Uncategorized – Page 10 – The Arts Are Life

My first love

I remember the first time I got in a relationship. We were both in Sarnath, a city in India. To be honest, I wasn’t even going to India to find love. I was going there to study about Buddhism. It was a college program where we took courses in Buddhist studies and learned about Tibetan and Indian history and culture. We had an academic exchange with students from Tasmania and Australia. It wasn’t my first time meeting people from Australia. There was a young woman in my high school who was born and raised in Australia. However, I have never been to Australia or Tasmania, so it was a new experience getting to spend three weeks with people from Australia and Tasmania. The guy I fell in love with was named Tom (I withheld his real name because I still love and respect this man even though he is my ex, and I don’t want him to slap a big fat lawsuit on my behind when he finds out I am writing about him. Thanks for the sunglasses, by the way, Tom.) Tom was a tall, blonde man with scraggly hair and a very relaxed demeanor about him. As someone who is asexual, meaning I don’t experience sexual attraction, it was hard for me to pick up on the kinds of cues he was sending me. But honestly, it wasn’t love at first sight for me. Tom and I just started hanging out in a group and would often participate in group conversations, with very little indication that we were going to one day become a romantic couple. Honestly, I wasn’t even looking for a boyfriend at the time, but it was a sort of inconspicuous benefit that I wasn’t expecting to happen. I had fallen in love with a guy who was in my cello class in college. Over the summer, I agonized over whether he would text me back and often fantasized about us getting together, marrying and having children. However, when we came back from the summer break and talked about our summers, he told me he had spent time with his girlfriend. I was a little taken aback and a little heartbroken, but I moved on with no hard feelings and figured it was for the best that he already had a girlfriend because I wasn’t really ready for a relationship yet and needed to focus on my senior thesis research that year. I’m glad I was chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo at the time because it helped me keep a high life condition even when I was experiencing all this agony and heartbreak over unrequited love.

Anyway, back to Tom. Tom and I had a lot of great conversations during those three weeks in India, and I didn’t start getting closer to him until the last week of the program. We had gotten back from a weekend trip to Raj Gir, Nalanda and Bodh Gaya to visit Buddhist pilgrimage sites, and the night we were leaving to go back to the campus in Sarnath, our bus got stuck in traffic and we ended up hanging out on the bus for two hours. In between chatting it up with the other participants in the program, I chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo that we would get home safely. Finally, after two hours, the traffic let up and we were able to go on our merry way back to campus. We didn’t get back until midnight, but the chef at the campus had made us this delicious vegan tortellini soup and bread. Let me tell you, I chowed down on some Tibetan bread during my time on the program, and it was one of the best things I have ever eaten. We hada jar of peanut butter for the American students and a jar of Vegemite for the Australian students. I had made this general assumption that all of the Australian and Tasmanian students loved the Vegemite, but Tom surprisingly said he was never really a fan of Vegemite. Anyway, we inhaled the soup and the bread and then went to bed to get ready for classes the next day. The next day, I found Tom and I spending more time together than usual. We had gone from being acquaintances to being friends, and I’m glad it worked out gradually the way it did because I wasn’t ready to rush into anything, so I’m glad Tom and I got to know each other first before getting into anything serious. Soon, we were getting to be closer than friends. I didn’t know if anyone could feel the palpable romantic chemistry, the rush of oxytocin through both of our bodies, but that chemistry was there, and it was very much alive and well. Tuesday evening, we gushed over our favorite artists, and he led me to the steps outside and we listened to tunes on his iPod. He introduced me to artists I didn’t know, even for a music lover like me, such as The Cops, Buddy Guy and Hilltop Hoods. I didn’t know many Australian musicians before the trip, to be honest. In middle school I discovered Sia’s music, and in college I discovered Iggy Azalea’s music, but that was about it. Tom had me listen to a song by The Cops called “Out of the Fridge/ Into the Fire” and a song by Hilltop Hoods and Sia called “I Love It.” I pretty much fell in love with his playlist. We bopped our bodies and heads together as we jammed to “Super Freak” by Rick James and had a quiet contemplative moment as we listened to “Done Got Old” by Buddy Guy.

Wednesday things started to heat up a little more, and pretty soon the tension was palpable. We had gone into the city with a friend to get henna tattoos, and we were very innocently enjoying each other’s company, and then by Wednesday evening, Tom and I were feeling that chemistry crackle! It was midnight and everyone had gone to bed, but we stayed up and kept talking until the wee hours (how the professors didn’t bust our asses, I have no idea. They kept a pretty tight ship.) We crept downstairs to the lobby area and hid under the desk at the entrance, and then we talked and talked about our childhoods and I just was so vulnerable with him about my life, and he just listened so well. Tom and I peered into each other’s eyes, and then we pressed our henna’d palms against one another. He led me up from the desk and we danced in slow motion in the center of the lobby. Just two individuals in love. Then at approximately 1:00 AM, he took off my glasses, put them in his breast pocket with a small smile, and kissed me. A million electric currents surged through my body at that moment, and I kissed him with even greater intensity. Our lips danced in sync with one another, and I could feel the warmth of his body against mine. Even though I had nary a drop of alcohol in my system, I was so drunk and giddy from all this love and excitement. It really did feel like I was in a fairytale and this man was my knight in shining armor, here to save a hopeless romantic, a damsel in distress. As Barbra Streisand once sang, I was a woman in love, and I was going to do anything to get this man into my world. I remember one evening lying on Tom’s lap. The mosquitoes were buzzing around in the night sky, and one of them hummed in my ear. It was loud and it startled me, so instead of spending quiet time lying in my boo’s lap, I was instead flailing around, swatting this mosquito away. I really do miss the scent of his Bushman bug spray on his tanned beefcake Australian body. I remember his fingers exploring my curly black hair and the kisses we stole from each other’s lips.

I was so drunk on love and excitement that it made our last day together that much more painful. I felt like I was wallowing in grief; I could not stop crying. I didn’t want him out of my embrace for one second. The girls on the trip sang “I’ll Fly Away” as the Australian and Tasmanian students boarded the bus for the rest of their trip. We Americans would leave the next day to go back home. Tom blew me kisses from the bus and I cried even harder. My fellow American participant, Ramy, rubbed my shoulder and gave me a sympathetic smile, like, “It’s ok to feel sad about this.” All I wanted to do that evening was curl into a ball and cry and heave and break down from not being with Tom anymore. I’m glad the girls had me hang out with them the rest of the evening because I was in so much despair at that moment. They asked me about the time Tom and I met, and honestly telling them about Tom and I was healing. Over the course of our final week, I wanted to keep private about my relationship with Tom, but this being my first relationship, I was experiencing so many things at once that I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about it. My friend, Grace, at the time, shouted from the rooftops that I was in love with Tom. I should have told her to not tell anyone, but I didn’t. Everyone knew Tom and I were a couple, and they were eating it up. I remember some of my close friends were a little taken aback though that I had gotten in a relationship, and I felt bad because I felt like they weren’t happy that I was with someone. But maybe that were just my own insecurities.

I think at some point in the course of our long-distance relationship, though, Tom and I had to call it quits. After several exchanges through Facebook Messenger (the cheaper option) and international phone calls (the much more expensive option) he stopped responding to my messages around 2018. I was confused and wondered what was going on. This went on for a whole year, and I was stressed but I also didn’t have time to be too stressed because I already had a lot on my plate. I was doing a lot of SGI Buddhist activities, working full-time and taking cello lessons, so agonizing over Tom had become less and less of a priority as time went on. In 2019, I deleted my Facebook. I think this was around the time of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and also the killings of two Black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. I was just overwhelmed and needed some time away from the site, so for the second time I deleted my account. I continued to chant about the situation and Tom’s absolute happiness, and after a year he reached out to me via email, noticing I wasn’t on Facebook anymore. He figured I had deleted it due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal (which I had, among other reasons) and he wanted to check in. By this point I had pretty much moved on and was willing to keep in touch as a friend. However, after a couple more email exchanges, we lost touch for good this time. It was closure. And it ended in the most painless, most respectful way possible, and I have every reason to appreciate that.

Movies I Have Watched So Far

I am gearing up for the Academy Awards, which is coming up this Sunday, so I am trying my best to cram in as many movies as I can before the awards ceremony. To be honest, I haven’t made time to watch all of the movies. I’m still trying to finish up Killers of the Flower Moon, but to be honest, it is really intense and during the first hour and a half I found my stomach getting pretty queasy. But I had to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo about how I was feeling after the movie, and I realized that it wasn’t the director’s job to make me feel comfortable. This was a very disturbing movie about the Osage murders, and the murders weren’t pretty, so it would be a pretty big “fuck you” to the Indigenous community if someone watered down the history of the Osage murders. I haven’t read the book Killers of the Flower Moon yet unfortunately, but after watching the first half of the movie it reminded me that is why I need to study history, especially Native American history. I remember we studied about it in history class, but that was several years ago and that class flew by pretty quickly, so by the time I graduated I had forgotten most of what I studied. Also, it’s one thing to read a classroom textbook about white settlers’ exploitation of Indigenous peoples, but the thing about movies is that those images stay with you for a pretty long time. My experience watching Killers of the Flower Moon made me think of when I was in my junior year of college, and the summer before school started, I was reading a lot of reviews about the film 12 Years a Slave. Many people said it was harrowing to watch, and so when my professor put the film on the curriculum for the class to watch, my stomach dropped a little, and during office hours I expressed my reservations about watching the film. I ended up watching the movie after he gave me a very no-nonsense reality check about the movie, and I ended up watching it four times because I wanted to study and analyze the movie. Looking back, I think watching it one time would have sufficed considering my sensitivity threshold when it comes to violence in movies, but as distressing as it was to watch Solomon Northrup’s trauma unfold within the first ten minutes of the movie, from the minute those white men got him drunk and had him shackled in chains to the moment he left the plantation after twelve years of being whipped, prodded, beat, strung up in a tree and called the N-word, the acting was very spot-on and the film score was brilliant, beautiful and gave me chills.

