Succession has finally ended.
It didn’t end EXACTLY as I predicted from the first time I wrote about this show, but it was close enough that I give myself 3 stars out of 4. I always believed that a story like this is about the father and the son, or the oldest daughter if he has no sons. So I always looked at this series as Kendall Roy’s story. You can bring in lots of other characters (like Gerri, Maddsen, or the white supremacist who won the presidency because this family decided to call the election in his favor) — but ultimately it comes down to one person — the main protagonist — and it started and ended with Kendall. In the series opening, and in many subsequent openings, he was always on his way to work, as the heir apparent.
In the last scene of the series, he is sitting at the tip of battery park, the southernmost point of Manhattan but also the spot where trade began and even though lots of money managers and traders, etc., have never been to Manhattan, it’s still called WALL STREET. As a bizarre story about mergers and acquisitions, and buying politicians who will let “deals” go through, or backing other politicians who will “regulate” the hell out it, it’s utterly boring. But combine that obscene wealth with sibling rivalry and anger, and the fact that Logan Roy apparently left no will except as it related to his apartment, there’s a reason everyone became addicted to this show. It was an absolute triumph of writing. (There were 8 or 10 people in the writers room by the way, just to add a little support to the writers strike).
The One And Only Thing I Didn’t Understand… was Shiv’s change of heart. They could have kept the company 7 to 6, Ken-doll would have been CEO and she and Romulus would have had their own branches of the empire – that’s basically what it is.
(I’ve had time to think about Shiv’s change of heart, and though it wasn’t uttered, I think she went where the power was. She was livid that Tom was going to take her job as the CEO of the new GoJo or whatever it was going to be called, which caused her to temporarily side with Kendall. But when it came down to it, she’s pregnant and her baby is biologically part of the Roy bloodline, a fact that Romulus made while they were fighting. Kendall’s daughter is adopted and Kendall’s son probably has a different father. There’s hints throughout the series that Kendall is impotent and can’t father a child, and just like the despicable man his is, Roman’s father does not see them as “real.” Shiv also brought up the fact that Ken had killed that waiter — I was desperately waiting for that submerged fact to come up — and finally Romulus, having learned his lesson, calls all three of them “nothings.” “We’re nothing, this is nothing.” Shiv, finally, instead of letting Tom be hand puppeted by the Swede, will be in the background doing the handpuppeting herself. And because he put one of those ridiculous stickers that Connor handed out on Greg’s forehead, Greg is still in the mix too with Tom and Shiv. The three boys [including Connor] are out.
This all depends of course, on whether regulatory approval will be granted, and there’s no guarantee that the horrible Menken will regulate it up because of his xenophobia, and there’s no guarantee that the Wisconsin Courts will call for reissuing the mail in ballots that were destroyed, most likely, by one of the fascists.)
I just didn’t buy the fact that she turned on Kendall and suddenly, as the last vote in the room, decided to change. They gave her some dialogue and she said something like, “You can’t run this business.” (She’s right, btw, but neither can her husband, who ultimately became the CEO and put a sticker on Gregg’s forehead.)
The one thing that Tom said to the Swede is that he could absorb an enormous amount of pain, and I think he was trying to explain that if he won control of the company he was going to fire an enormous number of people, (like Musk Suck’s Twitter. And earlier in the episode Tom had said to Greg something like “Your salary is going to be castrated.” {Not the first time Tom has used the word castrated on Greg.})
But, my heart goes out to the killer Kendall, who was doing drugs in the first season and accidentally killed someone in the mode of Chappaquiddick. At the start of the series, he was trying very hard to overcome his father’s influence and become the heir apparent. At the end of the series, he had lost that battle. His father won. Because his father was an absolute bastard and an abusive piece of shit.
One thing I was curious about is what the deal was that their mother’s husband was trying to offer. It was probably better than anything they could get and I think she said, “I’ve wanted you to get rid of that evil piece of garbage.” And she actually gave them an out. But we didn’t get to hear what it was because all of a sudden, Shiv discovered that her name was XXX’ed out of the press release. Which led to the happiest moment in the series, until the choice Shiv made in the end.
The Murdoch children should take note!
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A bit more commentary as a writer: I would not want to write a season 5, even though the whole television world has turned its head to watch this series. It was a great series, almost as good as The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. But do you really want to follow Romulus as he keeps calling people fags and threatens to fuck grannies. Do you want to follow “Shiv” (knife) as she prepares for a life with Tom Mushroom. It was kind of fun to see Gregg slap Tom in the bathroom, but their life is for life. And Kendall… I don’t know… I think that’s the one great mystery left. By my calculations he got about at 45 billion from the deal, but as children of extremely wealthy parents, they probably haven’t learned how to make a dollar. And they don’t need to. We can empathize with his failure as he stares south toward Staten Island, but he’ll never have to take that boat — and the show made it clear that he still has a body guard and a driver. Heavy implications of suicide in his future. But fuck them all. They’re all hateful people and Yeah, yeah, yeah, “Imitating the awful acting,” Okay, okay, okay, are you with me, yeah, yeah, yeah.. Let’s go, let’s go. Good riddance.
One thing that will be missed by almost everyone, and it relates the title of the episode: “With eyes wide open.”
The opposite is “With mouths quite shut.”
And that’s what happened. Shiv tried to touch the hand of her husband, who is now the head of Rayco, but she could barely touch his palm, as if he was radioactive. She said nothing.
Romulus went to the bar and started drinking. He said nothing to the bartender and nothing to the others around him. It was as they knew what he had to drink.
And or course Kendoll went to Battery Park and stared at the setting sun. (Hint, the sun doesn’t set there except in the winter.)
None of them beat their horrible, abusive father — all of them victims of how horrible vicious and despicable man who they all wanted to love.
I sincerely hope that these characters find some love. They should look to their older brother from a different mother, who is probably the only one who understands how abusive the patriarch was.