Succession

[beer_good_foamy]

"Look, here’s the thing about being rich, it’s like being a superhero, only better. You get to do what you want. The authorities can’t really touch you. You get to wear a costume, but it’s designed by Armani and it doesn’t make you look like a prick."

Anyone else watching Succession? I caught up with it in time for the season 2 finale, and I'm... both blown away and torn?

For those who don't know it, Succession is essentially what would happen if you were to set The Godfather in the Rupert Murdoch empire; old patriarch of right-wing media conglomerate (Brian Cox!) starts to show his age and his deeply dysfunctional family start jockeying for position and stabbing each other in the back in the name of Family.

Now, it's an incredibly well-made series with great character work and that sort of plot that you barely even notice until you need to - by which I mean it's incredibly tightly plotted but only rarely feels like the plot was written, if that makes sense. You start from a bunch of fucked-up people and let them make choices that just dig them deeper into a hole. It's funny, but rarely ha-ha funny.

And I mean, it's not like it doesn't resonate today. Both because the TV network they run is a very thinly disguised FOX News (which doesn't get as much room in the series as maybe I'd like, but I guess we're meant to know it anyway and it's not like we need a second The Newsroom), and because focusing on a bunch of rich (and we're talking VERY rich) inbred idiots who get to run the world because of nepotism, cluelessness and ruthlessness (running gag: "NRPI - No Real Person Involved") certainly feels like 2019.

At the same time... I'm so very very very very very very sick of villain protagonists whose major redeeming quality is that they sometimes fail and cry in their private jet. As well-made as it is, and as good as the character drama is, it bugs me that this sort of jerk!billionaire!porn will inevitably (cf Handmaid's Tale-themed weddings, etc) serve to, in some way, glamourize it even further. And the cynic in me isn't sure that's not the point. I was going to say this is one of the few series on TV right now that's not about superheroes and villains, but after thinking about it (and remembering that opening quote) I'm not sure that's true; we're very fond right now of stories about how extraordinary people are almost like real people. Except they get to be bulletproof - and in the case of "realistic" shows like this one, never have to actually fight a hero with "justice" emblazoned on his chest. Aspire to that, couch potatoes.

"And you will get properly 'Fuck you, I don't even care about climate change, I'm in New Zealand with my own private army' rich. Not like some pathetic asshole Beach-house-on-the-Vineyard rich."


...Eh. Thank fork there's The Good Place and Gideon The Ninth to balance it out.

Comments

[trepkos]

Thanks for the review - now I can afford to miss it!

[beer_good_foamy]

I mean, I do think it's a very good series, and I pretty much binged two seasons in a row, so it's definitely very enjoyable. It's just something about what stories we choose to tell (and listen to) and what they say about where we're going that scares me a little sometimes.

[goodbyebird]

I've been hearing tons of good stuff about this show, but yeah, do I wanna spend my time watching an excellent portrayal of rich scumbags or do I just wanna keep cramming Xena in my eyeballs and feel squeeful?

Right now, the world feels rather low on the latter.

[beer_good_foamy]

The good stuff is all pretty much true; great cast, great writing (mostly), all very well made... But yeah, that's probably a healthy choice.

[shadowscast]

I'm so very very very very very very sick of villain protagonists whose major redeeming quality is that they sometimes fail and cry in their private jet.

That's a nice way of putting it.

[beer_good_foamy]

Yeah. As good as this show is, I'm not sure we need even more stories asking us to have compassion for ultra-rich villains as a matter of course. I've had thoughts about it before (see here and here for instance), but to me it boils down to this: it's easy for the story to shift from one about redemption to one that glorifies villainy and calls it redemption. Given the current climate, I think we overdosed on that type of story a long time ago and barely even noticed.

[yourlibrarian]

Very well put.

Your comment about Good Place reminded me that I needed "chasers" after watching episodes of Chernobyl. It may not be grimdark but it sure was grim and dark.

[lynnenne]

Sounds like the kind of show that would make me want to shoot the TV... which is pretty much how I feel whenever I watch the news.

[shadowkat]

Ditto. And LMAO.

Yep, this is why I read my news in the New York Times. I just can't watch it.

Also, for some reason shows like Succession worked for me better in the late 1990s and in 2008-2015, post 2015, not so much.

Maybe after 2028, I can watch them again? Assuming of course I survive that long.

[lynnenne]

Maybe after 2028, I can watch them again? Assuming of course I survive that long.

Yeah, I feel the same. I might possibly maybe be interested in shows like this after people stop electing greedy villains like Trump and Boris Johnson and Doug Ford. But by the time they're done wrecking everything, 2028 might be the final apocalypse.

[shadowkat]

I have hope. There's an outside chance, Brexit won't go through, Boris won't get elected, and Trump will be impeached. It's 60-40 at the moment for Boris and Brexit, 75% for impeachment...don't know about Ford.

As for 2028 apocalypse -- eh, we've been through worse believe it or not. *cough*WorldWarII*cough*

[beer_good_foamy]

Well, at least that's a reaction. :)

[nyctanthes]

I'm so very very very very very very sick of villain protagonists whose major redeeming quality is that they sometimes fail and cry in their private jet.

Me too, me too. We don't need fic to woobify jerks. Now the shows do it for us!

Nice review. :)

[beer_good_foamy]

Thanks!

[lynnenne]

We don't need fic to woobify jerks. Now the shows do it for us!

And the electorate, apparently.

[kerk_hiraeth]

As good as you've made it sound, you've also made it sound exactly like the kind of TV that made me give up on TV years ago. There's atuff like Wynonna Earp that almost make me think again, but as ling as I get fanvids of the only bits I know I'll be watching them for I soon recover.

[beer_good_foamy]

That's probably a good decision. I recently let my cable subscription lapse so I can now only watch things I choose to watch through Netflix, HBO etc, which has freed up a lot of both time and aggravation.

[sibilant]

I love Succession but I feel vaguely dirty after watching it. It's like a grown up version of Dallas, which I also enjoyed but kind of hated myself for enjoying. Why can't we have writing, acting and directing this powerful harnessed to something a little less unedifying? The super-duper-rich who treat the rest of the world with utter contempt are not worthy of our interest and definitely not our sympathy, but the alternatives are few and far between. Is it not possible to produce compelling and watchable shows about ordinary people, not cops or villains or superheroes, that illuminate real life while promoting decency, tolerance and even love?

[beer_good_foamy]

My thoughts exactly.

Is it not possible to produce compelling and watchable shows about ordinary people, not cops or villains or superheroes, that illuminate real life while promoting decency, tolerance and even love?

I mean, there's The Good Place. That's about it that I can think of just now. Though they do go about "real life" in a fairly roundabout way. There was Crazy Ex-Girlfriend but that ended. But for every show like that, we get dozens about men in tights blowing things up with their fists, or bad guys with a glint in their eye, rehashing high school-level understanding of Nietzsche for the fiftyeleventh time. It's a tricky balance; I don't want art (for lack of a better word) to be preachy and peachy, but surely between all the series finding thousands of ways to forgive someone for being a horrible but entertaining person, perhaps spend at least a tenth of that energy on ways to move forward through the muck instead of just drilling deeper into it?