It is the Succession finale.
A random guy's guide to making the most of this sacred day.
Although the sun is now setting in the late evening, the days are an annoying kinda warm that exists on the periphery of sweater weather, though the clout lemmings are officially over it in regards to the business of snapping endless selfies near the cherry blossoms. The rain is no longer snow or sleet, and when ceaseless downpour arrives, the rats and pigeons are dancing in the streets. All of this makes spring in the city sound pretty grim and thwarted, admittedly and contextually, but the expanding days and sprouting leaves have given way to a vibrant sunny weekend. In a broader vibological sense, today and under the technicolor sky, we are taking the city back from both ground and aerial vermin.
Within the last few weeks, I have succumbed to my lesser impulses by inundating you with some political rants, for which I am mildly embarrassed and deeply apologetic. Now in the absence of Serious Things to discuss, I will allow that kind of discourse to devour itself elsewhere, messily and noisily and with the most appalling manners.
We shall instead focus on this roaring and endless present.
There is no hard-and-fast scientific metric for this sort of thing because various inexplicable activities are presented as highly important exemplars of extremely significant traditions. With that in mind, enjoying a beautiful Sunday comes in many faintly different flavors. But if you seek a bulletproof formula, then indulge me by following my vestigial sense of knowing what the fuck I’m doing.
Loop a fanny back around the right shoulder and strut somewhat aimlessly through the neighborhood until we reach a specific kind of hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant—it is imperative that this particular establishment has an outdoor patio that looks like it could be the dugout of a little league baseball team. Order a spicy mezcal margarita with a salted rim and served in a plastic cup. Request a second margarita, and once you’re halfway through, it’ll seem like there’s a third one coming. On this special day, however, we will overcome our latent shame-related reflexes, and order the check before this Sunday slips away and downward a walleyed-drunk spiral into pure fervent incomprehensibility.
While day drinking remains somewhat legible and meaningful, I have a tendency to engage in berserk and inscrutable ritual weirdness. In this instance, by popping into a plant store to ask questions like, “How much light does this Old Lady Cactus Need?” Of course, I don’t buy any plants, but I will type that answer in Notes and save it for another weekend.
At this point, we will be vibing at a frequency attuned to other jacked-up cheek-by-jowl humans. This means it is high time to return to our criminally overpriced apartment, slip out of those jeans, cozy up on the couch, and dick around on our phones for two hours. Of course, this time will not go to complete waste, because we will also order Thai food during this mindless Instagram binge.
By some strange cosmic coincidence, the arrival of Pad Thai and green curry chicken will arrive seconds before the ping of beautiful notes as the Succession theme song unfolds. In the reality of a broader situation, many people are heatedly perplexed and weirdly wrong about pop culture and entertainment, but when we forget about the extraordinarily bleak Twitter shit, we will be briefly glum that this is the final episode of Succession.
Then, maybe in the interest of self-care or self-preservation, we will turn to our window and gaze upon the swirly pink and blue and yellow sky. As we squint at the last flickers of sun-setting beams, we say to ourselves, “Life is pretty chill...”
Semi-Related Sidebar
Earlier this week, I made a list of my favorite 25 TV shows of the past 25 years along with some honorable mentions. It was a fun exercise that sparked some lighthearted debate along with quality recommendations.
If you want to partake, tell me what I got right or wrong, or let me know what’s on your list!
I didn't say that. I'm following your writing because it is largely good, reflects a lot of talent - but I wrote today because I saw in your piece what I often see in my own - call it lazy writing, failure to proof and polish, being distracted and 'not finishing' the job. I fail on that front more often than I can to admit, but I'm regularly more vigilant and self-critical. If I didn't feel you were worth it, I wouldn't have invested the time to write, to read, to await your next piece.
I can see from your writing that you know to write, but do re-write?
Do you edit?
Do you spell-check?
Do you read what you write?
If I (and others too, because I am not your only subscriber), am giving your writing the investment of my time, it would be good to know whether you can write better than this piece.
Aside from that, what is my takeaway message supposed to be here?
How am I to understand your point or your point of view here, if it isn't clear.
Please try to do better, and I'll try to make the time to read you - but, seriously, you need to do better than this if you expect my time, and far better if you expect me to subscribe and pay you?
Cheers,
Mark
p.s. I've become a Succession fan as well. The acting does not always measure up to the writing, and maybe I'm looking for 'Murdoch insights' that aren't intended to be there. I expect, as Hollywood and streaming world executives are prone to do, another season will be driven by viewer popularity, 'when will the writer's strike end', and available of the key actors. I'd like to see the writers stretch to 'what might be' for the characters and the family.