*Contains major spoilers for Succession season three*
Earlier this year there was a lot of talk, as there always is, about the upcoming post-lockdown season being a return to the roaring 20s. It seems like every time restrictions are announced, the media starts waxing lyrical about how the world will look once they are lifted, with reveries of dancing and music and unbridled creativity and overflowing champagne. I write this in December 2021, when the omicron variant has cast a cloud over the festive period, and the only parties being talked about are those that were Definitely Not Hosted by Downing Street officials a year ago. But even when freedom was tangible, a celebratory atmosphere never really materialised.
The strongest evidence for this lies in our watching habits. The most watched TV show of 2021 was Netflix’s You, a show about a sexy serial killer suffering from male postnatal depression. Squid Game, a show about gamified mass killing, was the defining cultural phenomenon of 2021. Then there was Mare of Easttown (which starred Kate Winslet as a lonely homicide detective). And more recently, opioid drama Dopesick on Disney Plus. If the small screen is anything to go by, the lockdown didn't abolish or even diminish our appetite for brutality. Somehow it intensified it.
Into this frame rolls Succession, the HBO sleeper-hit-turned-juggernaut-drama whose third season finale aired tonight (Sky, 9pm). On paper, Succession is one of the bleakest shows on TV. It follows the trials of a Murdoch-like media family headed by ageing patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox), the CEO of Waystar Royco. Logan is a man as merciless as he is incontinent, the kind of dad who'll bark expletives ahead of a press conference while piss rolls down the inside of his trouserleg. In the finale, he comforts his grandson, shaken by his father’s brush with death, by pointing at his book and saying: “Aren’t you a bit old for that?” Given that Succession is a spectacle of human misery, it isn't surprising that it’s popular. But its success is complicated by the fact that it’s also a comedy, and one which explores the limits of family love.
Before we get to the analytics, what’s happened this season? Kendall (Jeremy Strong) is alive and kicking after a death scare that lasted a full ten seconds of screentime. He finally managed to rally a coup against Logan, but it spectacularly backfired and now all junior Roys are effectively cut off from the company. So Logan is stable, Tom Wambsgans and Cousin Greg are up (as is, perhaps ominously, Lady Caroline’s new husband Peter), and all baby Roys are void currency. It was a dramatic finale to an uneven season, and a showcase of everything that is both right and wrong about this show. Right: the dialogue, the impeccable acting, the satisfying spectacle of seeing the Roys gang up together. (Jeremy Strong's self-seriousness made him the butt of jokes in a recent New Yorker profile, but clearly it pays off). Wrong: the endless what-shall-we-do-about-dad conferences, which felt shoehorned, and sometimes the pacing was off. The coup decision with the Roys in the taxi felt sudden and too neat, for example. In the penultimate episode, nothing happened until the final five minutes.
Pacing is vital to a show like Succession, which is driven by quippy dialogue as much as plot. Perhaps the most important thing about the series is that it is written by playwrights and comedians. Created by Peep Show’s Jesse Armstrong, it has at least as much in common with UK cringe comedies as it does with slick dramas like House of Cards. "I think a lot about the tragedy in it," said Lucy Prebble, executive producer and part of the writing team, on HBO’s Succession podcast. "But when I watch it, it's a comedy.” You don't watch the show just to see Kendall one-up Logan at the end of season two. You watch it to hear lines like: "The service here is weird, slow... And fucking my dad." Crucially, the lines themselves aren't always funny. Armstrong has said how it's intentional that the script isn't full of zingers—there are good jokes and bad jokes and jokes that don't quite land. Rather than played for laughs, they have to exactly fit the character and the mood: "A monosyllabic response can be the most appropriate and funny." That's the marker of good, textured comedy, and it's one of the things which makes the show enjoyable, rather than relentlessly depressing.
