Throughout April and May, HBO’s Succession is going to air its final season. Since the midpoint of season 2, I’ve considered it the best show currently airing, an opinion I only feel stronger in as the years pass. In advance of the new season, I had hoped to rewatch the previous three seasons and share my thoughts. I was then reminded of the harsh reality that 30 hours of TV is quite a bit and that this show does not particularly lend itself to “binge” watching. So instead of doing one giant post on three seasons, I’m going to do a write-up of each season as we journey along toward the finale. The following will contain spoilers for season 1 of Succession, but knowing the story doesn’t do much, in my opinion, to change the enjoyment of the show.
First a few basics on the show and its relationship to TV in a broader sense. On the surface Succession is an obvious successor to HBO dramas like Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, or, especially, Six Feet Under. It concerns the power struggle within the Roy family as the various players position themselves for maximum corporate power. Of course, Waystar RoyCo, is a family business, so every backdoor dealing exists as both a business reality and a family dispute. The Roy family dealings are not able to be as purely political as those on Game of Thrones—there are no beheadings or literal stabbings to be found—because there is always also a family dimension.
But thinking of Succession solely, or even predominantly, in terms of previous landmark HBO dramas misses the crucial fact that this show is funny. Like, laugh out loud and funny pretty much all the time. It’s dark humor, but it’s not subtle humor. It’s outlandish, juvenile, and bawdy like you might find on South Park. Similarly, the characters are quite similar to those of so-called “asshole ensemble sitcoms” (I don’t know if this is a term, but I think it should be) like Arrested Development, Seinfeld, or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I’m not the first to make the Arrested Development connection, but it’s an important one to note as it highlights the role humor and zippy one-liners play in the essence of Succession. There is a lot of swearing in this show, and that’s because “fuck you” is practically a term of endearment among the Roy family, a part of the world as essential as money. Kendall and others frequently walk into meetings with normal people (read: non-Roys) and swear at them just as he does his family. “Fuck you” is a part of their world, a fact that highlights that Succession draws just as much similarity with asshole ensemble sitcoms as it does with “prestige” HBO drama.
The final essential component of the show is a sense of Greek tragedy, and this sits at the intersection of the HBO drama and asshole ensemble sitcom genres. The notes of Greek tragedy are obvious—Roman is literally a nickname short for Romulus—and this mode of explicit reference to their lives as Greek tragic figures draws attention to how such similarity is, inherently, absurd. Family drama and characters riddled with hamartia (fatal flaw) abound, but is anyone going down because of it? Breaking Bad makes its tragic trajectory obvious, as Walter White becomes more corrupt as cancer—both disease and money—kills him gradually. The Roys often seem too big to fail with any attempt to take them out, especially in season 1, ending in supremely deflationary fashion.
The core of the show is the combination of these elements: juvenile, asshole, unlikeable, and childish characters battling out for more power with the flair of Greek drama that is mocking them and setting them up for a collapse that we, the audience, suspect will not come. Such a cocktail makes the show both wildly entertaining and a powerful satire of late capitalist mindsets and corporate obsession with power and big business.
With a sense of the show, it’s time for some comments on season 1. I’m not going to go through all the major storylines or characters but instead, focus on how Succession works in terms of character dynamics. I’m most interested in addressing the layers of status, and how characters on the fringes react to the behavior of the main Roy children.
Logan Roy is the patriarch and head of the Roy family media empire, but the show—smartly—places him in a state of precarity. It isn’t economic precarity, of course, but it is a precarity of death, illness, and other forces. In the first episode, he has a stroke. He rallies from this and comes back, but everything is destabilized by his health challenges. Multiple people question if he’s fit to continue leading the company—highlighting the tension between the business and the family.
With Logan’s future uncertain, the show focuses largely on his children, Connor, Kendall, Shiv, and Roman (I think this is oldest to youngest). Connor is mostly content to stay adjacent to the family affairs, living in New Mexico and contemplating a presidential run at the end of the season. Kendall, Shiv, and Roman are in the thick of the business, jostling for power between themselves. They have a sibling bond that Connor doesn’t share.
Logan with his children under him is a pretty easy-to-see and well-defined power structure. After that, things get interesting. Next is probably Shiv’s fiancée/now husband Tom. Tom is a loveable beta-male type, almost always caving to Shiv’s desires. Importantly, he cares a lot more about marriage than Shiv. He’s tormented by an indiscretion at his bachelor party and opposed to Shiv’s ideas of non-monogamy.
This is the inverse of the norm on TV where the man would be prone to affairs and whatnot and the woman would be opposed. But Succession frames the dynamic differently. Shiv, who certainly has the power in their relationship, wants to be non-exclusive, maintaining it to be the “adult” thing to do. Tom resists this. What is important here is not the specific morality or specifics of their open-ish marriage setup. The show doesn’t really even care about Tom’s resistance. What’s important about this dynamic is how it shows Shiv and Tom, even as they get married, are operating in different worlds. Sex and love factor differently into Shiv’s understanding of the world than they do in Tom’s (a theme also explored in the second season of The White Lotus). Tom has a decent amount of wealth and status, working as an important department head of Waystar RoyCo. But his influence, wealth, and power pale in comparison to Shiv, and he’s okay with that.
