Films and TV programs about upright folks are, or were, my thing. I used to have an attraction only to good solid characters who are quirky and may occasionally do bad things, but with a soft side, a side that leans towards honesty and loyalty.
Then came Succession in 2018. At first one only could view Succession on HBO, but now all three seasons are available to a broader audience streaming for a fee on Prime Video and on disc.
Succession is about people who are wealthy and eat and dress well. They lead lifestyles beyond my imagination. If I could smell them over my TV monitor, I imagine they all have the aromas of expensive colognes. But they are trash, evil trash!
The Roy family stands as the focus of Succession. They are world leaders in conservative media and entertainment, owning a corporation called Waystar/Royco. Billionaires. The father and founder of this media conglomerate is Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox. He is ruthless and immoral. Logan has four adult children. They do take after him but with ingrained weaknesses that daddy never has had. The three successors who take up most of the screen time are clever Shiv and her looney brothers, Kendall and Roman.
In truth, each Roy successor has a screw lose. Roman, played with flair by Kieran Culkin, is the loosest screw. His sexual peculiarities are sometimes publicly obscene and cast a dark shadow on any future he has planned for himself. Kendall, acted by Jeremy Strong, can be thoughtless and cruel to the extreme. He can be quite the coward.
There isn’t a likable character in the lot, including the other dozen or more oddball personalities who hover around and sometimes change the direction of the fast-paced storylines.
So, why am I addicted to this series? After just completing season three, why am I panting for season four and the supposedly final season five? The language alone is disgusting and sometimes intolerable. There is more colorful swearing in any single scene of Succession than in a single day in all of Virginia, New Mexico, or Alaska – which, by the way, have been deemed the states where swearing happens most often. The swearing in Succession is so strong and so original that it actually comes off as entertaining. But more sensitive souls may have problems with the language.
The characters have no redeeming qualities. Bravo to the creator British-born Jesse Armstrong and his pool of writers who know more than a little about devising 21st Century satire. Viewers who cannot get enough of Succession should take a look, or another look, at VEEP. The Thick of It, and Peep Show – also in part written by these talented folks.
It isn’t the dysfunction of the Roy family that makes Succession a standout. Viewers certainly understand that television series have relied upon familial hatreds for soap operas and primetime series for decades. It’s the oddities, feebleness, and extreme evil and extreme power that sets the Roy family apart from most other TV bloodlines. Some have made comparisons to real-life mogul Rupert Murdoch; some have pointed fingers towards the Trump clan. Only in our darkening world, does a family such at that in Succession have a real air of authenticity.
Audrey Kupferberg is a retired film and video archivist and appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and co-authored several entertainment biographies with her late husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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