I have a piece coming out on the site soon about my generally negative feelings toward the odd thing that streaming TV has become in recent years. While that piece is pessimistic about the current state of streaming TV, I wanted to also do this piece which focuses on some notable shows that are all wrapping up seasons this week. Showtime’s Yellowjackets wraps up season 2 on Friday, before Succession and Barry both air series finales on Sunday. I’ll be back next week to give more attention to Succession and Barry, two of my favorite shows of the last five years.
But with all but the finales airing of these shows, it’s a good chance to take stock of where things are at. This article will be a mix of recap (so spoiler warning for these three shows), my thoughts on these seasons, and ideas about where things might go in the finale.
Yellowjackets
As I said on Scribe’s Mike Drop podcast, this season has been a mixed bag. The first half of the year felt especially stuck. It’s gotten better in the last couple episodes, but I still feel like the show is spinning its heels. It’s still trying to free itself from the Jeff/Shauna/Cassie plotline that has been dragging down the whole season. I thought this past week would resolve the mystery of “Pit Girl,” but it didn’t. I’m not really disappointed that it didn’t, but I am getting worried that the showrunners have lost the thread a bit. This season has had its moments, but it’s been far more disjointed than the first season, especially at the level of character.
Thinking ahead to the finale, it seems like death is coming. Javi did die, which is very confusing. It’s strange, for the show and the show’s supernatural mythos, that he would miraculously survive for months in the woods and then drown in a frozen lake. Someone else has to die in the past chronology, I think, even if they don’t resolve the mystery of “Pit Girl.” Very very little has happened in the past this season. Jackie was eaten, Misty pushed her friend (still unresolved as of now), and Shauna had, and lost, her baby. I haven’t felt a lot of narrative payoff from any of this, and the crackle of the characters is a lot less than in season 1.
In the present, someone really has to die. The show has, in my opinion, been much too coy this season about to what degree we should buy into the supernatural stuff. This worked in season one, but it hasn’t worked as well in season 2. Several things, including finding Javi alive and Lottie’s improving health, seem to confirm that there is a supernatural element to what’s going on, and that means that present day Lottie’s Russian roulette thing has to pay off. Plus the group needs something to dislodge it from the stale patterns it fell into this year. And please, PLEASE, wrap everything up with Adam and leave him far behind in season 3. His ghost haunted this season and not in a good way. The present day stories are kind of a mess and this is one step toward getting things back on track.
I’m very concerned about Yellowjackets. Season 2 was, in my estimation, a lot worse than season 1 without rising to the levels of a catastrophic collapse, as happened with Euphoria. Add to this the fact that it’s already understood that season 3 will be significantly delayed. They were just getting back to work with table reads and whatnot when the writers’ strike shut things down. This strike is an essential thing, and it should go on as long as it needs to. My gut says it will go on for a long while, probably well outpacing the 100 days of the 2008 strike. So let’s say the strike puts Showtime about 6 months behind on yellowjackets. Well, you aren’t going to release this show in the summer, so I think we’re looking at fall of 2024 or early 2025 as the likely earliest date for season 3. That’s not that much longer than the wait between seasons 1 and 2, but the show found its fanbase gradually toward the end of season 1 and in the months following. This 14-ish month wait felt a lot shorter because of that. The wait for season 3, I suspect, will feel a lot longer. Add on to this that season 2 will likely have me a lot less excited to return than I was after season 1, and I don’t know what kind of enthusiasm will be there by the time season 3 airs. It might be wise to revise their 5-season plan to 3 or 4 seasons, but we’ll see.
Succession
Succession is my favorite show of the last five years and my pick for the best show of the last five years. It successfully toed many tricky lines. It was both a prestige drama and had the flair of a sitcom. It centered unlikable (occasionally sympathetic) characters in a way that didn’t (usually) lose the critique of wealth and power. I think the later part of this season has done an especially good job reminding us how horrible the Roys are as people and how empty and unglamorous their lives are. Yes, they can splash out 5 million on a funeral mausoleum and call it a ”good deal,” but that funeral is only attended by people solely focused on maneuvers for power.
