Rupert Lear

Title Succession

Rating: 5 Stars

What would happen if King Lear changed his mind? What if Cordelia was just as much of a monster as Goneril and Regan?

Well, you’d have Succession.

Logan Roy is the head of a conservative media and entertainment empire (Rupert Murdoch, anyone?). Advanced in years, he’s been grooming his eldest son, Kendall, to succeed him. At the last minute, on the day of the transition announcement, he announces that he’s changed his mind and will stay on for some period of years. This understandably shocks and disappoints Kendall. Later, Logan collapses and is incapacitated.

Into the void steps Kendall, his younger sister Shiv (Siobhan), and the youngest brother Roman. They fight amongst themselves for control. Eventually, Logan regains consciousness and takes back the helm. Having tasted power, the three siblings conspire, sometimes competitively, sometimes collaboratively, against their father as Logan fights to maintain his control.

In a nutshell, that’s the plot. Various plots are hatched to gain control. Counterattacks are launched to protect turf. It’s a constant, everchanging soup of alliances and betrayals. 

I honestly didn’t really enjoy the first season as much as I could have because I was watching it wrong. In most series of this kind (in its essential form, it’s seemingly equivalent to such potboiler melodramatic series from long past like Dallas or Dynasty), there is a good guy protagonist going up against a mustache twirling nemesis. I spent a good chunk of season one trying to figure out who I should be rooting for.

That was my flaw. All of these people suck. Even the characters not part of the immediate family suck. Shiv’s husband Tom is way out of his depth compared to the Roy family but is himself a people pleaser deluded by ambition. The Roy’s nephew Greg is a young awkward neophyte that still manages to steal documents to protect himself and that could be used to bring down Logan. The main executives are all sycophants willing to do nearly anything to keep their job titles and prestige.

The Roy family surpasses all of them. Kendall, fighting and occasionally succumbing to his drug addiction, is pure ambition and is full of corporate buzzwords but seems unable to close the deal. Shiv, resenting the fact that she’s living in a misogynist corporate world, is willing to do anything, even if it means talking an abused woman out of going public, to appear tough enough to be the top dog. Roman, the youngest, horribly insecure, never taken seriously, desperately is seeking the top job in some pathetic bid for approval. The oldest sibling (from an earlier marriage), Conner, lives a life of utter, useless leisure until, spurred by mysterious impulses, decides to run for US President.

A couple of things puts this above the run of the mill potboiler. One is that the characters, so nakedly ambitious and devoid of conventional morality, are themselves obviously broken. Raised by a seemingly omnipotent father and an emotionally distant mother, the three siblings are desperate for love and validation. Even as you watch their coldly calculated plans come to fruition and ultimately implode, at times you find yourself feeling sorry for them.

Even Logan, the patriarch that is the seeming architect of this family tragedy, is broken. He knows that his children fear him. It is only their ambition for his empire that keeps them obediently at his side. 

Logan truly is King Lear. Like Lear, he demands his children’s overflowing protestations of love and fidelity, even if, at moments of clarity, he understands the emptiness of their fealty. That must be the reason for his change of heart. Logan fears ending up like Lear. Once he gives up his power, his children will, at best, humor him or, at worse, infantilize him. What makes this worse is that Logan knows that he has no sweet, loving Cordelia that loves him unconditionally. He is surrounded by ruthless Gonerils and Regans. He knows that he can never relinquish power.

The other great thing about this series is the dialog. These are incredibly rich, incredibly well educated people using erudition, of both a low sort and a high sort, to wreak damage upon each other. Growing up together, spending years together, the characters know each other’s weaknesses and are ruthless in exploiting every vulnerability left exposed. This leads to caustic dialog that is quite hilarious to listen to. No one talks like this, but that doesn’t diminish its power. This is the best dialog that I’ve heard since Deadwood, David Milch’s stew of Shakespearean gutter mouth.

This currently has the reputation of being one of the best series streaming today. From what I’ve seen so far, this reputation is well deserved.