Everything I know, I know
My therapy homework last week was vaguely to connect with others so I’m trial running some recent moments of connection here before taking it back to the chair. On a night out last week I could not stop telling people that I was ‘impervious to suffering’. I got caught up in two men (they were each their brother’s best friend AND their best friend’s brother - or something) arguing which one of them was more grouchy. I tried to help but they turned on me, crowned me ‘the grouchiest’, and left. I’m not grouchy I’m impervious to suffering I whispered.
I met a man celebrating his fiftieth wedding anniversary at the pub. I complimented his scarf and asked him what look he was going for and he said sex pest. He’s given me his email because he wants me to edit his book on ecology (it’s a sequel, I’m not qualified).
In probably the most erotic experience I’ve ever had in an airport, on the way to Riga I asked for a stamp for my hot choccy at Caffe Nero and the barista took out a fresh stamp card, looked me in the eye, stamped it nine times and told me to enjoy.
ENOUGH ALREADY!
SUCCESSION DON’T READ IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS
Coup vibes! When I walked into the kitchen after watching this episode my housemate said I looked ‘genuinely haunted’. If Philip Roth were still alive he’d be all over this shit, getting some handsome principled dad to yell about fuckin fascists whilst his neurotic teenage son jerks off to ATN news and a woman somewhere does something saintly or grating.
This episode was the show. I was never rooting for any of them (don’t want to get bullied on twitter) but I did love it when the sibs hung out and got along I can’t help myself I’m a human girl! Now there is no more love and I want to watch them all crash and burn but I guess that’s what we get: victory for characters we hate over tragedy for characters we grew to love. I’m finally ready for this show to be over because that episode made me ill.
One thing I loved was getting to see a big night at ATN. We’ve spent four years hearing about her but this was the first time we got to hang out with her and she was toxic company! Night at the news! It’s like we know the thing they’ve been fighting over all season is grotesque but sometimes you’ve got to see it to be able to stop mentally calling Kendall Roy babygirl.
Mencken’s literally chilling speech was such an interesting little word potion - sometimes folksy, sometimes biblical and poetic. I've never been to church (I'm cunning men in the marketplace haggling for the best price TM) but I've recently read Gilead so feel qualified to say he's giving fascist American Reverend energy. Awesome!
Decision Desk Darwin/Rory Stewart lookalike did not hesitate one second to leave his principles in the dust for the chance to become a chartthrob. That girl wants his own electoral college fancam.
Kendall was such a little nothing but on a global scale of political terror. He’s self-aware in a delusional way. He’s knows that what he might have to do goes against the idea he has of himself as the good guy, but still, through most of the episode he was frozen, waiting for the players around him to make enough choices that his feels irrelevant. Maybe the poison drips through maybe I’m going to be just as much as a terrible father/person that my father was and its not really my fault MAYBE. But also MAYBE NOT KENDALL. Ultimately, he’s wanted what he’s always wanted and being a “fuck the patriarchy” guy was just another way to get it and feel worthy of anything when Logan was still alive. He’s finally ready to shed his good guy skin and take what he believes is rightfully his.
Kendall is a man who has had therapy and doesn’t deserve it. He’s been given the tools to talk about his emotions and does so re his feelings about enacting A POLITICAL COUP. Ken admitting to Shiv that perhaps an underlying feeling of jealousy around his brother’s relationship with Mencken was playing into his choice to help a fascist take control over the country is when you realise the self-care industry has gone too far. Kendall’s grief person should murder him. IMAGINE how awful it would be to be Kendall’s therapist: So I uh yeah well the thing is is I uh I want the fascist to be my friend not my brother’s friend.
(Sidenote: even more obsessed with Ken’s business lexicon recently - ‘feels kind of sweaty’??? ‘too much peanut butter between us’??? how do they WRITE this.)
Roman working through his childhood trauma of never getting to eat steak because Kendall wanted to eat chicken by determining the future of the world was peak Succession. This episode he was the worst person you’ve ever had a conversation with but again on a global political scale. Every decision these characters make is so incredibly selfish, entitled and driven by their own feelings of worthlessness and not eating enough steak. But this is the first time we’ve felt the real world consequences so viscerally and on such a large scale.
Shivvy absolutely fucked it by threatening Greg instead of fetching him a rum and coke. She's having a bad night and I can relate to stammering in the face of a man's incredibly annoying argument. I thought last week that Shiv and Tom had said all the meanest things they could but I was wrong! Tom asking if it was a play :( everyone is broken vibes
That whole scene watching Ken call Nate and then pull Greg for a chat made me want to be sick - horrible moment of exposure that we get from Shiv’s pov. Like all three of her brothers she ruins everything too this ep because she can't stop acting in her own self interest. I hope the twitter girlies keep making girlboss fancams of her to taylor swift songs anyway.
Poor Jess tryna process/delay the onset of fascism but unfortunately up against someone who famously seems like he cares but he doesn't care.
All mentally unwell Succession stans know that they had their first table read on the day of the 2016 election which if I’m honest is an insane day to have a first table read. The cast went to Adam McKay’s (monologue guy) house for an election party where they expected to watch a Clinton victory but got a Trump upset. Not Jesse Armstrong frantically writing in his diary about how he was going to make it real.
byeeeee xoxo