ABOVE AVERAGE
Jesse Armstrong, the British writer who created Succession, first intended to tackle the Murdochs, the Australian billionaire family that owns Fox News and are responsible for some of the most dangerous misinformation and propaganda in American and British media. He wrote a screenplay that gained some attention in 2011 when it appeared on the famed Black List. The idea was to portray a conflict within the family, where Rupert Murdoch and his children fought over who should control the empire.
Ultimately, nothing came of it, even though John Hurt played Rupert at a read-through in London. A few years later, Armstrong’s agent in the U.S. suggested a different approach: why not make a multi-season TV series instead? Armstrong rejected the idea… until he did some reading and thinking.
Leaders of an entertainment conglomerate
Succession came to revolve around a fictitious family, the Roys. The patriarch, Logan (Brian Cox), was one of the most famous people in the world, and one of the richest. Born in Dundee, Scotland, Logan built an entertainment conglomerate called Waystar RoyCo. Ironic, perhaps, considering how much his personality differed from the products his companies were selling. Waystar was all about delivering the news to the masses, and entertaining them with its movies and TV shows, but all the grim and dour Logan cared about was money and success.
At the start of Succession, his health was failing and the inevitable question of a successor had to be addressed, with most of his children competing to take over: Kendall (Jeremy Strong), who had a history of drug addiction; Shiv (Sarah Snook), who didn’t share political views with Waystar; and Roman (Kieran Culkin), who’s the youngest and deeply immature and insecure. The oldest one? Connor (Alan Ruck) had delusional ideas of becoming president.
Stuck in a venture with no control
Jesse Armstrong had a history of working on Armando Iannucci projects, including The Thick of It and In the Loop (2009). Succession is not far removed. It has the same kind of dryly hilarious and mean-spirited dialogue between people who hate each other, but are still stuck together in a venture where they often fail to be in control of events. Much of the four seasons focused on the Roy children’s hard-fought attempt to maneuver their father out of the business, but they still never ceased to function as a family; there was a lot of emotion, even love, evident during the brilliant, tumultuous last season.
We loathed them, but we also cared about them.
Armstrong found inspiration in books about the Murdochs and other powerful media-business families, including the Disneys, the Maxwells and the Redstones. The danger of having a handful of people wield enormous power over our lives, paving the way for disastrous historical events like Brexit and the Trump administration – depicting that outrageous threat was the motivation for Armstrong. Together with producer-director Adam McKay, he made us feel like we were watching a documentary about the inner workings of the morally corrupt super-rich, complete with hand-held camera. We loathed them, but we also cared about them; this was a balance that Armstrong mastered to a much greater degree than the writers behind Billions.
Having a cast like this helped a lot, including the towering Cox (who used the word ”fuck” very liberally); watching Snook, Culkin and Strong make the most out of their sibling rivalry was pure joy. The supporting cast was equally compelling, especially Matthew Macfadyen and Nicholas Braun as ”the disgusting brothers”, unlikely partners in crime, clumsy and ingratiating satellites near the center of power.
Succession 2018-2023:U.S. 39 episodes. Color. Created by Jesse Armstrong. Theme: Nicholas Britell. Cast: Brian Cox (Logan Roy), Jeremy Strong (Kendall Roy), Sarah Snook (Siobhan ”Shiv” Roy), Kieran Culkin (Romulus ”Roman” Roy), Alan Ruck, Matthew Macfadyen, Nicholas Braun, Hiam Abbass, Peter Friedman, J. Smith-Cameron, David Rasche, Arian Moayed, Dagmara Dominczyk, Justine Lupe, Fisher Stevens (19-23), Alexander Skarsgård (21-23).
Quote: “You don’t hear much about syphilis these days. Very much the MySpace of STDs.” (Macfadyen)
Emmys: Outstanding Drama Series 19-20, 21-22, 22-23; Directing 19-20, 22-23; Writing 18-19, 19-20, 21-22, 22-23; Actor (Strong) 19-20, (Culkin (22-23); Actress (Snook) 22-23; Supporting Actor (Macfadyen) 21-22, 22-23; Guest Actress (Cherry Jones) 19-20. Golden Globes: Best Drama Series 20, 21, 23; Actor (Cox) 20, (Strong) 21, (Culkin) 23; Actress (Snook) 23; Supporting Actor (Macfadyen) 23; Supporting Actress (Snook) 21.
Last word: “I flew out to pitch this media show around LA. I had a clear idea of where I wanted to develop it, but my agent persuaded me appetites would be whetted if we had a number of potential homes. So I spent three days doing a round of pitch meetings where I talked about this as-yet-unwritten idea in half-ironised terms as ‘Festen-meets-Dallas‘. No stars, Dogme 95 camerawork. Scared of driving on the five-lane highways, I bumped around town in the back of a Honda Civic while a nice young man from my US agent’s mailroom ferried me between rooms stocked with identical tiny bottles of water and executives of vastly varying degrees of interest.” (Armstrong, The Guardian)