Follow-up Election Day Episode was about consequences (2023)

Spoiler Alert: This article discusses details ofSuccessionseason 4 episode 8.

Who is responsible for Jeryd Mencken claiming victory at the end of 'America Decides', the penultimate episode ofSuccessionfourth and final season? Maybe it's the Menckenists or, you know,whoever it waswho burned down a Milwaukee vote counting center with 100,000 absentee ballots that would almost certainly have favored Jimenez. Perhaps this is because Roman gets too close to Mencken, or because Shiv goes behind his brothers' backsGoJo, or because Kendall craves power more than she wants to be a good parent - or because all three of them aremourn your fatherwhiletry to provethey can live up to their gargantuan legacy. Perhaps America can thank Tom for his cowardice or Greg for simply following orders. Hell, maybe Mencken is about to take over the White House because Ken's preference for fried chicken kept Roman from eating steak as a kid.

No matter how you split the blame, the Roys deserve a lot of credit for putting Mencken where he is at the end of Election Day. (Unlike ATN, I'm not going to assume he's won until we know how the Wisconsin situation is resolved...Successionit was never a happy show.) Family guilt barely starts with Tom and Greg at 5 p.m. Check in. This goes back at least to Mencken's anointing by Logan as his GOP primary pick midway through the third season. But really, I think we should see the probable rise of a neo-fascist to president as the culmination of the work that began decades ago with the creation of the Roy media empire. "America Decides" explores the wider potential ramifications of the bitter corporate-family power struggles that made the show so entertaining. And it's a case study of how the world changes slowly and then suddenly.

The night starts normally. It's busy, sure. "I have PGN on my left and FVA on my right," Tom complains to Greg. "I have to deliver the best election numbers ever because my bosses want to rip my heart out as a peace offering for everyone who comes." He is also sleepless and restless becausehe and shiv had a "tailgate party"last night in their penthouse, where they were involved in the worst fight of their marriage. Ken calls in with the public exhortation, “There must be gangbusters tonight… The market is watching. First Super Bowl, how are we going to do without the king?" Still, Tom's expectation seems to be that, annoyances aside, Roy's children will follow their father's tradition - and a fundamental tenet of journalistic integrity - and steer clear of ATN while the votes are counted.

Sarah Snook emSuccessionSeason 4 Episode 8 "America Rules"

Macall Polay—HBO

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To that end, Darwin, the head of ATN's decision desk, offers a measured pre-game analysis tailored to the network's Mencken audience. "Our first reading would be: closer to what research suggests." He also warns that privileged information leaked while voting is still in progress could cause problems. Tom supports him: "You heard the man - close him." But Darwin is unaware that Tom is furious at the news that Greg has earned Matsson's trust and seems to know more about his wife's channel with the Swede than he does. (Aclassic wambs gooseline: “Information, Greg, is like a bottle of fine wine. You save it, save it, save it for a special occasion and then smash someone's face with it.") Soon he and Greg will be getting ready for the long night of cocaine sniffing behind a whiteboard.

The Roys also seem ready early on to let the ATN team "do what they want". A turning point is the news of voter suppression. In Florida, vehicles that Shiv calls "Nazi vans," but which Roman dismisses as "fun buses," claim to transport voters to the polls, but instead allegedly left at least one child on the side of the road. Then there's the Milwaukee Fire. Nate asks Shiv to get ATN to cover what is almost certainly the act of extremist Mencken supporters seeking to destroy votes in a staunch Democratic district of a crucial swing state. "Who's Watching the Watchmen?" encourages Nate. Shiv: “Who watches the guards? I want it. Thus begins our weekly tragic hero arc. She's the Roy who gets into ATN's coverage first - setting off a chain reaction the results of which will have her horrified. There is a painful irony in the fact that she puts her privileged finger in the balance to save democracy. On the other hand, his intentions were never entirely noble. As Shiv tells Matsson, a Jimenez win would be "good for democracy, great for us".

In America as a whole, Election Day is a battle between a rank-and-file Democrat and a right-wing populist the likes of which the country has never seen before. (It's funny: I didn't expect itSuccessionIt's to depict 2016 more than 2020. But it makes sense when you consider that the show debuted in 2018 and creator Jesse Armstrong clearly went into it with a vision of what it would parallel contemporary politics.) But within the offices of Waystar Royco, is a battle between established liberal Shiv and nihilistic edgelord Roman. "Nothing matters, Ken," he tells his brother later in the episode. "Daddy's dead, and the country's just one big pussy waiting to get fucked."Sensitive as can beRoman has repeatedly demonstrated to those closest to him that he has no empathy for ordinary Americans. Violence has been done to him and he wants to inflict it on people he considers inferior - now that he grieves more than ever for Logan.

