By Sophia Gong '26
Succession is the resident satirical dark comedy show on HBO Max. The show centers around the Roy family and company, who, despite their father’s failing health, relentlessly battle for control of the company. Logan Roy, the CEO of Waystar Royco and patriarch of the family, soon makes it clear that despite his stroke, the Waystar world revolves around him. Succession is one of TV’s many masterpieces, from its cheesy one-liners (You Can’t Make a Tomelette Without Breaking Some Greggs) down to its Grammy-winning soundtrack.
I want to explore the show’s legacy in three aspects.
Aspect 1: Portrayal of wealth.
In a scandalous grand jury hearing, Siobhan Roy’s husband Tom is confronted with thousands of emails and embarrassing screenshots of his petty name-calling – a stark contrast to the serious and businesslike image presented to the public. As the hearings unfold, more ruptures appear scattered throughout the image the Roys have presented to the world. This is a significant shift in popular media’s traditional portrayal of white collar crime, which is usually something along the lines of conventionally attractive white men having a grand old time evading the law. Succession shows viewers the reality: the chaos and disruption that is usually covered up through expensive lawyers and corruption.
It is impossible to bring up Succession in any context without mentioning wealth. The characters have grown up in privileged little bubbles, so much so that they are so used to being wealthy that they become inattentive to those that do not enjoy the same levels of luxury. For example, in the first ever episode of the series, Roman (the sleazy and unserious younger brother of the family), offers a caretaker’s kid 1 million dollars if he can hit a home run. He doesn’t, and Roman laughs off the situation while some assistants hurry to pay off the kid’s parents.
But beyond whimsical, cash-burning moments, there is a deeper, darker image of wealth. Because in Succession, wealth is a prison. Wealth is not lavish or glorious – wealth is dirty, like grime that clings onto your skin and won’t come off even if you scrub it raw. The characters are left with an enormous amount of money that not one living person could reasonably spend. There’s a reason people call it “filthy rich.” Sure, if anything happened they could probably buy six jets and fly off to a remote island in the Caribbean Ocean. But no amount of money could possibly save the Roy family from each other.
Aspect 2: Family dynamics.
One of Logan Roy’s favorite lines is “Everything I’ve done, I do for my children.” While this may be an effective PR strategy, The truth is that Logan Roy is a terrible father, as is with most power-hungry, divorced-twice Caucasian old men who project their generational trauma onto their kids. His own success story (includes being sent to live with his uncle who very likely physically abused him as a child) allows him to believe that abuse is a part of the success formula, and that torment is a necessary component of the process. He lies to his children, promises to name each one CEO on different occasions, and then retracts his word after sufficient gaslighting.
When talking to Siobhan, the sole daughter of the family, Logan’s ex-wife says, “Your father never saw anything he loved that he didn’t wanna kick it just to see if it would still come back.” Instead of seeing his children as family members, Logan sees them as competition, enticing them to tear him down and violently reacting with every tool in his box when they do. As a response, Logan’s children develop defensive knee-jerk reactions to any sort of emotion, because they have been taught to think that anyone who displays kindness must automatically want something from them.
Because at the end of the day, Succession is about money. And this family has a lot of it. Money is what anchors the children to their abusive father, and money is what corrupted their father in the first place.
Aspect 3: Success.
As Succession ends its run on TV, it leaves behind a trail of success. Since its premiere in mid-2018, Succession has won 13 Emmys, 5 Golden Globes, 1 Grammy, and 5 Critics’ Choice Television Awards, just to name a few. The final episode of Succession airs May 21, 2023.
“Everything, everywhere, is always moving. Forever. Get used to it.” – Logan Roy
Sources: https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a43551364/succession-season-4-episode-3-recap-logan -roy-death-explained/ https://succession.fandom.com/wiki/Celebration#:~:text=The%20family%20arrives%20at%20a,h ome%20plate%20is%20tagged%20out. https://www.vox.com/culture/22691830/succession-season-3-hbo-review-roy-logan-kendall-shiv- roman https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/25/opinion/succession-family-trauma.html?searchResultPositi on=12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_(TV_series)#:~:text=The%20series%20centers%20on %20the,premiered%20on%20March%2026%2C%202023.
Senior Editor: Sage Yan '24
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