman, Connor, Greg, Karl, Frank, Hugo, Karolina, Matsson, Mencken, Sandi, Sandy, Jess, Willa, Colin

Not seen as far as I know: Tom, Gerri, any of the Pierces, Rava, Sophie, Iverson, Marcia, Ewan, Cyd, Kerry, Stewy

Top candidates:

Ewan

Pros: he's Catholic so the church would make sense, he wasn't seen on set, Greg's inheritance could come up again

Cons: why would a proud Scottish-Canadian have a funeral in New York? And I don't buy that he would be notable enough for all the characters plus paparazzi to be present at the event

Naomi

Pros: 4chan leaks suggested that she dies, possibly of an overdose

Cons: the Pierces are not Catholic and none of their family were spotted on set. These leaks seem false for other reasons too

Logan

Pros: seemingly the only character with connections with all the people seen on set, his failing health has been the subject of the entire show, also Catholic and is likely to have a large ceremony due to his fame

Cons: Brian Cox was seen on set, however it could be an open casket funeral. If there is a season 5 it may be difficult to keep up momentum without him. Some characters you would expect to be at his funeral were not seen e.g. Marcia, but they may have just not been spotted

Sandy

Pros: is already on his last legs due to syphilis (?). Also could give Sandi a chance to rise in the ranks

Cons: casting notices when they were filming at a funeral home last year were looking for a Stewy stand-in who would be "comfortable pushing a wheelchair" which suggests Sandy is still alive. Plus it's doubtful that he had connections with all the characters on set such as Matsson

Tom

Pros: would be kind of funny

Cons: I think Matthew Macfadyen is just very good at not being spotted in public tbh. Also I don't think Tom is notable enough to have a huge funeral like the one they were filming

Conclusion?

Idk... maybe Logan if I had to guess or maybe someone random

#sorry it's fun #succession #succession spoilers #tasha talks #s4 predictions

[holdoncallfailed]

tbh the more i think about it the more i'm convinced that succession WAS originally intended to have five seasons and that the third season was definitely written with two more seasons in mind...there are SO many plots they need to conclude and i feel like it's becoming very rushed in the last episodes of the 4th season...i think s4 was originally going to be focused more on matsson/shiv's alliance with him + ebba somehow getting involved as a callback to the scene where shiv intimidates the woman who was going to testify against cruises (maybe this could have paralleled with the dissolution of roman and gerri's relationship? which i feel like they kinda biffed)...they've been drawing out the matsson stuff for WAY too long at this point. roman and kendall's incompetence running waystar is just too much especially with roman firing people all willy nilly and kendall seemingly not realizing what ATN's whole business deal is?? like i get that they're supposed to be helpless without logan but it feels almost cartoonish how inept they are so i would have liked to see that incompetence revealed more slowly. i think the original plan was: logan still dies, ken + rome are still interim CEOs and shiv is still cut out, matsson deal falls through, s4 ends with logan's funeral and the throughline into s5 is the election (i think they're doing a bad job of balancing the matsson and mencken stuff and i would have liked to see the election get its own focus) and shiv's pregnancy. s5 allows the siblings to fully reckon with their OWN successors (i.e. kendall's children [which feels so shoehorned in] and shiv's baby) and the future in general through the lens of the election, the idea of cycles, legacy...i think it would have been funny if kendall was named CEO and then he killed himself so the ending would be them realizing they have to start the whole process over again lol. well maybe not "funny" but interesting especially if it was paralleled with the birth of shiv's kid cos of the whole trapped in a cycle bit...

omg i sound like a tjlc truther rn with a whole made-up 'lost' season in my head nooooo i swear i'm normal. jk the bbc is going to leak the secret 5th season of succession next year i just know it