A couple of weeks ago, I did watch Maestro, a Netflix movie that actor Bradley Cooper starred in, directed and produced. Honestly, I cried after watching it. At first, I was ambivalent about watching it because it received a lot of push back from people. Bradley Cooper had to put on prosthetics to look like the Jewish composer, Leonard Bernstein, and considering the history of Hollywood casting non-Jewish actors to play Jewish characters or real-life people in biographical dramas and other movies, I can see why it received some pushback. However, I read somewhere that Leonard Bernstein’s children didn’t mind that Bradley Cooper, who isn’t Jewish, was playing Leonard Bernstein. As someone who loves listening to classical music as much as I love playing it, I really appreciate that they made this movie. I don’t know a lot of movies where classical musicians, conductors or composers are the main characters on the big screen. I haven’t seen Amadeus, but I remember watching TAR with Cate Blanchett and thinking, Oh, man, this is the year for classical music! We’re not just playing on the film score; we’re actually acting! The girl who played Lydia Tar’s love interest in the movie is a real-life cellist named Sophie Kauer, and in general I was just happy to see a film about classical music. During the film Maestro, I remember getting goosebumps when Leonard conducts the orchestra in a performance of “Adagietto” from the composer Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. It was a beautiful performance and it really tugged at my heartstrings. I really loved that scene because it reminded me of when I was in my senior year of high school, and my orchestra played the “Adagietto.” It was honestly the highlight of my senior year because it is such a beautiful piece, and it challenged me as a musician, especially because it is a long piece and requires a lot of control when playing it. The cello part has a lot of whole notes, and the piece has a wide variety of sounds and colors, from the soft to the deeply intense. It is also hard to play in tune, and intonation has always been a pitfall of mine when playing the cello, so it really forced me to have a keener ear when working on the piece. As someone who feels intense physical reactions when I hear music, I remember while playing the piece during rehearsals I would often get teary-eyed because it was such a moving piece. The movie Maestro also reminded me of TAR because both of these conductors were members of the LGBTQ community. Of course, Leonard Bernstein was a real person and Lydia Tar was a fictional character, but it was encouraging to see not just representation of classical musicians on screen, but also classical musicians who identified as LGBTQ. I also saw the actor Gideon Glick from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in Maestro; he plays Tommy, a young man who Leonard has an affair with. In TAR, Lydia finds herself falling in love with a cellist named Olga, which puts a strain on Lydia’s marriage to her wife, Sharon.

I am currently watching The Holdovers with my family. I really wanted to see this movie because Da’Vine Joy Randolph won several awards for her performance in the movie, and I also really loved the trailer. So far it is a really good movie, and it has some heartfelt moments. Over the weekend I watched an animated feature called Nimona, which stars Eugene Lee Yang of Buzzfeed and The Try Guys, actress Chloe Grace Moretz, and Riz Ahmed. It was a really excellent film about a shapeshifter named Nimona who becomes a sidekick to a knight who is framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Nimona has a sharp wit and also kicks butt. I don’t have the stomach to see Chloe Grace Moretz in her earlier film Kick Ass, but I was at least able to see her kick ass in a PG-rated setting when I watched Nimona. I really resonated with Nimona’s struggle of being different and not feeling like you belong anywhere, and how it can put you in that dark place of despair sometimes because you don’t fit in anywhere and want to be accepted for who you are. I really appreciate the LGBTQ representation in this movie, too.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards 2024

On Saturday, I watched the Screen Actors Guild Awards. I saw it a couple of years ago, and I really loved it, and I didn’t want to miss out this time, especially because I was bummed about missing the Emmys. Honestly, I’m glad I didn’t miss it, because after a historic writers strike last year that lasted from July to November, it was time for me to pay my respects to all the writers, producers and actors that work hard every day to produce the shows I love. Of course, I also watched it because I love seeing the people getting dressed up. And because I love movies and TV. Honestly, it made me wonder what it was like actually being at the awards ceremony. It seems so glamorous to me as an outsider, but I guess this reminds me of when I went to Los Angeles and had this glamorous idea of how it was going to be. I thought I was going to see celebrities just walking around, but I didn’t end up seeing celebrities and that was probably the best thing, because I would have tried to disrupt their day to get an autograph and they probably wouldn’t be too thrilled about that. I remember talking to the Uber driver while we were going through Sunset Boulevard to get to the place I was staying, and I was feeling so intimidated that we were going past all of these famous people’s homes, and he told me that at the end of the day, celebrities are just human beings. And I’m glad he said that, because I didn’t want to keep walking around thinking that Hollywood was this glamorous thing and that actors just came out of the womb reciting lines from memory. I think watching interviews and Variety series like Actors on Actors helped me see that the people who recite these brilliant lines of dialogue and get inside the minds and bodies of these characters are people with families and bills to pay. Of course, I love entertaining my little fantasies about being at these glamorous awards ceremonies now and then, because I enjoy daydreaming.

There were some really powerful moments during the ceremony. Barbra Streisand received the Lifetime Achievement Award and delivered a speech about her love of movies and acting and how important the work of actors is. I haven’t seen many of Barbra Streisand’s movies, and I have only heard a few of her songs, so I have a lot of catching up to do, but hearing her speech reminded me why film is such an important medium. I’ve learned from watching these movies and television shows that film is a really powerful way not just to entertain, but also to gain more insight into the human experience. The human experience is complex and full of emotions: joy, sadness, grief, anger, fear, love, gratitude, the list goes on. I really admire that there are people out there who can convey various human emotions, play different characters, and share stories that resonate with people from all walks of life. I remember doing theater briefly in middle school, but I ended up sticking with orchestra. I wasn’t all that great at it, but I still loved going to plays, musicals, and the cinema and watching other people do it. I think that is why I loved The Fabelmans, because it gets into the mind of a young filmmaker who is trying to chart his own unique path in life amid societal pressures and the pressures of growing up. I was curious about how these people got into filmmaking and how they became so good at what they did, and I feel like the secret to Sammy charting his own path in the movie was that he just kept making and directing films. He didn’t start with a big budget; he was making movies with his high school classmates. He spent hours making the movies and editing the movies, even when things got tough in his life. He managed to create something profound out of his painful experiences.

There were other great parts about the SAG awards. I was really excited when Da’Vine Joy Randolph won for her role in The Holdovers. I haven’t seen it yet, but I really liked the trailer and I love Paul Giamatti’s acting. I was also really happy when Ayo Edebiri, Lily Gladstone and Elizabeth Debicki won awards. Elizabeth Debicki is an incredible actress; she played Princess Diana in a series called The Crown. I also really loved her in the film Widows, where she plays one of the women who has to go on a heist mission after her husband gets killed. I thought Pedro Pascal’s speech was really heartfelt; I don’t think I have the stomach to watch The Last of Us (I’m squeamish about zombies and blood, unfortunately) but it was nice seeing him have a heartfelt conversation with Tan France, who interviewed the winners backstage. I was really happy when Succession won because I just finished watching the show, and it was really good. I didn’t really get into the buzz about Succession until after the show had wrapped up. The only reason I started watching it was because it won several awards and received lots of nominations at the Golden Globes, so I was like, Dang, this show must be really good. For some reason, I got emotional after Succession was over. Maybe it has to do with it being close to my period, or I’m just an emotional mess, but I just got teary-eyed. I keep forgetting that even though it’s a comedy-drama, a satire, a black comedy, it was still in the drama category for a reason. I think because I had my own personal experiences with grief this year that season 4 really knocked me out of the emotional ballpark. I haven’t seen Oppenheimer yet, but it won quite a few awards, and Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey, Jr. won for Best Actor and Best Supporting Male Actor in the Motion Picture categories. I’m curious about Beef. I don’t know much about it, but Ali Wong and Steven Yeun both got awards last night for the series and it got good reviews.

