OPINION: “You can’t do anything with $5 million,” scoffs Connor Roy. He’s super-rich, a man who pays for an escort as his live-in girlfriend and funds her wayward Broadway dreams while launching a presidential campaign. “You can’t retire. It’s not worth it to work … it’s a nightmare.”
It’s an illuminating conversation. In Succession, the best show on our screens right now, $5m isn’t just an annoyance, it’s an embarrassment. All of the five Roy siblings feel this way thanks to the livelihood of their father Logan, an uber-powerful media mogul almost surely based on News Corp billionaire Rupert Murdoch.
To the Roys, money is nothing. They have so much of it that during a recent takeover bid, they casually upped their offer by the billion, not the million. They take private jets to overseas hideaways on a whim. They buy multiple apartments as investment opportunities on a laid-back Saturday. They make servants throw out entire crayfish lunches, replace it with pizza, then don’t eat any of it.
Logan Roy on the left played by Brian Cox.
So what happens when money is no object? Succession‘s second season has been a riveting deep dive into trying to understand exactly that. Instead of money, the Roy’s overwhelming obsession, their absolute addiction, is power. It’s the reason behind every awful decision these terrible people make. Everything, from their marriages to corporate takeover bids, is a power play.
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For that reason, Succession should absolutely not work. Every single character is unlikeable. They’re so rich few can relate to them. The lack of diversity is blinding. It’s centred around a family of media moguls, a small group only those involved with the media tend to care about.
But the past couple of years have been full of rich men behaving badly, like Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and the power-mad mogul currently butchering his presidency. They’ve been all over our screens too, thanks to shows like The Righteous Gemstones and The Loudest Voice.
Succession, the best of the lot, is a tightly wound spring of a show, the kind of addictive TV drama that rewards second and third viewings. There are podcasts and internet forums devoted to unravelling the show’s smallest details, analysing the minutest references. A recent New Yorker feature devoted 1500 words to unravelling Siobhan’s clothing decisions.
It’s full of stunning writing and sublime performances. Key to its success, Succession works best when it’s mimicking real life events. This season’s biggest story arcs have been references to Ted Kennedy’s 1969 car crash and Murdoch’s purchase of The Wall Street Journal in 2007. Many believe the entire character of Siobhan Roy is based on Ivanka Trump.
Like Murdoch’s News Corp empire, Logan, played by Brian Cox with all the gravitas of King Lear, is at the centre of everything. In season one, he fell into a coma, a reference, possibly, to Murdoch’s yacht fall that left him hospitalised last year. Logan’s savage children immediately began jostling for position.
Fully recovered, Logan has spent this second season reclaiming his power, making those who tried to take it from him pay for their treason. It doesn’t matter if they’re family: he named Siobhan his successor, then renounced it; and he took most of his anger out on his son Kendall: dissing his girlfriends, forcing him to do his dirty work, and making him confront the grieving family of a car crash caused by him last season.
But at the end of the latest episode, Logan made a startling revelation. His empire has been crumbling around him. His bid to buy a major rival backfired, a woman headhunted to become his new CEO is backing out, while historic sexual assault cases have emerged, and his company is called to Congress for a grilling.
“It’s time for something big,” he told Siobhan, who he’s already double-crossed once this season. “It’s time for a blood sacrifice.” He could be talking about any of his kids, or even himself. In the trailer for next week’s finale, Logan doubles down on his demand: “I need one meaningful skull.”
With talk like that, it sounds like a preview for a new episode of Game of Thrones. Add in all of the egos, backstabbing, power plays, and severely awkward family dynamics, and you might think HBO has leaked one of several planned Thrones prequels early.
There might not be any swords, and there definitely aren’t any dragons. But if you’re after a new addiction, Succession fills the gaping hole left by Thrones nicely. Power is going to the Roy’s heads, and it’s thrilling watching them get drunk on it.
* Succession screens on SoHo, Mondays, 2pm and 9.30pm, and can be streamed via Neon.