#succession spoilers dfgewgerer #succession #text

[newsom]

i've been stewing on this all day (i.e. word vomiting into my multiple succession group chats and into my gf's ear in real life) and i need to get it out so here it is. 800+ words of unedited finale predictions and reasoning under the cut LOL

i want to preface this by saying i was greg neutral in seasons 1-2 and a greg hater since season 3 and i have always thought people who've been saying since the beginning that he'll end up on top were deeply unserious lol. for seasons 1-3, imagining that endgame would only have been the punchline of a corny joke because his character at that time was a) mainly comedic, and b) one of the few "innocent" characters with morals and ideals (as in the scene where he tells tom he doesn't want to work at ATN because he's "against racism"). for the vast majority of the show he has been too decent, too goofy, and too easily dismissed for him to realistically wind up on top.

as many have noted greg has been particularly useless and detestable this season and has no more fun plot lines and i honestly could never figure out why but now i think it makes narrative sense. because it's only at first glance that he's been a useless do-nothing this season - what he's really been doing is cozying up to power like never before and getting more conniving and evil with every episode! that's why we've been looking around and thinking man, greg really fucking sucks these days. it's been happening under our noses. he's become absolutely corrupt with power, he'll fire hundreds of people and feel no remorse, he "looks like he cares but he doesn't" - all of these things needed to happen in order for him to be a suitable character to end up CEO. and now he's got a very deliberate in with matsson, who both likes greg and is in need of an american CEO who will be an easy puppet. his stupidity and pliability used to discredit the notion of him as CEO, but now it's the thing that makes it perfect because he's exactly the kind of person matsson needs. shiv is too willful and too pregnant, and narratively she needs to get fucked over by matsson just like kendall and roman got fucked over by mencken. AND, narratively greg needs to not remain irrelevant this season. otherwise people will look back and be like, wtf did they do with greg? why was he even there? the only way it will make sense for him to have become so shafted and unlikable this season is if he winds up CEO. plus we need payoff for the complete 180 he did in matsson's esteem, going from the inbred habsburg fuck to "hey sexy" !?!

i also think that pre-season 4 the idea of greg as CEO was not only a joke but completely at odds with the tone of the show, which is a tragedy and was always going to end in tragedy. but now, CEO greg IS a tragedy, imo, about the different ways in which power corrupts… the poison doesn't just drip through via family and abuse, it can also be willingly drunk, people who were relatively healthy to begin with can still become sick with it! no one is immune.

i used to think it was obviously going to be kendall doing the whole winning-the-crown-oh-but-at-what-cost thing, idiot with his hollow crown never breaking the cycles etc etc etc. the writers and actors referencing richard III in relation to this season has been a big hint pointing at that. but kendall got what he wanted early on in the season, such that the hollow crown thing has been characterizing the whole season this entire time. it feels too obvious now for that to continue to be the case through the finale. i think instead it's going to be like, he did get what he wanted at the cost of his soul, yes (the perfect example being the dissolution of his relationship with his children as a direct result of his helping mencken win the election), but ultimately it didn't last and he got fucked over again in the end. like, the only punishment worse than kendall selling his soul for the throne is him selling his soul for what is ultimately nothing!

ultimately the three siblings will still win-but-lose, just not the way we thought. now instead of winning-but-oh-at-what-cost, they'll lose both the crown AND everything they sacrificed to get it. thus they are left rightfully miserable, but maybe just maybe by not becoming CEO they still ultimately won? do you see what i'm saying? they don't make it out of the cycles over the course of the show, none of them are the final girl (that's connor), and we will never see them thrive outside of waystar, but them being out of the company at the end means there's a possible version of the future in which they become better. win but lose! we just won't know if it'll actually pan out that way bc the show will be fucking over.

one last thing i'm thinking about is that if greg winds up CEO, logan's penciled "greg?" comment suddenly becomes incredibly sick foreshadowing. ok i'm done now

#good lord

[karmajam]

maybe im crazy but i think while roman's bridge with mencken is burning, there's still a little tether from matsson to roman. did anyone else feel that same thing when they cut to matsson during roman's eulogy breakdown? matsson looked at worst confused and at best. surprised or even a little bit moved? sympathetic for him or something? and there's been this thing others have mentioned with matsson making roman shed his showman persona (while mencken has been adding fuel to it), so it would make sense for matsson to be drawn to like. the second ever emotional eruption of roman's he's been witness to. but there's just the finale left so. im doubtful that it'll go anywhere from here. just found the contrast between matsson and mencken in that scene really apparent and interesting.