Honestly, this was a really good ceremony. I loved the conversations between Tan France and the winners of the awards. They were just so delightful and sweet. And the best part is, the actors got to make their speeches without the swear words being bleeped out because it was technically on Netflix and not live TV. If they swore on NBC or ABC, they would be bleeped out. Also, I really love the part where Billie Eilish signed Melissa McCarthy’s face. And Idris Elba. 🙂

Abbott Elementary, season 3: episode 4 (“Smoking”)

Yesterday I couldn’t get enough of Abbott Elementary, so after catching up on episode 1 (“Career Day”) I watched the latest episode, “Smoking.” In this episode, a student at Abbott is caught smoking, which caused the fire alarms at the school to go off. Apparently, there is not a no-smoking rule at Abbott. The teachers end up having a discussion about drugs in the lounge. Jacob says that smoking is bad, but Janine says he can’t say that because he vapes. Jacob argues that vaping is not as bad as smoking, and then he tells everyone that Janine does weed. Janine admits that she smokes it every night and that she needs it to function. Ava admits that she does hookah, Gregory admits he has an occasional protein-bar edible, and when Barbara tells them they need to give up the sin of taking these drugs, Melissa laughs and says that Barbara drinks alcohol. Mr. Johnson tries to chime in, but Janine sees a student has been taping the whole discussion with his phone, and the teachers confront the student about how he needs to not let the discussion become public. However, it is too late. The student ended up posting the conversation on social media, and now students everywhere in the school now know that their teachers do substances even though they told the students that substances were bad. During a lesson Jacob is teaching on the Dust Bowl, one of his students asks, when looking at a photo of the Dust Bowl, if that is what the inside of Jacob’s car looks like when he is vaping, and they laugh at him. Janine greets a student in the halls with a simple “hi,” and the student whispers, “Bet you are.” (At first, I didn’t catch this, but then I watched it again and realized the student was making fun of Janine being “high” on weed.) Barbara is teaching her students and takes a sip from her traveler mug, and a student asks her if she is drinking Pinot Grigio. The teachers are fed up, and so they find a way to clear things up with the students.

They end up enlisting the help of Tariq’s program, F.A.D.E. I honestly thought Tariq was going to show up again, but instead it’s Slim, another guy who is part of the F.A.D.E. program. Slim was deeply influenced by Tariq, and it is clearly showing in his performance. He ends up giving a really hilarious spoken word about not doing drugs, and it is very cringey for the students to watch. He enlists another F.A.D.E. spokesperson, Caroline (played by a really brilliant comedian named Aparna Nancherla), who ends up engaging the students in a very chaotic discussion about which drugs are better or worse than others. The school ends up employing a strict checking policy where the teachers have to check the students’ bags for any drugs. Obviously, this isn’t fun, and it stresses the teachers and students out. The teachers talk more about it, and they realize the best way to address this is to actually have a conversation with Curtis, the student who was caught smoking. Melissa and Gregory sit down with the student, and the student apologizes and says he won’t do it again, and that he doesn’t even like the taste of smoking. Melissa and Gregory tell him he isn’t in trouble and tell him that they just want to make sure he is being careful. When the student asks if it was his fault for having the F.A.D.E. program brought into the school, Melissa assures him that wasn’t his fault (“it’s the government’s fault) and they send the student back to class. Gregory and Melissa don’t want Curtis to be suspended, and so Gregory finds a way so that Curtis’s suspension will be lifted. When Curtis finds out, he goes into Ava’s office and gives her a hug (this was really touching).

Meanwhile, Janine also has to deal with Jessca (yes, this is actually how she spells her name) who is the substitute for Janine’s classroom. Jessca insists on the students calling her by her first name and doesn’t teach them grammar properly. She lets the students misplace commas and just has a very lax attitude towards teaching, and Janine has a problem with this. One of the students calls her Janine when she comes into the classroom, and Janine corrects him and says, “it’s Ms. Teagues,” but Jessca insists it’s fine and that nothing is wrong with her teaching. Janine confronts Barbara about Jessca, but Barbara tells her that every teacher has their own teaching method and that is fine. Barbara also admits that she wasn’t too thrilled about Janine’s teaching methods when Janine first came to Abbott because Barbara had a certain way of doing things, but after she got to know Janine over time, she came to respect Janine’s ways of teaching.

Poor Jacob had to give up his vaping pen at the end, though. The teachers cheer him on when he drops it in the trash can, but then he fishes back in the trash for his vaping pen because he doesn’t want to let it go. He ends up finding another alternative to vaping, a Bref pen, which is just straight up air (I had to look up if Bref pens were real, but I couldn’t find any.)

Succession, Season 4, episodes 4-10

So, I just finished the finale of season 4 of Succession, and it was, well, quite intense. There was so much that went on, and to be honest, at some point I had to stop taking so many notes and just watch the show. Taking notes helped because it helped me keep up with different points in the plot that I might have forgotten, but there were parts of the show that I had to watch closely, otherwise I would miss it.

There were some pretty memorable moments in this season. In episode 8, it is election day and everyone in the ATN newsroom is stressed, especially Tom, who is the head of ATN, and his assistant, Greg, who at this point is tired of taking Tom’s shit but still goes along with it. At one point, Tom yells at Greg for not bringing him coffee, and Greg asks if he wants coffee, and Tom calms down. Tom then goes to the board to see how the election results are going, and he is really stressed, so he does cocaine, and he tells Greg to do some as well. When Greg refuses, Tom grills him for doing cocaine with Lukas Matsson but asks him why he won’t do cocaine with Tom. Greg tells him that he is trying to not get addicted to cocaine, but Tom still pressures him to do it, so Greg does the cocaine. Tom then sees a bunch of sushi that Greg got from the bodega, and he gets angry with Greg for not meeting his requests for food. The cocaine scene reminded me of season 1, episode 8, when Roman, Greg, Tom, Connor and Kendall go to Tom’s bachelor party. There is a scene where Kendall is going to do four lines of cocaine, and Greg is checking in on everyone to make sure they don’t get too high or too drunk, and he checks in on Kendall. Greg sees that Kendall is going to do these four lines of cocaine, he gets worried and warns him not to do the cocaine, but Kendall tells him to leave him alone. Greg panics and then decides to do the lines of cocaine, even though he doesn’t want to, because he doesn’t want to see Kendall die, and Tom comes over and starts making fun of Greg and goading him on to do the cocaine. Greg experiences a severe reaction and panics, and instead of helping him, Tom laughs at him and tells him “Buckle up, fucklehead.” In the season finale, Tom meets up with Matsson and Matsson proposes that Tom, not Shiv, should be the CEO, and Greg texts Shiv and lets her know this. She confronts Tom and is really upset, and Tom, angry that Greg spilled the details about him becoming CEO, gets into a physical fight with Greg in the bathroom. Earlier on, whenever Tom tried to beat up on Greg, Greg wouldn’t fight back, but at this point because Greg has dealt with so much bullying from Tom, he is sick of it, so he hits Tom back. He still lets Greg stay on his team when he becomes CEO. I know the show is over, but I would be really interested to see what Waystar under Tom Wambsgans and Lukas Matsson would be like.

There is another scene in the election episode that was pretty wild. Darwin is about to announce the vote for whether Mencken or Jimenez won (Mencken is the Republican nominee, and Jimenez is the Democratic nominee) and Greg is eating from a container of sushi. Darwin has Greg move his sushi container over, and he slides next to him with his laptop. Darwin accidentally touches the side of the sushi container, which has wasabi on the side, and touches his eye and immediately his eyes start to burn, and he starts screaming. Everyone in the room yell at Greg to douse his eyes with water, but Greg ends up pouring lemon sparkling water in his eyes, which of course only makes Donny’s eyes burn even more. Everyone gets mad at Greg and this scene showed me again how Greg is always being called out for making so many mistakes in this show, even well until the very end. The election episode overall was very stressful because this year is the year of the election, and it might be kind of stressful. But it reminded me that if I want to truly feel like I can make a difference in democracy, then I need to vote. Even if there have been times when I felt like my vote didn’t matter, this episode (and real-life elections that I have lived through) reminded me that every vote counts. It was a pretty brutal moment when Mencken won the vote, and it was a stressful day for everyone at ATN.

The funeral episode, episode 9, was pretty dark, but the dialogue was brilliant. It is the day of Logan’s funeral, and also after the election results get called, people protest the election results in the streets of New York City. Kendall’s ex-wife, Rava, calls Kendall to let him know she is not coming to Logan’s funeral and that she and the kids are going to stay in upstate New York because it’s a really tumultuous day and she wants to make sure the kids are safe. Kendall drives over to her place to see if he can stop her from leaving, and when she says she and the kids have to go, he tries to block their car from leaving to no avail. Kendall not only has to deal with the stress of his dad’s funeral and Rava and the kids leaving, but also, his longtime assistant, Jess, wants to resign from her position as Kendall’s assistant. At first, Kendall tries to be happy for her, but instead he starts asking her why she is leaving. Jess says that it’s time, and Kendall gets angry and upset with her for leaving him at a really bad time. But Jess tells him that she had been thinking about resigning for a while. Honestly, I don’t blame her. Jess went through a LOT of stuff throughout the course of this show, and she tried her best to do everything that Kendall expected of her.

