  We review recent progress in studying accretion flows on to supermassive
black holes (SMBH). Much of this removes earlier assumptions of symmetry and
regularity, such as aligned and prograde disc rotation. This allows a much
richer variety of effects, often because cancellation of angular momentum
allows rapid infall. Potential applications include lower SMBH spins allowing
faster mass growth and suppressing gravitational-wave reaction recoil in
mergers, gas-assisted SMBH mergers, and near-dynamical accretion in galaxy
centres.