#roman roy #succession

[akajustmerry]

why roman with matsson specifically and not eduard or mencken?

i mean........................i think roman and jeryd in that bathroom in 'what it takes' is the gayest scene in the show. like. there isn't really a hetro explanation for the way it's shot, the way they're looking at each other or the way they both walk out of the bathroom after. obviously, its part of the whole business is sex ethos at the core of the show but it's also so fucking gay. thing is i rlly am just trying to have fun and i don't even want to ironically post about a neo-nazi for fun even if he is just fictional. as for eduard, he and roman were very cute, but he also lied to roman and nearly got him killed by insurgents so, you know, when it comes to the roman roy boyfriend agenda i kinda gotta put my eggs in the romatsson basket by default. i am aware there are also tomromans but why would i support that grubby undeserving man fucking up a relationship with ANOTHER roy sibling??

#anon #succession

[zalrb]

This is kinda random cause it’s been a while, but I still kinda don’t understand how I feel about the Succession finale and I can’t get it out of my head. The first half was good, 10/10, and the second half just left me confused (maybe that’s on me, not denying that)

Like firstly I didn’t expect Mencken to actually agree to Matsson’s proposal because they previously emphasised multiple times that he had connected with Kendall ideologically (while Roman’s breakdown made him fall from grace), unlike with Matsson who didn’t impress him at all?

Matsson offering the position to Tom caught me off-guard, but the thing I most disagree with is probably Shiv’s ending. I just cannot stop feeling like she’s in that position purely bc someone on the writing team romanticises that rich white woman “suffering”, “got mommed” and all. Like. I don’t know, it’s just a feeling I get every time I see those scenes. Like I logically get why Shiv wouldnt wanna back Ken, but when there’s Tom whom she felt very wronged by as of late on the other side?

Anyway fingers crossed for an Emmy sweep and hopefully you have a nice week ahead.

Honestly, the general reaction to Shiv's ending reminds me of the general reaction to Daenerys' where there's all this confusion or outrage or "it doesn't make sense" and I'm just here like

her choosing Tom is her power grab, there's no way she'd be able to do it herself, that's been repeatedly proven so the only way she could do that in this world is to do it as Tom's wife. She feels as if she'd have more access to power in that way than she ever would've with Kendall in charge, I just feel like that's peak Shiv, and I'm not really sure why there's such a hard time seeing that personally.

In terms of Mencken, my whole take on that is politicians will say anything to get ahead, they make false promises all the time. I felt like the point was that the Roys are all pawns but don't realize it because they all think they're the smartest person in the room. Shiv schemes on behalf of Mattson without any real leverage or guarantee that he wouldn't stab her in the back -- and guess what? he does. Roman thinks that he and Mencken are bros and that everything's locked up and guess what? it isn't. We don’t actually know that he’s ideologically aligned with them just because he says is. Mattson and Mencken both playing the Roys and seeing what they can get from the relationships they've created with them without actually having to give anything in return. That's why they're Serious People and the Roys are not.

[thinkatoryprocess]

Any finale predictions or hopes?

Prediction: Roman winds up very badly hurt or dead (not by his own hand), Kendall and Shiv are split on whether to attend the board meeting or the like, Kendall goes while Shiv stays, horrified at Ken's choices. Kendall vs Tom, and Tom claims American CEO due to working Mencken and Matsson behind the scenes. Possibly, Matsson just demolishes any Roy folk at the board meeting and wins outright, cutting all of them out.

Hopes: None of that. But seriously, I just want Roman to be okay. I really don't want Tom to win, either. Kendall winning isn't exactly preferable with the way he's been behaving, admittedly. But mostly I viscerally can't tolerate the idea of them offing Roman. This will hurt a lot.

#succession spoilers