During the funeral scene, Gregory’s grandpa, Ewan, gets up to deliver his own eulogy, and they try to hold him back because he wasn’t scheduled to deliver a eulogy, but he does so because Logan was his brother, even with their very complicated relationship. Ewan shows another side of Logan and him that I hadn’t seen before. He doesn’t sugarcoat his feelings about Logan, in fact, quite the opposite. He says that Logan was mean-spirited, power-hungry and all around not a great guy. But he tells everyone about how Logan got sent to a well-off school when him and Ewan were kids, and when Logan came back he got polio and their sister ended up dying of polio. Logan blamed himself for a long time for their sister’s death, and their aunt and uncle made him feel like he was responsible for her death. This was kind of a touching moment because Logan never told them about it, and I think it was revealing for me because the whole time I was watching the show I wondered, Do we get any backstory about Logan? Ewan and Logan don’t have a great relationship, and Ewan is reluctant to come over to Logan’s for Thanksgiving because he hates what the Roy family has become: a bunch of money-hungry individuals who tear at each other and make the people around them feel less than. Logan is showing off some medals he has been collecting, and Ewan says that while Logan never served as a veteran, he, Ewan is a veteran, and he grills the family about being full of themselves and forgetting the importance of morals. He tells his grandson, Greg, to not associate with the Roy family because they are a bunch of terrible people, and when he confronts Logan at a conference, he tells him that their mother wouldn’t be happy with the kind of person Logan has become.

Roman tries to get up and deliver his eulogy, and he takes a few minutes to arrange and rearrange his index cards, but he ends up breaking down in tears and not being able to deliver his eulogy. His siblings embrace him in a hug, and Roman looks through tears in disbelief at the coffin holding his father, and it hits Roman so hard because his dad really is dead and is not coming back, and it is painful. Kendall delivers his eulogy, and he says that while Ewan was right about Logan not being a nice person, he tries to share some positive qualities about his dad, that his dad inspired people to become ambitious and want to achieve success, and that at the end of the day, he created a life for Kendall, Shiv, Roman and Connor. Shiv shares her eulogy, too, and she talks about the not-so-great memories of her dad, like when he yelled at her and the kids, but she also acknowledges the huge impact that he had on her life (“my world of a dad”) and gets emotional as well. There was a really interesting moment when Marcia and Kerry briefly reconcile. Earlier, Marcia kicks Kerry out of the house because Kerry and Logan had an affair together, but then Caroline introduces Sally Ann, who was Logan’s mistress while Caroline was married to Logan, to Marcia and lets Kerry sit with them in the front row. It kind of showed me how Logan’s infidelity hurt all of these women involved, and overall, it showed the very messy complicated relationships he had with the people in his life. While Gerri, Karl, Hugo and Frank are talking about Logan, Gerri asks if they actually miss him though after the way that he treated everyone so poorly. Karl and Frank try to not say anything nasty or negative about Logan, but Gerri jokes that they have “Stockholm Syndrome,” which shows how, while he was alive, Logan manipulated everyone and made them feel inferior. Ewan talks about how Logan brought out a really ugly side in people, and throughout the course of the show Logan tells people to “fuck off,” insults them and has put his kids through years of abuse and manipulation. I think that is why the grief they go through is so complex because on the one hand, he was their father and it’s hard losing a parent, but at the same time they are emotionally scarred from all the abuse he put them through.

Roman at this point has adopted a very nihilistic view on life, and there is one scene in episode 9 where he leaves the funeral reception and goes out in the streets, which is blocked off to make way for anti-Mencken protesters. The police warn him to not go where the protests are because they have gotten violent, but he ignores them and leans over the railing and shouts insults at the protesters. He goes out to where they are marching, and he pushes a few of them and they push him to the ground, leaving him with serious bruises. Kendall and Shiv ask him why he has a big cut on his forehead, and he tries to brush it off so that he doesn’t have to talk about it, and he wants to be left alone. In episode 10, Kendall and Roman share a moment in their dad’s office where Roman is overwhelmed with grief at losing his dad and not becoming the CEO of Waystar even when his dad promised him that he had potential, and Kendall gives him a huge hug. But then when Shiv doesn’t want to go with the plan to let Matsson acquire Go Jo, the three siblings erupt in a huge fight and then Kendall shouts that he is the oldest sibling. Roman ends up making a comment about how Kendall’s kids aren’t biologically his, and Kendall beats him up, prompting Shiv to leave the room. There is a brief tender moment during the course of this very intense final episode, and it’s when they are at Logan’s house (which Marcia sold to Connor and Willa) and they watch a video of their dad having a casual conversation and singing and laughing with the people on his PR team, including Kerry, Gerri, Hugo, Karl and Frank. It is a really innocent moment where they are just having fun and Logan isn’t hurling nasty insults at them, and the siblings start to tear up because it is a really touching moment for them and it reminds them that even though they had a really difficult relationship with their dad, they really miss him. Another sweet moment is when the three siblings are at their mom, Caroline’s house, and they pretend to crown Kendall “king” and make him this disgusting blended mixture of food found in Caroline’s fridge. Caroline tells Roman not to eat her husband Peter’s cheese, but after she goes back to bed, Roman, when she is out of earshot, starts licking and sniffing the cheese and him and his siblings start busting up laughing. Shiv gives Kendall the gross mixture to drink, and he ends up drinking only a little, and Roman pours the rest over his head, prompting all of them to burst into giggles. This for me was an enjoyable moment in the show because the rest of the time, they are dealing with these serious adult problems, but this scene showed them being able to enjoy this brief moment of child-like innocence where they are at their mom’s house and just goofing off.

Honestly, as intense as this show was, I’m glad I watched it. The acting and directing was really good. And the music by Nicholas Britell is amazing.

Succession, season 4, episodes 2-3

Contains spoilers.

Honestly this has been the most emotional season of the show so far. I think when I first started watching this show, I didn’t know if I was going to want to finish because everyone was really mean to each other, but somehow, I think just the acting and dialogue is what kept me hooked on this show. It’s been emotional because a major character passes away unexpectedly and the characters who supported this person are spending the rest of the season dealing with intense grief.

In episode 2, “Rehearsal,” Connor is rehearsing his wedding with his fiancée, Willa, and it’s not going easily. Kendall, Roman and Shiv are also still figuring out whether they should go through with the GoJo deal with Lukas Mattson. Logan Roy is also doing more supervising of the ATN news team, and Greg and Tom find him walking around the office in sunglasses while people scurry nervously around Logan doing their work. He gets up in front of the news crew and tells them they need to knuckle down and that he is determined to get ATN back to being a powerful media outlet. Kerry, Logan’s assistant and mistress, auditions to become a news anchor for ATN and she ends up becoming a huge laughingstock when people, including the Roy siblings, watch her audition because they think it is really bad. There is one scene where Gerri and Hugo are watching Kerry’s appearance on the ATN news network and they are laughing at how she says things and the smile that she forces, and they immediately shut down the laptop when Logan walks in. But then Logan tells Hugo to open his laptop, and Hugo is reluctant but does so, and Logan briefly finds they had been laughing about Kerry’s audition tape. Tom tells Logan that Kerry wouldn’t be a good fit as an anchor for ATN, and he has Greg deliver the bad news, which doesn’t go so well and prompts Kerry to storm out. Things are not going so well for Willa or Connor during their wedding rehearsal, and when Shiv, Roman and Kendall finally arrive late, they find Willa and ask her how the rehearsal went. She is still not happy in her engagement to Connor and isn’t sure she wants to marry him, but she doesn’t let them know this, she just tells them she is in a rush and needs to go home. Connor then tells them that Willa is uncertain about marrying Connor. The four siblings meet at a bar to discuss the future deal with GoJo, and Connor is trying to locate where Willa is.

Season 4, episode 3, “Connor’s Wedding,” is probably the most emotional episode so far. It is the day of Connor and Willa’s wedding, and everyone is focused on making sure Connor is ready for his big day. Guests are milling around and talking, and everything seems fine. It seemed Logan was doing perfectly fine early on, and he was on a plane with his crew (Frank, Tom, Karl, and Karolina) to go to Sweden to negotiate with Matsson. At the beginning of the episode, Logan calls Roman and tells him to fire Gerri, and Roman at first isn’t having it, but because he is scared of his dad and wants his approval, he ends up telling Gerri at Connor’s wedding that Logan wanted her fire. Of course, she is deeply hurt by this and refuses to speak to Roman again. However, everything changes when Kendall and Roman get a call from Tom that Logan has passed out on the plane, and they are doing chest compressions to try and revive him, and they don’t know if he will make it or not. Logan ends up dying, and within minutes the siblings have to make a statement to reporters and navigate the very complicated and painful process of grief, which is filled with shock, denial, pain, anger, anxiety, sadness and so many other feelings. Honestly, as terrible a person as Logan was, at the end of the day, it is painful losing a loved one. I think that is why watching this episode was so emotionally difficult because grief is a really painful process, and you can’t just cry and then call it a day. And on a day when Connor was going to celebrate his marriage to Willa, he faces this really shocking news. I’m sure it was hard for Logan’s PR team, too, because even though Tom remained calm on the phone with the siblings during this traumatic event, even he had to go into a private room and when talking with Greg, broke down and admitted he wasn’t okay. Even though Frank and Karolina and others on the team had to remain calm, I’m sure it was a scary moment for them, too, because no one knew that was going to happen to him. In episode 1 of season 1, Logan suffers a stroke and has to go to the hospital, and it is sudden and scary for everyone, but then he wakes up and everyone goes back to normal. However, throughout the course of the show, Logan deals with serious health challenges, and so throughout the show they have to figure out who will take over if he is incapacitated or passes away. However, even with all the preparation and talk about who will be the next successor, death is still a shocking and painful experience, so no amount of wealth or prestige could soften the blow of how painful it was for the Roy family to lose their dad.