There's something else which makes it watchable. For all the snide remarks and backstabbing, there's a fondness perpetually lurking in the background. In episode three, for example, when Roman gets upset after Shiv makes fun of his erectile dysfunction, Connor comes to his defence: "That was low." (Shout out to the Conheads.) In the final episode, Roman's tendency to make wisecracks about Kendall's recent near-death experience is met with tutting from all the other siblings: "too soon." These are tiny moments, but they're common enough to indicate a surprising, genuine protectiveness and—once again—nuance in the way these dynamics operate. There's love there, basically, or at least a complicated sort of affection.
Trying to reason with power is a meaningless exercise. And that thread of meaninglessness runs throughout the show
A common definition of love is “putting someone else first.” When applied, this can mean acting in direct conflict to your own interests in order to benefit another person. In financial terms, it's damaging your portfolio to boost someone else's. "You can't just take my love and bank it," says Tom Wambsgans, husband of Shiv and owner of the wettest mouth in the world. When they assure each other, unconvincingly, that they're in love, he concludes: "I'm glad we have a good— ah—portfolio." Since Succession is a series about a family business, questions of love are inextricably tied to questions of profit. There is no room here for unconditionals. Every action needs to have a reward. Every gift needs to come with a receipt. Eventually for Tom, even sex is all about reaping results. "What's the point?" he says, when Shiv comes onto him after saying she doesn't want a baby. "It's just like throwing so much batter against the wall." Nothing comes from nothing.
Succession is famously influenced by Shakespeare—it's often compared to King Lear and Macbeth, and that usually means there's a focus on the most serious, dramatic aspects of the show. But there's also a Shakespearean economy about how the dialogue functions. Just as every action has a purpose, every sentence has to have a punchline. After Kendall confesses his role in the death of a waiter—he made him drive a car that crashed, and gave him ketamine beforehand—there's a slew of jokes from Roman: "Who hasn't clipped the odd kid with a Porsche? It's a rite of passage"; "I would be out of there like a tabby cat out of a bath." This scene is partly interesting because it's clear how uncomfortable Roman is grappling with a serious conversation: the jokes bubble out of him like he can't control what he's saying. But for the most part, these are people for whom conversation is easy competition. It's not something to be indulged for its own sake—an avenue for curiosity, a thing to enjoy in the moment like sex or music or a cold, cold glass of Tom's favourite wine. It's a tool. It's a weapon to be used against other people.
Where does all that leave the show? In a pretty bleak place, to be honest. When Roman asks Logan why he threw his own family under the bus, his response is incredulous. "Why are you bringing love into this?... I just win." Gerri, similarly, doesn't get it: “How would it serve my interests?” she says, after Roman pleads with her to take their side. She isn’t intentionally being cruel: she’s just genuinely confused as to why she would do anything other than obey Logan. No explanation beyond this is required or wanted. Things just are the way they are. Trying to reason with power is a meaningless exercise. And that thread of meaninglessness runs throughout the show. Because while Succession is about people who are fixated on outcomes, the irony is that change never arrives.
Just before his "murder" confession, Kendall says to his siblings: "There's something really wrong with me Shiv. I'm not feeling connected to my endeavours." He adds: "I did try. I did everything I could to pull us out the cycle. But I don't know, I'm not a good person." It's a neat bit of theatrical framing that his confession was triggered by Kendall's own near-drowning, under the influence himself. But his words echo something fundamental about the show's structure. It does try, but it can't break out. It's stuck in this cycle where Logan always wins. Progression doesn’t ever happen, succession doesn't occur. And ultimately, while that’s clever and feels true, it can get a bit boring to watch.
The fact that Succession has been renewed for a fourth season is a cause for both celebration and concern. Classics like The UK Office and Fawlty Towers knew their worth, keeping it to two tight series. Black Mirror has become tedious at five, and Peep Show, sorry, ran for way too long at nine. As with any comedy, Succession has a formula, and that is its circular structure. But this season had moments of stasis that reminded me so much of the big-decision-debate at the end of Game of Thrones—arguably the worst moment on recent TV—I half expected Bran Stark, the three-eyed-raven himself, to pop out from behind the PowerPoint and be declared the head of Waystar. If it is to continue, Succession needs to come up with something new. My advice though? Cash out and fuck off.
