Succession

People are always telling you what you should do.  You should stay two metres apart from each other.  You should work from home.  You should watch Succession.  Sometimes, it’s good to ignore people.  If you’re being selfish with space around the eggs in the supermarket, I’m only going to give you a matter of moments before I invade your two metres for my Burford Browns.  I don’t want to work from home anymore because the office has air conditioning and my flat is now the inside of a hair dryer only without any air movement whatsoever.  And I didn’t really want to watch Succession.  It looked like rich white people arguing while being unattractive and there was too much sexy and exciting TV to be getting on with.  Episode one only confirmed my apprehension.  There were so many characters, none of them likeable.  They talked quickly and oh-so-wittily, making references where I lacked context.  There were lots of suits, lots of greys, too many office interiors (even though this has become my dream destination).  Episode two was more of the same.  I itched with the desire to distract myself.  The crossing and double-crossing felt distant and irrelevant.  I still hadn’t picked a horse to back and, more specifically, I didn’t want to.  What should have been humorous just felt weird and in poor taste.

But everyone had been so insistent.  They had told me I really would like it.  And then, episode three happened.  I crossed a threshold.  I was hooked.  I don’t know what did it.  It was like a penny dropping.  Suddenly, Succession was the absolute treat of each evening.  I even felt like a grown up watching it.  My phone discarded out of sight, full focus on the screen, I got more and more into it, eventually unable to resist the urge to binge through the remaining episodes of the second season just because I had to know what was going to happen next.  And now I can’t bear the wait for more.  So maybe I should listen more to people telling me what I should do.  Either way, I’m now going to commend the living daylights out of Succession, but I’ve bucketed the commendations into handy themes for easier digestion, helping you, the reader, to manage your entrance into an exquisite, intelligent boxset that stretches the very limits of what you thought was possible on television.

The spot-on and terrifying exposition of a media landscape

You won’t have heard of Waystar Royco, nor the Roy family who own most of it, but both might strike you as uncannily familiar.  Succession deals with this media conglomerate (which also includes cruise lines, theme parks and a scattergun array of ill-advised ventures in other markets) and the unanswerable question about who is next in line to take on its captaincy once the paterfamilias (I’ve always wanted to use this word) steps down.  While this intrigue ensures endless tension, the interplay between the family’s right-wing news channel (ATN) and their political ambitions would be ludicrous if it didn’t mimic real life so closely.  Financing, acquisitions, cover-ups: there’s dirty trick after dirty trick, with Shakespearean levels of backstabbing and betrayals.  Yet the boardroom melodrama is so plausible you could buy this as a genuine documentary.  You just need to accept that there is nobody to root for.

The first ever portrayal of accurate adult sibling relationships

Lining up to inherit the vast fortune and power of the company, three brothers and a sister represent the future of the Roy family.  Eldest son, Connor, has dialled out of the race, but his abuse and misuse of his own (his dad’s) wealth reveals him to be a threat to the real world, if a non-contender in the Roy battles.  Kendall, our heir apparent, is having the worst go-to-work-with-dad day that anyone has ever experienced, only it’s his whole career.  Pouring all his energy into the company, at the expense of everything else, his fractious paternal relationship is the source of unending and delicious plot twists.  Jeremy Strong shifts effortlessly between conniving shark, office square as trend-missing douchebag and downtrodden underling.  Meanwhile, Kieran Culkin brings so much to what are already most of the best lines as Roman Roy, the rebellious one who can’t get taken seriously but who also doesn’t take anything seriously.  Then there’s Shiv (an outrageously good Sarah Snook), the daddy’s girl striking out on her own, trying to rise above the wheeling and dealing but always getting suckered back in.  I’ve spent too long enumerating the Roys, when the emphasis is on their relationships.  What I really buy is that these four grew up together.  Their childhood fisticuffs even persist into maturity (Shiv and Roman).  Their bickering is no longer about sharing toys, but manipulating dad, running companies (into the ground) and willing each other to look as bad as possible, all while forming occasional united fronts whenever it suits.  Needless to say, you can’t build a case to become CEO of a global megacompany when you’re blaming your brother or sister for your own mistakes.

The use of Brian Cox

Now we’ve done the kids, let’s look at the dad.  Logan Roy is our rags-to-riches self-made man.  We might be in a time when we acknowledge that plenty of screen time has already gone to white old men, but Brian Cox consistently delights in this role.  Even my pet hate of being able to tell how much he’s enjoying himself in his performance doesn’t get activated because his performance is so convincing.  It’s merely my assumption that he gets to have a great time as an actor, whether suffering the after-effects of his stroke, or reacting to his kids’ betrayals.  It would be worth working for Logan Roy just to get fired in a blaze of abuse.

The swearing

Which leads me to Logan’s potty mouth.  Never has the expression “f*ck off” sounded so satisfying.  This is how he concludes most dialogues, whether with his leadership team or his own children.  He hits the K with real back-of-throat disdain, his words literally causing the recipient to acknowledge they have no other choice but to f*ck right off.  Now that’s power.

The passive aggression

We don’t always resort to effing and jeffing though.  Plenty of the dialogue sparkles with outright cusses semi-shrouded in manners or corporate jargon.  When the wordplay moves from artful cleverness to explicitly rude insults, it’s somehow all the more delightful.

The money

Not only do the cast splash their cash, but so too does the production.  Choppers seem to be on standby, and no location seems too remote to receive a full shooting unit, whether Dundee or obscure stately homes elsewhere in Britain, or US ranches, or indeed a yacht in the Mediterranean.  I would like to work on the show just so I can try out the inflatable slide on the back of Logan’s mega vessel.

The supporting cast

The Roys have become everything to me, but every character in their orbit enriches Succession.  Hiam Abbass (Logan’s wife Marcia) revels in her scenes as the conniving stepmother, while my softest spot is reserved for the company’s general counsel, Gerri Kellman (J. Smith-Cameron) who seems to work every hour of the day, mostly while wearing ball gowns, but can be an absolute boss when required.  Special mention of course to Cousin Greg who is pure joy in his naivety, never more so than when being mistreated by Tom Wambsgans (an incredible Matthew McFadyen).  I even enjoy Willa.

But this is enough commending – there’s only so much I can say before we start running through plots and spoiling surprises.  From a sceptical viewing, pressing play under pressure from TV connoisseur friends, I’ve become obsessed with Succession.  You really should watch it.