'Succession,' 'Cocaine Bear,' and knowing when to stop

Plus: LEGO, 'The Last Of Us,' and great books [View this email online]( [Pop Culture Happy Hour]( by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when the Oscars tried to [prepare for anything](. It was the week when [changing books]( caused a lot of fuss. And it was the week when a [cult catering show]( prepared to return. Let's get to it. Succession, Cocaine Bear, and knowing when to stop The news broke this week that the upcoming fourth season of Succession will be the last. This was a heartbreaker for me as a fan of the show, because not only have I loved watching it, but I have loved [picking it apart, teasing out its every detail](. On an emotional level, if they gave me 10 seasons, I would watch them all, even knowing that history counsels that they would be likely to flag in quality after a certain period of time. I would not care; I would stay with the Roys to the bitter end. At the same time, I told more than one person this week that one of the very best things about [the movie Cocaine Bear]( is that it's 95 minutes long. Long movies seem to be arriving faster and faster: Jurassic World Dominion is almost two-and-a-half hours long. The Batman is almost three hours long. Movies as different as Avatar: The Way of Water and Blonde are also stretching to three hours. The Marvel movies are well-known repeat offenders, obviously. Cocaine Bear, on the other hand, has one funny idea, and it knows it. A bear does cocaine! You do a few set pieces with some gory maulings, you get a few laughs out of the shock of somebody getting eaten, and then everybody goes home. Cocaine Bear, directed by Elizabeth Banks/Universal Pictures It's hard to know when a story is over, and I think most of us have guessed wrong before. I wasn't optimistic about continuing the Breaking Bad world with Better Call Saul, but that show was terrific. Big Little Lies might have been better off stopping after a single season. All kinds of considerations go into whether a story comes to an end beyond the demands of the story: how much do people still care, how much money remains to be made, how much money is being dangled, how hard is the cast to keep under contract, how attached are the people to working together, and even whether a new executive is trying to put their unique stamp on whatever the home of the story happens to be. I think about The Good Place when I think about this problem. I loved those characters, I loved the actors, I loved the jokes -- I loved the world the show inhabited. I would have watched more, without question. But I find it impossible to quarrel with the notion that [it ended exactly as, and when, it should have.]( This is part of the larger imperative to allow creative people to make a thing you love and not expect it to go the way you want at every individual moment. The shape and size of the piece is best left in the hands of the people who made it, and you either like the result or you don't. Maybe it's longer than you wish, maybe shorter. But with Succession, I have tended to disagree with people who feel like it stagnates. Instead, I've found it to be on a fairly clear track, once you realize that sometimes what is changing -- what is "happening," in a plot sense -- is happening under the surface, as with Kendall's seeming submissiveness in Season 2 that turned out to be more complicated than that. That story does seem, to me, to be reaching a cymbal crash. Moreover, they have dropped hints over and over about Logan's health. They eventually have to get around to the health crisis they have hinted at, and I don't see the show continuing past that point. Succession and Cocaine Bear have cocaine in common, and eviscerations (figurative versus literal), but they have this in common, too: Tell your story and get out. Know when to pull the curtain. Know when the bear has had that last rampage. --------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter continues after sponsor message --------------------------------------------------------------- We Recommend I was fascinated by this [Dan Kois piece in Slate]( about what happens to a restaurant when it gets a great review and business comes in a gush. It turns out it's quite a mixed blessing. An update: In December in this space, I wrote about how I had picked up some LEGO sets on Black Friday just to see whether I found that activity relaxing. After some false starts, you may be glad to hear that I completed my [Apollo 11 lunar lander](. Guess what! It's very relaxing. I haven't yet listened to the new podcast from Serial, [The Coldest Case in Laramie]( so I can't recommend it in the same way I can with some things. But I do feel like it's noteworthy that one of the most recognizable brands in audio is back. What We Did This Week Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick/Paramount Pictures As the Oscars approach, we shared an [encore of our episode]( about Top Gun: Maverick in which Stephen and Aisha talked to Marc Rivers and Daisy Rosario. Eric Deggans and I [recommended]( some nonfiction books that are in (or should be in) NPR's [Books We Love.]( Bedatri D. Choudhury and Mark Blankenship joined me [for a discussion]( of the Apple TV+ series Dear Edward. Since we're now a few episodes in, Glen sat down with Roxana Hadadi, Cate Young and Jordan Morris [to dig into]( HBO's The Last Of Us. And of course, as we desperately needed to, Ronald Young, Jr., Jordan Crucchiola and I [talked about the movie]( Cocaine Bear. You'll never guess what it's about. What's Making Us Happy Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: - Jordan Crucchiola: [The trailer for Class of '07]( - Ronald Young, Jr.: [Snowfall]( - Linda Holmes: [Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat and Tears]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. [Find a Station]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+](. Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free episodes. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: [pchh@npr.org](mailto:pchh@npr.org?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback) Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can [sign up here](. Looking for more great content? [Check out all of our newsletter offerings]( — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Pop Culture Happy Hour emails. 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