Logan’s death hit everyone hard, and episode 4 shows how complicated their relationship with him actually was, especially when they find that Logan had drafted a will with specific instructions about who got what. I didn’t suspect Kerry of anything until this season. I just thought she just hid in the background, being Logan’s innocent assistant. But things got ugly between her and Marcia when Kerry shows up at the house to grab her belongings that she left upstairs in Logan’s room. Marcia hasn’t been to see Logan after she heard about him sleeping with other women, but she came back with a lot of pain and resentment, and so when Kerry comes and tries to go upstairs, and she is in a puddle of tears, Marcia tells her she is not allowed upstairs and that the guards give her the belongings she left. Roman tries to help her out, while Greg, who at this point has become a pretty twisted character, makes fun of Kerry and jokes, “Oh, here come the waterworks.” Kerry ends up dropping her stuff on the ground and telling Roman that she and Logan were going to get engaged, and Marcia tells her to get her shit and leave the premises. Roman thinks Marcia was being too hard on Kerry and asks if it was really necessary to kick Kerry out like that, but Marcia just says with cold indifference that she booked a cab for Kerry to go back to her own apartment. The other characters, with Logan no longer around, debate about who is going to take over, and they issue some pretty nasty insults towards each other (the insults they hurled at the beginning of the show were bad enough, but season 4 these insults seemed to cut even deeper, especially from people like Karl and Gerri.) Roman and Kendall find out that they would take over the company, but that Shiv would be excluded. Shiv has repeatedly fought the family over this, and in I think season 1, Shiv met with her dad to talk about how unfair it was that he would let Roman take over as chief operating officer and wouldn’t let her step up in her position at the company. Logan said it’s because she lacked experience, but Shiv told him he was excluding her because she is a woman. This really hurts Shiv because at some point she thought her dad had changed his mind and was going to let her take over, but it turned out he was just manipulating his children. He had the power all along and wanted everyone to go along with his long and drawn-out game. Roman and Kendall go into their dad’s office, and it hits them that their dad is no longer alive, and that they have this huge responsibility now to take over for him. It reminded me a little of season 1 of The Crown, because in season 1 Elizabeth’s father is failing in his health, and while she is in Africa on a tour with her husband, Prince Phillip, she gets a call that her father passed away. It was painful because they show her writing a letter to her father, and they show she is about to send it off, but she never gets to send the letter because by the time she does, she gets the news that he has died. She has to take the throne immediately, and it’s a difficult process because she is still grieving, but she has this incredibly huge responsibility to serve the public, and now that she is in the public eye, she cannot afford to show any weakness. It completely changes her relationship with her family, because she can no longer treat her sister, Margaret, like her sister. Her sister, her mother, and her grandmother all have to bow in deference to Elizabeth once she becomes the queen, and it also forever changes the relationship dynamic between Elizabeth and her sister. Margaret wants to get married to a man named Peter Townsend, but Elizabeth tells her she has to wait until a certain age before she can get married. She waits and waits, but still doesn’t get her sister’s approval. Even though Elizabeth tells Margaret she can try and help her, she can’t do any special favors for her sister because she is a public figure and anything she does that goes against the rules could put her reputation in jeopardy, so she ends up not letting Margaret do what she wants most of the time. This really sours their relationship.

Succession, season 3, episodes 8 (“Chiantishire”) and 9 (“All the Bells Say”)

Well, it’s the end of the third season of Succession and things are getting spicy and fierce! In an earlier episode, Roman and his siblings found out that their mom, who is Logan’s ex-wife, is getting remarried to a man named Peter Munion, who they don’t approve of because he seems boring. Episodes 8 and 9 take place in Italy, where Caroline (Logan’s ex-wife) and Peter are having the wedding. In episode 7, Greg hit it off with Comfrey, Kendall’s assistant, and got the courage to ask her out. It seems like they are enjoying the relationship in the next episode, but Greg is starting to wonder if Comfrey is actually interested in him, and he starts making eyes at an Italian contessa and tries to ask her out, but finds Roman has started flirting with her instead, so he loses his confidence. He asks Tom for advice, and Tom tells him to go after the contessa and not let Roman go after her. During Caroline’s wedding, Willa (Connor’s fiancée) starts crying because she is getting emotional about the wedding, and Greg looks back and comments to the contessa about Willa’s crying. The contessa says she loves weddings. However, he turns to Comfrey and she rolls her eyes and comments how Willa needs to get over herself, and Greg goes along with her and says Willa needs to get over it to. I am gradually seeing a transformation of Greg’s character towards this season finale and moving into season 4. I knew he had insecurities before, but I think because Tom and other people doled out enough bullying to last him a lifetime, Greg’s sense of self has taken a hit and I’m starting to see his insecurities more clearly. He started off as a sensitive guy, and he seemed nice, but I think because he has gotten enmeshed into the world of Waystar and wealth, he is starting to become hungrier for approval and validation from the people around him and is becoming less of a nice guy. It reminded me of The Wolf of Wall Street, when Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Jordan Belfort, is first starting off at Wall Street and he meets with Matthew McConaughey’s character, Mark Hanna, who is a brash, profane and macho Wall-Street guy who goads the young Jordan to have a drink with him. Jordan uses his manners and politely declines, but Mark convinces him he needs to toughen up and become this animalistic competitive person to survive in Wall Street and that he has to discard his kind sensitive nature. Jordan becomes a completely different person, and he becomes this person who cheats on his wives and sleeps with many women, swindles people out of their money and spends money lavishly. I haven’t seen season 4 to know how Gregory Hirsch turns out in the end, but so far, it looks like things are going to go south because Tom’s relationship with Greg has had so much negative influence on him.

In episode 7, Roman meets with Lukas Matsson, who runs a tech streaming media giant called GoJo, and wants Waystar to acquire GoJo. Lukas hates Roman’s father, Logan, but he agrees after Roman cajoles him enough times. However, in episode 8, things go south when Roman finds on his phone a meme that Lukas posted of him going on a trip to Macau and vomiting money emojis. It pops up on other people’s phones and when Logan finds out about it, he thinks Lukas isn’t going to be serious about the deal and is just goofing off. Meanwhile, Kendall wants to meet with his dad to make up for a really sour relationship between the two. They meet for dinner and Logan calls Iverson (Kendall’s son) over and gives him a piece of his mozzarella, even though Iverson says he doesn’t like mozzarella. In the fifth episode of season 1, “I Went to Market,” a much younger Iverson is playing the game I Went to Market, and he tries to grab the cranberry sauce can from Logan because he won the game, but Logan pulls it away from him and hits Iverson with the can, hitting him in the eye. Logan doesn’t do anything to help Iverson; he just dismisses it and gets angry when Kendall yells at him for hurting his son. Kendall and Logan get back to talking, and Logan tells Kendall that he had to clean up so many of Kendall’s messes because Kendall didn’t take responsibility for himself. He gets up and leaves, making Kendall feel even worse than before. Kendall is lying on a floaty with a beer bottle in his hand, while his kids, Iverson and Sophie, are sitting on the lounge chairs. With nothing to do, they get up and leave the pool. Kendall falls asleep and his face gets more and more submerged into the pool, to the point where he almost drowns. It was a really disturbing scene.

In episode 8, Roman and Lukas talk more about the deal, and Roman asks how he feels about Waystar acquiring GoJo, and Lukas says that he wants a merging of equals so that they can both share the power. Roman is uncertain about this because he wants Lukas to just go with the plan, but Lukas wants to know what is in it for him as well, so he makes this deal about the merger. Logan meets with Gerri, Roman and the rest of his team and asks them whether they should make the deal with Lukas because Logan thinks he isn’t serious about the deal after Lukas posted that meme of him vomiting money emojis. Roman says they should still go through with it, and Logan considers it. Throughout the show, Roman has continuously said sexually explicit things to Gerri, who is on the public relations team at Waystar, and even when she asserted boundaries and told him she was dating and that he needed to respect that, he didn’t respect her wishes and continues to act inappropriately around her. Roman finds himself in hot water, however, after he sneaks his phone under the table, takes a picture of his erect penis, and texts it to Gerri after she congratulates him on the deal with Mattson. Or so I thought he was texting it to Gerri… Roman expects Gerri’s phone to buzz with the notification, Gerri is not looking at her phone. Instead, Logan’s phone buzzes and he ends up receiving the dreaded dick pic. He is, of course, very offended, but he doesn’t call Roman out. Instead, he has Roman come into his office after meeting with Shiv, and he asks Logan why he sends dick pics and if he has a problem. In a matter of seconds, Roman goes from being this overconfident young man with sexual bravado into a scared child, and he tries to reason with his father, but his dad continues to belittle his son and dismisses him. Roman’s transformation at that moment reminded me of how Tom acts when he is around Greg versus when he is around Logan. Tom acts machismo and cocky towards Greg, but when he is around Logan, he is quiet and servile and gets easily scared when Logan intimidates him (then again, who wouldn’t? That scene where Logan makes him, Greg and Karl play “Boar on the Floor” was sadistic enough.)