This most recent episode, “Church and State,” was particularly strong at shattering the façade of wealth. It’s set surrounding Logan’s funeral, but the Roy kids, following the previous episode’s (kind of) election of a fascist presidential candidate, are starting to grapple at least a little bit with the consequences of their world. Shiv (Sarah Snook) was especially powerful in this episode, repeatedly trying to be assured that her father was kind of a good guy, right? He wasn’t. We know this, and throughout this season, the show has made a point to remind us over and over.
What the Roys seemed to be doing this last episode was grappling with how they’ve been gaslit, by their father and by capitalism. There’s two kind of ways that “gaslighting” is used as a term in recent years. The first is as targeted psychological manipulation. This kind is always gendered, and always related to male power. It’s obvious in things like the Depp vs Heard trial. But gaslighting has also been used more generally to talk about systemic distortion of reality. The two are definitely connected, and this is also about systems of male power, but it’s less specific. This is like when news articles talk about how a Trump speech was attempting to gaslight the country. The distinctions are worth teasing out, and the term can be misused and overused, but I think it’s the right one for here.
Up until very recently, the Roy children have been gaslighted by the essence of American capitalism. They have served the market—and their father—with slavish devotion, not asking questions. But doubts are emerging. The things promised by wealth and success—easy life, free time to spend with your family—aren’t panning out. They’re constantly busy, and everyone’s personal lives are in shambles. Shiv especially seems to be wondering if there’s another way. Sadly, when you live in that universe, there really isn’t. This is a pretty powerful idea to convey to viewers. The capitalism forces of our lives may be on a smaller scale, but the soul-crushing dangers are the same.
I don’t know what the finale will hold. I half thought Roman was going to kill himself at the end of the last episode. That was the level of his pain and distraught disposition. They’re all in a very bad place right now. But I do have a couple ideas for the finale. I think the election will be overturned, violence will ring through the streets, and ATN will lose a lot of credibility. I’m not sure this will matter except in terms of relationships (like Kendall and Rava growing even more strained). I think someone might die, but I’m not basing this on much. The title of the show—Succession—is of course about the line of power, but it’s also about the meaning of success. Throughout season 4 this success has been a trap, and it’s not one I think they can escape. In short, at the end of the day, they’ll all still be miserable, and I think the country surrounding the Roys will be, too.
Succession is a show where posturing and quips hide personal pain and moral misgivings. But the quips have largely failed, and I think there’s a very bleak ending ahead.
Barry
Barry season 4 has been a RIDE. In only 3.5 hours of show time, Barry and Sally were apart (in prison and back home, respectively), then back together, then together 10 years into the future in Kansas or something. Now everything has converged upon LA again. I need to say first and foremost that it took me like half of the first time jump episode before I actually bought into the time jump. It was very jarring and sudden, which is the point. I’m not totally sure what that point is or if it will pay off, but that was the point. This season has been much less about processing trauma and more about trying to live past it. It’s been a mixed bag, less entertaining than previous seasons but still mostly effective.
And then there was this week’s episode which, after several somber ones, was like Barry of old, full of dark humor and the absurd collision of hitman world and real world. The scene where Fuchs and co. explain to civilians how they would handle the beheading next time is one of the funniest scenes the show has ever had, and it carries a point. It highlights, again, the gap between how normal civilians process violent trauma and how the rewired hitman types do it. It’s effective in typical Barry fashion.
As for the finale, there has to be death, right? Barry or Gene can’t both survive and live happily ever after. The real question, I think, is what happens with Sally and John, Barry and Sally’s son. They seem to still have a shot, but I don’t know what kind of ending they could get that would be satisfying.
Endings are hard, and I’m glad I’m not trying to write one for shows this sprawling, nuanced, and often nearly perfect. There’s a lot to wrap up and not long to do it. But, historically speaking, HBO has a good track record with endings (Game of Thrones obviously an exception) and I think we’re in for another two brilliant finales. Either way there will be much to say after the fact, and I’ll be back here next week to say it.
