This fine Saturday morning my lovely girlfriend Lacey set off to glean sweet potatoes on a farm outside Raleigh. With half a day to myself, I decided to re-watch the final two episodes of Succession’s second season in anticipation of tomorrow night’s season three debut. (I also got to watch Liverpool and Bobby Firmino put on show at Vicarage Road en route to a 5-0 victory against Watford.) Anyway, here are some thoughts about HBO’s Succession.
- Shiv shaking down the witness in the penultimate episode (DC), is absolutely filthy to watch. In the words of my best friend Dave, Shiv is cold-blooded.
- Kieran Culkin as Roman Roy has a kind of Tim Roth thing going on at times.
- This show is incredibly funny.
- I’m currently reading the book Billion Dollar Whale, so I thought I would understand the whole sovereign wealth part more this time around but that was not the case. (I mean, I get how it works with the plot, can’t go private so a head needs to roll.)
- The introduction song absolutely slaps.
- Kendall Roy/Jeremy Strong…
Here is where I want to go into more detail. Awards for the arts are always a fraught exercise, but Jeremy Strong winning an Emmy for playing Kendall Roy is really hard to argue with. It’s not the showy, in your face, type of performance you might commonly see win awards for acting. I’ve always thought the understated role is tougher to nail. (If we want to sidebar on weird hills I’m going to die on, Michael Keaton should’ve won best actor in 2015, and Laurie Metcalf should’ve won best supporting in 2018.) There is so much happening with the Kendall Roy character throughout this second season, and the way Strong portrays all of it is so brilliantly measured. Whether it’s a tepid, “okay,” in response to his father or a statement of war against the same man, we can tell there are so many gears turning behind his eyes.
And that’s what I really love about the character. Not just that there is always something going on internally, but that his motivations are never totally clear to us and I think that is because I’m not sure his motivations are totally clear to himself. Let’s look at the final action of the last episode (This Is Not For Tears). Kendall turns the guns on his father instead of falling on his sword for the good of the company.
On it’s face, it appears he is doing this in response to his father telling him he is not a, “killer.” As laced with irony as that statement is, I believe it’s still true despite the way season two ends. Up in front of all those microphones with the world watching Kendall appears in control and confident. We get the smirk on Logan’s face as well, leading some to believe this was planned by Logan himself (with or without Kendall’s knowledge). But, I don’t think that’s the case.
Kendall is making this move, but he isn’t doing it because he is a, “killer.” He’s doing it because his dad is making him. And don’t confuse my meaning there when I say, “his dad is making him.” I don’t believe there were any meetings or plans, but I think Kendall is smart enough to understand that this is what a, “killer,” would do in this situation. Message received, dad. But, if that was really in Kendall’s nature, he wouldn’t need to think about it. He would just do it. Not only that, he would’ve planned on it before ever setting bare-foot on the yacht. I don’t think that’s the case.
As I mentioned before, Kendall being unsure about his own motivations is what makes this truly compelling. Consciously, he probably believes he knows what he’s doing and why. But deep down he’s torn, as all the Roy children are, over how to win the affection of their titanic father. His kernel-self knows that prize, Logan’s pride, is not attainable; but at the same time that inner-child thinks, hopelessly, “maybe this will work.”
At it’s core, Succession is a family drama/comedy/tragedy. That’s why it works. It’s electrified by those characters and the actors who portray them. I can’t wait to see the voltage season three has in store.
Lemmen's Nursery 