In episode 9, “All the Bells Say,” we get a lot deeper into Kendall’s story and where so much of his pain and suffering is coming from. The episode begins with the Roy siblings, Greg, and Willa playing Monopoly outside on a nice sunny day, and they are enjoying the game, but then Kendall comes along, and everyone gets really awkward and quiet around him, and they start to ask if he is okay after his drowning. He dismisses it and says he is fine. Logan calls Roman over to talk with him and Lukas about the deal with Waystar acquiring GoJo. Lukas proposes that he and his company GoJo take over Waystar because GoJo is having more monetary success and engagement than Waystar is, and because Lukas doesn’t think Logan is fit to run the company anymore. However, he tells Logan it is ultimately his choice whether he wants to accept Lukas’s offer or not. Logan tells Roman to get back to the wedding while he and Lukas talk more about the negotiations, and Roman reluctantly leaves. Honestly, after watching these past couple of episodes, I really want to go to Italy. They show so many beautiful shots of the countryside, the architecture, and the food that they eat looks delicious.

Roman goes over to Shiv and Connor, where they are sitting at a table eating pastries. He tells them about the conversation that he, Logan and Matsson had, and then Kendall comes over and they awkwardly bring up the topic of Kendall’s mental health because he tried to kill himself. Kendall tells them they are being ridiculous and that he just fell off the floaty and that it was no big deal. His siblings still think he needs help, though. Connor then gets angry because Kendall is making the conversation about him when he betrayed Logan, and he tells Kendall to stop trying to kill his dad. He then gets upset that no one told him about the merger deal with Matsson, and that everyone leaves him in the dark about these issues. He is also upset because no one congratulated him on getting engaged to Willa, and he leaves angry and resentful towards his siblings. Willa is still uncertain about her marriage to Connor, and honestly, I don’t know if she is happy with this man or not.

I think the most emotional scene of episode 9 was when Kendall breaks down into tears because he is remembering the time that he killed the caterer during Shiv’s wedding in England. In the season finale of season 1, Shiv and Tom get married in England, and during a social gathering, Logan is talking with a group of people and a waiter comes by with champagne. Logan declines, but the waiter doesn’t hear him and overfills Logan’s glass. Logan screams at the waiter and fires him. Kendall finds the waiter outside, and he asks him if he knows where to find hard drugs, and the waiter offers ketamine to Kendall and they both partake in it. They end up driving under the influence, and they swerve to hit a deer and their car goes flying into the river. The waiter drowns and dies, and Kendall isn’t able to save him, and he feels guilty about it for several months. When he finally tells Roman and Shiv that is what has been on his mind for so long, Roman tries to downplay it, like “So what? It’s no big deal” and tells Kendall to get over it. Shiv, however, understands that telling Kendall to get over killing someone isn’t helpful, and instead tells him it’s going to be okay. Kendall breaks down and cries because he feels terrible for what happened to the waiter, and Roman and Shiv end up helping him back on his feet after giving him time to process what he is going through. The three of them take a van to the castle where their dad is having all these business negotiations, and they plan to confront their dad about how he shouldn’t let Matsson take over the company. Roman at first isn’t sure about going along with their plan because he is scared of his dad, but he goes along with it. Shiv calls Tom and tells him about their plan, and Tom asks how it is going to affect him. He gets off the phone, and Greg is getting so excited about the prospect of him marrying the contessa, but Tom tells him to buckle down and focus because things might go haywire for Waystar and they might be going down together. Shiv, Roman, and Kendall meet with Logan, and Logan tells them he will talk to Shiv and Roman only if Kendall leaves the room. Roman tells him it would be better if they all talked about it, and Logan tells them that he agreed to let GoJo take over Waystar. This really pains the kids, and they try to argue with him why this is bad (especially because they could lose their inheritances) and Logan tells them they can make their own pile of money and that they are on their own. It turns out that Caroline, Logan’s ex-wife, negotiated with Logan to not give the kids control over what happens at the company, even though they thought that the divorce agreement would let them change the rules around so that they could have a say in what happens to the company. The kids feel like their mom betrayed them, and after Logan leaves the room angrily, Shiv breaks down and cries and Tom comes over and hugs her. This was a really intense moment.

Succession, season 3, episode 7: Too Much Birthday

In this episode, Kendall is putting together his 40th birthday bash, and he does everything he can to make it glamorous so he can rub it in his family’s face. At the beginning, he sings (I really loved Jeremy Strong’s singing voice in this scene. It was really good!) and Naomi loves it. Kendall is really pumped about this party, but then his siblings, Shiv, Roman and Connor, crash the party and insult him with lots of mean words.

I really love the part where Greg asks Comfrey, Kendall’s assistant, out on a date. When he tells Tom he wants to ask Comfrey out, Tom laughs and tells Greg that Comfrey is out of his league, so he shouldn’t even bother trying. However, Greg has a measure of self-confidence and is persistent in asking Comfrey out. The first time, it doesn’t work and he doesn’t have the confidence to ask her out, and she walks away when he tries to imply that he likes her and wants to go out with her (as someone who is awkward and introverted, I could really resonate with this situation.) Comfrey is busy on her phone dealing with Kendall’s stuff, so she doesn’t have time to talk to Greg. Greg approaches Kendall when Kendall is riding the elevator down, and he asks Kendall if he thinks Greg should ask Comfrey out. Kendall tells him to stay away from Comfrey because she is out of his league, but then Greg says that he doesn’t think that is the case and that he has a chance with Comfrey. Kendall is dealing with his own stuff, though, so it’s the last thing he wants to think about. Unfortunately, he insults Greg and calls him a loser (he calls him worse than a loser), leaving Greg feeling disrespected. However, I think Greg’s optimism paid off because he ends up approaching Comfrey again and finally asks her out. Comfrey at this point is fed up with Kendall bossing her around and making unreasonable demands, and she tells him she had to sort something of Kendall’s (I think it was a bunch of lunchboxes) and so she tells Greg he should just ask her out. I thought it was sweet when Greg asked her out, and I was honestly like, “Oh my goshhhh, Greg!!!” Just gushing with love.

There is a scene where Kendall meets at the bar with his ex-wife, Rava, and he asks her how she likes the party. Her reaction is lukewarm, which isn’t the response he wanted because he wanted her to be dazzled. He jokes that her idea of a birthday party is too laid-back compared to his, but Raya says she is fine having a laid-back birthday celebration. Kendall wants to see Raya again, but Raya wants to move on from their marriage because she wants Kendall to get his stuff together. Kendall’s battle with addiction is a huge theme throughout the show, and no one seems to support him in his battle with addiction. His father insults him, and Shiv decides to post a letter detailing his addiction struggles on the Internet, prompting Kendall to isolate himself from others. Raya asks Kendall if he received a present that his kids, Iverson and Sophie, sent him. Kendall received a lot of presents and was too busy worrying about his business with Roman and Shiv and keeping everyone entertained (unfortunately, few people were enjoying the party), so he didn’t notice. But he promises Rava that he will check to see if he got their present. He goes downstairs, and Naomi helps him go through the huge pile of presents that people left for him, and he ends up getting really stressed out about not finding the present. Naomi tells him to take a break and shows him a present that she got him. The gift turns out to be a watch, but Kendall isn’t impressed. He tells her he likes the gift, but that he already has a watch. This leaves Naomi feeling hurt and she berates herself for giving him that gift, saying it was a stupid gift to give him. He tries to hug her, but she tells him it’s fine. He goes through all the presents and throws them all around because he cannot find the gift his kids sent him, and Naomi begs him to calm down. He finally calms down and says he needs to go home.

There is another scene where Greg and Tom are going through a maze where random people give you compliments, like “You are amazing” and “Keep doing you.” I can’t remember if that is exactly what they said, but all I know is that they were positive affirmations. Honestly, this was one of the few times in the show where I heard genuine affirmations of respect and love, because the rest of the show involves tearing people down and talking poorly about them. Greg accepts these compliments in a genuine way, but Tom thinks that the guy who tells him he is awesome is just joking and not serious, so he tells the guy to fuck off and gets upset with him. Greg has to restrain Tom and tell the guy that Tom didn’t mean to hurt him. Greg is also just really happy that Comfrey accepted him asking her out, but Tom is angry and tells Greg that it’s not okay that Greg is happy while Tom is unhappy. Tom is not happy in his marriage to Shiv; she is still on contraception even though he really wants to have a baby with her. He is also still in hot water about prison even though he found out during his meeting with Logan that he probably won’t go to prison. Earlier in the episode, when Tom finds out he is not going to prison he is over the moon, and he goes into Greg’s office and upturns his desk, throwing Greg’s stuff everywhere and screaming in joy, which scares Greg and prompts him to back into a corner. Tom then tells him that he and Greg are not going to prison, and then he kisses a reasonably freaked-out Greg on the forehead. A couple of Waystar employees walk past him, giving him side-eyes like, “What is the deal with this white boy’s office? It’s a mess.” Greg assures them nervously that he was celebrating some good news, and they just walk away, leaving Greg to clean up his mess and lift the heavy table back to its regular position, knocking himself backwards.

