”We’re going to need a blood sacrifice.” Logan’s words to Shiv as the penultimate episode of Succession‘s second season ended can’t stop playing through my head today. This season, we’ve seen how ruthless the patriarch of the Roy family can be, perhaps becoming even more ruthless as he begins to slip due to age and health.…

What makes Succession such a standout show is its ability to do a lot of things well. Series creator Jesse Armstrong has given himself enough flexibility to have episodes that favor over-the-top comedy, extravagant hijinks, self-reflection, or—as in this week’s episode—extreme emotional wounds taking center stage, and the show still feels like itself. In Succession S2E7, we…

Succession has always been a show about an empire needing to change its guard. Way back in the pilot episode, we saw Logan hospitalized and panic ensue as nobody knew who was truly next in line. Since then, the show has been about the aging emperor clinging tightly to his power, denying his need to plan…

Every week I ask myself, how can Succession top last week’s episode? There has to be a cooldown, a slowing down of the action, so we can build to the crescendo in the season finale, right? Still wrong. Succession S2E5 saw the Roy family meet an alternative reality version of themselves in an episode that gave us…

I didn’t know if Succession could top how hysterically dark “Boar on the Floor” was. I didn’t know if they could top how truly heartbreaking it was to watch Kendall take a seat at the table in his dad’s office. Hell, I didn’t even know if they could top Season 1. But every week so far, Succession has pushed…

Succession might feel absurd at times until you realize how absurd the world really is. I’m starting to wonder if that’s the point of the show: to get us to look at the kind of people who are running the world, to get us thinking that in every boardroom of every major company there is a…

Before I get to Succession S2E2 week, I’ve long had this theory that the second episode of any season of television should be graded on a curve, regardless of what the show is or how long it’s been on. It’s by far the hardest episode of the season to write. In the premiere, you have the luxury of…

HBO’s Succession returned this past Sunday, coming out of the gate strong in the premiere episode of this sophomore season. Succession S2E1 was written by showrunner Jesse Armstrong and directed by Executive Producer Mark Mylod (Game of Thrones, Entourage), Succession hit on many of the beats that made the first season such a pleasure to watch, all while feeling fresh…