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Analysis
The first two episodes of Succession season 4 have been heavy on deal-speak and I don’t remember what half the people on the show (who aren’t Roys) actually do. And yet, watching Succession’s final season has become compulsory.
One recent tweet kind of sums it up: “watching succession is proof that you literally don’t need to know what’s going on to have a great time. is this how dogs feel.”
The speed of the dialogue on Succession sometimes makes me feel that way, and episode 1 further builds on a world where nothing is normal for the super-rich: jokes, bags. (The Disgusting Brothers is classic Succession, and it was apparently parodied on SNL this weekend.)
But episode 2, or at least the second half of it, had emotional stakes: Roman being manipulated, Connor’s devastating reality check, and the world’s saddest karaoke room. And then there was Logan’s inflamed speech on the floor of ATN. NBC’s Tom Namako shared a 2007 Rupert Murdoch photo that shows him standing on the same kind of awkward stage that Logan does (albeit at the Wall Street Journal), signaling that this is the season Succession (finally) goes full Fox News.
Plus we get to see a new chain of command, regarding Kerry’s disastrous ATN audition. Logan passes it to Tom, who passes it to Greg, who will likely become human string cheese. On Monday it was announced that Samara Weaving is reportedly set to play an on-air reporter who’s not very good in upcoming Netflix comedy Little Sky, and the parallels were just a little too close.
Why it matters
It’s the final season of Succession, and fan theories are already burning through the internet, including one that references creator Jesse Armstrong’s old series Peep Show. HBO Max has kept future episodes under wraps, likely to avoid big spoilers. But Sarah Snook did say that episode 3 is “pretty magic” and filmed as one long shot.
I do wonder: After it ends, where will all the meme and TikTok fan accounts go? What will fans do with their Kendall Roy obsession?
Well, Succession’s archetypes have become so defined that at least one person pointed out how they match characters in Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie movie.