I think seeing Tom’s anger and jealousy of Greg’s happiness from a Buddhist perspective helped because in the Buddhism I practice, we talk about joy for self and others, which means not only that we become happy through our Buddhist practice, but we also help others around us become happy as well. I have been struggling a lot with comparing my happiness with my friends’ happiness and I begin to think my life is less fun than theirs is, which is why I had to take a break from Facebook for a while because I was comparing my life to my friends (I understand that many people don’t struggle with self-esteem issues when using the site, but from my personal experience, I found it really hard to be happy for my friends when they posted photos of themselves getting married and starting families or getting into graduate programs, and I found it hard to feel happy for them because I wasn’t happy with my own life. I thought that if I just didn’t have any problems, I could finally feel good about my life, but practicing Buddhism has taught me that problems are a chance to grow and become a better person, and through practicing Buddhism I have learned my happiness can’t just exist by itself, but it must exist in cooperation with other people’s happiness. I’m not saying it is easy, but I think practicing Buddhism has helped me create my own happiness in the present so that I don’t feel like I need to seek it in some distant future. Tom showed me this concept in Buddhism called the life state of anger, or asuras, which is a life condition where people think they are superior to others. There is a really good book called The Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra by Daisaku Ikeda, and he breaks down the concept of the Ten Worlds in Buddhism, which are ten states of life that anyone can experience at any moment. The lower six paths consist of hell, hunger, animality, anger (asuras), humanity and heaven. They are life conditions we experience in reaction to our environment. Ikeda talks about how arrogant people outwardly make look humble or fawning, but deep down they think they are better than others and they don’t want to admit that there are other people who are better than they are. Tom sucks up to Logan and acts like a humble servant, but in private he manipulates and disrespects Greg. However, a lot of his bullying towards Greg comes from deep insecurities he has about himself. As someone who has wrestled with my own arrogance and thinking that I am superior to others, it has taken a lot of Buddhist faith, practice and study for me to see that I have strengths, but I also have weaknesses and I’m not perfect. It was easy for me to be fawning towards people in higher positions than me, but I secretly thought I was better than others. During sex, Shiv tells Tom that she doesn’t really love him as deeply as she thinks he does, and that she is out of his league. Shiv thinks she is superior to Tom, and Tom just fawns towards her because he fears losing her, even though deep down he feels a lot of resentment and low self-esteem when she ridicules him or manipulates him in some way. So Tom has to take his frustration out on Greg to make himself feel that sense of superiority. Tom puts down Greg by telling him he has a small dick while he, Tom, is epic in bed, and Greg nervously tells him to prove it, but Tom ignores him. Again, it is still amazing to me how Tom can be so terrible to Greg but also in the presence of Logan and Shiv, he becomes fawning and servile.

When Shiv, Roman and Connor enter the party, the host asks them to take off their jackets, but the Roys decline and push through security to go inside the party. Kendall really livened up the party by having a big sign outside the building reading “The Notorious Ken– Ready to Die” as an imitation of rapper The Notorious B.I.G.’s album Ready to Die. Kendall wants to rub his success in his family’s face after they kick him out of the family for going against Waystar and working to leak the allegations against Waystar of corruption and sexual abuse. He has them go through an entrance that is pink, and is modeled after his mother’s vagina, and his siblings find it over the top and disgusting. They confront Kendall and the four of them exchange insults and tell him his party is absurd and no one is going to like it. Logan sends Kendall a birthday card, and I didn’t expect him to write a nice message because Logan hates Kendall for trying to bring down Waystar-Royco, so when Kendall reads the card, it reads “Cash Out and Fuck Off.” Shiv and Roman try to enter the treehouse because they want to meet a shareholder named Lukas Mattson, who they want Logan to negotiate a deal with (at the beginning, Logan arranges to meet with Mattson but Mattson flakes out at the last minute), but Kendall refuses to let them enter the treehouse because they refused to join him in taking down their father and insulted him so many times. Roman and Shiv try to push past, but with no success. Shiv finally gives up, and goes to the bar to get hammered and then dances like there is no tomorrow on the dance floor because she has to get out all of her frustration towards Kendall. I don’t blame her. I dance a lot to get out my stress as well. Roman ends up going in the tree house and meeting with Mattson, and Roman tries to convince him that he should negotiate a deal with Logan because Waystar’s stock is tanking and they want to acquire a streaming service called GoJo. Mattson, however, flaked out on his meeting with Logan because he doesn’t like him and he is doubtful about Logan’s potential because Logan is old and close to death. Roman tries to sidestep the question about when he thinks Logan is going to die, and tries to convince Mattson that they really need to acquire this company. He and Mattson go into the urinal and Roman convinces Mattson to urinate on his phone because the game he is playing is still loading and going slow. Mattson agrees to the deal, but in the next episode, I found out that deal wasn’t going to be as easy to negotiate as Roman thought.

When Naomi is leading Kendall on his way home, Roman insults him and Kendall insults him right back. Naomi tells them to leave him alone, but Roman thinks he is ready to pick a fight with Kendall, so he makes a lot of insulting comments towards him, and Kendall leaves, trying to ignore him. Roman trips him and starts laughing at him, and Shiv calls out Roman for being immature and doing that to Kendall. Roman really struggles to respect people’s boundaries, and he reveals that Waystar has been harassing Rava and her and Kendall’s children. Even Shiv thinks that is a boundary Roman should not have crossed. Don’t get me wrong, Shiv still hates Kendall for turning against the family, but even she thinks that what Roman did was carried away. Kendall ends up going home, and Naomi cuddles him while he rests in a warm blanket, feeling hopeless. He had this big birthday party and just wanted to feel good about what he was going, but he feels that his siblings ruined it.

I was in a discussion meeting today and we talked about the Buddhist concept of the Ten Worlds, and we specifically talked about the world of insatiable desires, of hunger. The life condition of hunger is one of constant craving, and desire, according to Buddhism, is neither good nor bad, but if we are controlled by those desires, they can become a source of suffering because there is no limit to our desires but there is only so much one can have. Kendall thought the night was going to be fantastic and he made it super expensive, but at the end of the day, what saddened him was that he didn’t get his siblings’ approval and they weren’t fazed when he tried to rub his success in their faces. Even when Naomi gave him a watch, he wasn’t happy with the gift because he already got an expensive fancy watch. He is supposed to give this elaborate performance at the end, but he ends up backing out because he is emotionally overwhelmed by everything going on at the party. His assistants are actually relieved that he backed out of this one because they were already feeling overwhelmed by his wild requests and demands. I was reading on the Wikipedia page about the episode, and I didn’t know this, but the title “Too Much Birthday” comes from a Berenstain Bears book titled Too Much Birthday. It has been a long time since I read The Berenstain Bears, so I didn’t catch the reference until reading about it, but I remember devouring those books as a child, so it was pretty cool how they incorporated that reference in there.

Succession, season 3, episode 6: What It Takes

In this episode of Succession, Kendall is working with his lawyer to testify against his dad, but Lisa isn’t making as much progress as he wants. He wants her to try harder in getting the case out about his dad’s corruption, but Lisa tells him that she is doing her best to represent him. Kendall tells Lisa that he likes working with her, but that she needs to try harder. He later goes before a group of people and they ask him questions about the allegations against Waystar, and he tells Lisa that the meeting with these people went horribly and raises his voice so they can hear him cussing them out. Lisa tells him to behave himself, and then pulls him aside and tells Kendall that she is doing her job but she feels he is disrespecting her expertise and her authority as a lawyer, and that he needs to check himself.

On the private jet, Greg nervously looks at his phone because he wants to check in with Kendall if Kendall is going to “burn” Greg, but he hasn’t gotten a response yet. Logan calls over the family and his team and talks about his strategy to bring down the tech industry, which is trying to outshine Waystar Royco so that it will lose its standing in society. Many people in the tech industry lean politically liberal, while ATN news (the media outlet of Waystar Royco) leans politically conservative, and many people are turning to the tech industry and this is hurting Waystar’s sales, so Logan wants to put together a plan so that Waystar can stay on top. Logan also thinks that the Attorney General has a photo of Logan on her dartboard, but Tom thinks that is just a rumor. The family goes to Virginia to a conference where they are trying to find the next president of the United States, since the old one isn’t running anymore. Many of the people at the conference are conservative and they argue about each other’s positions and gossip a lot. Greg confronts Tom and tells him he is worried about Kendall “burning” him, but Tom is too preoccupied with the possibility that he might end up in prison. During one evening in their hotel room, Shiv is watching the news on her tablet about the election, but Tom just wants to have a nice evening with her where they taste different wines. He went out of his way to get her these fancy wines, but she keeps looking at her tablet and doesn’t look at him. When he doesn’t stop talking about prison, she snaps and tells him to get over it. This hurts his feelings because he feels she isn’t really listening to him or providing any support for him when he needs it.

Tom feels lonely and he calls Greg in the middle of the night to grab breakfast at a local diner because that is what Tom thinks he is going to eat in prison. Greg tells Tom he is really worried about prison, and Tom unloads his own worries onto Greg about everything he has been reading about the horrors of prison. He tells him that the diner food they are eating won’t taste as good once they get into prison. I remember earlier in the first season, Tom invites Greg out to dinner to celebrate Greg getting his first paycheck. Greg suggests they go to California Pizza Kitchen, and Tom snorts and starts laughing, telling Greg that California Pizza Kitchen isn’t that great, and that he (Tom) is going to teach Greg how to eat rich people’s food. Tom thinks that CPK is inferior, middle-class fare, and that they should eat like rich people because Greg is now around rich people, so he needs to act and behave like a rich person. He has Greg eat songbirds and drink fancy wine, but now he is eating food at a diner, which early on he would have turned his nose up at. Honestly, I am sad I can no longer eat at diners like IHOP; they had really delicious pancakes, and I used to always get the Funny Face Pancake as a kid. However, I really love Spiral Diner. They have really good vegan breakfast items. Okay, that was totally a tangent, so back to the review of the episode. Honestly, I have never seen Tom so scared and intimidated before. It’s like he went from being this seemingly overconfident guy who acted like he was better than Greg, and now he is quiet during meetings with Logan and also is fearful of Logan’s authority. It’s like he has become a different person since testifying in Congress about the allegations at Cruises.