So, naturally, Roman is drawn to Mencken, a powerful surrogate father figure who can give him the tough love he craves. He pays Jeryd a friendly visit. Then he agrees to divert the ATN's Wisconsin story from Menckenist shenanigans and preemptively call the state to Jeryd. To that end, Roman gives a fiery ATN personality some incoherent talking points that basically boil down to Ken's "all your guns will be female" joke from last week. He strikes a deal with Schrödinger chairman Connor - who has had enough of filming for no one and now fantasizes about life in Europe as a less-influenced ambassador - to bow to Mencken, whatever that means. (Con's very awkward concession speech is a highlight of Alan Ruck's performance: "It turns out I'm a billionaire. Sorry. But honestly, America, you've failed. I guess you're going to have to find another poor idiot to suck up to. "...")

When ATN has to decide whether to call Wisconsin for Mencken, as its competitors on the right have already done, or wait for the state to determine what to do with the burned ballots, which would be the responsible course of action, the Roys have spent hours in and out of the ground. The idea that Tom and Greg have the authority to keep "bronze" off the "battlefield" has always been laughable. Only Logan could have done that. And it's not far from the ATN floor to the room where Roman announces that he, Tom and Darwin are going to make the big decision "together". Darwin, who appears to be on the verge of having a panic attack, negotiates to put the situation in Wisconsin into context on air, alongside a graph clarifying that the conversation is "pending," when wasabi gets into his eye and Greg — iconic — try washing it down with lemon-flavored LaCroix. (Another unwitting accomplice of Mencken: bodega sushi.)

Adam Godley, left, and Kieran Culkin atSuccessionSeason 4 Episode 8 "America Rules"

Macall Polay—HBO

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In the end, the casting vote belongs to Ken. From an ideological perspective, he agrees with Shiv when she reminds him that "Mencken is the nightmare... He says mean things. He believes the bad shit. Unfortunately for her, Mencken is also much more morally flexible than her friends in the Jimenez campaign. Jeryd agrees to no-holds-barred terms to put the regulatory kibosh in the GoJo deal in exchange for ATN calling the election for him. Desperately, she pretends - perhaps because she knows this kind of shady deal isn't will work with the Jimenez people but certainly because she secretly wants the GoJo deal to happen - Nate calls to see if the Democrats are willing to trade a win also for him some extremely specific reform measures for the technology industry.

Already at this point, Ken is torn between a conscience that tells him that Jimenez will create a better future for his children and the monstrous ambition that has plagued his soul for as long as he lives. Now he tasted power, and the taste ofreal success at work with your Living+ presentation, and he has trouble withdrawing. “Sometimes I feel like I can do this. Like I should," he tells Shiv. "Mine. Just me." He also says, "I don't think I'm a very good father." It even occurs to her that agreeing with Mencken would mean selling her children for her career, just as her father did. “Maybe the poison is running out,” he muses.

Who knows what he's going to decide when he calls the Jimenez team, catches Shiv in her lie and finds out they've been behind and on Roman's back with Matsson the whole time? Her betrayal gives him an excuse to make a selfish choice, even if it means putting a right-wing troll in the White House. It is the second time in one night that Shiv, convinced that charities justify underhanded means, sows the seeds of her own demise. (Lest we forget, she finally told Tom she's pregnant, too.) Watching Mencken talk, Ken concludes, "He's a man we can do business with." You can tell he tries to convince himself more than anyone else.

It's his brothers who articulate the consequences of what they just did, plus the Roys, ATN, Waystar and GoJo. "We just had a good TV evening," explains Roman. "Nothing happens." (I can't be the only one who heard an echo in this rationalization from CNN defending WednesdayPredictably catastrophic Trump City Hall.) Shiv, who has been a principled proponent of democracy but also a selfish, undemocratic traitor to her family, remains shocked. "StuffTo dohappen,” she emphasises.

If "America Decides" really is an alternate universe reenactment of Election Day 2016, then we know she's right. Ken's ambition and Shiv's duplicity and Roman's anger and Tom's cocaine and Greg's lie and the steak and the chicken and Roy's father issues and the empire Logan has built all his life as those around him struggled to understand what he wanted and why he wanted it. wanted - it all boils down to a demagogue on a podium pretending to America that one of its elite families didn't just decide to put it there for its own selfish reasons. "Don't we sometimes even long for something clean in this polluted country?" asks Mencken, in a speech Steve Bannon would be proud of. "That's what I hope to bring, not something nasty with compromise." There will surely be many more lies where this comes from.

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