But because Tom is “middle class” in the language of the show, he, and the other characters adjacent to the Roy family, are important touch points for the audience. These other characters include Rava, Kendall’s ex-wife, Willa, Connor’s girlfriend, and Cousin Greg. Willa features briefly in season 1, but she has some interesting moments. When Connor tells her the “job he really wants to do” (paraphrase) is being president of the United States, Willa figures it to be a joke. It isn’t, because, in the world of the Roy family, this is a reasonable thing to think. And for good reason! Logan talks personally with the president, a guy from California far more left-leaning than the Waystar news programming division, ATN, which is akin to Fox News. But more on politics will come in season 2. For now, the point is that Willa reacts to this thought as a joke, like we all would, highlighting the different reality she lives in than that of Connor, just as Shiv and Tom seem to live in different worlds.
So below the Roy children, in the show’s hierarchy, comes Tom, Rava, and Willa. They all occupy some kind of middle space, expressing various degrees of adjusting to the Roy world. Rava’s time in that world is mostly done, though she still pops up as her and Kendall’s children are Logan’s grandchildren. Tom has been in that world for a while now and has adjusted to a lot of Roy’s life behaviors. He is starting to experience something akin to genuine wealth though on a level far below that of the Roys. Willa, still a playwright finding her footing, is just starting to connect to the world of the Roys. All these connections are built on dynamics of romantic attachment and not business transactions (though this doesn’t mean business doesn’t still factor in somewhat, it’s not RoyCo business). As such these characters, to one degree or another, are primarily in the show in terms of family dynamics, not the business side of things. However, Tom’s role is growing in both sectors as he marries Shiv and advances in the company hierarchy.
And then there’s Cousin Greg. Cousin Greg is actually family, the grandson of Logan’s semi-estranged but still on the Waystar RoyCo board brother. But at the start of the show, Greg is far from the world of the Roys, either business or family. He’s working as a mascot in the parks division. Encouraged by his mom, and dire financials, he gets into the actual company doing…something? He’s basically an assistant to Tom. Midseason he helps Tom dispose of some incriminating evidence related to cruise line malfeasance. After this Tom says something to the effect of “welcome to the family,” highlighting how his sense of being in the family is contingent on his role in the business. Tons more on the cruise line story in season 2.
Tom and Greg’s dynamic is hilarious and incredibly important to the show as it is here that we see the satire mostly play out as the show deals with systems of hierarchy. As I said above, Tom is gradually starting to see himself as more in line with the Roy clan, offering to change his last name to Roy if Shiv requests. He has money and a slightly increased amount of power, and he wants to show it off. He invites Greg, as someone under him, to a fancy, weird, and potentially illegal restaurant. Here they consume small birds whole—note the obvious Chronos imagery—with napkins on their heads to protect against shame and/or embarrassment. It’s a hilarious, cartoonish, absurd image, of two grown successful men in a crowded restaurant, napkins on their heads, eating small birds.
Such an image highlights how the whole system of wealth in this show is inherently absurd. In this world, 5.3 billion or million (I forget which in that scene) is a fair offer but 4.9 is seen as “insulting.” The Roys have so much money that it means nothing to them. Tom has enough money that it means very little to him, and then mostly as a means of showing off how slightly richer he is now (conspicuous consumption and whatnot). Greg doesn’t have much money, and even now that he has more, it still means something to him. Early on, he values 20 dollars for a cab fair more than any Roy values 20 million dollars (and they, of course, don’t have the cash to give him).
Logan goes to a play that he doesn’t much enjoy, describing it as “people pretending to be people.” It’s a fitting description for the whole of the first season.
The title for this season 1 post comes from the end of the season.
Tom is pretending to be a richer person than he is. Kendall pretends that he has it together. Logan is pretending that his health hasn’t weakened him. And they’re all pretending to be actual people when they very much are not. Their wealth enables them to live in a different world, one where you can act immature and say “fuck you” to collogues with no negative repercussions.
But for all the pretending and posturing that comes with being a high-profile high-power member of the Roy family, they are still sort of people. They can die, feelings can get hurt, and they might even face consequences for their actions. At the season’s end, the cruise scandal seems to be not fully resolved, and Kendall was just involved in the accidental death of a waiter. About that death season 2 will use the language NRPI, or “no real person involved.” Here it speaks to how the service industry workers do not rise to the level of being “real people” in the world of the Roys. But it’s fair to ask the same of the first season of the show. Are there real people involved here? And where’s the line where someone like Greg or Willa—Greg, it’s worth noting, doesn’t say “fuck” as often as the Roy family—may stop being quite so real a person?
Succession is a fascinating show, focusing on a world dominated by so much wealth that wealth ceases to mean anything.
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It mines this black comedic nihilism for satire, crafting a show where, even after 10 episodes, it’s not clear what anyone wants. Does Logan want to keep ruling or does he do it out of obligation? Does Kendall want to be clean or just leave the family? Does Shiv want to marry Tom or just the stability that Tom might provide? Does Roman want anything?
Deals stall, projects fall through, and the Roy children trade barbs like middle schoolers. It’s arrested development.
At least until the press gets word about some of these scandals in season 2.