At the fancy gathering, Connor and Willa show up, and Willa is busy typing her play on her phone. She wanted to stay home to write her play (Willa is a playwright) but Connor wouldn’t let her, so she has to type it on a tiny screen while a bunch of conservative men talk around her. I feel bad for Willa; it looks like she really didn’t want to be there. Honestly, I thought that she and Greg were going to get together because Greg had a crush on Willa when they met at Logan’s house during Thanksgiving. Greg, though, is too busy trying to sue Greenpeace and not go to jail to worry about that. There is a scene in the episode where an older gentleman is making lewd comments about Willa in Connor’s presence, and when the guy leaves, Willa tells Connor she didn’t want that man coming up to her again. Willa felt disrespected, and I think Connor also doesn’t respect her work as a playwright. He is only focused on his presidential campaign. Honestly, I was so happy to find that the actress who plays Willa was the same actress who played Astrid in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (the actress is named Justine Lupe.) Her character is so different from Astrid’s. Astrid was very eager and excited to participate in Jewish traditions as someone who converted to Judaism, and she was very happy in her marriage to Noah. Willa, however, isn’t happy in her marriage to Connor and feels like she always has to tag along to his social events where she has to be around people who don’t care about the arts.

At the gathering, Roman finds out that his mom, Caroline Collingwood (Logan’s ex-wife) is getting married to a man named Peter Munion. He lets the other Roy children know, and then he later tells Logan, who can’t believe that his ex-wife would marry a man like Rupert Munion. In the break room that evening, they talk about who they think the next president of the United States should be. Some agree it should be Jeryd Mencken, but Shiv strongly disagrees because she doesn’t agree with Jeryd’s extremist policies. Earlier, Jeryd insulted ATN and said that it was only still around to maximize shareholder value, and that Logan Roy was no longer relevant anymore. Logan lets Greg join them, but he tells Greg to keep his mouth shut. When Greg speaks up and asks if he can contribute to the conversation, Roman tells him to shut up and that he can vote in the election like everyone else (he means the American middle and working class people.) Honestly, I think the real MVPs of this show are the people who work behind the scenes to set up all of these lavish gatherings. I really appreciate that the show shows them setting up the tables, catering the food and doing other important unseen things. Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed it at first, but after doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work myself, I appreciate that they showed these people setting everything up. It was soul-crushing in one episode where they had a nice gathering at Logan’s house, and they had to throw all of the catered food out because Logan’s team found a bunch of dead raccoons in the chimney that was stinking up the house. Logan screamed at all of the caterers to throw out everything and that they would order pizza since the bad smell from the raccoon carcasses tainted the food.

Roman has a talk with Mencken, and he starts to dig Mencken’s policies, prompting him to take his side. Connor thinks that he should be the next president, especially because he has been campaigning for a while now, but Greg politely tells everyone that he doesn’t think Connor should be president and then he has to leave the room. Tom gets a call from Kendall and Kendall brings him up to the diner, and Kendall tells Tom he can find a way for Tom to not have to go to prison for the Cruises allegations, if Tom joins him in taking down Logan. Tom, however, says that he is just a “public servant” and can’t do that. Kendall feels that Tom betrayed him, and Tom leaves, telling him that in the room they are deciding who the next president will be. Tom goes back to the hotel, only to find a bunch of people in the ballroom hoisting Greg on their shoulders, celebrating him for something he did. He confronts Greg at breakfast because he is jealous and upset that Greg is happy and he is not, but Greg shrugs it off. Logan has Shiv join him, Mencken, Tom and Roman in a group photo, but she refuses to be in the photo because she doesn’t like Mencken. Logan tells her to come in the photo and she stands, arms crossed, refusing to get in the photo. Logan then goes up to her and asks her if she is really a part of the family, and so she finally acquiesces and gets in the photo, but only if she doesn’t have to stand next to Mencken.

Succession, Season 3, episode 5

I am currently watching the third season of the HBO show Succession, and honestly it is incredible. I am really stressed out though. In this episode, the shareholder meeting is going on, but Logan suffers from a really bad UTI and so everyone on the team has to make sure he is okay. He forgets things, and also does stuff like calling Shiv “Marcia” and he also feels pain when he goes to the bathroom, and Tom has to make sure that he makes it back to the conference room okay. They are also negotiating a deal with Sandy Furness and Stewy Hosseini, and Sandy’s daughter negotiates with the Roy family that they can have seats on the board if they give up their private jets. At first, I was like, What’s the big deal if they have to give up their private jets, but then I realized it’s because they pretty much go everywhere with the jets, especially to international places like Hungary and England.

I could feel the stress in that room when everyone was trying to rush and find a doctor for Logan, and it really stresses out Shiv because she was only focused on the deal with Sandy Furness’s daughter and not on her ailing dad. It stressed out Roman when Shiv told the doctor to hurry up with checking her dad’s pulse and his health, and finally Roman tells her angrily that she needs to calm down and right now just focus on taking care of their dad. There is a scene where Greg meets with his grandpa Ewan, and Ewan is angry that Greg didn’t go with the attorney that he got him and went with someone else, and he tells Greg that he is giving Greg’s part of the inheritance to Greenpeace. This crushes Greg’s hopes and dreams because in an earlier episode, he is telling Connor that he is really pumped to be getting his $250 million inheritance, and Connor warns him about not getting his hopes up too quickly. Greg thinks it will be easy as pie, but after Ewan tells him he is giving away Greg’s inheritance money, Greg gets upset and tells Tom he is going to sue Greenpeace.

There is another scene where Karl and Gerri are trying to hold down the fort during the shareholder meeting, but they fail miserably and they often have to stall because everyone is figuring out so many things at once: how to take care of Logan during his health crisis, whether or not they want to go through with the deal that Sandy Furness offered them, and also Kerry, Logan’s assistant, tells them that the president of the United States is on the line and wants to speak to Logan. They argue over who in the room is qualified to take the call, and they end up letting Roman take the call. They tell him to not use swear words in the conversation, though, because Roman is known for using salty language and being sarcastic in arguments with his family. But Roman does his best to maintain his composure and not swear at the president so that he doesn’t blow Waystar’s reputation, but it turns out that the president is not running again next year and that leaves the family in very hot water.

Kendall also comes back to shake more things up at the shareholders meeting. While Karl is in the middle of making his speech, Kendall interrupts him and pushes him aside, and he tells the audience that he is starting a foundation to raise money for all of the victims of sexual abuse at Waystar Royco. This does not go down well, and very few people end up clapping in the audience. The Roy family members are embarrassed and angry, and Logan ends up having Kerry summon Kendall to a meeting with him but then blowing him off at the last minute. When Kendall tries to call him, Logan tells Kerry to block Kendall’s number from his phone.

Logan is also not satisfied with the results of the shareholder meeting or the deal with Sandy Furness. When Shiv tells him to lighten up and celebrate a little, he gets angry with her and shouts at her to get away from him. Everyone in the room is really scared of Logan, and so during the celebratory toast, no one is laughing or making merry. Instead, there is silence. Also, Tom’s marriage to Shiv seems to be going farther and farther down the toilet. After the deal is sealed, Tom approaches Shiv and wants to make out with her and tells her he is tracking her ovulation cycle because he is horny and wants her to bear children with him, but after a really exhausting interaction she tells him she is not interested and that she actually finds him tracking her ovulation cycles creepy and doesn’t want him to do that. It was already stressful enough when Shiv had an affair with her ex-boyfriend, Nate, and Tom thought that after he got rid of Nate he would go back to having a normal loving marriage with Shiv. But she is so focused on work that she tells him to get over himself when he shares with her his anxieties about going to jail. He looks on prison blogs and thinks about how he is going to go to prison after testifying about the Cruises documents, but Shiv keeps telling him to get over it and that he might not go to jail.

I think seeing this episode from a Buddhist perspective kind of helped. In Buddhism we talk about the four sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death. No one can escape these sufferings, no matter how much money they have or how much success. Even though Logan is this wealthy man with this huge fortune, he is getting compassion. and his health is failing. I don’t know if I am reading too much into this, but there was a brief moment where I saw Tom bring out his Buddha nature when he is helping Logan in the bathroom. Logan has Tom escort him to the bathroom, but then Logan has a pain in his chest and is really struggling to breathe, and Tom makes sure that he gets back to the room okay. I understand he didn’t really have a choice in helping this man, especially because he controls their inheritance and they wouldn’t know what to do if he suddenly did, but I think for a brief moment, after seeing Tom early on bully Greg and act superior to other people, this brief moment showed me he brought out some of his compassion.

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